1. David Alexander
University College London
A Holistic
Approach to
Disaster Risk
Reduction
Problems and
Opportunities

2. Organisational
systems:
management
Social
systems:
behaviour
Natural
systems:
function
Technical
systems:
malfunction
VulnerabilityHazard
Resilience
Political
systems:
decisions

3. Information and
communications
technology
News and
information
dissemination
Public
participation
in disaster
risk reduction
Disaster research
Disaster management

4. • science must not be allowed to be the
justification for political malpractice
• if you supply data, methods or
results you have some responsibility
for how they are used
• accept that the primary effect of
hazards is determined by vulnerability.
Some precepts

5. ResilienceResistance
Risk Susceptibility
Physical
(including natural,
built, technological)
Social
(including cultural,
political, economic)
Environment
Attributes
Source: McEntire 2001
LiabilitiesCapabilities
VULNERABILITY

6. The great scientists were
highly sensitive to the social
implications of their work.

7. Professor Angela McLean,
University of Oxford
(co-author, UK Government's Foresight
Report on Disaster Risk Reduction):
"By 2040 it should be possible to
have a family of disaster risk models
that give decision makers
the information they need."

8. • consolidate their power
• confound their enemies
• impose an ideology [by force]
• expropriate public funds
• ...or practise good public service.
TO DO WHAT?

9. "...the fiction of good intentions,
diplomatic niceties and a common
vision of human progress."
- Ben Wisner

10. "Our research shows that the success
of early warning is largely determined
by politics, not science."
- Chatham House, London

11. "If you are exposed to a
5-metre tsunami there is
a 30 per cent probability
that you will be killed."
...but
that depends
on who you are.

12. • effect of heroin addiction on
the reconstruction of Bam, Iran
• introduction of repressive Shia
and blasphemy laws in Aceh
• colossal waste of public money on
transitional shelter in L'Aquila, Italy
• government insensitivity to cultural
heritage protection in Christchurch.
Reality check:

13. • widening wealth gap since 1970
• failure to divert resources from
response to prevention and mitigation
• half of world trade goes
through 78 tax havens
• one fifth of world trade is illicit
(drugs, armaments, people, species)
• relationship of proxy wars to aid.
More reality check:

14. Day 1: cluster
bombs
What falls out
of the sky?
Day 2:
humanitarian
rations

15. • resources that debilitate
local coping capacity
• munitions, military hardware, soldier
training and some humanitarian stuff
• an instrument of political influence
• a means of lining
certain people's pockets.
What is aid?

16. • BIG concrete on poor people's land
• of direct benefit to the donor countries
• aid is in DEEP CRISIS.
What is aid?

17. War and
conflict
Poverty
Natural
disasters
Insecurity
Vulnerability and
marginalisation
Military
Humanitarian assistance
assistance
The "Military Cross"

18. Military
assistance
Humanitarian
assistance
Creation
of poverty,
marginalisation,
precariousness
"Capacity
building":
creation of
resilience
Global
exploitation
Informal and
black economy
Science
The international community

19. Women and girls
are the key to
disaster risk reduction
...but they are widely
discriminated against.

20. • violence (domestic, trafficking, other)
• restriction of opportunities (e.g. purdah)
• roles narrowly defined (by men)
• women forced to do the labouring
• abandoned or bereaved women
as heads of household.
Discrimination against women in disasters

21. • and governance
(participatory democracy)
• bring responsibility
• are strongly correlated with
disaster risk reduction
• are seriously under threat.
Human rights

22. • consolidate power structures
• augment profits
• introduce conveniently
repressive measures
• indulge in gratuitous social engineering.
The economic and social
VALUE of disasters

23. Treatment of
uncertainty

24. • there are no "black swans"
• there are large and increasing areas of
uncertainty caused by rising complexity
• applied science must constantly adapt
itself its focus and methods to changes
in hazard and societal vulnerability
• society's priorities and preoccupations
change constantly over time.
Another reality check

25. Cascading
effects
Collateral
vulnerability
Secondary
disasters
Interaction
between risks
Climate
change
Probability
Indeterminacy
"Fat-tailed" (skewed)
distributions
of impacts

26. Are big disasters less important than
the cumulative impact of small ones?

27. DETERMINISM
Cause Effect
PROBABILITY
(constrained uncertainty)
Cause Single, multiple
or cascading effects
THE KNOWN
THE UNKNOWN
PURE UNCERTAINTY
Causal relationship
unknown
Grey
area

28. MAGNITUDE
& FREQUENCY
KNOWLEDGESCIENCE
LEGISLATION
IMPLEMENTATION
COMPLIANCE
LAG
LAG
LAG
CUMULATIVE
LAG
EVENTS

29. Varying context:
• political
• economic
• social
STAGNATION RECONSTRUCTION
EMERGENCY
RESPONSE
SHORT-TERM
RECOVERY
MEDIUM-TERM
RECOVERY
LONG-TERM
RECOVERY
IMPACT
P E S
P E S
P E S

30. Social factors
Plan
Message
Technology Response
Perception
Culture
Optimisation

31. Knowledge of
community
vulnerability
Knowledge
of hazards
and their
impacts
Knowledge
of coping
capacity and
resilience
Disaster
Risk
Reduction
DRR

32. Attitude
The
ingredients
of resilience

33. Sustainability

34. RISKS
daily: unemployment, poverty, disease, etc.
major disaster: floods, storms, quakes, etc.
emerging risks: pandemics, climate change
SUSTAINABILITY
disaster risk reduction
resource consumption
stewardship of the environment
economic activities
lifestyles
SUSTAINABILITY

35. INSTRUMENTS OF
DISSEMINATION
• mass media
• targeted campaign
• social networks
• internet
Augmentation
MASS
EDUCATION
PROGRAMME
SOCIAL
CAPITAL
HABIT
CULTURE
The creation of a culture of civil protection

36. BENIGN (healthy)
at the service of the people
MALIGN (corrupt)
at the service of vested interests
interplay dialectic
Justification Development
[spiritual, cultural, political, economic]
IDEOLOGY CULTURE

37. Conclusions

38. • academic territoriality and tribalism
• failure to understand the role and
modus operandi of other disciplines
• fear of the unknown; love of orthdoxy
• 18th-century approach to knowledge
(love of the Scottish Renaissance)
• failure to see problems holistically.
Why is interdisciplinary work so difficult?

39. • corruption and the black economy
• the arms trade, proxy wars
and fomentation of conflict
• denial and curtailment of
human and civil rights
• manufactured consent and
the manipulation of politics
• governance must be
participatory democracy.
Obstacles to progress in DRR:-

40. • The opportunities for positive change
have never been greater.
• Likewise, the tools and mechanisms.
• The obstacles have never
been more formidable.
• Likewise, the challenges.
Disaster risk reduction: we are
approaching a turning point in history

41. The "cradle"
of resilience:
Canonbury Tower
London N1.
Built in 1509
to survive
the Universal
Deluge:
Rented in 1625
to Francis Bacon.
Post-scriptum

42. Resilience

43. Francis Bacon
Sylva Sylvarum, 1625

44. www.natural-hazards-and-earth-system-sciences.net

45. LAW
STATESMANSHIP
LITERATURE
SCIENTIFIC
METHOD
MECHANICS
MANU-
FACTURING
ECOLOGY
MANAGEMENT
(ADAPTIVE)
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGY
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
DISASTER RISK
REDUCTION
SUSTAINABILITY
SCIENCE CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTATION
c. AD 35
1529
1625
1859
1930
1950
1973
2000
2010

46. Thank you for
your attention!
david.alexander@ucl.ac.uk
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