Introduction to the Special Issue on Disaster Risk Reduction in the Post 9-11 Security Environment

Abstract

Disaster impacts are on the rise worldwide, including unanticipated catastrophes as well as moderate-scale repetitive events. The central objective of this special issue is to highlight how effective, efficient and transparent group and decision negotiation processes can reduce disaster risk, thereby saving lives, reducing property losses, enhancing security, and increasing global and community resilience. The impact, extent, and frequency of natural, health-related, and human-induced disasters have risen dramatically in every decade since reliable records began around 1960 (DFID 2004). In 2007, a total of 960 disasters caused about 82billion dollars in damage, affecting at least a quarter billion people, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities in developing nations (Munich Re 2008). Natural disasters alone killed about 229,000 people in the first half of 2008, more than in all of 2004 when the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami destroyed coastal communities in fourteen countries, from Somalia to Indonesia (Levy and Gopalakrishnan 2007). This special issue addresses, comprehensively and in-depth, complex, selforganizing and ill-structured group decision and negotiation processes for managing the unexpected and cascading impacts of disasters that cross policy domains, geographic, political, and sectoral boundaries. An all-hazard approach is employed, considering health-related emergencies, natural disasters, system failures and the risk of terrorist attacks. Since the group decision and negotiation field draws on a diverse range of paradigms and influences, the six disaster risk reduction papers found herein