Redundancy in Disaster Response Systems: A Pathway to Resilience or a Recipe for Disaster?

Abstract

Redundancy in organizational systems is often discussed as an absolute ‘truth’ as something that is always beneficial or always detrimental. Further, while it has been identified as a critical component of resilient system design in the field of disasters, we still lack empirical and theoretical clarity about the role of redundancy in incident response systems. Using three large- scale wildfire events, this paper extends the theoretical discussion of redundancy in a disaster response context to develop an integrated, multidimensional framework of redundancy and its associated capabilities and risks during incident response. Our findings suggest four principal ways redundancy can be integrated into system design: backup, cross-functionality, duplication, and cross-checking. We summarize each redundancy strategy, describe the ways in which it manifested itself on the ground, summarize evidence concerning this strategy’s contribution to promoting resilience in the disaster response system, and summarize findings concerning the risk it poses for system failure. We conclude with suggestions for managers seeking to increase system resilience while managing risks associated with introducing redundancy into the system.