Disaster Research Research Articles

A phenomenological study on women's disaster experience in Türkiye

The number and severity of disasters are rising globally, with negative effects on the physical, social, and economic spheres. According to research, men and women experience disasters differently around the world and have different coping mechanisms. With their backgrounds in disaster relief and high levels of cognitive awareness, women are recognized as strong actors. The issues that women in Turkey face during disasters must be identified in this context and proposals for effective solutions must be developed. Research is scarce, despite the literature's importance accorded to disaster and women's studies. To examine in depth the disaster experiences and lessons learned of women who faced various types of disasters (earthquake, flood, landslide, fire, epidemic, drought, and terrorist attack), nineteen women were interviewed in a virtual setting. A qualitative research method called phenomenological design was employed in the study. With the help of the MAXQDA 2020 qualitative analysis program, the research's data were analyzed. The analyses have shown that women are ill-prepared for disasters, consider disaster early warnings, have difficulty and security issues in accessing basic needs after disasters, have incorrect information about disasters and are willing to participate in disaster education, encounter social problems, and want to participate in decision-making mechanisms, and they acquire correct behavior skills after their first reflex behaviors. In order to ensure gender equality and address issues with integrated disaster management, the administration can follow the significant findings of the research. In study contributes to the field of disaster research by analyzing the experiences of women in disasters, particularly what makes them vulnerable to disasters, the impact of gender roles in disasters, their behaviors and experiences at the time of the disaster, and the actions taken to turn learned lessons into behavior.

Co-production revisited: from knowledge plurality to action for disaster risk reduction

PurposeThe authors revisit the notion of co-production, highlight more critical and re-politicized forms of co-production and introduce three principles for its operationalization. The paper’s viewpoint aims to find entry points for enabling more equitable disaster research and actions via co-production.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw insights from the authors’ reflections as climate and disaster researchers and literature on knowledge politics in the context of disaster and climate change, especially within critical disaster studies and feminist political ecology.FindingsDisaster studies can better contribute to disaster risk reduction via political co-production and situating local and Indigenous knowledge at the center through three principles, i.e. ensuring knowledge plurality, surfacing norms and assumptions in knowledge production and driving actions that tackle existing knowledge (and broader sociopolitical) structures.Originality/valueThe authors draw out three principles to enable the political function of co-production based on firsthand experiences of working with local and Indigenous peoples and insights from a diverse set of co-production, feminist political ecology and critical disaster studies literature. Future research can observe how it can utilize these principles in its respective contexts.

Interpreting Disaster Science, Defining Its Objectives and Range

"The article aims to define, interpret, and identify the aims of Disaster Science, and to delimit the individual components along the examination of its disciplinary nature. Definition of the concept of Disaster Science, delimitation of its individual components from its concept, and further terminological examination of related elements. On the one hand, this is conducted with the help of the Internet and the so-called keyword search method in the Google search engine, specifically by searching for definitions, then by collecting the individual publications and the relevant bodies and organisations and analysing their use of terminology. The frequency of occurrence of disasters around the world is constantly increasing, their destructive effects can increasingly be felt. Their averting and elimination generally exceed the national level of protection, so the research results should be given priority. Among the conclusions of this publication stands the research priorities of Disaster Research having different disciplines, and due to its multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary nature, there is no unified consensus regarding the methodology and terms. The availability of literature of sociological origin is ensured, however, few works have been produced in Hungary on this topic, for instance, and even in the field of analysis of the effects of natural disasters. The Author analyses the elements of Disaster Science in an interdisciplinary manner, combining several disciplines, provides insight into Disaster Science and its research areas, and in terms of literary resources, the reader can get to know many, primarily international literature. Keywords: Disaster science, disaster risk management, discipline, disaster, hazard, risk."

The Integrated Health Monitor COVID-19: A Protocol for a Comprehensive Assessment of the Short- and Long-Term Health Impact of the Pandemic in the Netherlands.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected public health. Directly, the pandemic resulted in over 6.6 million deaths, numerous hospitalizations, and widespread illness. The pandemic has also affected health indirectly through government-imposed protective measures, causing decline in mental well-being and increasing social isolation. Unlike previous disasters or crises, the pandemic's worldwide and enduring impact necessitates a unique research approach. The Network for Health Research in Disasters in the Netherlands responded by initiating a longitudinal, extensive research project called the Integrated Health Monitor COVID-19. The Integrated Health Monitor COVID-19 explores both the direct and indirect health effects of the pandemic at the population level. The Integrated Health Monitor COVID-19 employs a dual-pronged monitoring strategy alongside an annual literature review. This strategy comprises short-cycle monitoring (conducted quarterly) and long-cycle monitoring (conducted once every one or two years). This comprehensive approach enables the evaluation of health trends during the pandemic, facilitating comparisons with pre-pandemic levels and identification of risk and protective factors. Both monitoring methods incorporate data from surveys and general practice registries. The integration of annual literature reviews with these measurements enables iterative research, while dialogues on policy and practice improvements enhance the knowledge-to-action process. Much of the existing knowledge about the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is derived from research on sudden-onset disasters limited to specific geographical areas. This study is anticipated to provide valuable fresh insights into the evolving dynamics of population health and specific vulnerabilities within the ongoing pandemic context.

공동체 탄력성이 재난피해자의 사회적응에 미치는 영향

The resilience of these communities plays a significant role in helping disaster victims recover from damage and adapt to their daily lives. Furthermore, the active social participation of disaster victims is essential for their social adaptation. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between community resilience and social adaptation among individuals affected by disaster damage, while also examining the moderating effect of social participation. Using data obtained from the survey results of the National Disaster and Safety Research Institute’s “Disaster Victim Safety Service Establishment” study, this research employed SPSS 22.0 statistical programs to analyze responses from 1,738 disaster victims. The analysis revealed that community resilience and social participation were positively related to social adaptation. Additionally, the level of social participation was found to moderate the relationship between community resilience and social adaptation. Based on the study’s findings, several suggestions were put forth.

Organizational adaptation to a disruption caused by the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine

There is a vast body of knowledge on the social impact of disasters, but most published research concerns natural disasters with a devastating but momentary impact. However, very little attention is given to social disruptions caused by war, such as the situation in Ukraine after the full-scale russian* invasion. Our research aims to understand the nature of disruptions in the work of Ukrainian commercial and noncommercial organizations caused by the full-scale russian invasion and to explore the adaptation mechanisms used to cope with it. For this purpose, we have conducted a qualitative investigation of 22 Ukrainian organizations and have used the typology of organized reactions developed by The Disaster Research Center to classify their responses.

Pacific methodologies in critical disaster studies

PurposeResearch in critical disaster studies stresses the urgency to explore alternative ontological framings (Gaillard and Raju, 2022) that encourages researchers and practitioners, especially Indigenous communities, to nurture spaces where Indigenous voices are well represented. It is imperative that research in the Pacific should be guided by Pacific research methodologies to maximize positive outcomes (Ponton, 2018) and break free from limited Eurocentric ideologies that are often ill-suited in Pacific contexts. Hazards in the South Pacific region have become more frequent and volatile. This has created a growing interest in the study of disasters in the region. However, current disaster studies in the Pacific are often problematic as they often fail to challenge the implicit coloniality of the discipline.Design/methodology/approachThis paper will expand on these arguments, suggesting ways to overcome the limits of common Eurocentric research frameworks in disaster studies and to illustrate the significance and relevance of Pacific methodologies.FindingsIt is pertinent that critical disaster studies encapsulate Pacific worldviews and knowledge as valued and valid to reconstruct Pacific research. Decolonizing disaster research will ultimately liberate the discipline from limitations of its colonial past and allow for truly engaging and critical research practices.Originality/valueThis paper will illustrate and articulate how Talanoa, a pan-Pacific concept, could offer a more culturally appropriate research methodology to disasters, seen through a Samoan lens. Talanoa is an informal conversation that is widely shared among Pacific communities based on pure, authentic and real conversations which are crucial elements in building relationships with Pacific communities (Vaioleti, 2006).

How do social capital and village-level organizational trust affect farmers' climate-related disaster adaptation behavior? Evidence from Hunan Province, China

Understanding farmers' adaptive behavior to climate-related disasters is important in the field of disaster reduction research. The objectives of this study were to analyze how social capital influences farmers' adaptive behavior in the Chinese context and how trust in village-level organizations influences adaptive behavior simultaneously with social capital. We use a logit model to analyze 416 questionnaires collected from Xiangtan City, Hunan Province. The results show that the social network has a negative impact on disaster adaptive behaviors, but the social trust makes farmers more likely to take more adaptive activities. Social norms have little effect on adaptive behavior. Further, we analyze the moderating effects of village-level organizational trust on the relationship. The results show that trust in village-level organizations weakens the negative effects of social networks, but it enhances the positive effects of social trust. This study can help researchers and policy makers understand the complex relationship between social capital, grassroots organizational trust, and adaptive behavior.

Effects of disaster education on children's risk perception and preparedness: A quasi‐experimental longitudinal study

AbstractThe aim of this study was to examine the effects of a disaster education intervention on children's risk perception and preparedness. It also sought to advance longitudinal studies, during an 18‐month time period, of risk perception and preparedness by using a quasi‐experimental methodology in child‐centred disaster research. This study used a quasi‐experimental longitudinal research design to measure the effects of disaster education on children. These effects were examined on children's risk perception and preparedness in the Van and Kocaeli provinces of Türkiye during the 18‐month period, with a sample of 720 school children. Experimental and control groups were randomly allocated, controlling for age, school grade and school enrolment. The disaster education intervention was designed to improve the children's awareness of natural hazards and their knowledge of disaster risk reduction using discussion, visual materials and interactive teaching of emergency management. The results indicate that the disaster education intervention had a positive effect on children's risk perception and perceived importance of preparedness in both study locations. It also helped children to understand the risks and hazards in their living environments. More importantly, this study showed that disaster education enhanced the protective measures taken by children for disasters. This is the first study using the quasi‐experimental longitudinal research design to measure the effects of disaster education on children's risk perception and the importance of preparedness. The findings are of relevance for organisations such as government departments and non‐government organisations when designing or improving disaster education programmes.

Revisiting emergencies, disasters, & catastrophes: Adding duration to the hazard event classification

Disaster researchers have long sought to classify hazard events using various characteristics. Despite varying perspectives on how hazard events differ, the most commonly used classification in disaster scholarship categorizes hazard events as either emergencies, disasters, or catastrophes, which generally are described as being distinguished based on impacts, needs, stakeholder involvement, and management approach. Although this hazard event classification is useful, disaster scholars have noted it needs further refinement and development. In an effort to address these calls from disaster scholars and create a more robust hazard event classification, the traditional classification is revisited and expanded. Specifically, this article proposes the addition of a second dimension, response duration, to the existing hazard event type classification, which to this point has largely been defined by scale of impacts, needs, stakeholder involvement, and management approach. This paper argues short and long-duration emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes are categorically different and therefore require different management approaches, and can be used to categorize and distinguish between events such as COVID-19 and Hurricane Katrina and the Levee Failure. The proposed change would have important implications for emergency management practice and policy and would encourage a re-evaluation of the kinds of hazard events considered to be part of the academic purview of emergency management.

The C-word: how critical cartography, critical GIS and critical data studies can repoliticise disaster-related maps

PurposeMapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are widely used in disaster research and practice. While, in some cases, these practices incorporate methods inspired by critical cartography and critical GIS, they rarely engage with the theoretical discussions that animate those fields.Design/methodology/approachIn this commentary, the author considers three such discussions, and draws out their relevance for disaster studies: the turn towards processual cartographies, political economy analysis of datafication and calls for theorising computing of and from the South.FindingsThe review highlights how these discussions can contribute to the work of scholars engaged in mapping for disaster risk management and research. First, it can counter the taken-for-granted nature of disaster-related maps, and encourage debate about how such maps are produced, used and circulated. Second, it can foster a reflexive attitude towards the urge to quantify and map disasters. Third, it can help to rethink the role of digital technologies with respect to ongoing conversations on the need to decolonise disaster studies.Originality/valueThe paper aims to familiarise disaster studies scholars with literature that has received relatively little attention in this field and, by doing so, contribute to a repoliticisation of disaster-related maps.

Review and Prospect of Disaster Education Research in China

Disaster education is an important part of both social education and school education. However, research on disaster education in China only gained attention after the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, and there have been only a few studies on disaster education in the past decade. This paper reviews the basic consensus reached by scholars on issues related to the basic theory and educational practice of disaster education, including the value of disaster education, the current state of disaster education in China, and the cooperation of multiple subjects in disaster education. In conclusion, there are still deficiencies in Chinas disaster education, such as unclear basic theoretical issues, general research perspectives, scattered research content, and traditional research methods. Future research on disaster education urgently needs to draw on international experience and rely on Chinese cultural traditions to combine multidisciplinary theoretical research with comprehensive practical exploration to explore feasible implementation strategies for disaster education and strive to build a disaster education system and research system with Chinese characteristics to enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of disaster education.

Utilising qualitative data for social network analysis in disaster research: opportunities, challenges, and an illustration.

An abundance of unstructured and loosely structured data on disasters exists and can be analysed using network methods. This paper overviews the use of qualitative data in quantitative social network analysis in disaster research. It discusses two types of networks, each with a relevant major topic in disaster research-that is, (i) whole network approaches to emergency management networks and (ii) personal network approaches to the social support of survivors-and four usable forms of qualitative data. This paper explains five opportunities afforded by these approaches, revolving around their flexibility and ability to account for complex network structures. Next, it presents an empirical illustration that extends the authors' previous work examining the sources and the types of support and barrier experienced by households during long-term recovery from Hurricane (Superstorm) Sandy (2012), wherein quantitative social network analysis was applied to two qualitative datasets. The paper discusses three challenges associated with these approaches, related to the samples, coding, and bias.

A Mapping Study of Psychological Preparedness in Dealing with Extreme Temperature Changes and Natural Disasters

Background: Natural disasters and extreme temperature changes are increasing every year in various parts of the world. Disasters and extreme temperatures have physical, material, and psychological impacts on society. Because of the local community's low psychological readiness, this impact frequently causes mental health problems. Study Aims: This study aims to reveal research mapping related to psychological preparedness for natural disasters and extreme temperatures in population groups in Indonesia and in non-Indonesia countries. Method: The method used in this study is a systematic literature review (SLR) of psychological preparedness, disaster, and climate change-related extreme temperature research. Data collection was carried out with the PoP8 software and the PRISMA chart. The research data were analyzed by bibliometric visualization and narrative analysis with the VOS Viewers software. There are 60 eligible articles for analysis. Result: 1) Disaster research in the world has increased in the last ten years, but there is a decreasing trend in 2020-2022 due to a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. 2) Disaster studies in non-Indonesia countries and in Indonesia differ. non-Indonesia countries research focuses on disaster anticipation and post-disaster management. Meanwhile, in Indonesia is focusing on the psychological impact of disasters, environmental damage, and non-psychological disaster preparedness. 3) Research on psychological preparedness and risk perception in foreign countries is developing quite rapidly. In Indonesia, studies regarding the identification of risk factors and efforts to overcome disasters based on local wisdom are quite prevalent. Conclusion: According to the findings of these studies, there hasn't been much research on psychological preparedness for disasters in Indonesia. This indicates that the opportunity to conduct psychological preparedness research in Indonesia is still open and needed.

The SaP (Symptoms and Perceptions) questionnaire: A valid tool for health research in disasters and environmental threats

SamenvattingDe SaP (Symptomen en Percepties)-vragenlijst is een betrouwbaar, valide en openbaar instrument, bedoeld voor epidemiologisch onderzoek naar lichamelijke symptomen en psychische problemen, waaronder gezondheidsklachten na rampen. De SaP-vragenlijst is gebaseerd op de classificatie van symptomen in de eerstelijnszorg en evalueert een breed scala aan symptomen uit verschillende orgaansystemen op basis van aantal, duur en waargenomen ernst. Bovendien kunnen ook de bijbehorende percepties worden meegenomen, zoals opvattingen en causale attributie, om meer inzicht te krijgen in de subjectieve impact en oorzaak van de ervaren symptomen. In dit artikel wordt de redenering achter de ontwikkeling van de SaP-vragenlijst toegelicht en een uitgebreid overzicht gegeven van de belangrijkste kenmerken. Verder wordt aangegeven waarom de SaP-vragenlijst mogelijk ook een waardevol instrument is voor het evalueren en monitoren van gezondheidsklachten.

Organised crisis volunteers, COVID-19, and the political steering of crisis management in Sweden.

This paper explores and analyses the activities of Swedish organised crisis volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a questionnaire and interviews, it sets out to answer two research questions on what characterised organised volunteerism during the pandemic, how organised volunteers experienced cooperation with local public actors, and how they viewed political steering. The paper contributes to a growing literature on the role of volunteers and links that role to views on political steering, something that is rarely done in disaster research. Sweden is a useful case study because of how COVID-19 was managed, as well as because there are organised crisis volunteers and a debate is occurring on how the national system is steered. The paper shows how organised volunteers adapted to changing needs and adopted new roles, that experiences of cooperation with local authorities varied, and that calls were made for a stronger national leadership and for more explicit central political steering.

How do we know vulnerability when we see it? An approach to integrating ethical reflections into empirical disaster research

While ethics assessments have become a standard in many research areas as well as in disaster studies, the tools used to reflect on normative issues remain in many cases underspecified. In this article, we seek to provide an example of how to integrate ethics into an inter- and transdisciplinary research consortium. Disaster research regularly engages with sensitive issues. More often than not, it deals with vulnerability, marginalisation and (lacking) societal coping capacities. Those who provide us with information are in many cases those who suffered from the events we analyse. This situation creates the moral obligation for disaster researchers to reflect their work. While normative questions certainly differ between research projects, we hold that some principles are highly transferable – particularly within the field of disaster research. The article proceeds in three steps: First, and after briefly arguing for the importance of ethics in disaster research, we present the ethics framework developed in the project. Second, we sketch out how we transferred this framework into the practical research setting. Third, we reflect particular ethical challenges we witnessed in the research process. Rather than providing a one-size-fits-all approach, we hope to fuel the debate about the reflection of normative issues in disaster research.

Landslide susceptibility assessment in Western Henan Province based on a comparison of conventional and ensemble machine learning

Landslide is a serious natural disaster next only to earthquake and flood, which will cause a great threat to people’s lives and property safety. The traditional research of landslide disaster based on experience driving or statistical model and its assessment results are subjective , difficult to quantify, and no pertinence. As a new research method for landslide susceptibility assessment, machine learning can greatly improve the landslide susceptibility model’s accuracy by constructing statistical models. Taking Western Henan for example, the study selected 16 landslide influencing factors such as topography, geological environment, hydrological conditions, and human activities. And 11 landslide factors with the most significant influence on the landslide were selected by the recursive feature elimination (RFE) method. There are five machine learning methods (Support Vector Machines (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forest (RF), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA)) were used to construct the spatial distribution model of landslide susceptibility. The models were evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic curve and statistical index. After analysis and comparison, the XGBoost model (AUC 0.8759) performed the best and was suitable for dealing with regression problems. The model had a high adaptability to landslide data. According to the landslide susceptibility map of the five models, the overall distribution can be observed. The extremely high and high susceptibility areas are distributed in the Funiu Mountain range in the southwest, the Xiaoshan Mountain range in the west, and the Yellow River basin in the north. These areas have large terrain fluctuations, complicated geological structural environments and frequent human engineering activities. The extremely high and highly prone areas were 12043.3 km² and 3087.45 km², accounting for 47.61% and 12.20% of the total area of the study area, respectively. Our study reflects the distribution of landslide susceptibility in western Henan Province, which provides a scientific basis for regional disaster warning, prediction, and resource protection. The study has important practical significance for subsequent landslide disaster management.

Spatial-Temporal Aware Disaster Topic Recognition in Social Media Text Using SageMaker

With the popularization and widespread use of social media, a large amount of information is shared and disseminated by users on the platforms, including disaster-related text messages. The disaster information contained in these social media text messages is of great value for emergency response, disaster research, and the understanding of public opinion. In the task of text classification of social media disaster topics, previous approaches generally only semantically analyze the text itself to determine its relevance to the disaster, and this paper considers a new perspective that combines the spatio-temporal attributes of social media texts and textual information to complete the text classification task. Based on the above idea, this paper constructs a heterogeneous graph on the dataset using the temporal and spatial attributes of blog posts, initializes the blog nodes using BERT features, and learns the blog features through relational graph convolution operation. Experiments on the SageMaker platform use BERT as a baseline model, while blog post features are initialized using this model. The experimental results show that the spatio-temporal model achieves better performance compared to the baseline model.

Special Issue on the 100th Anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake

On September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck the Tokyo metropolitan area of Japan. It was an extremely powerful earthquake that caused a great fire. The death toll reached approximately 105,000, and the economic loss is estimated to have exceeded 30% of the Japanese gross national product at that time. For September 2023, the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) has planned a special issue to commemorate 100 years since the Great Kanto Earthquake. While previous special issues by the JDR have focused on specific disasters, this special issue will focus on the lessons and findings from the catastrophe and will cover even the progress of disaster research since then. We received fourteen important and thought-provoking manuscripts not only on scientific and engineering aspects but also on social and cultural aspects, including comparisons with other disasters, historical views, reconstruction issues, and future perspectives. These fourteen articles can be categorized into the three groups described below. The first four articles are the English translations of articles that originally appeared in “Koho Bosai,” the bimonthly journal on natural disaster reduction that is complied and published by the Disaster Management Section, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. The JDR believes that these four articles provide a concise English description of various aspects of the Great Kanto Earthquake disasters. Dr. Takemura summarizes the seismic features of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Dr. Sekizawa summarizes the large scale urban fires that it caused. Dr. Suzuki describes various aspects of the emergency responses. Dr. Murosaki details the recovery project in Tokyo. Those articles discussed various lessons learned from the 1923 Kanto Earthquake and emphasized the importance of transferring the lessons toward future disaster mitigation. The next six papers were originally works studying various aspects of the Great Kanto Earthquake disasters. Dr. Midorikawa reviews the strong ground motion of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Dr. Kaneko evaluates the resulting tsunami. Mr. Mammen sheds new light on the relationship between Charles A. Beard and Goto Shinpei in terms of the recovery. Dr. Albini studies the voices of foreign residents who left impressive disaster processes at that time. Dr. Murao reviews the urbanization of Tokyo after the Kanto Earthquake. Dr. Shima studies the response of the Tokyo Electric Light Company, Inc. to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. The last four papers are works on various aspects of disaster risk reduction, but all of these works were inspired by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in one way or another. Dr. Shaw provides a framework for repositioning earthquake risk reduction. Dr. Shimbo explores the Phase Free Concept. Dr. Shoji focuses on the possibility of Medium-Wave AM Radio Broadcasting. Dr. Yamaguchi studies the Risk Communication Method. The Editorial Board of the JDR thanks all of these contributors and hopes that these articles serve as great sources for further research in disaster risk reduction.