Disasters, Government and Governance

On theory

The purpose of disaster research is to seek the truth, not to legitimise particular actions, decisions or phenomena. This may seem too obvious to need stating, but in reality there are cases in which research has distorted, rather than clarified, the image of reality.

The root of the problem lies in people's motivations, and what the researcher assumes about them. In an ideal world, the threat or impact of disaster would move people to act for the common good. Thus they would respond to, or help create, Barton's 'therapeutic community' (Barton 1970). Disaster would reinforce the commonwealth, instead of promoting the interests of its individual members. In reality, motivations vary and hence decisions and their outcomes cannot be analysed in terms of a single modus operandi. For fear of appearing biassed, disaster researchers are usually reluctant to attribute unethical motives to particular decision makers, or even to question their ethics (Beatley 1989). However, not all protagonists of disaster response and disaster risk reduction act ethically, or at least their view of ethics is not that which a bona fide researcher would be likely to agree with.

It is in any case difficult to assess both motivations and corruption. The clandestine and illegal character of the latter means that information is hard to come by and the process of acquiring it can be dangerous. Thus surveys of global corruption are restricted to compiling a 'corruption perception index', rather than any concrete measure of the phenomenon (Transparency International 2009). However, the disruption caused by disasters offers a great opportunity to both organised and casual criminals to subvert legitimate activities. In extreme cases of political or economic scarcity, this may be the only way to get things done. In no case is it a sustainable way of managing recovery from disasters.

This essay will use the case of the L'Aquila (Italy) earthquake of 2009 as an example of how conventional analysis based on the idea of a common social motivation can distort the interpretation of events and decisions. We live in an age that often prizes individualism over the common good. The concept of disaster as a social leveller (at least in the first instance) has had a long history but has been vanquished by events, especially Hurricane Katrina, a paragon of unequal opportunity (Germany 2007). Social inequality is not merely a matter of access to resources, power and publicity (Tierney 2006), it is also a question of motives, as the following example demonstrates.

The L'Aquila (Italy) earthquake of 2009 as a case history

On 6 April 2009 an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 occurred in the Abruzzo Region of central Italy, with epicentre close to the regional capital city of L'Aquila (population 73,000). Some 308 people were killed, 1,500 were injured (202 of them seriously), 67,000 were rendered homeless and 100,000 buildings suffered major damage. In brief, the response involved committing 94,000 volunteers and copious resources of the Italian state to the relief effort, housing 40,000 people in tents and hotels and then building more than 50 complexes of transitional housing, about 40 per cent of which consisted of base-isolated (i.e. anti-seismic) multi-storey buildings. According to official sources, the cost of the latter averaged €280,607 per dwelling unit (€3,875 per sq. m), including the costs of urbanisation and landscaping. In the meantime, buttressing went ahead in the 15 town centres and one city centre (L'Aquila) that had been cordoned off for reasons of public safety, but reconstruction stagnated. During the first year after the earthquake, four million tonnes of rubble remained in situ and the process of repairing buildings was largely restricted to those that were only lightly damaged.

Various aspects of the Italian Government's strategy for responding to the L'Aquila earthquake are singular and perhaps debatable (Alexander 2011). They can be questioned in terms of logic, efficiency, outcome, economy, fiscal prudence and general efficacy.

Immediate relief

The immediate response to the earthquake involved directing a huge quantity of relief resources to the area, including 94,000 volunteers, more than one for every survivor. While this solved the problems of search, rescue and care of the survivors, it did not do so efficiently and would not work in a larger earthquake of a kind, which, unfortunately will one day be inevitable further down the peninsula or in Sicily. Such a strategy contributed nothing to the future ability to ration disaster response resources in cases of scarcity. It is akin to the doctrine of overwhelming force (Lantis and Moskowitz 2008)

Transitional housing

Survivors were accommodated in tents for 6-7 months and then transferred to transitional housing in wooden prefabricated buildings or steel-framed two- or three-storey blocks (the base-isolated housing). Initially, they paid no rent and were given all necessary furnishings and fitments. Some of the complexes were built on expropriated conservation land, and others on prime farmland. Some are on floodable terrain, others on hillsides. Some are susceptible to winter weather hazards and all had a degree of isolation from basic services. Many of the sites were also somewhat isolated from public transport.

The base isolation was very expensive (Calvi and Spaziante 2009). The cushion capitals cost an average of €1,427 and each of the 187 buildings required 40 of them (€57,000, a grand total of €10.6 million). It could be argued that, as fewer than half of the transitional dwellings have base isolation, either it was not necessary or the majority of prefab-dwellers are disadvantaged in terms of seismic protection. The whole project (known as CASE - Complessi Antisismici Sostenibili ed Ecocompatibili) appeared to be a lavish experiment in seismic design.

Learned authors have argued that transitional housing creates a risk of slowing down permanent reconstruction (Johnson 2007). In the L'Aquila area, the contrast between the vast parks of prefabs and base-isolated buildings and the abandoned town and city centres was striking. Visually, and perhaps functionally, it appeared to be a kind of enforced modernity in an area that had never known anything of the sort. Moreover, it is modernity on the American model, in which the so-called "sustainable" and "ecocompatible" housing induced a massive dependence on the private car, without making provision for those residents who lack their own transport, or for needed improvements in infrastructure and access to services.

Survivors were left with the paradox of transitional--i.e. temporary--housing and no plan for returning to their original homes or revitalising the town centres. The paucity of services and induced social fragmentation in the transitional housing areas led to high levels of depression and post-traumatic stress, especially among women (Microdis 2011). It also contributed to stasis in the long-term recovery process.

Economics, employment and livelihoods

During the year 2009 some 24,000 jobs were lost in Abruzzo Region, 16,000 of them in the L'Aquila area (ISTAT 2010). The effects on employment were partly mitigated by outmigration, particularly of professionals and owners of small business who had lost their accommodation. Government policy offered few incentives to businesses and little flexibility to restart the local economy. Moreover, the new Italian fiscal federalism championed by the Northern League left rich provinces well off and deprived poor provinces of revenue. L'Aquila was at the bottom of the list, the greatest net loser of tax revenue as a result of the policy of decentralising taxation. This was welfare in reverse.

Although a modest boom was experienced in the construction industry (as is usual after earthquakes--Olson 2008), other sectors struggled to survive, including education, which is a vital economic motor for L'Aquila, a city that lacks other sources of employment. Moreover, the local infrastructure was placed under great strain during the aftermath and clearly needed major improvements, for which funds were not available.

Governance

In the aftermath of disaster it is common for groups to emerge that respond to the need to safeguard public interests. Although there were emergent groups in L'Aquila, they never achieved the public profile and political weight that such organisations have managed to acquire elsewhere in the world. This was one of several indicators of the lack of effective public participation in the recovery. Moreover, the local and regional political processes showed a lack of focus, power and influence, and thus responded ineffectively to public demands.

This decision-making and power vacuum was filled at the national level. Policy and strategy responded directly to the will of the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

It is unusual that the National Department of Civil Protection (DPC), a disaster response organisation, was so heavily involved in both the early reaction to the emergency and the medium-term recovery process (Alexander 2010). Although there is noting inherently wrong with such a strategy, elsewhere in the world more specific institutions have taken over. For example, in Pakistan after the 2005 seismic disaster the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) was constituted to manage the recovery (Zimmermann and Issa 2009).

There are two probable reasons for the deep involvement of the DPC in the recovery process. One is its role as a dependency of the Council of Ministers, the national cabinet presided over by the Prime Minister. After a brief, abortive attempt in 2000 to make it an independent agency, it has increasingly become an instrument of prime ministerial policy and has thus been politicised (Alexander 2002). The other is the ability of the DPC to issue emergency ordinances, which are legal instruments that in the interests of rapid reaction conveniently bypass the normal checks and balances on law-making. The scandal that broke in Italy in late 2010 about the misuse of ordinances from more among than 600 that had been passed in eight years, and the uncontrolled expenditure of €10.6 billion, can be seen as a means of wresting arbitrary power from the Prime Minister back to the other organs of state (Alexander 2011).

The heart of the matter

Mr Belusconi made his reputation as a populist prime minister who could be seen to exercise benign power in favour of needy people. In reality that power was wielded as a matter of self interest. The transfer of the G8 politico-economic summit from the Sardinian island lf La Maddalena to L'Aquila was a grand gesture. It led to the abandonment of facilities on which €300 million had already been spent and, in the end, it contributed very little to the recovery in L'Aquila. But it looked good.

The decision to concentrate efforts on the very rapid provision of durable, very high quality transitional housing also raised the Prime Minister's public profile. Again, it looked good, despite the damage done to the overall recovery process, the salvaging of cultural heritage, the viability of urban and regional systems and the processes of local governance. Resources were channelled into housing but not into other aspects of recovery. Considerable--and favourable--media attention was gained by the inauguration of this housing (1), which also helped Mr Berlusconi's party win provincial elections on 6-7 June 2009. Thereafter, the dysfunctional nature of the recovery process no longer mattered, as the political objectives had already been achieved.

Analogous conditions occurred with the problem of unplanned mass migrations from the other side of the Mediterranean. At the end of March 2011 Mr Berlusconi promised to liberate the island of Lampedusa of the 17,000 North African migrants that has accumulated there and severely overtaxed its accommodation facilities. He did so in the promised 60 hours by loading them onto a ship and dispersing them among other regions of southern Italy, notably Puglia, which is governed by the main opposition party. This transferred the problem elsewhere without solving it. Indeed, absconding, conflict and overloading of facilities were probably worse on the mainland. However, the net effect on his public image was positive, as the negative impacts had been offloaded onto other administrations.

Conclusion

In 1931 the writer B. Traven wrote a book called Government, which has since been reissued (Traven 1994). Set in provincial Mexico, this apocryphal novel contrasts the rigorous, severe democracy of the indigenous peoples with the corrupt, immoral administration of the Hispanic ruling caste. As each day passes, this 80-year-old work becomes more and more current. In a remarkable parable it chronicles the descent of democracy into subservience.

Traven's work combines acute observation of culturally specific factors with the elaboration of universal truths. Both sides can be seen in Abruzzo after the earthquake. At the time that Traven was writing so was the Abruzzan novelist Ignazio Silone (Fontamara, 1930; Bread and Wine, 1937). He chronicled the misery and subservience of 20th century feudalism. Both authors share a rich vein of irony and a prescient sense of history. In Abruzzo it is only a matter of decades since modernity arrived, unable to cancel out the traces of the feudal past in such a short space of time. Perhaps this explains the lack of demand for participatory democracy in L'Aquila. Where it has occurred in an exemplary manner (at Onna village), the prime mover has been the German Federal Government, which has sponsored the recovery there.

The key words that point the way to a valid interpretation of the L'Aquila earthquake are 'paternalism' and 'political expediency'. By means of the former, and in the name of the latter, vast sums of public money have been spent on image-mongering and vote garnering. The welfare of the earthquake survivors has thus been reduced to a byproduct of the national political process.

The essential conclusion of this analysis is that any attempt to understand the recovery from the L'Aquila earthquake in terms of conventional logic (i.e. common sense) is doomed to failure. Conventional logic assumes that people act in good faith for the common good. Undoubtedly, some of them do. Heroic efforts are being made in L'Aquila to recover from the earthquake by people who have the region's best interests at heart. But at the levels of policy and overall strategy the process responds to a political logic, whose priorities are not those of "the greatest good for the greatest number of people". Any attempt to force the model of recovery into something as Benthamite would lead to nothing but an erroneous interpretation. Worse still, by providing a normalised explanation, it would legitimise decisions and actions that deserve moral condemnation.

Endnote

(1) On behalf of the Italian State, and in the glare of television lights, the Prime Minister also inaugurated the transitional housing at Onna village, the worst damaged settlement outside L'Aquila city. This was despite the fact that the new village was largely paid for and constructed by the Autonomous Province of Trento, whose president conspicuously refused to participate in the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the founding of modern Italy, stating that his home territory had been annexed in 1919, not founded in 1861.

References

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Resilience Against Earthquakes: Some Practical Suggestions for Planners and Managers

Figure 1. An explanatory classification of vulnerability to hazards and disasters. Source: MOVE Project, www.move-fp7.eu.

Figure 2. Characteristic pattern of damage in a multiple-storey condominium building affected by the L'Aquila, central Italy earthquake of 6 April 2009.

Abstract. Resilience against earthquakes is a broad concept that requires a multi-disciplinary response. This paper offers a working definition of resilience and associated concepts, including vulnerability to earthquakes, coping, capacity and redundancy. It concludes that resilience must be set in motion and maintained by a collective effort that involves all stakeholders and people who are at risk in areas of high seismicity. Resilience is one of the fundamental components of disaster risk reduction (DRR), an overall strategy for adapting to and mitigating the impact of extreme events on people and society. The paper offers a modest contribution to the creation of a methodology for resilience against earthquakes. This includes ten suggestions for action, as follows. (1) Tell people what to do in an earthquake. Research is needed on the best forms of self protective behaviour during seismic emergencies. This needs one to understand the characteristic forms of building failure and how they affect building occupants. It also requires knowledge of how people react to earthquakes and what opportunities there are for self-protective behaviour. (2) Develop urban search and rescue capacity on site. This need not be expensive or particularly challenging. It requires stockpiling of basic rescue equipment at strategic points in urban areas and training programmes for local residents. (3) Reduce non-structural as well as structural hazards. A significant proportion of earthquake injuries arises from damage to the non-structural elements of the built environment. Anchoring and securing these, and designing them to resist earthquake displacement, can save lives and reduce the incidence of serious injuries. (4) Plan flexibly. Emergency planning should be a process and not an end. It must be adapted continually to changes in knowledge of hazards and in society and its vulnerability. (5) Create networks. These can improve the exchange of knowledge, information and training. Networks are needed at all scales, from the local to the international, and from professionals to local residents threatened by earthquakes. (6) Encourage governance. This requires involvement of many different kinds of stakeholder in the processes of earthquake disaster risk reduction. (7) Make good practice proliferate and adapt it to local circumstances. (8) Ensure that programmes of DRR are sustainable in the long term. In order to work they must have a constant revenue stream and also the full support of beneficiaries. (9) Before the next major seismic event occurs create a strategy for recovering from it. Consider how the recovery will be planned and guided, and what needs will be generated by the event. (10) Create a culture of resilience against earthquakes, in which the problem is widely understood and taken seriously by people who are at risk or are in positions of authority. This also involves sharing knowledge about earthquakes and sharing the risk to society.

Key words: Earthquakes, Resilience, Disasters, Injury prevention, Damage reduction.

Introduction: On the Definition of Terms

The term resilience, or resiliency, had its origins in developments about a century ago in the field of mechanics and materials testing (Hoffman 1948). A resilient material has enough rigidity to resist an applied force and also sufficient flexibility to absorb part of the stress. The concept was taken up in the 1960s by ecologists (Holling 1973) and later by psychologists (Rutter 1987). In the 2000s it began to be widely applied to the field of disaster risk reduction (DRR). By analogy with mechanics, a resilient society is one that is simultaneously able to resist the impact of disasters (i.e. avoid a certain amount of harm and damage) and absorb it by adapting to the hazard (Berkes 2007).

Resilience in DRR interacts with the concepts of coping, capacity and capability (Billing and Madengruber 2006). A society that is resilient to hazards has developed its ability to cope with them. This involves both direct prior preparedness and setting aside resources against future losses (i.e. capacity). Formally, the latter can be achieved by insurance (the maintenance of a pool of money to reimburse people who suffer loss) and by creating redundancy, the provision of duplicate resources, services and procedures (Carroll 2004). As redundancy is expensive, and because it can tie up resources that are seldom used, it is not usually one of the favoured options, but when a major event takes place it can become a very precious safeguard.

The sum of resilience, coping and capacity is the inverse of vulnerability (Birkmann 2006). In the present context, this refers to the propensity of human socio-economic systems to suffer harm as a result of major hazards. Vulnerability is the dominant component of risk and both are difficult to measure because they are innate phenomena. Like friction, vulnerability is only mobilised when a hazard strikes. By the time it is recognised and can be investigated it has already become impact, its post hoc form. In disaster research there is a developing consensus that the protection of lives and livelihoods (i.e. gainful employment) is the key to reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience (Cannon 2006). It has also become apparent that vulnerability is composed of many factors, as summarised in Figure 1. The components interact and influence each other.

The 'What?' and 'How?' of Resilience

The axiom that "resilience is needed against earthquakes" requires qualification in order to ensure that it does not lead to an indiscriminate approach. Priorities need to be established so that resources are not wasted. In general terms, these should be to reduce loss of life, care for the injured, limit damage and provide conditions for rapid and effective recovery, including the timely provision of shelter to people who have lost their homes. Given the propensity of earthquakes to cause mass fatalities (Spence 2007), the largest emphasis should be given to effective (including cost-effective) measures to reduce loss of life. In this context, resilience must be created and maintained by collective effort. All members of society are stakeholders and all should be involved in the process of making conditions safer. This requires mechanisms of consultation and social inclusion, which thus contribute to the process of governance, government by active consensus (Qian 2010).

As building collapse is widely known to be the principal cause of death and injury in earthquakes, it follows logically that one of the greatest strategic priorities should be to make buildings less susceptible to catastrophic damage by enforcing good building codes, retrofitting pre-code buildings and banning unsafe development (Xie 2007). Note, however, that non-structural damage within and around buildings is an important secondary source of injury (Petal 2004).

Specialised search and rescue are likely to be in short supply during a major seismic event. However, little is known about the impact of this on rates of survival in collapsed buildings, except that it is potentially high (De Bruycker et al. 1983). Moreover, little is known about the impact of immediate response by untrained, unequipped people, who are often the only ones on site when rescue is needed. Evidence from the Mexico City earthquake of 1985 suggests that amateur rescue in collapsed buildings can be highly dangerous (Durkin 1989), unless it is complemented by training and the provision of safety equipment.

Resilience means a safe environment, but if it cannot be achieved in any reasonable future time period, people should at least be encouraged to learn self-protective modes of behaviour.

A Strategy to Encourage Self-Protective Behaviour in Earthquakes

If buildings cannot be made safe enough to withstand earthquakes, can occupant behaviour be modified in such a way as to minimise the risks of being crushed or entrapped when a disaster occurs? Unfortunately, despite decades of research on the epidemiology of earthquakes, there is still a lack of knowledge of types of injury in relation to patterns of building collapse and occupant behaviour, and thus of risk factors in particular situations (e.g. Sami et al. 2009). Nevertheless, it would be useful to develop a methodology that will form the basis of a strategy to react better to earthquakes when they occur.

The first step is to know the level of seismic risk and what it is capable of doing. This involves predicting magnitudes, recurrence intervals, maximum accelerations of the ground and other variables that influence the performance of buildings and structures. It also involves developing an understanding of the seismic performance of typical buildings in the local area. In many architectural environments this may be relatively easy to achieve at a basic level. For instance, the L'Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009 in central Italy led to characteristic patterns of damage to vernacular housing that involved only two main types of building: one in stone masonry and one in reinforced concrete (Alexander 2011). An example of how lack of stiffness in a frame structure leads to a concentration on mid-floor damage is given in Figure 2.

The second step is to create scenarios of impact and damage and relate them to patterns of human activity and occupancy of buildings and built environments that are at risk from seismic events. There are essentially five levels of risk to people, in relation to seismic damage levels.

1. Damage level: [1] minimum damage to walls, fitments and furniture.

Personal risk level: prudent behaviour will minimise risks.

2. Damage level: [2] significant damage to structures, cladding and fitments.

Personal risk level: significant risk of injury but not of death.

3. Damage level: [3] general damage and collapse of architectural elements.

Personal risk level: significant risk of injury but relatively low risk of death.

4. Damage level: [4] serious damage or partial collapse of building.

Personal risk level: strong risk of injury and significant risk of death.

5. Damage level: [5] collapse of more than 50% of the structure.

Personal risk level: limited and mainly unpredictable probability of survival.

Whereas little can be done to save people caught in the total collapse of a structure, the previous four levels involve degrees of criticality in which behaviour will influence the probability of being injured (levels 1-4) or killed (levels 3-4).

The procedure for enhancing self-protected behaviour is thus as follows. First ascertain the characteristic patterns of seismic damage and transform them into simple models that are applicable to significant proportions of buildings in a given urban area. This will help explain how people are put at risk. It is helpful if such buildings can be mapped for emergency planning purposes so as to show where the greatest vulnerabilities lie. It is also useful if the level of vulnerability to damage can be ascertained for each building by structural engineers. This is seismic microzonation.

Secondly, survival strategies need to be worked out. These should be communicated to residents and building users, who should be encouraged to plan for an emergency situation. The survival strategy could consist of the following parts.

1. Identify the safest part of the house with regard to the following risks: fall of tiles or collapse of the entire roof
- instability of the façade and cornice
- potential collapse of the stairs during egress
- detachment of beams and risk that they will batter down the building
- use of heterogeneous materials giving rise to a complex seismic response.

2. Avoid risky behaviour.

3. Create an exit strategy:
- identify a safe place to reach near to the house
- identify the most dangerous parts of the house and how to avoid them

4. Create a mutual support network of friends, relatives and neighbours.

5. Collect and store useful equipment:
- train family members and test the reaction plan.

For example, in many cases façades that are badly anchored to the structure of the building can collapse, or at least elements of them can detach during the shaking and fall into the street. At the same time, stairways are often the least stable part of the building, especially if they are inadequately suspended from floors and load-bearing members. They may collapse during the tremors. Hence it may be highly inappropriate to rush out into the street until the hazards of doing so have been properly assessed (Lomnitz 1970).

Ideally, a programme of resilience against earthquakes should accumulate information and expertise about possible damage and potential reactions of people caught in major seismic events. There is also some scope for pre-emptive planning of search and rescue, especially if it is known where, characteristically, people are most likely to be trapped when a certain kind of building collapses (Olson and Olson 1987).

Ten Suggestions for Increasing Resilience to Earthquakes

The previous section offered a rather limited strategy for improving survival rates in earthquakes. This should be part of a much broader initiative to save lives, reduce damage and injuries and increase society's resilience in the face of the seismic threat. There follow ten suggestions about how to achieve this.

(1) Tell people what to do during an earthquake. As noted in the previous section, the biggest risk tends to be when people are at home in vulnerable vernacular housing, especially at night when they are sleeping. There is a need for authoritative knowledge on the best self-protective behaviour, and for a methodology to assess risk in vernacular housing and other kinds of accommodation.

(2) Develop urban search and rescue (USAR) capabilities on site. One of the great tragedies of major earthquakes is that USAR capacity often comes from thousands of kilometres away and does not arrive until 36-72 hours after the earthquake. Typically, between 1,200 and 2,300 rescuers from up to 50 different countries may converge on the disaster area in this way (El-Tawil and Aguirre 2010). Instead, USAR capacity is needed immediately, and in all cases before 12 hours have elapsed. Hence, stockpiling of simple equipment (ladders, ropes, flashlights, loud-hailers, reflective garments, hard hats, first-aid medical supplies, etc.) in local neighbourhoods and training local people to constitute their own rescue groups can achieve much. However, people must be trained to avoid the risks associated with urban heavy rescue and to understand the nature of earthquake injuries and how they should be treated by basic life support (first-aid) procedures.

(3) Reduce non-structural as well as structural risks. Many of these are internal to buildings, although some, like collapse of signage, are external. Many non-structural risks can easily be assessed and remedied, often by a small amount of work securing items to structural members with screws, bands and other anchors.

(4) Plan flexibly. Planning should be a process not an end in itself: in fact, the planning process is often more useful than the product (the emergency plan), as it tends to identify and highlight problems that need to be solved. Plans should cover all risks and should allow for multiple and secondary hazards. They should use scenarios of impact, response and recovery, as this is the best way of investigating what is likely to occur in a major emergency. Scenarios are flexible investigations of possible alternative futures: rather than being a predictive device, the scenario is a means of understanding cause and effect relationships, and of ascertaining future needs.

(5) Create networks. These need to be built at all scales, from international collaborations of experts to local and area networks of responders and residents. The presence of support networks helps keep the issue of seismic safety current and ensures that people do not feel alone. It helps disseminate information and promote learning and information sharing (Brower et al. 2009). Networks may be efficient means of diffusing innovation to people who can benefit from it. They create a benign form of disaster subculture, which contributes to social solidarity.

(6) Encourage governance. This can include promoting stakeholder involvement and personal disaster planning. Few people have their own disaster plans, or any idea as to what they and their families would need to do in a disaster situation. Yet it need not be so. Governance for seismic risk reduction is both an national and a local matter, but as the local area is always the theatre of disaster impact and response, it is the main foundation of all governance devoted to resolving this issue. Moreover, one needs to understand and work with local culture, as this will facilitate the acceptance of new ideas and strategies.

(7) Make good practice proliferate. The networks can be used to ensure that this happens. Although there is really no such thing as best practice, as circumstances differ from one place to another, good examples can be adapted to new areas, and research results need to be utilised.

(8) Ensure programmes are sustainable. For this to happen, the programmes need to have full support from stakeholders in all branches of civil society. One recurrent problem is that while it is relatively easy to induce public administrators to authorise one-off payments (i.e. capital expenditure), they are less happy with recurrent spending (i.e. revenue expenditure). Nevertheless, this is necessary, as salaries have to be paid and programmes need to benefit from continuity of funding. Hence, disaster risk reduction needs to be considered as a fundamental everyday service, as essential as waste treatment and electricity supply, and as well funded.

(9) Create a post-earthquake policy and strategy before the next major seismic event. Few public administrations have been innovative enough to plan for recovery before disaster, although the disaster researcher Harold Foster described some such examples of that as long ago as the 1970s (Foster 1980). Nevertheless, although the full details of what will be needed cannot be known before the event, the basic lineaments of recovery are likely to be clear in advance. There should thus be a plan for the provision of shelter, and a strategy for safeguarding livelihoods and thus promoting economic recovery.

(10) Create a culture of resilience against earthquakes. This involves a social programme of information and discussion that brings resilience into the mainstream of daily life. People need to be induced to believe that although natural hazards do not strike every day, they are a constant threat to lives and livelihoods and there is a common responsibility to face up to that threat. It helps to be able to answer the question "what is welfare?" (Forrest 1973). The answer should probably be that it is the safeguarding of people who, through poverty, age or disability, are unable to look after themselves in some way. Welfare also means the ethical distribution of resources and the maintenance of minimum standards of living. The concept, and its morality and ethics, should not be distorted by disaster. Hence, it needs to be examined--fairly, critically and explicitly--before disaster strikes.

Conclusion: Beyond Resilience

The discussion presented above suggests that there is much that can be done to reduce the risks of casualties and socio-economic effects of earthquakes, even if damage cannot substantially be abated. Society needs to be hardened, so that it resists the impact of disaster by devoting resources and organisation to that process. This is sometimes termed social capital building (Murphy 2007). Thus, expertise, experience, know-how and resourcefulness need to be concentrated in the community and conserved and developed over time so that they can be handed on from one generation to the next. Programmes need to be sustainable in their own right and also need to interface with the more general problem of the sustainability of life. In fact, perhaps the biggest challenge of the future will be, not merely to make society resilient to disasters such as earthquakes, but also to make it resilient to less cataclysmic changes (in sea level, global climate, resource availability, and so on) that are none the less fundamental.

References

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Mortality and morbidity risk in the L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake of 6 April 2009 and lessons to be learned. In R.S. Spence and E. Ho (eds) Human Casualties in Earthquakes. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research no. 29, Springer, Berlin, Ch. 13.

Berkes, F. 2007. Understanding uncertainty and reducing vulnerability: lessons from resilience thinking. Natural Hazards 41(2): 283-295.

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Offprints available

PDF offprints of any of the following articles and book chapters can be requested by sending an email to me at d.alexander@alice.it.

Alexander, D.E. 2000. Scenario methodology for teaching principles of emergency management. Disaster Prevention and Management 9(2): 89-97.

Alexander, D.E. 2002. Nature's impartiality, man's inhumanity: reflections on terrorism and world crisis in a context of historical disaster. Disasters 26(1): 1-9.

Alexander, D.E. 2002. From civil defence to civil protection--and back again. Disaster Prevention and Management 11(3): 209-213.

Alexander, D.E. 2003. Towards the development of standards in emergency management training and education. Disaster Prevention and Management 12(2): 113-123.

Alexander. D.E. 2003. Terrorism, disasters and security. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 18(3): 165-169.

Alexander, D.E. 2004. Cognitive mapping as an emergency management training exercise. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 12(4): 150-159.

Alexander, D.E. 2005. Towards the development of a standard for emergency planning. Disaster Prevention and Management 14(2): 158-175.

Alexander, D.E. 2005. An interpretation of disaster in terms of changes in culture, society and international relations. In R.W. Perry and E.L. Quarantelli (eds) What is a Disaster? New Answers to Old Questions. Xlibris Press, Philadelphia: 1-15.

Alexander, D.E. 2005. The meaning of disaster: a reply to Wolf R. Dombrowsky. In R.W. Perry and E.L. Quarantelli (eds) What is a Disaster? New Answers to Old Questions. Xlibris Press, Philadelphia: 75-81.

Alexander, D.E. 2005. Vulnerability to landslides. In T. Glade, M. Anderson and M. Crozier (eds) Landslide Hazard and Risk. Wiley, Chichester, UK: 175-198.

Alexander, D.E. 2006. Globalization of disaster: trends, problems and dilemmas. Journal of International Affairs 59(2): 1-22.

Alexander, D.E. 2006. Crisis intervention and risk reduction. In W.J. Ammann, S. Danneman and L. Vulliet (eds) Risk 21: Coping with Risks Due to Natural Hazards in the 21st Century. A.A. Balkema, Taylor and Francis, London: 51-56.

Alexander, D.E. 2007. Misconception as a barrier to teaching about disasters. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 22(2): 95-103.

Alexander, D.E. 2007. Making research on geological hazards relevant to stakeholders' needs. Quaternary International 171/172: 186-192.

Alexander, D.E. 2007. Disaster management: from theory to implementation. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering 9(1): 39-49.

Alexander, D.E. 2007. "From Rubble to Monument" revisited: modernised perspectives on recovery from disaster. In D. Alexander, C.H. Davidson, A. Fox, C. Johnson and G. Lizzarralde (eds) Post-Disaster Reconstruction: Meeting Stakeholder Needs. Firenze University Press, Florence: xiii-xxii.

Alexander, D.E. 2008. A survey of GIS and mass movement studies and some reflections on theory and methodology. Geomorphology 94(3-4): 261-267.

Alexander, D.E. 2008. Emergency command systems and major earthquake disasters. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering 10(3): 109-118.

Alexander, D.E. 2008. Mainstreaming disaster risk management. Chapter 2 in L. Bosher (ed.) Hazards and the Built Environment: Attaining Built-in Resilience. Taylor and Francis, London: 20-36.

Alexander, D.E., L. Bramati and M. Simonetta 2009. Emergency preparedness training and education in Lombardy Region, Italy: survey of supply and demand. Natural Hazards Review 10(3): 77-83.

Alexander, D.E. 2009. Principles of emergency planning. In U. Fra Paleo (ed.) Building Safer Communities: Risk Governance, Spatial Planning and Responses to Natural Hazards. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series, Vol. 58. IOS Press, Amsterdam: 162-174.

Alexander, D.E. 2010. The voluntary sector in emergency response and civil protection: review and recommendations. International Journal of Emergency Management 7(1): 151-166.

Alexander, D.E. 2010. The L'Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009 and Italian Government policy on disaster response. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research 2(4): 325-342.

Alexander, D.E. 2010. News reporting of the January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake: the role of common misconceptions. Journal of Emergency Management 8(6): 15-27.

Alexander, D.E. 2010. Rapid adaptation to threat: the London bombings of July 7, 2005. In L.K. Comfort, A. Boin and C. C. Demchak (eds) Designing Resilience: Preparing for Extreme Events. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 143-157.

Alexander, D. 2010. Bioterrorism and pandemics: a new world order of civil defence. In A. Trufanov, A. Rossodivita and M. Guidotti (eds) Pandemics and Bioterrorism: Transdisciplinary Information Sharing for Decision-Making Against Biological Threats. NATO Science for Peace and Security, Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics Vol. 62. IOS Press, Amsterdam: 105-113.

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Mortality and morbidity risk in the L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake of 6 April 2009 and lessons to be learned. In R.S. Spence and E. Ho (eds) Human Casualties in Earthquakes. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research no. 29, Springer, Berlin, Ch. 13.

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Sense and sensibility about terrorism: a European perspective. Integrated Disaster Risk Management Journal 1(1).

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Disability and disaster. In B. Wisner, J-C. Gaillard and I. Kelman (eds) Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction. Routledge, London: 384-394.

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Towards a practical phenomenology of architecture and natural hazards. In G.P. Brogiolo, D.E. Angelucci, A. Colecchia and F. Remondino (eds) Teoria e metodi della ricerca sui paesaggi d’altura. Società Archeologica Padana, Mantova, Italy: 203-214.

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Disability and disaster. In B. Wisner, J-C. Gaillard and I. Kelman (eds) Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction. Routledge, London: 384-394.

Alexander, D.E. 2011. Models of social vulnerability to disasters. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 93 (in Portuguese).

Alexander, D.E. 2012. Resilience against earthquakes: some practical suggestions for planners and managers. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering 13(1): 131-137.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. The London bombings of July 7, 2005. In B. Jacobs, A. Boin, L.K. Comfort and I. Helsloot (eds). Megacrises. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois: 158-167.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. An evaluation of the medium-term recovery process after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, central Italy. Environmental Hazards: Human and Policy Dimensions 11(2): 1-13.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. Disasters: lessons learned? Journal of Geography and Natural Disasters 2(1), 1-2.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. Towards a practical phenomenology of architecture and natural hazards. In G.P. Brogiolo, D.E. Angelucci, A. Colecchia and F. Remondino (eds) Teoria e metodi della ricerca sui paesaggi d’altura. Società Archeologica Padana, Mantova, Italy: 203-214.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. Our starting point. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 1: 1-4.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. A tale of three cities and three earthquake disasters. Tafter Journal 50: 1-10.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. What can we do about earthquakes? Towards a systematic approach to seismic risk mitigation. Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering 45(2): 1-16.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. The 'Titanic Syndrome': risk and crisis management on the Costa Concordia. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 9(1); article 33.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. Approaches to emergency management teaching at the Master's level. Journal of Emergency Management.

Alexander, D.E. and I. Davis 2012. Disaster risk reduction: an alternative viewpoint. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2: 1-5.

Alexander, D.E. 2012. The London bombings of July 7, 2005. In I. Helsloot, A. Boin, B. Jacobs, and L.K. Comfort (eds) Mega-Crises: Understanding the Prospects, Nature, Characteristics and Effects of Cataclysmic Events. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois: 158-167.