Natural disasters traumatize individuals, disrupt families, and destabilize communities.Surviving these harrowing events calls for courage, tenacity, and resilience. Professional planning requires specific types of knowledge of how people meet and cope with extreme challenges. Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective examines three major earthquakes occurring in Italy over a fourteen - year period for a well-documented analysis of populations' responses to and recovery from disaster, the social variables involved, and the participation of public agencies. This timely volume reviews sociological definitions and models of disaster, identifying core features of vulnerability and multiple levels of individual and social resilience. The analysis contrasts the structural and supportive roles of Italy's civil protection and civil defense services in emergency planning and management as examples of what the author terms professional resilience. And testimony from earthquake survivors and volunteers gives voice to the social processes characteristic of disaster. Among the areas covered: Social context for concepts of disaster, vulnerability, risk, and resilience Types of resilience: a multidimensional analysis, focused on a physical, ecological, and ecosystem perspective Findings from three earthquakes: loss, hope, and community. Two systems of organizational response to emergencies Toward a relational approach to disaster resilience planning Plus helpful tables, methodological notes, and appendices For researchers in disaster preparedness, psychology, and sociology, Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective raises--and addresses--salient questions about people and communities in crisis, and how studying them can improve preparedness in an uncertain future.

Natural disasters in recent years have brought the study of disaster resiliency to the forefront. The importance of community preparedness and sustainability has been underscored by such calamities as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Japanese tsunami in 2011. Natural disasters will inevitably continue to occur, but by understanding the concept of resiliency as well as the factors that lead to it, communities can minimize their vulnerabilities and increase their resilience. In this volume, editors Naim Kapucu, Christopher V. Hawkins, and Fernando I. Rivera gather an impressive array of scholars to provide a much needed re-think to the topic disaster resiliency. Previous research on the subject has mainly focused on case studies, but this book offers a more systematic and empirical assessment of resiliency, while at the same time delving into new areas of exploration, including vulnerabilities of mobile home parks, the importance of asset mapping, and the differences between rural and urban locations. Employing a variety of statistical techniques and applying these to disasters in the United States and worldwide, this book examines resiliency through comparative methods which examine public management and policy, community planning and development, and, on the individual level, the ways in which culture, socio-economic status, and social networks contribute to resiliency. The analyses drawn will lead to the development of strategies for community preparation, response, and recovery to natural disasters. Combining the concept of resiliency, the factors that most account for the resiliency of communities, and the various policies and government operations that can be developed to increase the sustainability of communities in face of disasters, the editors and contributors have assembled an essential resource to scholars in emergency planning, management, and policy, as well as upper-level students studying disaster management and policy.

Disasters kill, maim, and generate increasingly large economic losses. But they do not wreak their damage equally across populations, and every disaster has social dimensions at its very core. This important book sheds light on the social conditions and on the global, national, and local processes that produce disasters. Topics covered include the social roots of disaster vulnerability, exposure to natural hazards such as hurricanes and tsunamis as a form of environmental injustice, and emerging threats. Written by a leading expert in the field, this book provides the necessary frameworks for understanding hazards and disasters, exploring the contributions of very different social science fields to disaster research and showing how these ideas have evolved over time. Bringing the social aspects of recent devastating disasters to the forefront, Tierney discusses the challenges of conducting research in the aftermath of disasters and critiques the concept of disaster resilience, which has come to be seen as a key to disaster risk reduction. Peppered with case studies, research examples, and insights from very different disciplines, this rich introduction is an invaluable resource to students and scholars interested in the social nature of disasters and their relation to broader social forces.

Events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Japanese earthquakes and tsunamis in 2011 have provided unfortunate reminders of the susceptibility of many communities to devastating losses from natural hazards. These events provided graphic illustrations of how extreme hazard events adversely impact on people, affect communities and disrupt the community and societal mechanisms that serve to organize and sustain community capacities and functions. However, there is much that communities can do to mitigate their risk and manage disaster consequences. The construct that epitomizes how this is done is resilience. The contents of this volume provide valuable insights into how societal resilience can be developed and sustained. This considerably expanded new edition presents major topics of: Coexisting with Natural Hazards; Urban Resilience in Asia; Lifelines and Urban Resilience; Business Continuity in Disaster; Hazard Mitigation in Communities; Hazard Readiness and Resilience; Child Citizenship in Disaster Risk; Old Age and Resilience; Gender and Disaster Resilience; Impact of High Functionality on Resilience; Art and Resilience; Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Coping with Hazards; Religious Practices and Resilience; Living in Harmony with our Environment; Critical Incidence Response; Governance; Heat Wave Resilience; Wildfire Disaster Resilience; and Progress and Challenges to Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. This exceptional book brings together contributions from international experts in core areas and includes chapters that provide and overarching framework within which the need for interrelationships between levels to be developed is discussed. The book will be an outstanding resource for those researching or teaching courses in emergency management, disaster management, community development, environmental planning and urban development. In addition, it will serve law enforcement and emergency agencies, welfare agencies, and professionals in applied psychology.

The factor that makes some communities rebound quickly from disasters while others fall apart: “A fascinating book on an important topic.”—E.L. Hirsch, in Choice Each year, natural disasters threaten the strength and stability of communities worldwide. Yet responses to the challenges of recovery vary greatly and in ways that aren’t explained by the magnitude of the catastrophe or the amount of aid provided by national governments or the international community. The difference between resilience and disrepair, as Daniel P. Aldrich shows, lies in the depth of communities’ social capital. Building Resilience highlights the critical role of social capital in the ability of a community to withstand disaster and rebuild both the infrastructure and the ties that are at the foundation of any community. Aldrich examines the post-disaster responses of four distinct communities—Tokyo following the 1923 earthquake, Kobe after the 1995 earthquake, Tamil Nadu after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina—and finds that those with robust social networks were better able to coordinate recovery. In addition to quickly disseminating information and financial and physical assistance, communities with an abundance of social capital were able to minimize the migration of people and valuable resources out of the area. With governments increasingly overstretched and natural disasters likely to increase in frequency and intensity, a thorough understanding of what contributes to efficient reconstruction is more important than ever. Building Resilience underscores a critical component of an effective response.

No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses. Infectious disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, social unrest, or financial disasters in addition to natural hazards can all lead to large-scale consequences for the nation and its communities. Communities and the nation thus face difficult fiscal, social, cultural, and environmental choices about the best ways to ensure basic security and quality of life against hazards, deliberate attacks, and disasters. Beyond the unquantifiable costs of injury and loss of life from disasters, statistics for 2011 alone indicate economic damages from natural disasters in the United States exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than a billion dollars in damages each. One way to reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities is to invest in enhancing resilience-the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative addresses the broad issue of increasing the nation's resilience to disasters. This book defines "national resilience", describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing resilience in the United States. It also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation's resilience to disasters. Additionally, the book's authoring committee makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters in the United States. Enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning to reduce disaster losses-rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it afterward. Disaster Resilience confronts the topic of how to increase the nation's resilience to disasters through a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030. Increasing disaster resilience is an imperative that requires the collective will of the nation and its communities. Although disasters will continue to occur, actions that move the nation from reactive approaches to disasters to a proactive stance where communities actively engage in enhancing resilience will reduce many of the broad societal and economic burdens that disasters can cause.

This book provides insight on how disaster risk management can increase the resilience of society to various natural hazards. The multi-dimensionality of resilience and the various different perspectives in regards to disaster risk reduction are taken explicitly into account by providing studies and approaches on different scales and ranging from natural science based methods to social science frameworks. For all chapters, special emphasis is placed on implementation aspects and specifically in regards to the targets and priorities for action laid out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The chapters provide also a starting point for interested readers on specific issues of resilience and therefore include extensive reference material and important future directions for research.