Abstract
There are few social science disaster scholars as well-known and respected as Professor Louise K. Comfort. In 1984, NASPAA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency initiated a program to jump start a disaster research community in public affairs and she was one of the few fellows who already had a significant research record related to natural disasters at the time. Since then, she has been involved in research teams following what seems like every major seismic event in the world. She has built networks of scientists, scholars, emergency managers, other experts, and supporters around the world to provide research assistance and to encourage greater attention to seismic and other risks.
In 1999, Professor Comfort was the author of Shared Risk: Complex Systems in Seismic Response (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press). That volume covered 11 earthquakes in nine countries, focusing on adaptive systems in the disaster responses and outlining her work over the previous 15 years. She conducted field research following the earthquakes, sometimes in the immediate aftermath. She also focused on the value that communities realize when they experience disasters. When community members were involved in disaster response and recovery, they learned how to perform search and rescue, feeding, evacuation, sheltering, and other disaster response and recovery functions. That learning was linked to resilience, particularly when communities in disaster-prone regions suffered multiple disasters.
The Dynamics of Risk begins where Shared Risk left off, adding 12 earthquakes between 1999 and 2015 and five countries to the 11 earthquakes in nine countries in the 1999 analysis. Central variables are identified, measurements are added, and a comparative methodology is developed. The response systems are classified in terms of the demonstrated levels of adaptability, flexibility, and cultural receptiveness to new information and approaches to action.
In the comparative analysis of earthquakes in Gujarat, India, in 2001; Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2004; Haiti in 2010; Wenchuan, China, in 2008; Pakistan in 2005; Chi Chi, Taiwan, in 1999; Marmara, Turkey, in 1999; Padang, Indonesia, in 2009; Lushan, China, in 2013; Gorkha, Nepal, in 2015; and, Tohoku, Japan in 2011, Professor Comfort focused whether the response systems were able to adapt and become resilient. Data included interviews, media accounts, and document analyses, as well as observations, and all were meticulously documented. The data were collected from network analyses, semi-structured interviews, media accounts, and document analyses, as well as the expertise of policy makers, scholars, scientific experts, and emergency managers.
The book is organized to focus on seismic risk as global and a public problem with shared risk and the importance of real measures of risk and data to inform decision making. Dimensions and probability of risk in complex systems and the need for the response systems to be adaptive. Using her methodology for comparative analysis of the case studies, Professor Comfort identifies critical variables and develops four types of response systems ranging from nonadaptive to much more adaptive systems.
Her work reflects the extensive involvement of local officials, including emergency managers, disaster researchers at local universities, graduate research assistants and post doc researchers, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and other universities in the United States and abroad. The network used is remarkable in many respects and reflects Professor Comfort’s experience with international collaborative efforts and the support of graduate students and junior colleagues whom she has introduced to social science disaster research.
As Professor Comfort notes on page 3, her foci were the networks of organizational and individual actors involved in the disaster response systems, the influence of technologies, differing assumptions concerning how response operations might be run, the scales of operation, and requirements for timely and informed collective action to organize and activate an effective operation. The focus is on how to manage risk in the 21st century, particularly in the world’s largest cities with significant seismic risk. A management design is suggested drawing on the breadth of social science research, including elements drawn from engineering and related disciplines.
The four types of response systems were identified in terms of their technical structure, organizational flexibility, and cultural openness. Systems were judged low, medium, or high on those dimensions and classified as nonadaptive, emergent adaptive, operative adaptive, or auto-adaptive based upon their scores. Among the systems analyzed, the nonadaptive systems were Bhuj, India, Sumatra, Indonesia, and Haiti. In these cases, the response was mostly ad hoc and coordination was very limited. The emergent adaptive systems were Marmara, Turkey; Chi Chi, Taiwan; Pakistan; and Wenchuan, China. In the Marmara case, the response was largely from public agencies and only loosely coordinated. The operative adaptive systems were Duzce, Turkey; Padang, Indonesia; Tohoku, Japan; and Nepal. In these cases, the responses were better organized, based upon prior experience with seismic disasters, and more diverse in terms of the actors involved. The sole system judged moving “toward an auto-adaptive system” was Lushan, China, and its response system was determined to be “medium” rather than “high” in terms of the three variables in the classification scheme.
The analysis also draws attention to the need for response systems that can self-organize to fit the challenges that might be presented by other types of disasters or hazards and to use those capacities to encourage resilience and sustainable performance. A well-developed technical structure, means of organizational flexibility, and cultural openness to new sources and kinds of information and new courses of action can be cultivated. A response system attentive to potential threats and possessing the capacity to monitor hazards, able to shift resources and nimble enough to act quickly, and willing to share information among the actors in the response system will be more effective. Also required are the internal capacity to address immediate needs in the aftermath of disaster and the capacity to integrate external resources, including external actors, in addressing needs. The initial challenge is to remove barriers to adaptation and build a path to resilience with that path being a process based upon increasing knowledge concerning hazards, rather than a presumed end state.
Professor Comfort provides a conceptual model for adaptation, learning, and resilience. She sees the next steps as encouraging (a) countries at risk to build their capacities for future action, including removing barriers to adaptation; (b) the developed countries to build an international “knowledge commons” focusing on informing scientists, scholars, policy makers, and the public about seismic risk, and assisting in the development of knowledge and capacities in the developing world; and (c) initiating programs to educate the next generation of scientists, scholars, students, policy makers, emergency managers, and citizens so that they can support the continuation of this effort. She has already turned her attention to the application of information technology to carry on these efforts. In short, this volume contains an empirical analysis based upon meticulous data collection and field research. It is also a call to action and presents an agenda that policy makers, scientists, researchers, emergency managers, and others can follow.
The Dynamics of Risk will prove invaluable to researchers seeking to give order to data on seismic events, policy makers and emergency managers trying to overcome obstacles to their efforts to improve seismic policies and programs, and students trying to understand the complexity of seismic disasters and response systems. All will appreciate the lens that Professor Comfort provides on seismic risk and the systems we use to address it. Professor Comfort’s disciplinary perspective is also valuable. Her work is grounded in theory but animated by data and disaster experience.
