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Approaching disaster management through social learning

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 Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal
Approaching disaster management through social learning
Geoff O'Brien Phil O'Keefe Zaina Gadema Jon Swords
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Geoff O'Brien Phil O'Keefe Zaina Gadema Jon Swords, (2010),"Approaching disaster management through
social learning", Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 19 Iss 4 pp. 498 - 508
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DPM
19,4 Approaching disaster
management through
social learning
498
Geoff O’Brien, Phil O’Keefe, Zaina Gadema and Jon Swords
Geography and Environment, School of Applied Sciences,
Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Abstract
Purpose – Coping with and adjusting to disruptive challenges has always been a characteristic of
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human development. Formalisation of this has led to the emergence of a number approaches
addressing disruptive challenges. Often formalised practice has a narrow focus. Increasingly complex
challenges require a refocus of formalised approaches. Drawing from these approaches, the purpose of
this paper is to posit that a greater focus on preparedness through pre-disaster planning is needed for a
more holistic approach to disaster management.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the evolution of disaster management
thinking and practice and proposes that changes are needed to the dominant disaster management
model. These changes are drawn from a number of alternative perspectives. Based on the uncertainties
surrounding complex or “wicked” problems, for example, climate change and variability, this paper
develops a more holistic approach.
Findings – Responding to “wicked problems” requires a greater focus on preparedness. In terms of
disaster risk reduction a greater emphasis on pre-disaster planning is needed driven by social learning
processes.
Originality/value – Faced with an increasingly uncertain and complex future, current approaches to
conceptualising disaster management are inadequate. This paper develops an approach that is likely
to be more effective.
Keywords Disasters, Risk analysis, Social processes, Learning, Sustainable development
Paper type Conceptual paper

Disaster Prevention and Management
Vol. 19 No. 4, 2010
pp. 498-508
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0965-3562
DOI 10.1108/09653561011070402
Introduction
Alexander (1993) identifies six approaches to disaster research (geographical,
anthropological, sociological, developmental, medical and technical) but the most
dominant disciplines, particularly post Second World War, are geography and sociology
(Alexander, 1993). The geographical approach focuses on human-environment
interactions, whereas the sociological approach has as its premise that disasters are
social events that reflect the ways, we live and structure our societies and communities.
The sociological research led by Dynes and Quarantelli has largely been developed
world focused and addresses essentially the problem of response to an analysis of
collective organisational behaviour. It usefully criticised natural hazards work, which
we will address later, as having too much of an emphasis on the individual cause of
disaster, e.g. fire, earthquake and flood (Quarantelli, 1992). Critics of the sociological
school note that its focus on organisation is primarily to improve the command
and control system in response mode. Most acutely, Hewitt (1998, p. 77) notes that
such an authoritarian outcome is really addressing social problems without social
content.
 In many instances, particularly in the developed world, practice is formalised and DM through
institutionalised. Practice is often aimed at building institutional capacity and social learning
resilience (O’Brien, 2006, 2008a, b). Disaster management is often described as a cycle,
shown in Figure 1.
This figure suggests equal emphasis on the different phases of the cycle but, in
reality, the emphasis is on response. Certainly, in terms of media coverage, it is the
event and the response stages that generate most interest with longer term recovery, 499
mitigation and preparedness generating considerably less, if any.
Lessons learned are often not incorporated into wider governance processes.
Learning is often characterised as only “doing it better” as opposed to “doing it
differently”. Quite simply, the drive is to respond better rather than rethink the problem.
Advice about flood, for example, is often subordinated to land development pressures
despite the known risk of flooding on the assumption that responses will be improved in
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the future. Even where there is evidence of social learning driving community-based
planning for disasters, this has arisen in the main because of a lack of resources
(the term disaster implies an overwhelming of coping capacity).
Global disasters have a tendency to drive changes in the conceptualisation of disaster
preparedness and response. Following the 1970s cyclone in Bangladesh, the drive was
for improved warning and communication systems at the community level. Following
the Kobe earthquake of 1995, the drive has been for community preparedness, including
significant efforts to raise awareness including the formal education through the school
system. A similar range of change has been ushered in by the impact of the tsunami,
2004, most notably, a rethink of coastal land use. The question is does it have to be a
big event to learn better disaster planning?
A critical issue in building social learning is what kind of disaster planning are we
trying to address? To date, the model of social learning has been one that builds on
experience in emergency planning which can be viewed as a preventive and response
learning to routine events such as traffic accidents. This is a necessary but not
sufficient as a base for disaster management of known unknowns. To address this, it is
necessary to go back to arguments about academic understanding of risk rather than
vocational knowledge of risk.

Locating disaster management in context of natural hazard research

We no longer think of disasters as having a divine origin or intent (“acts of God”) but
recognise that the source of disaster is rooted in the relationship between peoples and

Event

Preparedness Response

Figure 1.
The disaster management
Mitigation Recovery cycle
 DPM their environments. Much of this change in viewpoint is established in the natural
19,4 hazard tradition of geography but it requires a wider understanding of environmental
geography to locate the critical debates.
Smith (1984) brought together the physical and social worlds through his commentary
on uneven nature development that linked modes of production to the production of nature
and, thus, space. This construction of space builds on Zimmerman’s (1933) view of
500 resources, where resources do not exist but become. That form of becoming varies from
mode of production to mode of production, for example, steel, not flint under capitalism for
tool-making, buildings, not caves for dwellings. However, the construction of space and
the consequent becoming of resources produce new risks.
We can explore this further. Communities moving to the new urban areas generated
by the industrial revolution, or those in the developing world experiencing similar
urbanisation today, moved from an environment where risk was broadly related to the
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“vagaries of nature”, e.g. crop failure, to an environment where new and additional risks
were produced, e.g. chemical explosion. By additional, we mean that there is a different
relationship with risk generated by the “vagaries of nature”, not the elimination of risk.
In that sense risk chains are created in a context of increasing material development.
This is shown in Figure 2.
In geography, the natural hazard paradigm was initially centred around the leadership
of Gilbert White at the University of Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s with a focus
on water resources, particularly flooding and other natural hazards. He found himself
working on a new geography of perception, the world inside people’s minds (Johnston and
Sidaway, 2004). A major exponent of this geography with a behaviourist approach was
Kates (1962, p. 1) who in the introduction to his study on flood plain management wrote:
The way men[sic] view the risks and opportunities of their uncertain environments plays a
significant role in their decisions as to resource management.
Kates himself built his understanding on the work of Simon (1957) whose approach to
decision making in economics was to reject optimum economic behaviour of profit

Vagaries Human-
of nature environment
interaction

Production
of nature

Generation of Production
new risks of space

Spiralling
Figure 2. development
Human-environment
interactions Resources
becoming
 maximisation in favour of a bounded rationality, where people satisficed making DM through
“bounded rational decisions” in pursuing economic strategies. A simple example would social learning
be of people who choose to live in a coastal earthquake zone, such as San Francisco or
Kobe because the fault lines offer deep silt free harbours for the economic development
of marine transport while simultaneously harbouring levels of earthquake risk.
There was, however, a significant critique of this approach. Notably, Smith and
O’Keefe (1980, 1985) argued that geography displayed three major ways in dealing 501
with people-nature relations in hazard research, which were the consequences of a
positivist approach to the hazard question. McManus (2000) describes the critique as
withering and lists the three major ways which Smith and O’Keefe (1980) illustrate the
poverty of the hazards research school, namely where:
(1) nature is separated from human activity;
(2) nature is seen as natural and only hazardous when it intersects with human
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activity (Burton et al., 1993); and

(3) humans are assumed to be absorbed by nature.

McManus (2000, p. 217) further notes:

The first approach focuses attention on “natural causes” of disasters, rather than human
vulnerability; the second is presented as a technocratic agenda to control nature, while the
third is seen as Malthusian because it blames the victims.
The reasons for this strong critique rest in earlier work by O’Keefe et al. (1976)
highlighting the importance of understanding social vulnerability which implied
changing levels of risk in changing conditions of political economy. A parallel critique
of the hazards paradigm emerged in the 1980s sensitive to the globalising tendency of
the hazards paradigm and demanding a more progressive people focused approach to
disaster planning (Hewitt, 1983). Taken together, this people focus suggested there
should be new ways of learning about disaster management but little work has been
attempted on learning about known unknowns.

Wicked problems
Recently sources of risk have multiplied with increasing technological development
and geopolitical instability where the vagaries of nature are essentially produced. This
is shown in Figure 3 where the generation of new risks such as the generation of
greenhouse gases, is beginning to modify or alter environmental conditions.
The dominant model for disaster management is the “all-hazards” approach
(Quarantelli, 1992; Sikich, 1993; Alexander, 2005). This should be sufficiently robust to
deal with rapid and slow onset disruptions. Climate change and variability provides a
useful perspective from which to consider approaches to disaster management.
The anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases by, primarily, the industrialised
countries, is generating a new family of produced unknowns. Though known in
general terms, the “what” and the “when” cannot be predicted with any accuracy. It is
generally accepted that anthropogenic activities are driving changes in the climate
system (IPCC, 2007). This can be described as a “wicked problem” as there is little
opportunity to learn by trial and error or any exit point from the problem (Richey, 2007).
Stehr and von Storch (2005) characterise the risk reduction strategies (adaptation and
mitigation) articulated in the climate convention as adaptation protecting us from nature
 DPM Vagaries Human-
of nature environment
19,4 interaction

Event

Influence/modify
Preparedness Response
Production
502 of nature

Generation of Production
new risks of space
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Figure 3. Spiralling
development
Conventional disaster
management within Resources
becoming
human-environment
interactions
Mitigation Recovery

and mitigation as protecting nature from us. Given the multi-faceted nature of those
approaches needed to respond to such problems, it is clear that Figure 3 only shows how
to do things the same in an unchanged manner and does not rise to the challenge of
learning and doing things differently.
This does not mean that the disaster cycle as shown in Figure 3 has no validity.
This approach can be regarded as effective for routine events that do not exceed social
expectations, such as accidents and emergencies. There is considerable experience and
expertise in what is an increasingly professionalised sector. However, responding to
produced unknowns will require a much broader focus than just institutional.
It requires a focus on doing things differently.

Re-thinking disaster management

Earlier we discussed the notion of risk chains. Risk is a social construct and the notion of
chains does not refer to the spatial distribution but the interconnectedness of actors in
the chain. Distancing an actor in the chain lessens the effectiveness of risk management
( Jasanoff, 1997). Failing to communicate information effectively about a hazard can pose
a threat to actors in the risk chain. Distorting information or being dishonest can
undermine confidence that could lead to schisms between actors in the chain as was seen
in the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemic in the UK (de Marchi and
Ravetz, 1999). This is shown in Figure 4. The arrow labelled “ideal” illustrates that
involving all actors in the chain acts to lower risk. It is possible (and desirable) to move to
a position where involvement is maximised as shown by the arrow labelled “possible”.
The arrow labelled “current?” illustrates the evolution of the risk chain in the UK.
The starting point is the BSE episode and efforts by the UK Government to restore
public confidence. Arguably, some level of success was achieved by the response to the
Year 2000 issue and the commitment to reform the existing emergency planning and
response system. However, the reforms were overshadowed by 9/11 with a greater
emphasis on the risk of terrorism (O’Brien and Read, 2005). Attempts by the UK
Government (2004) to communicate through the chain were not effective, demonstrated
 High involvement DM through
lowers risk
High social learning
Ideal
Community involvement

Possible
503

Current?

Low involvement
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increases risk
Low
Low High
Figure 4.
Risk mapping
Risk

by the publication of a poorly designed and informed booklet, “Preparing for

emergencies, what you need to know”, distributed to all UK households.
Events post 9/11 have impacted the relationship between two major actors in the UK
chain; government and the public. For example, the Iraq Dossier undermined public
confidence in the honesty of government. However, the speed at which people returned to
using the underground transport system in London following the terrorist attack in 2005
illustrates growing public confidence in the response and security services as well as the
London authorities. The recent credit crunch has further undermined public confidence
in the integrity and capability of the financial services sector and the Parliamentary
expense scandal has also gone some way to undermine trust in elected representatives.
The gap between the government and the public appears to be growing. Renewing the
partnership between government and the public requires good governance that exhibits
characteristics as participation, transparency, equity, efficiency and accountability
(Bermann and Redlener, 2006). Risk management similarly requires good governance to
be effective, essentially confidence in the rule makers by those to whom the rules apply.
Re-building public confidence can be a slow and challenging process. Effective risk
management requires engagement at all levels in identifying, prioritising, warning and
informing; essentially this is building capacity about potential risk. For routine hazards,
that are those hazards where a level of judgement based on empirical data, analysis,
testing or experience exists, produces objective information on the potential for danger.
It is at this point that current systems can be regarded as effective. Where there is great
uncertainty, for example events that may occur at a future time, then current
approaches to risk and subsequently response, are less effective.
In reality, this will require a new connection between people and the world we live in and
produce. Disaster management cannot be isolated, should be broadly based and recognise
that we are all first responders. The main aim of disaster management should be focused
on preparedness. In some senses, this implies a return to the development of local coping
strategies to make communities more resilient in the face of change, as a resilient
community is better able to cope with change and adjust to new realities.
 DPM Wicked problems and disaster management
19,4 Climate change and variability is a wicked problem. There are huge uncertainties that
effectively nullify attempts to plan an effective response. In terms of mitigation or
future risk reduction, there is uncertainty on whether or not a global agreement can be
reached. If agreement is reached, there is uncertainty over what stabilisation level and
timetable to reach that will be agreed. Even if targets are established there will still be
504 many uncertainties about them being reached. One further series of unknowns is the
prevailing environmental conditions that will exist after an agreed stabilisation target
has been met and reached. In terms of adaptation, there is uncertainty on the
availability of funding for developing countries and the costs of adaptation. The Stern
(2007) review showed that it was more cost effective to act now than to delay. However,
more recently, Stern has stated that he believes his initial assessment of 1 per cent of
global gross domestic product (GDP) spend to tackle climate change and prevent
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potential damages of between 5 to 20 per cent of global GDP may be too little and
suggests that the figure may have to be revised upwards by 50 per cent (McCarthy,
2009). In short, there are a host of unknowns being produced by anthropogenic
interference with the climate system.
Problems will occur at all scales. As such, responses are needed from the global to
the local. Globally, dialogue has started between the climate (UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) and disaster communities UNFCCC and UN
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), respectively (UN/ISDR,
2006). This is welcome. UNN/ISDR, through the Hyogo framework, advocates that
dealing with the multiplicity of problems we face requires of focus on building the
resilience of communities to cope and responds to disruptive challenges (HFA, 2005).
Resilience building from the community level is the pathway to greater community
involvement as shown in Figure 4, but will require a re-think by all organisations
involved in disaster management. Instead of an event focus, disaster management will
need to have a resilience building focus.
Building resilience recognises that human-environment interactions are both the
cause of increased risk, but also the space where interventions can refocus efforts on
preparedness, built on local knowledge, informed by predictions of likely climate
impacts. It also requires a shift in the behaviour of response agencies with a greater focus
on preparedness achieved through resilience building that enhances coping capacity.
The conventional disaster management cycle tends to be locked into a process of
single-loop learning where the emphasis is on institutional resilience and improved
performance within given parameters. This lacks the richness of local knowledge and
experience necessary to build effective preparedness in responding to produced
unknowns. We argue that a paradigm shift is needed. The new paradigm needs to focus
on people and their environment and use learning methods to develop preparedness.
This does not exclude response bodies, they are essential for resilience building,
but argues that there are two distinct roles for these bodies. This is shown in Figure 5.
The double-loop approach set out in Figure 5 recognises the importance of
conventional disaster management approaches to routine emergencies. We cannot
eliminate risk. However, the second loop (“new learning modes”) is where resilience
building is approached by doing things differently. The key shift is in the “transition
and learning zone”. Learning from events, we argue, should be a catalyst for thinking
about how we do things. In the UK for example, in the fire and rescue service the shift
 Institutional
review
DM through
social learning
New learning Emerging approach to disaster
modes
management with focus on
pre-disaster planning
Resilience Emergent paradigm
building changing world view
Produced
Increasing 505
coping capacity
unknowns increasing

Range of Transition and

events learning zone
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Continue routine
emergency events
Response
Mitigation
and recovery
Routine single-loop Conventional disaster
learning management cycle Figure 5.
Re-conceptualising
disaster management
Preparedness

from “fire fighting” to “fire prevention” exhibits the shift in emphasis of institutional
thinking; from reactive (putting out fires) to proactive (preventing fires). This has been
remarkably successful. However, the scale and intensity of climate driven events will
require further institutional innovation. In the 2007 floods in the UK the emergency
services were stretched to breaking point. This was not due to a lack of competence.
Rather, it was more about the dearth of personnel and resources available within those
services. This brings us to the distinction between disasters and emergencies.
An emergency is usually described as a threatening condition that requires urgent
action, where effective emergency action can avoid the escalation of an event into a
disaster. A disaster is usually regarded as an event that overwhelms coping capacity
and can require external assistance. UN/ISDR (2009) defines a disaster as:
A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread
human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of
the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.
The Pitt (2007) review of the UK floods points out that new thinking is needed to deal
with future episodes. It is likely that increasing violent and frequent climate driven
events will lead to disasters. We know that they will occur but the timing, location,
scale and intensity cannot be predicted with precision. The most effective approach is
to focus on the preparedness of communities by building resilience. This implies a shift
in thinking at the community level and a shift in thinking at the institutional level. We
argue that the starting point for building this new paradigm lies in the principles of
pre-disaster planning set out in Table I.
 DPM
Pre-disaster planning principles
19,4
Sustainable development
Risk avoidance
506 Embedded in policy and practices
Distributed to the appropriate level
Shared responsibility
Learning from scientific evidence, indigenous All knowledge is important but of equal importance,
knowledge and experience
Adjusting to changes
Organisational and social learning
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Comment
An approach that focuses on reducing risk both now
and in the future
Developments should be evaluated from a risk
reduction perspective
Change should be normalised
It is both top down and bottom up
The basis for renewing the preparedness partnership
between government and people
is effective communication and dissemination
A recognition that the future may be very different
Thinking differently and learning about how we

approach problems related to change should be the

Table I.
norm
Pre-disaster planning
principles Source: Adapted from O’Brien (2008a, b)

These principles can be used in the resilience building as envisaged as in the

“new learning modes” of Figure 5. Resilience building is needed in pre-disaster planning
within a context of sustainable development to develop the social and institutional
capacity to respond to produced unknowns. Resilience is argued as process that aims to
reduce harm, both now and in the future. The focus of resilience is on wellbeing.
Resilience building is a learning process at all levels. Institutional learning empowers at
the local level and strengthens governance. This is negotiation not imposition.
Responding to the threat of produced unknowns require both current and future
strategies. Strategies are needed to respond to and cope with disruptive challenges
generated by a changing climate. Resilience recognises that there is no steady-state or
end result. It is process without end that has, at its core, the notions of entitlements and
governance.

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About the authors

Geoff O’Brien is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development
(undergraduate) and Disaster Management and Sustainable Development (postgraduate) at
Northumbria University. He is a member of the Disaster and Development Centre within the
university. The centre undertakes a range of research into disaster management. O’Brien’s current
research interests are in resilient approaches to disaster management. Geoff O’Brien is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at: geoff.obrien@northumbria.ac.uk
Phil O’Keefe is a Professor of Economic Development and Environmental Management at
Northumbria University. O’Keefe’s research interests focus on the political economy of
environmental issues with particular reference to Eastern and Southern Africa. He has written
extensively on environmental risk and hazard which, over the last 15 years, has increasingly
focused on the delivery of humanitarian assistance after natural disaster and in complex
emergencies. He is actively involved in broader debates about the production of nature,
sustainability, vulnerability and poverty alleviation, contributing to major global policy
documents as well as polemically challenging what this policy means in practice.
Zaina Gadema is a PhD research student at Northumbria University who is looking at carbon
footprinting and sustainability issues surrounding food supply chains within the context of
economic and food geographies. Gadema’s research interests lie within the geographical and
environmental management-science domains, particularly the multi-faceted nature of the climate
change debate, risk and resilience issues and different perspectives that shape such debates, such as
the political economy lense. Other interests relate to subjects including, but not limited to, energy,
climate change, sustainability, social justice, gender, international development and biodiversity.
Jon Swords is a Lecturer in Economic Geography at Northumbria University. Swords’s
research interests are in critical understandings of local and regional development, specifically
emerging debates about how, and for whom development policy is constructed. In addition to
this, Swords is concerned with the role of meso-level governance institutions and their role in the
relationship between the “global” and the “local”. Swords has particular interests in the role of
national parks in this process, and the potential they possess for development that goes beyond
the economic. Related to this, he is interested in how heritage is conceptualised and catalysed in
economic, environment and community development trajectories.

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