DEFINITIONS OF DISASTER (EMERGENCY) ADMINISTRATION

Acceptable risk

Definition:

The level of potential losses that a society or community considers acceptable given existing social, economic, political, cultural, technical and environmental conditions.

Adaptation: Definition:

The adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.

Comment: This definition addresses the concerns of climate change and is sourced from the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The broader concept of adaptation also applies to non-climatic factors such as soil erosion or surface subsidence. Adaptation can occur in autonomous fashion, for example through market changes, or as a result of intentional adaptation policies and plans. Many disaster risk reduction measures can directly contribute to better adaptation.

Contingency planning

Definition:

A management process that analyses specific potential events or emerging situations that might threaten society or the environment and establishes arrangements in advance to enable timely, effective and appropriate responses to such events and situations.

Comment: Contingency planning results in organized and coordinated courses of action with clearly-identified institutional roles and resources, information processes, and operational arrangements for specific actors at times of need. Based on scenarios of possible emergency conditions or disaster events, it allows key actors to envision, anticipate and solve problems that can arise during crises. Contingency planning is an important part of overall preparedness. Contingency plans need to be regularly updated and exercised.

Corrective disaster risk management:

Definition:

Management activities that address and seek to correct or reduce disaster risks which are already present.

Comment: This concept aims to distinguish between the risks that are already present, and which need to be managed and reduced now, and the prospective risks that may develop in future if risk reduction policies are not put in place.

Disasters

Definition:

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.

Comment: Disasters are often described as a result of the combination of: the exposure to a hazard; the conditions of vulnerability that are present; and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with the potential negative consequences. Disaster impacts may include loss of life, injury, disease and other negative effects on human physical, mental and social well-being, together with damage to property, destruction of assets, loss of services, social and economic disruption and environmental degradation.

Disaster risk

Definition:

The potential disaster losses, in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services, which could occur to a particular community or a society over some specified future time period.

Comment: The definition of disaster risk reflects the concept of disasters as the outcome of continuously present conditions of risk. Disaster risk comprises different types of potential losses which are often difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, with knowledge of the prevailing hazards and the patterns of population and socio-economic development, disaster risks can be assessed and mapped, in broad terms at least.

Disaster risk reduction plans

Definition:

A document prepared by an authority, sector, organization or enterprise that sets out goals and specific objectives for reducing disaster risks together with related actions to accomplish these objectives.

Comment: Disaster risk reduction plans should be guided by the Hyogo Framework and considered and coordinated within relevant development plans, resource allocations and programme activities. National level plans needs to be specific to each level of administrative responsibility and adapted to the different social and geographical circumstances that are present. The time frame and responsibilities for implementation and the sources of funding should be specified in the plan. Linkages to climate change adaptation plans should be made where possible.

Prevention

Definition:

The outright avoidance of adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters.

Comment: Prevention (i.e. disaster prevention) expresses the concept and intention to completely avoid potential adverse impacts through action taken in advance. Examples include dams or embankments that eliminate flood risks, land-use regulations that do not permit any settlement in high risk zones, and seismic engineering designs that ensure the survival and function of a critical building in any likely earthquake. Very often the complete avoidance of losses is not feasible and the task transforms to that of mitigation. Partly for this reason, the terms prevention and mitigation are sometimes used interchangeably in casual use.

Resilience

Definition:

The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.

Comment: Resilience means the ability to “resile from” or “spring back from” a shock. The resilience of a community in respect to potential hazard events is determined by the degree to which the community has the necessary resources and is capable of organizing itself both prior to and during times of need.

Risk

Definition:

The combination of the probability of an event and its negative consequences.

Comment: This definition closely follows the definition of the ISO/IEC Guide 73. The word “risk” has two distinctive connotations: in popular usage the emphasis is usually placed on the concept of chance or possibility, such as in “the risk of an accident”; whereas in technical settings the emphasis is usually placed on the consequences, in terms of “potential losses” for some particular cause, place and period. It can be noted that people do not necessarily share the same perceptions of the significance and underlying causes of different risks.

Recovery

Definition:

The restoration, and improvement where appropriate, of facilities, livelihoods and living conditions of disaster-affected communities, including efforts to reduce disaster risk factors.

Comment: The recovery task of rehabilitation and reconstruction begins soon after the emergency phase has ended, and should be based on pre-existing strategies and policies that facilitate clear institutional responsibilities for recovery action and enable public participation. Recovery programmes, coupled with the heightened public awareness and engagement after a disaster, afford a valuable opportunity to develop and implement disaster risk reduction measures and to apply the “build back better” principle.

Socio- natural hazard

Definition:

The phenomenon of increased occurrence of certain geophysical and hydrometeorological hazard events, such as landslides, flooding, land subsidence and drought, that arise from the interaction of natural hazards with overexploited or degraded land and environmental resources.

Comment: This term is used for the circumstances where human activity is increasing the occurrence of certain hazards beyond their natural probabilities. Evidence points to a growing disaster burden from such hazards. Socio-natural hazards can be reduced and avoided through wise management of land and environmental resources.

Sustainable development

Definition:

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Comment: This definition coined by the 1987 Brundtland Commission is very succinct but it leaves unanswered many questions regarding the meaning of the word development and the social, economic and environmental processes involved. Disaster risk is associated with unsustainable elements of development such as environmental degradation, while conversely disaster risk reduction can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, through reduced losses and improved development practices.

Technological hazards

Definition:

A hazard originating from technological or industrial conditions, including accidents, dangerous procedures, infrastructure failures or specific human activities, that may cause loss of life, injury, illness or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage.

Comment: Examples of technological hazards include industrial pollution, nuclear radiation, toxic wastes, dam failures, transport accidents, factory explosions, fires, and chemical spills. Technological hazards also may arise directly as a result of the impacts of a natural hazard event.

Prospective disaster risk management

Definition:

Management activities that address and seek to avoid the development of new or increased disaster risks.

Comment: This concept focuses on addressing risks that may develop in future if risk reduction policies are not put in place, rather than on the risks that are already present and which can be managed and reduced now.

Vulnerability

Definition:

The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.

Comment: There are many aspects of vulnerability, arising from various physical, social, economic, and environmental factors. Examples may include poor design and construction of buildings, inadequate protection of assets, lack of public information and awareness, limited official recognition of risks and preparedness measures, and disregard for wise environmental management. Vulnerability varies significantly within a community and over time. This definition identifies vulnerability as a characteristic of the element of interest (community, system or asset) which is independent of its exposure. However, in common use the word is often used more broadly to include the element’s exposure.

Intensive risk

Definition:

The risk associated with the exposure of large concentrations of people and economic activities to intense hazard events, which can lead to potentially catastrophic disaster impacts involving high mortality and asset loss.

Comment: Intensive risk is mainly a characteristic of large cities or densely populated areas that are not only exposed to intense hazards such as strong earthquakes, active volcanoes, heavy floods, tsunamis, or major storms but also have high levels of vulnerability to these hazards.

Greenhouse gases

Definition:

Gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation of thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds.

Comment: This is the definition of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The main greenhouse gases (GHG) are water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and ozone.

Emergency services

Definition:

The set of specialized agencies that have specific responsibilities and objectives in serving and protecting people and property in emergency situations.

Comment: Emergency services include agencies such as civil protection authorities, police, fire, ambulance, paramedic and emergency medicine services, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, and specialized emergency units of electricity, transportation, communications and other related services organizations.

Emergency management

Definition:

The organization and management of resources and responsibilities for addressing all aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and initial recovery steps.

Comment: A crisis or emergency is a threatening condition that requires urgent action. Effective emergency action can avoid the escalation of an event into a disaster. Emergency management involves plans and institutional arrangements to engage and guide the efforts of government, non-government, voluntary and private agencies in comprehensive and coordinated ways to respond to the entire spectrum of emergency needs. The expression “disaster management” is sometimes used instead of emergency management.

Public awareness

Definition:

The extent of common knowledge about disaster risks, the factors that lead to disasters and the actions that can be taken individually and collectively to reduce exposure and vulnerability to hazards.

Comment: Public awareness is a key factor in effective disaster risk reduction. Its development is pursued, for example, through the development and dissemination of information through media and educational channels, the establishment of information centres, networks, and community or participation actions, and advocacy by senior public officials and community leaders.

Mitigation

Definition:

The lessening or limitation of the adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters.

Comment: The adverse impacts of hazards often cannot be prevented fully, but their scale or severity can be substantially lessened by various strategies and actions. Mitigation measures encompass engineering techniques and hazard-resistant construction as well as improved environmental policies and public awareness. It should be noted that in climate change policy, “mitigation” is defined differently, being the term used for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that are the source of climate change.

Forecast

Definition:

Definite statement or statistical estimate of the likely occurrence of a future event or conditions for a specific area.

Comment: In meteorology a forecast refers to a future condition, whereas a warning refers to a potentially dangerous future condition.

National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

Definition:

A generic term for national mechanisms for coordination and policy guidance on disaster risk reduction that are multi-sectoral and inter-disciplinary in nature, with public, private and civil society participation involving all concerned entities within a country.

Comment: This definition is derived from footnote 10 of the Hyogo Framework. Disaster risk reduction requires the knowledge, capacities and inputs of a wide range of sectors and organisations, including United Nations agencies present at the national level, as appropriate. Most sectors are affected directly or indirectly by disasters and many have specific responsibilities that impinge upon disaster risks. National platforms provide a means to enhance national action to reduce disaster risks, and they represent the national mechanism for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

 

Structural and non-structural measures

 Definition:

Structural measures: Any physical construction to reduce or avoid possible impacts of hazards, or application of engineering techniques to achieve hazard-resistance and resilience in structures or systems;

Non-structural measures: Any measure not involving physical construction that uses knowledge, practice or agreement to reduce risks and impacts, in particular through policies and laws, public awareness raising, training and education.

Comment: Common structural measures for disaster risk reduction include dams, flood levies, ocean wave barriers, earthquake-resistant construction, and evacuation shelters. Common non-structural measures include building codes, land use planning laws and their enforcement, research and assessment, information resources, and public awareness programmes. Note that in civil and structural engineering, the term “structural” is used in a more restricted sense to mean just the load-bearing structure, with other parts such as wall cladding and interior fittings being termed non-structural.

Climate change

Definition:

(a) The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change as: “a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use”.

(b) The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines climate change as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”.

Comment: For disaster risk reduction purposes, either of these definitions may be suitable, depending on the particular context. The UNFCCC definition is the more restricted one as it excludes climate changes attributable to natural causes. The IPCC definition can be paraphrased for popular communications as “A change in the climate that persists for decades or longer, arising from either natural causes or human activity.”

Contingency planning

Definition:

A management process that analyses specific potential events or emerging situations that might threaten society or the environment and establishes arrangements in advance to enable timely, effective and appropriate responses to such events and situations.

Comment: Contingency planning results in organized and coordinated courses of action with clearly-identified institutional roles and resources, information processes, and operational arrangements for specific actors at times of need. Based on scenarios of possible emergency conditions or disaster events, it allows key actors to envision, anticipate and solve problems that can arise during crises. Contingency planning is an important part of overall preparedness. Contingency plans need to be regularly updated and exercised.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation

Definition:

A complex interaction of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the global atmosphere that results in irregularly occurring episodes of changed ocean and weather patterns in many parts of the world, often with significant impacts over many months, such as altered marine habitats, rainfall changes, floods, droughts, and changes in storm patterns.

Comment: The El Niño part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon refers to the well-above-average ocean temperatures that occur along the coasts of Ecuador, Peru and northern Chile and across the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, while La Niña part refers to the opposite circumstances when well-below-average ocean temperatures occur. The Southern Oscillation refers to the accompanying changes in the global air pressure patterns that are associated with the changed weather patterns experienced in different parts of the world.