# **Geography's Contributions to Understanding Hazards and Disasters**

James M. Kendra, Ph.D.

Emergency Administration and Planning Program

Department of Public Administration

University of North Texas

Denton, Texas 76203

jmkendra@unt.edu

# Abstract

Geography has a many-decades long record of research and practical
application in understanding and managing hazard and disaster. This
chapter reviews some the major points of geographic connection to these
areas. It examines some of the earlier conceptions of geography's
interest in human-environment interactions and discusses shifts in
understanding the nature of hazard, including recent emphasis on
vulnerability. The chapter notes some possible future directions and
research needs from across the social sciences, and concludes by arguing
that changing and elusive hazards create a need for continued robust
research.[^1]

# Introduction

# Geographers have had a longstanding role to play in understanding the full range of crises brought on through interactions of natural and social systems, and the discipline is generally recognized as one of the founding disciplines of hazard as a field of study. Topics for research have included, on the natural hazards side, the full range of geological and atmospheric agents, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, riverine and coastal flooding, drought, and, increasingly, global warming. As for technological hazards, research has included studies of response to nuclear accidents and the siting and distribution of hazardous waste storage facilities and their proximity to other land uses, such as residential areas. While it is often convenient for discussion to place hazards into discreet categories: natural and technological (or anthropogenic), researchers have argued that it is not possible to make a bold division between the two (Alexander, 1993; Cutter, 1994). 

Mitchell (1990), for example, argues that hazards can be seen as
*mismatches* of human and environmental or technological systems. An
axiom in geography is that a hazard is a "threat to people and what they
value" (Harris, Hohenemser, and Kates, 1978); hence if people or their
goods are not "in the way" of powerful geophysical or climatological
agents, there is no hazard, because there is no one there to be
threatened. Extending this theme, hazards don't exist as things in and
of themselves; rather, they are created by people who place themselves,
and that which they value, in places that are subject to climatological,
geophysical, or technological extremes. They are the products of
particular social, political, and economic decisions that are made
either without sufficient knowledge of the environment, without the
capacity to make different decisions, or are made with some calculation
or hope that "it" (flood, earthquake, wildfire) won't happen in a
timeframe that will negatively affect the decisionmaker.

[Who is a geographer?]{.underline}

Sometimes identifying who is a geographer is difficult; people whose
academic degrees are not in geography may be doing work that is
geographic, while people with training in geography may hold jobs that
do not appear to be geographic (though the person might or might not use
geographic skills). An old joke held that "geography is what geographers
do," suggesting that people gathered around the name or the theme of
geographic work even though there was disagreement about what
constituted truly geographic methods. Certainly, geographers are
concerned with the distribution of various kinds of social, biological,
and geomorphological phenomena over space. *Where* something happens,
and why it happens there, are the questions that distinguish geographic
approaches to understanding the world from the approaches of other
scientific disciplines, and concerning risk, hazard, and disaster,
geographers are interested in the interaction of social, physical,
technological, and political/legal systems.

Geographers generally trace the foundation of the geographic approach to
hazard to Harlan Barrows' (1923) conception of geography as "human
ecology," the interaction of people and the natural environment
(Alexander, 1993; Cutter et al. 2000). In trying to ground geography in
a set of perspectives and approaches that would distinguish it from
other sciences---some of which, such as sociology and psychology, were
still comparatively young themselves, and seeking their own disciplinary
identity, Barrows argued that the human ecological perspective offered
an approach that resonated with geographers' interest in both the
natural environment and human activity in relation to it. At the same
time, Barrows set the stage for maintaining intellectual contact with
the environment while shedding the perspective of *environmental
determinism*, popular at the turn of the last century, that held the
view that the moral qualities and cultural characteristics of groups are
determined by their environment.

> ...geography is the science of *human ecology*. The implications of
> the term "human ecology" make evident at once what I believe will be
> in future the objective of geographic inquiry. Geography will aim to
> make clear the relationships existing between natural environments and
> the distribution and activities of man. Geographers will, I think, be
> wise to view this problem in general from the standpoint of man's
> adjustment to environment, rather than from that of environmental
> influence. The former approach is much more likely to result in the
> recognition and proper valuation of all the factors involved, and
> especially to minimize the danger of assigning to the environmental
> factors a determinative influence which they do not exert (Barrows,
> 1923: 3).

Over time, of course, geographers' interests shifted, so that Barrows'
conception of geography as principally human ecology never became the
defining principle, though in many of the discipline's subfields it
remains at least an implicit orientation. Moreover some areas, such as
climatology, that Barrows thought should stand alone or join some other
discipline (and which he referred to as "peripheral specialisms") have
become prominent branches of contemporary geography even though they
share interests and methods with other fields of study.

Most geographers credit Barrows' student, Gilbert White, with
inaugurating the essential research directions and fundamental
methodological approaches that continue to inform contemporary thinking
about hazards (Mitchell, 1990; Cutter, 2001a). White (1973: 188)
summarized his work on the perception of floodplain occupants to the
risks of living there and the differential adjustments (*modifying the
cause*, *modifying the loss*, or *distributing the loss*) that they
adopted in different places and at different times. This work conducted
by White and his colleagues had two basic goals, one that was
policy-oriented and one oriented toward understanding the cognitive
aspect of human behavior with respect to the creation or mitigation of
hazard.

The policy aspect centered on evaluating the efficacy of several billion
dollars of flood control projects on the Western rivers. Congress
approved the Flood Control Act of 1936 after multiple severe floods;
White and other geographers sought to learn if these had in fact been
successful in reducing flood losses (White, 1973).

> In brief, it was found that while flood-control expenditures had
> multiplied, the level of flood damages had risen, and that the
> national purpose of reducing the toll of flood losses by building
> flood-control projects had not been realized...The findings also
> indicated that because of the Federal government's concentration upon
> flood-control works and upstream water-management activities to the
> exclusion of other obvious but relatively unpracticed types of
> adjustments, the situation was becoming progressively worse and showed
> no promise of being improved by a continuation of the prevailing
> policies (White, 1973: 198-199).

These findings exposed a key paradox in understanding human exposure to
environmental extremes---that structural mitigation measures may conceal
hazard and may even foster development in supposedly-protected areas, so
that more property is exposed if the mitigation measures are
overwhelmed. The findings thus pointed the way to the spectrum of
non-structural mitigation measures that are now considered to be part of
the standard package of mitigation tools, especially land-use planning
accompanied by incentives and penalties to encourage adoption of
mitigation measures. For example, Platt (2004: 389) notes several
methods for reducing flood losses that were recommended by Gilbert
White's task force beyond structural flood-control, including land-use
management and flood insurance. Though the task force expressed several
cautions regarding the implementation of a low-cost flood insurance
system, his report provided the basis for the National Flood Insurance
Program, which requires that communities adopt certain floodplain
management standards in exchange for access to the flood insurance that
is not available in the private insurance market. The National Flood
Insurance Program, though controversial, remains one of the most
important national-level mitigation initiatives.

From the cognitive or behavioral standpoint, White found, people "did
not behave as it had been expected they would" when the large system of
dams and levees had been initiated. Answering the question "why not" in
turn pointed to a need to understand how people perceived the flood
hazard and how they perceived options for adjustment (White, 1973).
According to White's historical review, understanding people's poor
locational choices required geographers to draw on the work of
psychologists and economists who studied decision making, but the
intersection of questions of choice---depending as they did on knowledge
and personality issues---with attempts to understand natural processes
(including as they are modified by human action) led to the development
of systems models of hazards, systems theory then being ascendant (see
Kates, 1971). A basic model grew out of this work, and it dominated
thinking about hazards in both programmatic and academic ways for some
15 years. Stated briefly, the model holds that people make
decisions---that is, expose themselves to danger---based on imperfect
knowledge of the nature, magnitude, and return period of extreme events
or inaccurate assessments of their capacity to endure these events.
Policy prescriptions follow, and these are fundamentally to get people
to understand the true danger and keep them away from it. These goals
would preferably be accomplished largely through institutional
mechanisms such as land-use planning. Virtually the entire
hazards-reduction enterprise, whether in academia or in the public or
private sector, is oriented around these dimensions: (1) identify the
threat; (2) communicate its nature; and (3) persuade people to avoid it.
These are not settled areas, of course, and they are tightly
interrelated, but these propositions guide most of the research and
policymaking in the field. The last dimension has proved elusive to
accomplish, as the inducements for living in dangerous places are
powerful, not only for individuals, but also for larger social systems
even to the national level. Coastal areas provide a principal example of
such inducements, where the amenity value of beaches and the commercial
significance of ports and harbors provide powerful economic reasons for
development.

[Technological Hazards]{.underline}

While researchers are increasingly recognizing a blending of the
categories of natural and technological hazards, that was not always the
case, nor are we yet able to definitively say that a distinction between
these two kingdoms of peril is entirely valueless as a way of organizing
kinds of danger and potential responses. By the late 1970s, and
especially after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant, geographers turned their attention to industrial hazards,
initially simply extending the same approach they had taken to natural
hazards but then looking at the origins of technical failures as well.
Geographers have made most of their contributions to technological
hazards research in the zones of overlap between geography with its
spatial focus, and psychology and sociology with their behavioral and
perceptual foci.

One of the particular strengths of the geographic method is its capacity
to draw theories and empirical findings from other disciplines and meld
them with a spatial perspective to explain, or to predict, distributions
and relationships of phenomena. Platt (2004: 33-41) identifies four
"organizing themes" which are emblematic of the geographic method:
spatial organization, scale, function, and externalities. Each of these
themes is also integral to research into technological hazards. Spatial
organization is perhaps the most obvious dimension: where to locate a
facility, for example, to minimize harms. In the event of an accident,
where will contaminants go? Where will evacuated populations flee? Scale
is a related dimension: Is one large facility better than smaller,
associated facilities? What complications extend from location near a
large population center? The temporal scale is pertinent as well. Can we
really hope to store nuclear waste for the thousands of years necessary
for radioactive decay? Function addresses the role in a social-economic
system of the activity or enterprise creating the hazard. Does all of
society receive benefits, or only a subset? Externalities are the
impacts of particular decisions, for example certain land uses, that may
impact those other than the decision makers or those who obtain the
benefits of those decisions. Pollution is the emblematic externality.
Working within these four themes obviously requires the diverse
expertise of many other disciplines, but it is the art and the science
of the geographer to assemble them to explain the creation and
distribution of hazard and to suggest possible mitigation.

Much work in geography has centered upon, first, distinguishing and
classifying natural and technological hazards, and then further
subclassifying technological hazards. Kasperson and Pijawka (1985)
compared and contrasted natural and technological hazards on several
points. Natural hazards, for example, tend to be obvious: natural
disasters have clear beginnings and endings. They are familiar, and
there is a history of dealing with them. Furthermore, the disaster
represents a "commonality" (p. 16) among both victims and non-victims,
resulting in mutual cooperation which helps the recovery process.
Technological hazards, however, are frequently novel: there is no
history of dealing with them. These hazards are not readily observable,
but the effects may take years to appear. And because the hazard is of
long duration, abandonment of the area, rather than rebuilding, becomes
the more attractive option. Furthermore, typical social support
mechanisms do not appear: people may even shun the afflicted area, a
phenomenon Kasperson et al. (1988) would label "stigmatization."

Geographers also studied not just the nature and social ramifications of
technological hazards, but how such hazards evolve in the first place.
Hohenemser, Kasperson, and Kates (1985) developed a "causal structure"
of technological hazards which emphasized possibilities for intervention
at each point of a sequence of events: from the recognition of a human
need, through the development of a technology to meet that need, to the
event precipitated through the use of that technology. In a companion
article, Hohenemser, Kates, and Slovic (1985) propose a "causal
taxonomy" for grouping hazards by common features. Their taxonomy is
linked to the causal sequence and is intended to help in the comparison
and selection of technologies suitable for a particular purpose, as well
as in comparing new technological hazards to those which may be somewhat
familiar as a way of suggesting management strategies. The structural
and taxonomic nomenclautre can also provide a direction for research.

A question which geographers have touched, but not firmly grappled with,
is that of technology itself as a hazard: i.e., as a *social hazard*.
Not a hazard which is detrimental to society by causing physical harm,
with attendant social disruption, but a hazard which is detrimental by
disrupting some necessary or agreeable component of society. Lurking
round the edges of the literature, however, is a suspicion that the
*process* of technological advancement, and not just its by-products, is
harmful.

Chapter 1 of Susan Cutter's (1993) *Living with Risk* shows the tension
between technological hazards manifest as social disruption, and
technological hazards manifest as physical harms, by opening with a
quote from Jacques Ellul:

> In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the
> technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it,
> but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it. (Ellul 1964, p.
> xxxiii).

Ellul's book *The Technological Society* is the philosophical starting
point for most recent critiques of technology, such as Langdon Winners's
work and then Neil Postman's (1992). However, the next line in *Living
with Risk* is a list of the most notorious failures of technological
systems: "Bhopal, Chernobyl, Love Canal\..." Thus we shift from social
hazard back to nuts-and-bolts physical hazard, within three sentences.

Zeigler, Johnson, and Brunn (1983) addressed the issue more explicitly,
but largely as an afterthought. They suggest an analogy between
conventional hazards, which release materials or energy, and high-tech
futuristic hazards, involving the release of information into the
interconnected computer and communications network. Computer software
viruses, of course, fit this analogy, and their ability to inflict
serious financial losses is appreciated by computer security experts.
Recent concern about cyberterrorism is an extension of their ideas.

In an imaginative endeavor, Graham and Kasperson (1985) directly
examined television as a social hazard, examining the propensity for
televised violence to incite actual violence in children. While this
study also focused on directly tangible, physically manifest
phenomena---death and injury---by examining them as products of behavior
influenced by TV, Graham and Kasperson drew closer to a critique of the
technology, by arguing that though television content had a "weak
toxicity," the sustained exposure actually created a large "dose."
However, they noted that no study had drawn conclusive links between
television and such undesirable effects as reduced intelligence,
diminished creativity, or "breakdown of community." They noted, however,
that concern about those effects lingered, still not definitively
resolved.

Their critique was not entirely well-received by reviewers. Otway and
Cannell (1987) doubted whether the rational model of hazard---a
framework representing real-world phenomena and pointing to corrective
actions---could be applied to television. And they ridiculed the
"information release" concept which Graham and Kasperson employed in a
manner similar to Zeigler et al. (1983). Nevertheless, it is generally
accepted that technological advancement has outpaced society's ability
to develop philosophical structures, with attendant public policy, to
accommodate unwanted side-effects. Geographers have not yet reconciled,
if that could ever be possible, the spatial problems and opportunities
raised by technologies currently available, let alone potential future
breakthroughs. For example, what are the implications for privacy and
liberty of burgeoning data-gathering, mapping, and spatial analysis
technologies? (see Pickles (ed.), 1995). Postman, a communications
theorist, observed (1992) that before the Industrial Revolution,
centuries might elapse between developments in science or engineering or
philosophy that could "revolutionize" society. Since the Industrial
Revolution, that interval has become even more shortened, all the more
so with the advent of computers and applications such as the Internet.
Which space is relevant in analyzing these broad transformations? Social
space? Economic space? Will there be populations that are particularly
disadvantaged? Where will they be? There is definitely interest in
geography in debate about technological development and the distribution
of benefits and harms. Nevertheless, these concerns are dispersed
throughout geography's many subfields and are not a principal focus of
hazards geographers.

[Theoretical shifts]{.underline}

A major departure in thinking was Hewitt's (1983) *Interpretations of
Calamity*, which criticized previous emphases on decision making
(Alexander, 1993: 12; Cutter, 2001a: 5), emphasizing instead the
socioeconomic aspects of vulnerability to extreme events. Though mainly
emphasizing natural hazards, geographers also found that vulnerability
principles extended well to industrial hazards. Being exposed to hazard,
then, could not be entirely ascribed to the consequences of bad
decisions, but of choices that were constrained by the social and
economic conditions of people in dangerous places. The poor, for
example, lacking resources for better locations, often live in perilous
and unsanitary conditions, placing them at greater risk and moreover
impeding their recovery prospects. For instance, the poor tend to have
no insurance or only inadequate insurance, so that when they experience
disaster they have fewer reserve resources than the wealthy. Hewitt's
work pointed the way to studies of what factors are associated with
vulnerability, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and poverty. Equipped
with this perspective, geographers were able to broaden their view of
both the causes of hazards and the consequences and to more fully
understand the often-limited options available to people exposed to
dangerous conditions. This perspective allows us to look at events such
as the Indian Ocean tsunami and to see how much of the disaster lies not
in the initial death and destruction. Staggering as they are, they are
not the end of the story. The psychological, economic, and social
recovery of the survivors is closely tied to pre-existing social and
economic conditions in place before the event. Many of the affected
communities were small-scale fishing communities dependent on boats that
were destroyed. With no insurance, boat owners must continue to repay
loans on vessels that are gone as well as take out loans for new
equipment. (See Rodríguez, Wachtendorf, Trainor, and Kendra (2005) for a
more detailed discussion). But though Hewitt and subsequent scholars
took a largely international approach to the vulnerability question, the
approach is valid in the United States, as well, since the
less-expensive land and housing within the price range of poor people is
often in dangerous locations, too.

Interest in vulnerability, though important in expanding the range of
theoretical tools available both for studying hazard and for providing
policy guidance, brought its own set of challenges. In particular, a
single definition of vulnerability remains elusive. Fundamentally,
vulnerability means the possibility of loss or harm, but many
researchers working with the same concepts have used different language,
or have used similar language for concepts that they understand and
present differently. Cutter (1996: 531-532) identified nearly twenty
definitions or conceptions of vulnerability, generally similar, but
nevertheless offering variations, such as conceptualizing vulnerability
as risk, as differences in capacity to reduce risk, or as an integrated
quality of both the hazards in a place and the social characteristics of
the people who live there. Moreover, there often are not single words or
economical phrases to accommodate concepts that include a complex
functional and iterative relationship, a difficulty that has emerged
with definitions of *disaster* in the sociological field and, in fact,
with *hazard* in geography. For example, though hazards are normally
seen as a result of certain kinds of human decisionmaking, geographers
also include their impact (Cutter, 2001a: 2) as part of an overall
conceptualization. Burton, Kates, and White (1993) are careful to refer
to *hazard events* when referring to a tornado or some other agent, but
also refer to them merely as hazards, thus illustrating the difficulty
of managing the concept which has several components requiring different
emphases in different contexts. Similarly, because vulnerabilities are
also interactive phenomena, they can't really be discussed without
including some of the elements that are presumed to be constitutive,
complicating the definitional task.

Nevertheless, vulnerability has become a central component in thinking
about hazard. For example, in defining hazard, Mitchell considers the
following function:

Hazard = f(Risk x Exposure x Vulnerability x Response)

> where "risk is defined as the probability of a damaging event or
> circumstance. Exposure is a measure of the population at risk.
> Vulnerability is the potential for experiencing loss. Response is the
> degree to which society acts to reduce, avoid, or prevent loss.
> Hazards result from various combinations of these factors" (Mitchell,
> 1990: 132).

Based on this conception, Mitchell, Devine, and Jagger (1989) developed
a *contextual model* of hazard, a nested model which encapsulates risk,
exposure and vulnerability, response, and cost within modifying contexts
of economic, social, and technological processes. Applying the model to
the October 1987 windstorm in Britain, they identified several points at
which particular physical, social, and political circumstances combined
to alter the effects of the storm, with respect to both damage and
post-storm evaluations of its consequences.

For example, at the outset, weather forecasters in Britain accepted
French forecasts, not accounting for differences in modeling
methodologies. The loss of electric power necessitated closure of the
London Stock Exchange, which may have contributed to the worldwide
stockmarket crash by preventing communication between markets.
Subsequently, the economic concerns brought about by the crash and by
the prospect of the Channel Tunnel (which could be expected to cost jobs
in some of the same communities affected by the storm) overshadowed the
storm's impacts and preempted a thorough examination of hazard response
and management. Overall damage, especially to woodlands, was intensified
by ground-soaking rains falling prior to the windstorm. Assistance from
the Thatcher government was forthcoming only because some Conservative
Members of Parliament represented constituencies hard-hit by the storm.
Thus, many non-hazard factors, competing priorities, and conflicting
interests created outcomes independent of the storm's magnitude and the
characteristics of the built environment.

Dow (1999: 76), however, takes a somewhat different approach, defining
vulnerability as "the differential susceptibility of ecosystems,
households, or social groups to losses." Dow further defines
vulnerability as being comprised of three elements. "*Exposure* is the
degree of risk of an event experienced in everyday life, from the
probability of a hazard to actual occurrences of events of all sizes."
"*Resistance* is the ability to withstand the impacts and continue to
function." "*Resilience* is the ability to recover, ranging in degree
from simply achieving stability at any level of functioning to
recovering the full range of resources and positive momentum that
existed prior to the event" (italics in original).

A complete reconciliation of the various directions of thinking on
vulnerability appears unlikely, owing to the widespread and growing use
of the concept both inside and outside of geography, so that some final
definition is really a moving target. Nevertheless, a long step in
stabilizing the meaning was made by Cutter (1996), who integrated
various expressions of vulnerability in a *hazards of place* model,
expressing the net vulnerability of a place as an interaction of both
social vulnerability (such as demographic characteristics and risk
perception) and biophysical vulnerability (characteristics of the
place).

Palm (1990) sought to place hazards research within an inclusive
structural framework that accounts for interactions among three levels
of society: individuals and households (micro-level), governments and
economies (macro-scale) and the zone of intermediaries: corporate
officers, local officials, and bureaucrats (meso-level). It is only by
examining the interplay of these levels, Palm asserts, that researchers
can examine the social component of vulnerability. Though ultimately
limited by social, economic, and political circumstances, individual
action is also a function of needs, desires, and opportunities within
those limits. Palm (1990) argues that hazards researchers in geography,
sociology, and other disciplines must integrate individual and
socioeconomic responses to natural hazards in order to understand the
full scope of vulnerability and to suggest appropriate remedial actions.

Recognizing the importance of vulnerability, in turn, pointed the way
toward consideration of how people take steps to lessen their
vulnerability, or how they enhance their resilience to extreme
variations in their environment. The debate on this continues throughout
the field, not only in geography but also in other fields as well. Are
vulnerability and resilience merely the obverses of the same coin? Or
are they different in some way, addressing dimensions of the problem of
human survival that do not necessarily intersect?

[Technological Developments]{.underline}

Recent developments have moved geography---and geographers---much closer
to actual emergency and disaster management tasks than previously. The
widening use of Geographic Information Systems has brought significant
mapping and analytical capability to the desktop and, therefore, these
systems can facilitate the organization and management of response
operations after an event, so that geographic methods are useful not
merely for long-term planning but also for short-term decision making.
Emergency managers, of course, have always used maps, but GIS brought
mapmaking capacity directly into the hands of emergency responders. Of
course, the knowledge base established by geographers was relevant at
all stages of disaster, but the principal thrust had been directed more
toward hazard, and hence to the early or causal factors of disaster, and
less so in the actual emergency response phase. There were exceptions,
of course, particularly in the areas of warning and evacuation
behavior---areas where emergency managers could directly apply
geographic knowledge of risk perception and decision-making during
environmental extremes. Nevertheless, geographers' emphasis was on
phenomena that unfolded over years or tens of years: where people lived,
why they lived there, and how their coping capacity was affected by
their conditions of life. Certain technological developments changed
that, especially GIS. For example, areas that need to be closed to
vehicular traffic can be mapped and the maps distributed to law
enforcement personnel who are establishing roadblocks, or the locations
for temporary housing can be plotted with respect to relevant services
such as water or electricity. Following the 2001 attack on the World
Trade Center, thousands of maps were created---often by geographers who
volunteered their services to the Office of Emergency Management. These
maps depicted areas with utility outages, road closures, the locations
of supply caches and staging areas, and other relevant information
needed by emergency responders. Moreover, as the weeks passed and the
"secured area" around the Trade Center site grew continually smaller,
locations for critical facilities had to be continually updated. GIS
allowed this to be done quickly, with new, updated maps distributed into
the user community (see Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003). After the 1994
Northridge earthquake, GIS applications included coding damaged
structures with reference to severity of damage and combining that data
with the location of field teams, while after the Willow Incident, a
serious California wildfire, GIS was used to track the location and
movement of fire with respect to houses, equipment, and fire crews
(Amdahl, 2001).

In other applications, GIS has proved to have simultaneous practical
value, providing information for decision makers, and theoretical value,
helping to validate models of human environment interaction. The hazard
of place model proposed by Cutter (1996) was tested using GIS (Cutter,
Mitchell, and Scott, 2000) in a community in South Carolina. In that
example, social and demographic data was mapped, and then these map
layers were overlaid with local weather and climate data (e.g.,
prevalence of hurricanes) and the proximity of industrial facilities.
The result of this analysis was an estimate of the community's net
"hazardousness" that could be depicted in different zones on map of the
county. Apart from producing maps that represent various vulnerable
areas (useful to emergency planners in the event of, for example,
evacuations or specialized warnings, such as day care facilities),
Cutter et al. (2000) also found that the greatest vulnerability occurred
in areas with *both* moderate-high social and moderate biophysical
vulnerability, rather than in places registering at the extremes of
these elements. Applications of models as in this example is important
to ensure their reliability for planning and policy purposes.

# Current needs for knowledge

In spite of the progress that geographers have made in the last several
decades in comprehending the creation and distribution of hazard, some
significant gaps remain. Some of these are fundamental scientific
questions that remain unanswered; others are more prosaic but no less
important.

One significant scientific debate engaging geographers is that of global
warming. Most climatologists argue that the earth's atmosphere is
warming largely due to human action, though the extent of human
contribution remains uncertain. The potential degree of warming, and
over what time-period, also remains uncertain and, as a consequence, so
do the geographical implications for human societies. For example,
warming of the atmosphere will probably cause sea-level rise, which may
in turn flood low-lying areas. But how much will the sea rise, and what
extent of coastline and current or future development there will be
affected? Policy decisions regarding such development depend on answers
that are still burdened by persistent uncertainties. This question tends
to attract the most attention in public policy debates, and is highly
charged politically. When scientific debates take on policy
significance, there is a tendency---by media, policymakers, observers,
and sometimes scientists themselves---to squeeze issues into two opposed
clusters that the various antagonists argue correspond with the
political orientations of the participants in the disagreement. Lost in
the noise of these arguments is a pressing question: if the earth is
indeed warming, whatever the cause, what are the implications for human
habitation? While the ramifications appear to be negative, the available
data provide only broad ranges of, for example, the amount of shoreline
to be inundated over the next 50 to 100 years. Such a timeframe is far
beyond the planning horizon of commercial interests, and sustained
public-sector attention has been lacking at all scales of political
activity. Moreover the consequences vary dramatically across the globe.
Small island states may suffer serious inundation and loss of habitable
area, while other countries, especially with Arctic borders, may see new
opportunities for settlement, commerce, and navigation (Middleton,
1999).

Broadly speaking, at the national level, we know that disaster losses
are increasing but we really don't have a clear understanding of the
extent of hazard or the degree to which hazardousness may be increasing
or shifting between locations (Thomas, 2001; Cutter, 2001b). The
principal reason for this is a lack of consistent data. For example,
monetary losses can be assessed using actual damages, replacement value
for buildings and infrastructure, or losses of economic activity in a
certain area in the post-impact time. Even in situations wherein certain
data, say economic loss, is available, it may not be comparable from
place to place or even in the same place from time to time.
Record-keeping has varied in different locales over many decades, so
that precise longitudinal assessments are simply not possible.

It should be noted that while more research is important, what is also
needed is the sustained application of what is already known. Mitchell
(1990), at the outset of the International Decade for Natural Disaster
Reduction, a United Nations initiative, argued that while the goal of
halving worldwide disaster losses was worthy, the need was not for more
research but for sustained and thoughtful application of what was
already known. To a large extent, this situation remains the case for
many hazards. Areas prone to hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes,
landslides, and so on are well-known by now, and the structural and
non-structural mitigation measures are well established. Generally a
lack of "political will" is cited as the principal obstruction to the
kinds of mitigation measures that would be necessary. Certainly this is
true, but this view understates the powerful economic and social forces
that hold people in particular places, and the difficult set of
decisions that people make in their locational decision making. Palm's
(1981) study of the California housing market showed that earthquake
hazard information had little effect on potential homebuyers; rather,
considering the house as an investment is the primary motivator,
reinforced by a need to buy an affordable home "whenever and wherever it
becomes available" (399). There are many risks that people face in
buying a house apart from the geophysical or climatological risk of the
area. Will the value appreciate or depreciate? Is the house in good
repair? What is the likely economic trajectory of the community? There
are many potential losses and vulnerabilities in the homebuying process.
In areas with less obvious risks than California, the risk calculation
is even more difficult.

[Policy Guidance]{.underline}

Geographic work has been readily applicable to policy making needs,
expressed at two broad scales: guidance for the direction policies
should take, given what is known about the nature and distribution of
various kinds of hazards, or specific recommendations.

> In terms of general policy guidance, geographers and others have
> become increasingly concerned about a growing transference of
> responsibility for disaster response to the Federal government, an
> incentive for communities to do less to reduce hazards and to prepare
> appropriately. Some scholars and practitioners (e.g., Platt, 1999)
> have questioned whether the possibility of federal assistance creates
> a "moral hazard:" inducing people to take risks they would not take in
> the absence of such assistance. This concern was always present,
> reflected in the cautions of the White task force in the late 1960s,
> but burgeoning disaster losses in the 1980s and 1990s, especially
> Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the Midwest floods in 1993, intensified
> the concern that localities were abdicating their responsibility and
> counting on Federal assistance. In terms of suggestions for overall
> policy guidance, Cutter (2001b: 164) several suggestions, including
>
> a strategic plan for hazards reduction at all levels of government.
> This plan should be based on tangible goals and specific indicators of
> accountability. Do expenditures for hazards reduction programs make a
> difference, or do they facilitate the movement of people into
> increasingly hazardous areas? We need audits of our national disaster
> aid, recovery, and insurance programs to assess their effectiveness in
> reducing losses and overall vulnerability.

She also argues (2001b: 165):

> Reducing the nation's vulnerability to environmental hazards will take
> public support and political will and needs to be addressed within the
> confines of local community growth and economic development
> constraints and national priorities for hazard mitigation. The federal
> government should not bail out communities and individuals when they
> make foolish locational decisions. Instead, the burdens will be placed
> locally, and so will the solutions.

Platt makes a similar argument and sets out some ways this might be
done, including restricting construction in the most hazardous areas.
"Managed Retreat" is one such option: systematically and over time
discouraging or prohibiting further development in threatened areas,
especially areas threatened by erosion (Platt et al., 1992). Platt
(1999: 297) also argues that "FEMA should work with the U.S. Department
of Justice to seek a Supreme Court ruling that affirms the
constitutionality of public land use regulations in cases of extreme
hazard *regardless of the economic impact on the landowner and the
community*" (italics in original). He further suggests (1999: 298) that
if state and local governments continue to make poor land use decisions,
"their eligibility for flood insurance and public assistance...under the
Stafford Act should be suspended, or provided under less favorable
financial terms..."

More recently, Platt has fostered something of a social movement, one
grounded in a unity of various disciplines that takes a comprehensive
look at how cities should, not merely "fit" in the environment, but how
they can healthfully be a part of their physical setting. The Ecological
Cities program takes a broadly multidisciplinary perspective on the
ecological health of urban areas, where good ecological health means
that land-uses take into account terrestrial features and dynamic
patterns of a built/natural ecosystem (see Platt, 2004).

# Overlaps with other disciplines

In many ways geography is quintessentially interdisciplinary; its
concerns with the intersection of social, physical, and technological
and political/legal systems means that it shares areas of interest,
knowledge, and methods with many other fields of study. Sociology, with
its focus on collective behavior and organizational activity, may be the
most closely allied of the various disciplines having, as Cutter (2001a)
stated, taken *disasters* as their specialty. Sociologists and
geographers share qualitative methods, such as interviews and focus
groups, and also the quantitative methods of surveys and analysis of
demographic data.

The demarcation between hazards research and disaster research, though
plain in definition, is not as clear in the pattern of the literature.
Alexander (1991, 1993) identified six "schools of thought" into which
different approaches to both hazards and disaster research may be
grouped, while Mitchell (1990) divides hazards research into three
subfields, one of which is disaster research. According to Alexander
(1993), the *geographical approach* draws on the human-ecological
perspective, or man-nature interaction, as its entry point, growing out
of the research of Harlan Barrows and, later, Gilbert White. The
*sociological approach* focuses on the impacts of disaster on social
organization. The *anthropological approach* studies the impact of
disaster on social development and especially the response of people in
developing countries. *Development studies* focuses on management of
relief efforts, and providing nutrition and medical services. The
*medical* or *epidemiological* approach studies disaster response and
treatment of casualties, and transmission of disease. And the *technical
approach* studies, measures, and predicts geophysical phenomena. What is
important about this classification is that geographers may participate
in any of these approaches, so that these represent more areas of
emphasis rather than disciplinary boundaries.

Meanwhile, Mitchell (1990) has cut the field of hazards research along
three lines. *Disaster research* is primarily cast as a branch of
sociology, concentrating on the response of people and organizations,
and often simply using the disaster as the context for exploring stress
reactions. *Natural hazards research* is grounded in the
human-ecological perspective, as in Alexander (above). *Risk analysis*
studies not only the components of a system to discover sources of
failure, but also social processes of risk perception and risk
communication. More recently, Cutter (2001a) reinforced this basic
delineation.

Thus geography shares interests with many other fields. Probably the
most disciplinary affinities, at least in the area of hazards and
disaster, are seen with sociology which, as discussed elsewhere in this
volume, was the founding field for disaster research. In a sense, in the
early years of systematic hazard and disaster research, geographers and
sociologists established a division of labor that temporally bracketed
the disastrous event---geographers focusing on the decisions that led to
the creation of hazard, with sociologists looking principally at the
organizational aspects of responding to the impact of the hazard
agent---the disaster. This temporal bracketing was not rigidly
exclusive, of course, but over time became even less so. For example,
sociologists looked at pre-disaster preparations, while geographers
studied post-event evacuation. Moreover, there has been a ready use of
methods common to all of the social sciences, such as interviews and
questionnaires, and more recently sociologists have made increasing use
of Geographic Information Systems (Dash, Peacock, and Morrow, 2000),
producing work that is clearly geographic in tenor. Mileti (1999) in
fact notes that though sociologists, too, were interested in the human
ecological approach that Barrows claimed was the hallmark of geography,
they did not pursue this field as intensively as the geographers.
Barrows (1923: 6) himself noted that sociologists had an interest in
"the relation of society to the natural environment," but he anticipated
that its interest would remain principally in the "social environment."
Peacock et al. (2000) have undertaken work with a definite geographic
flair. In particular, their theory of a "socio-political ecology,"
though emphasizing social relationships and interactions---takes
explicit account of the social, political, economic, *and* environmental
conditions of places. It is virtually impossible to look at the body of
research on emergencies and disasters without seeing the intellectual
contributions of geographers, sociologists, and the other disciplines
represented in this book.

And geographers, sociologists, and many other disciplines have
considered cultural, political, or economic impediments to proper
land-use decision making and the implementation of other mitigation
measures. In other words, increasingly the distinctions in the
approaches of geographers and sociologists have become blurred.
Geographers and sociologists are interested in how people perceive risk,
the decisions they make based on those perceptions, and how to more
effectively communicate information about risk and suitable actions to
take. For example, the Disaster Research Center's assessment of Project
Impact (e.g., Wachtendorf et al., 2002), with choice of methods,
analysis, and conclusions, might have been accomplished by geographers
as well as sociologists. Geographers work directly with scholars from
other disciplines. Platt (2004) for example, routinely brings together
scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines such as law and
planning (see also Platt et al. (1987)).

A further example of such interdisciplinary collaboration is the "social
amplification of risk" theory of Kasperson et al. (1988). This is a
major and continuing effort to unite psychometric research within a
framework of formal and informal social institutions. This construction
is then itself referenced to metaphors drawn from communications
theory\--namely, "amplification" and "attenuation:" the strengthening or
weakening, respectively, of a signal as it is transmitted and received.
The authors suggest that an analogous process of amplification or
attenuation occurs during the transmission of risk information from a
source, possibly via intermediaries, to a receiver. The final strength
of the risk "signal" varies according to a number of social and cultural
factors, which can include the credibility of the institutions sending
the risk information, the responses and attitudes of intermediaries
(e.g., family or friends) and finally the personal "bias" of the
receiver.

[Future directions for geography, and for geography in emergency
management]{.underline}

At the 2001 meeting of the Association of American Geographers, the
science writer John Noble Wilford took geographers to task for not
grappling, or at least not seeming to grapple, with questions of
fundamental human interest. Astronomers are interested in the origins of
the cosmos; archaeologists are concerned with the origin of
civilization; psychologists study the mind and how we think and
understand---grand subjects that stretch our imaginations and that
inspire and are inspired by our curiosity about origins, futures, and
directions. Set against those questions, Wilford argued, it was no
wonder that geographers' recurrent concerns about methods and
disciplinary legitimacy never made it to the *New York Times* science
page. What are geographers interested in that would excite the wonder,
interest, and awe of people outside of the field? What questions do
geographers answer and how do those questions supply some kind of
elemental knowledge?

Mitchell (2001) and Cutter et al. (2002) supplied at least the
beginnings of some answers to Wildord's provocative question. For
Mitchell, geographers are interested in human survival. This most
elemental challenge includes the full range of responses to
environmental shifts and the challenges of human occupancy of a dynamic
planet. But survival to a thoughtful society should include some
consideration of how that survival is to be won. It doesn't mean mere
survival, but preserving, conserving, sustaining, and renewing the bases
for life. Survival, by definition, can't stop, but must be a continuous
process of renegotiating changing human and environmental capacities.
Cutter and her colleagues identified ten "big questions in geography,"
at least four of which, such as "how and why do sustainability and
vulnerability change from place to place and over time," directly relate
to human-environment interactions. Geographic methods and approaches are
uniquely positioned to provide the knowledge we need for understanding
both the natural processes of the earth and the social processes of
human beings, and hopefully to bring about some harmony of these that
can reduce both environmental degradation and disaster losses.
Geographers are not solely concerned with intersecting natural and
social systems, however, when it comes to the most salient recent
hazard: terrorism. For example, geographers such as Cutter have examined
terror as a geopolitical phenomenon, rooted in the intersection of
social systems and strategic choices of many different potential
antagonists.

And it is with respect to such burgeoning, complex, and elusive threats
that we might turn to postmodernism as a philosophical orientation that
can provide some useful insight. The evolution of
postmodernist/poststructuralist philosophies which question the
foundation of science and the production of knowledge shook traditional
research perspectives in the social sciences, including human geography.
Postmodern thinking is characterized by a desire "for a philosophic
culture freed from the search for ultimate foundations or the final
justification" (Dear, 1988: 265). Such a search, wrote Dear, can stifle
alternative discourse, that is, alternative explanations for observed
phenomena. Postmodernists reject "metanarrative," and proclaim the
validity of local knowledge (Mitchell, 1994: 25) that is rooted in the
particular experiences of people in certain places, at certain times,
and in different social systems. Though postmodern thinking is not
widespread in the hazards field, Mitchell (1994) notes that some
researchers have employed postmodern perspectives in critiques of
hazards research. Postmodernism is popularly understood in negative
terms, as a philosophy of mere relativism advocated by no-nothing
nihilists who would deny morals and truth. This is, however, an
extravagant oversimplification of this vast body of philosophic work.
Much of the postmodern movement appears to have waned in academic
geography, but there are various touchstones of this intellectual
orientation that continue to have value for researchers *and
practitioners* in the area of hazards, emergencies, and disasters.
Mitchell (1999) for example questioned how hazards researchers could
work with some of the broad tenets that could widen our imagination in
looking at sets of problems while avoiding some of the seemingly
relativist tendencies that undercut the viability of policy
prescriptions. Bearing in mind that one of the main tenets of this
intellectual movement was that ultimate knowledge or grand explanations
were impossible, it is possible to see postmodern characteristics in
certain of the "new" hazards, such as mass terror attacks with nuclear,
biological, or cyber weapons. They defy understanding with respect to
time, place, magnitude, frequency, duration, and origin. Along those
lines, Mitchell turned his attention to such features of hazards as
*ambiguity* and *surprise*. These postmodern qualities have even more
relevance now than when he first wrote. By themselves these are not
strictly geographic concepts---researchers in other fields such as the
philosophy of science and mathematics (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1990), have
worked with these or allied terms. But it is certainly worthwhile to
consider how the latest hazard (at least in the US), terror attacks,
have qualities of surprise and ambiguity.

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
confirmed the emergence of a new kind of complex threat. It is not that
the threat wasn't always there, but it was apparently nebulous and
ephemeral, defying the classical definition of a risk as a probability
multiplied by magnitude, and instead more characterized by ambiguity.

> When hazards are framed in terms of risk, objective measurement and
> rational decision-making are conceivable. By shifting the frame to one
> of uncertainty, subjective choice comes into view and decision-making
> becomes only boundedly rational at best. Under conditions of ambiguity
> the rules of choice are themselves unstable. Ambiguity connotes
> circumstances of indecision---where customary guides to choice are
> missing, non-functioning, undependable or so deeply conflicted that
> decision making is effectively paralyzed (Mitchell, 1999: 11).

A number of researchers have grappled with some of the themes that are
relevant for understanding 9-11 and the subsequent challenges that
confront us now. Mitchell defined a number of different kinds of
surprises, including events that were thought to be impossible or events
thought to be unlikely, that nevertheless happened anyway. Karl Weick, a
psychologist, refers (1993) to *cosmology episodes*, breakdowns in
expectations in which the usual rules for understanding the world no
longer make sense. Threats that are ambiguous set the stage for
surprises, or cosmology episodes, because the real nature of the threat
is concealed until it manifests as disaster. While there is an ambiguous
threat, there is a chance that one has understood it and applied the
appropriate action. But when disaster occurs, it is obvious that one has
misjudged. 9-11 counts as such an event---a surprise, though perhaps it
shouldn't have been. But the operative quality of surprise is not that
no one ever thought that something might happen, but how the event
registers and resonates in the affected social systems. On a vast scale,
all the short cuts and mental models that people had employed for
assessing their risks in a variety of activities no longer seemed viable
but were instead destabilized. For a period of days, maybe weeks,
anything seemed possible and no threat could be deemed unlikely. The
later anthrax attacks contributed to a persistent sense of threat.
Previously understood indices of what was risky, such as air travel or
high-rise buildings, had to be revised. The point is that the emergence
of a terrorism with training, communications, and technical skill, and
with elements appearing everywhere, is now added to the range of
familiar but no less threatening hazards that have always plagued us.

We now confront an amalgam of threats, some of which are familiar and
understandable, others less so, in which, particularly at the outset, it
may not even be clear precisely what is happening or what is the cause.
Consider the massive electrical power failure across the Northeast in
August, 2003, in which officials hastened to assure the public that it
was not an act of terror. It is interesting to realize that a massive
failure of the electrical distribution system, on its own, does not seem
to be as alarming as if it were initiated by terrorists (See, for
example, a report by Elizabeth Vargas on ABC News Primetime, August 14,
2003). In terms of understanding the public response to this, one might
well apply the amplification of risk model---a terror attack on the
electric grid would have a much greater *signal value* (Kasperson et
al., 1988), indicating sustained vulnerability to such assaults.

There are ambiguities beyond the nature of an event as well. According
to information available, as in *The 9/11 Commission Report* (2004), the
attacks on 9/11 began ambiguously. It is possible that subsequent
attacks, especially if biological warfare or cyberwarfare agents are
involved, may begin ambiguously as well. There are ambiguities in
defining the post-event stage. When were the 9-11 attacks over? When was
the emergency over? And these basic considerations encompass only the
tactical or short term scale. As more information becomes available, it
appears that the prodromal stage of the September 11 attacks extended
over many years, perhaps beginning with the February 1993 bombing, or
before, in the planning stage for *that* event. Events of this magnitude
disrupt the spatial, temporal, and organizational scales in which we are
used to working. The arguments that played out before Congress and in
public dialogue, over which presidential administration is most to
blame, are merely the political reflection of an inability to cope with
a temporal and spatial scale of threats that is longer than we have seen
previously with most threats. There is experience with the Cold War, but
in that sustained conflict the goal was for the protagonists not to
shoot directly at each other, and the centers of gravity of political
interests could be plotted more reliably. Certainly there are other
matters that confront officials that require multi-generational,
multi-jurisdictional approaches--- pollution, greenhouse gases,
space-exploration---but the erratic handling of these challenges is not
encouraging.

Thus we can see substantial shifts in the risk milieu, wherein ambiguous
threats may in some instances resemble familiar threats and in other
instances lie dormant for many years, extending across very difficult
scales of time, space, and organization. Mitchell's call for attention
to such features as surprise and ambiguity should thus have more than
merely scholarly interest. If the hazards, especially those of
terrorism, now confronting us do indeed have these features, what policy
guidance is available to us? What steps can be taken at all phases of
the disaster cycle, but especially those that emphasize the prodromal
stages, that is, during mitigation and preparedness? Shortly after the
9/11 attacks, geographers considered how their disciplinary expertise
might be applied to these suddenly salient, if not exactly new, threats
(Cutter, Richardson, and Wilbanks, eds., 2003). In this, the authors
grappled with such difficult and controversial subjects as the "root
causes" of terrorism. It is far beyond the scope of this chapter to
discuss where various researchers and commentators would place such
causes, which are tied to large political, economic, and cultural
transformations, but it seems safe to say that even if a cause or causes
could be accurately deduced, ameliorative steps might take years to show
any effect. Thus the qualities of surprise and ambiguity are likely to
continue to be important for characterizing threats.

These main issues suggest a need for new kinds of research, especially
research that cuts across several disciplines. In particular, there is a
need for long-term studies within emergency management agencies and
other relevant organizations, or at a minimum, studies with significant
follow-up components over a period of years. There need to be studies of
change of command processes and the management of information across
successive governments. How is attention maintained across both time and
space on particular issues? As an example of shifting attention and
priorities, Project Impact, by most measures a successful mitigation
program emphasizing outreach, public education, and multi-sectoral
partnership building, was cut after the change in administrations in
2000.

We need renewed study of risk selection in particular places. How do we
imagine risks, in particular the combination of old and new threats as
well as complex emergencies? How is risk across space to be determined,
and resources allocated? What happens to emergency managers and other
public officials who are required to be on heightened alert for long
periods of time? Is it really possible? Is it affordable? To what extent
can heightened alerts be maintained? Geographers, sociologists, and
psychologists have worked together on risk perception and communication
models and guidelines. How can warnings and public information be
delivered in a way that will be useful to people, given that some of the
content of such messages, such as specificity of the nature of the risk,
the location, and the action to take, is often not available? We need to
know the parameters of capability, to ensure that planning and warnings
are not built on mistaken, overoptimistic, or uninformed assumptions of
capability.

Yet, right at the time that new information, new methods, and new
knowledge is required, as well as new ways of looking at familiar
hazards, the development of that knowledge may be impeded. Some
researchers have had difficulty getting access to information,
especially infrastructure data. In another instance, officials have
declined interviews and a request to visit their facility, citing
security concerns. And it is not just new data and new information that
are suspect. Even old data can be spun in a sinister way. At the end of
2003, the FBI issued a bulletin to 18,000 law enforcement agencies,
warning them to beware of people carrying almanacs and acting
suspiciously, or making suspicious notations (Bridis, 2003).
Unfortunately, no one looks more suspicious than a hazards researcher
trained in observation who is writing notes, drawing maps, making
sketches, and taking photographs. The danger, however, is that it is
possible to paralyze knowledge, particularly if researchers continually
have to struggle for access to sites, to facilities, and to data.
Imagine the state of knowledge that would exist now if, forty years ago,
Cold War security concerns had stifled research, fixing us in a
mid-century knowledge base. We would be much less able to confront
present hazards, and even so there is a long way to go.

The turn of the century has brought with it a turn in the set of hazards
that we face. Public officials must be tolerant of research and data
gathering because energetic inquiry and the development of knowledge
have always been the best ways of confronting new challenges. The
individual parochial concerns of organizations, always concerned with
appearance and legitimacy or the concerns of a narrow constituency, are
at issue in this sphere as in any other, but we are at a point where
organizations acting in their individual self interest jeopardize all of
our collective security. Perhaps what is required as much as new
knowledge is a refreshed recognition by public officials that disaster
researchers have a calling and an ambition to reduce danger, and thus
are acting in the public service.

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[^1]: Earlier portions of this chapter were presented at the Disaster
    Research Center 40^th^ Anniversary Conference, Newark, Delaware,
    "Disaster Research and the Social Sciences: Lessons Learned and
    Future Trajectories," April 30-May 1, 2004, and at The National
    Academies Disasters Roundtable. "The Emergency Manager of the
    Future. The Next Generation." Washington, D.C. June 13, 2003. The
    author thanks Rutherford H. Platt, David A. McEntire, and James K.
    Mitchell for comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. The views
    expressed here are those of the author.