Journal of Natural Disaster Science, Volume 26, Number 2, 2004, pp49-54

Urban Diagnosis and Integrated Disaster Risk Management
Norio OKADA
Dr. of Eng., Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University(Received for 10 Jun., 2004 and in revised from 7 Jan., 2005)

ABSTRACTThe need for integrated disaster risk management (IDRiM) as a novel perspective for dealing with 21st century
disaster prevention in both Japan, China and the world is addressed. When cities are focused, the methodologicalleverage of urban diagnosis linked with IDRiM is very effective. A prototype scheme of risk management(RM) is explained, and an extended version of RM for disaster management proposed. This is followed by our
premise that this type of risk management inevitably calls for an integrated approach, and its rationale is examined. A definition of urban diagnosis is provided and its prospective role in disaster management in this 21st century is discussed. In conclusion the need to examine meta-level conditions for IDRiM development such as theculture and climate for IDRiM and documenting the process technology of implementing IDRiM in real-worldpractice are addressed.

1. INTRODUCTION
The 21st century is seeing a turning point in disaster prevention. There is an emerging trend in disaster management toinclude the perspective and methodology of risk management coupled with urban diagnosis, all driven by the novel tide of the times,
and marked by what may be called “novel public management.”
For instance, evidences are already available on the emerging roleof NGOs in civil society, increasing significance of governmentprivate sector partnerships, and the extending spectrum of social
services in both need and provision. Tentatively let this new trend
in disaster management be referred to as a “novel public disastermanagement.”
In Japan as well as in North America and Western Europe thisnovel public disaster management is already in operation andexpanding year by year. Due to the different socio-cultural contexts of countries and regions, this trend is not yet visible and clear
in other Asian countries such as China but the direction of such achange and its driving force are everywhere persistent and therefore unavoidable. This provides a sound rationale for incorporating in disaster prevention the new perspective of integrated disasterrisk management (IDRiM). In addition there are many other reasons for introducing IDRiM, which are elaborated on here.

the following we simply use the term “loss,” to mean damage or
impact also (see Fig. 1).
(2) In the intermediate process in which a peril results in loss,“subject agents” are committed to take an action and to interact
with both the peril and hazards.
“Object agents” also are there that suffer loss. The occurrenceof loss therefore can be interpreted as the outcome of subject
agents taking “actions” and interacting with both the peril and hazards, and eventually attacking respective object agents. Note that
subject agents (SA) and object agents (OA) are clearly identifiable;
SA have the capacity to act, and take responsibility for the inherent
results. OA suffer loss. If OA are expected to have the capacity toaccept (a part of) the loss and also responsible for action-taking(decision-making) in one way or another, OA also become SA.
(3) The conventional model for this prototype risk management scheme is the “private management” one characterized by theequivalence of both subject and object agents. This basic model
operates on the “principle of self-responsibility.” In contrast the“public management model” assumes a society, community or

HazardPeril

2. WHAT IS RISK MANAGEMENT?
(1) The prototype risk management scheme discussed by
Okada (1986 and 1988) is shown in Fig. 1. The key is the clear
distinction made between the ideas of “danger” and “damage.” Thefirst trigger event in the occurrence of danger is called “peril” andsurrounding factors that may either promote or inhibit subsequent
events that may be triggered by the peril are referred to as “hazards.” Damage, loss or impact, if caused, is the final outcome. In

Subject Agent(Action Taking)Object Agent(Loss Suffering)Countermeasures(Action)Loss(Damage)Fig. 1 Prototype for risk management

KEY WORDS: disaster prevention, integrated disaster risk management, novel public management, urban diagnosis, implementation technology

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N. OKADA

region consisting of multiple agents, and most commonly, a government or an entity of public interest. In this model the subject
and object agents may not always be identical. Some agents aregovernmental (public sector), non-governmental (e.g., private sector NGOs or citizens and individuals.) Moreover SA and OA are
not always a priori identifiable and therefore not so self-evident.
We need to set up and determine the boundaries for those “stakeholders” belonging to their communication platforms. As
explained later, this is part of the reason why a participatory
approach is needed.
(4) Another key concept that intrinsically characterizes risk
management is the presence of “unknowns” and “uncertainties”(non-deterministic factors) inherent in the occurrences of the peril,hazards and loss. The use of the theory of probability and a statistical approach is vital in modeling uncertain events. People, however, need to meet the challenges of “unknowns” and of “inexperienced” events which need to be figured out and anticipated with
viable ideas and broad imagination, based on the available body ofscientific knowledge and accumulated experience to date, with theassistance of tools and media that best support our imagination.
3. INTRODUCTION OF RISK MANAGEMENT TODISASTER MANAGEMENT: A VARIANT OF
THE PROTOTYPE SCHEMEAs shown in Fig. 2, the essential difference between disasterprevention and the generic form of risk management is that the former is characterized by the concept of a region or city as a common (public) space. Moreover disaster is typified by unwelcome
triggering events, and object agents (and their assets and belongings) are characterized by their distribution or concentration in
space, and their vulnerabilities in responding to triggered events(Okada, 2002).
Fig. 3 shows a variant of the prototype scheme for risk management (Fig. 1), with well incorporated specifics of disaster management. Note that “peril” in Fig. 1 corresponds to “HAZARD”(with focus on its original meaning of an unavoidable natural hazardous event) in Fig. 2. Likewise “Hazard” in Fig. 1 corresponds
either to “exposure” or “vulnerability.” Here, “exposure” refers to
the “spatial distribution or frequency of an involved object agent
exposed to the HAZARD.” The term “vulnerability” is the extent
to which the object agent (OA) is vulnerable to the forces of the

Vulnerability: degree of resistanceof the asset & population against
disaster
Exposure: population andasset exposed to the threatof natural hazards

Population& AssetHazard: Flood, Earthquakes, etc

Fig. 2 City Space as Overlaps of Hazard, Exposure and Vulnerability

hazard and the degree of exposure.
This type scheme has the following significance:i) “Disaster” is differentiated from “HAZARD”, the former
occurring only when a HAZARD results in the occurrence ofthe latter, i.e., loss (damage).
ii) “Disaster” is an outcome of risk management in which
unknowns and uncertainties are inherent.
iii) “Disaster” is caused and promoted by the degree and patternof vulnerability and by the exposure of the involved object
agents spatially and temporally distributed over a common
region, city or local community.
4. PRE-DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT VS.
POST-DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT
Consider a timeline of risk management that divides itself intopre-disaster (pre-event) and post-disaster (post-event) management. The former is proactive management in anticipation ofprobable disaster. The latter is retroactive management classified
into phases of “immediately after”, “in the middle of”, and “soonafter and in due course of time”, respectively corresponding to“emergency management”, “crisis management” and “recovery
and restoration management.” Usually performance of retrospective management largely is constrained by time resources andinformation available real-time. Decisions therefore have to be
immediate and linked directly to its actual practice, characteristically making them “irreversible.” This “irreversibility”, as well as“limited short span of time”, together with the “scanty amount of
information” constrains emergency and crisis management (Okada
et al., 2001).
The interrelationship between pre- and post-disaster risk management merits attention. A community’s preparedness before disaster and people’s familiarization with emergency tools and equipment in everyday life are known to be effective in the event of theneed for emergency management. People’s cohabitation patterns(a type of exposure characteristic) have been found to be closely
linked to the community’s search and rescue (SAR) capability as
pointed out by Kajitani et al. (2002).
5. RISK MANAGEMENT AS A PDCA CYCLE
The risk management process should be viewed as a cyclic

Vulnerability
Exposure
HAZARD
Subject Agent(Action Taking)Object Agent(Loss Suffering)Countermeasures(Action)Loss(Damage)Fig. 3 Variant of prototype scheme for disaster risk management

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Monitor and Review

Communicate and Consult

URBAN DIAGNOSIS AND INTEGRATED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT

Fig. 4 EqTAP-adopted Risk Management Process

one as in Fig. 4 showing a common scheme of risk management
process as adopted by the EqTAP project (Ye et al. 2002).
Alternatively Fig. 5 which shows the schematic process of PDCA
(the Plan-Do-Check-Action Cycle) gives the essence of this cyclic
process. Importantly, this process is not self-closed within thecycle of planning as information processing; rather this part corresponds to the stages of “identify risk” through “evaluate risk” in
Fig. 4. The process is required to extend beyond “planning” to“doing,” “checking,” and “action”, eventually leading back to“establish risk” or “context building” for planning and management.
Greater stress on the proactive approach requires that adaptive
management be introduced, allowing for gradual and experimental
practices with hypothesized countermeasures and policies to becontinually monitored and revised. It also means that the PDCA
cycle process must be made in an integrated manner, particularly
highlighting to “checking” and “action.” As stated later these risk
management tasks centered on theses phases of PDCA cycle arecalled “regional diagnosis”; in particular, “urban diagnosis” withcities as the focus.
The PDCA cycle can be applied also to a chain of both proactive (pre-disaster) and retroactive (post-disaster) risk management.
This means that the gap between the two modes of risk management should be filled in and that the phases “CHECK” and“ACTION” on the part of the end-users of disaster management
ought to be handed with their initiatives. The idea behind this is
stress on the diagnosis of the status-quo based on the practice of“CHECK” and “ACTION” before “PLAN” (Okada, 2002, 2003).
6. ANTICIPATORY APPROACH BASED ON THE
PDCA CYCLE PROCESSSuppose that the future outlook is highly uncertain and

Fig. 5 PDCA Cyclic Process

unknown but that our best knowledge tells us we should (andcould) work out and start with a “preparatory countermeasure as ahypothesis.” Such being the case, the approach is made systematicby basing risk management on the PDCA Cycle Process. This iscalled the “anticipatory approach” or “precautionary approach.” If
this cyclic process intends to induce the evolution of an innovative
organizational or socio-cultural scheme, a systematic ecology
approach called “adaptive management” may serve well for the
purpose. In that case a preparatory countermeasure as a hypothesis
is referred to as a “policy” to test empirically (see Fig. 6).
A typical example is the Tonankai twin earthquake disasterthat is predicted scientifically to occur with a probability of ca.
0.95 in 50 years in the Pacific metropolises of the Tokai andNankai Regions of Japan (Okada, 2003). Many governmental initiatives have now been in order to best prepare for this imminentearthquake. We need to meet the challenge of this earthquake riskby an anticipatory approach. A question here is: what policy
should be set up as a hypothesis?

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Fig. 6 Process of Adaptive Management

Ongoing research challenge focusing on Nagoya City is relatively convincing. So far, the crucial themes identified are (a) how
to set up a communication platform for implementation of integrated disaster risk management, (b) which level of government or
which type of governance is fit for which type of platform building
in terms of geo-space, jurisdiction, and expertise (combined as“decision common space” as to geography, jurisdiction, common
knowledge, and technology”), and most important and most difficult, (c) who are able to grow gradually into independent andresponsible stakeholders as most of those taking part initially may
not necessarily be identical to stakeholders in the real sense of the
English language term. This means that the adaptive process of
implementing multi-participant decision-making and practices fora variety of disaster risks hypothetically is expected eventually tomake participants become stakeholders. This is taken up later interms of socio-cultural backgrounds and human climate which areconsidered to override, at meta-level, the communication platform
and its practice and process of integrated risk management in a
specific form.
7. URBAN DIAGNOSISA lesson learned from the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
Disaster is that we need to change our thinking to manage the kindof low-frequency/ high impact disaster that may hit the heart of adensely populated metropolis. We need to be able to manage suchcatastrophic risks in a more integrated manner;i. Disaster management needs to be linked more closely andconsistently to urban planning and management.
ii. Disaster management should be extended to include the predisaster phase and the time mode of daily life.
iii. Disaster management is required to deal with multiple hazards
as well as the combined and chained consequences triggeredby the occurrence of a single hazard.
iv. Disaster management is not the province solely of the government sector, it must be participated in by the NGOs, privatecompanies, and citizens (particularly residents living in theneighborhood ).
Fig. 7 depicts a five-storey pagoda model for viewing a city(region or community) as a vital complex system (Okada, 2002;
2003-1, 2003-2). The top tier corresponds to the “living activity”
level, the forth to the “land-use and built-environment” level, thethird to “infrastructure,” the second to “social environment,” andthe first (bottom) to “natural environment.” With the rise in level,
the speed of change increases. Much disaster risk is commonly
latent and distributed spatially/temporally across the city.
Moreover social hazards may lie in ambush on niches between the
different layers in this spatial/temporal system.
In the event of a catastrophic disaster, such spatial/temporalrisks will be exposed and in the absence of due awareness of theserisks, damage will be more severe than if disaster risks were properly managed. Analogous to the management of health risks to thehuman body, the methodology of comprehensive examination of
spatial/temporal risks can be interpreted as that of the diagnosis ofa city as living body. Let us call this methodology “urban diagnosis.”
The four items listed above point to the need of conducting
urban diagnosis for disaster risk management. Note that principally for urban diagnosis proper place is not so much in “Plan” but in“Do”, and, is more in “Check” and “Action” in the PDCA Cyclic
Process. This is because we need to monitor and check up statusquo conditions before and after treatment (a countermeasure orpolicy) has been introduced as a hypothesis. It is important thatbasically the outputs of urban diagnosis should be open to the public. But this prognosis made starts another round of the PDCA

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Fig. 7 City as a five-storey vital system (Pagoda Model)

Cyclic Process. A revised prescription and treatment can be developed and selected with “informed consent.” The procedure isrepeated until a process-tested treatment has been identified empirically and implemented.
8. SOCIO-ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE CRITERIAAS MEASUREMENTS IN URBAN DIAGNOSISAs stated, urban diagnosis calls for the collaborative work ofparticipants, and thus inevitably necessitating an agreed-upon common measurement with which to make the diagnosis and to determine directives needed for improvement. Let us call such common
measurements “socio-economic performance”, which implies thatthey should address the meaning of choices open to them as wellas what differences choices would make to societal life, if selected.
The five-year EqTAP Okada section research project has
shown that the practice of urban diagnosis requires a variety ofsocio-economic performance criteria that address the needs andvalues of different prospective stakeholders. This well may justify
the significance of the model performance criteria developed in our
EqTAP research activities and which have relevance to the respective levels of the five storey pagoda model in Fig. 7. For instance
the Niche Index primarily addresses the first level (top floor) of thepagoda, and the Topological Index refers to both the third echelon
and second one.
9. DISASTER RISK COMMUNICATION AS A
PREREQUISITE OF THE PDCA CYCLE.
The term diagnosis has natural association with a vital system,
like that of the human body. It therefore indicates a physiologicalapproach for patients (end-users) who tend to suffer from “disasterrisk syndrome.” Patients are familiar with and sensible to theirproblems in situ but may not be at ease with making diagnoses andprescriptions for treatment. Medical doctors (disaster practitioners
and experts) tend to lack information and sensors on patient problems in situ, even though they are specialists and thus proficient inmaking professional diagnoses based on their experience. If they
could communicate with patients appropriately and work together
in making a “collaborative diagnosis”, the result would be goodquality risk communication, and a good model for integrated disaster risk management would be realized. This explains why the left
column in Fig. 4. is labeled “Communicate and Consult” in therisk management process. Obviously, in practice, the significanceand value of introducing the participatory approach rests largely
with disaster risk communication in practice. The effectiveness of“informed consent” is another aspect of disaster risk communication to be addressed if we intend to decrease risk of miscommunication and failure to reach a consensus on collaborative disastermanagement.
10. NOVEL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND NOVELPUBLIC DISASTER MANAGEMENT (NPDM)
The 21st century is marked by a new trend in public management, which we call “Novel Public Management.” The term
“novel” intentionally is the adjective used rather than “new” inorder to distinguish our approach from what is known as “newpublic management” initiated by then Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher of the UK. As we posit in our conclusion, any publicmanagement, including that of disasters, must have a sound foundation based on culture and climate. Although seemingly the twoforms are similar, novel public management has to develop in its
own way, so as to be coordinated with culture and climate at metalevel.
So what is particularly novel about “Novel Public

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N. OKADAManagement”? The following are its typical novel features:a. the emerging role of NGOs (NPOs)
b. innovative schemes of public-private partnershipc. increasing importance of citizen initiatives
d. an institutionalized participatory process for multiple stakeholders
e. public information as common goods and its release to society
and stakeholders
f. concerns about public risk and the increasing need for integrated risk management
These points show the need for “innovation” in public management for disaster risk; hence the need to develop the methodology for novel disaster management (NPDM), which is required to
be built into the framework of, integrated disaster risk management(IDRiM). Equally important is the acquisition, accumulation, andsharing of the knowledge and arts of implementation, in which
how to implement the IDRiM per se needs to be studied andexplored as a missing research area of highly practical significance. As clarified in the above discussion, the concept andmethodology of urban diagnosis is considered highly consistent
with the methodological challenge to accommodate the spirit anddirectives of NPDM.
11. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the further research needs arei) Key relevant policy issues need to be identified and policy
linkages developed between urban diagnosis and urban planning and management.
ii) Further insight needs to be gained into meta-levels of integrated disaster risk management, such as the socio-cultural, historical background and processes considered to condition theactual self-revelation of integrated disaster risk management,
as well as the entire scope and limits of implementation in aparticular area. This overriding (meta-level) condition istermed “the culture and climate for IDRiM.”
iii) We need to increase more case areas of implementation, inorder to make comparative studies of at least two case study
areas, such as the EqTAP project (Okada group) which has
compared Japan and China.
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