Disaster Conceptualizations
Channel: Sean Anderson
Date: 2022-02-01

Here we go over many of the general concepts and key definitions related to modern disaster search and emergency management.

Our key overarching concept here is:
When a hazard negatively interacts with us (ourselves, our family, our community) or something we care about to the point where we are overwhelmed by the harmful outcomes, we experience a “disaster.”  

That said, we note that we have a growing consensus that there exists a spectrum of impacts from emergency to disaster to catastrophe.

Key definitions here include:

Emergency Management Cycle (Phases of Disasters):
Prevention/Mitigation: preventing future events or minimizing their effects
Preparedness: preparing to handle a future event (crisis)
Response: responding safely to an unfolding event (crisis)
Recovery: recovering from a past event (crisis)

hazard: 1. A process, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. (UNGA 2016, WHO 2009). 2. Source of potential harm (ISO 22300:2018).

risk: 1. The potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed/damaged assets which could occur to a system, society or a community in a specific period of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity (UNGA 2016). 2. The effect of uncertainty on objectives (ISO 31000:2018, ISO 22300:2018). 

disaster: Serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic or environmental losses/impacts.

incident: 1. An action, event or phenomenon which may cause loss of life or injury, property damage, socioeconomic disruption, and/or environmental degradation (WHO 2015). 2. [Event or] situation that can be, or could lead to, a disruption, loss, emergency, or crisis (ISO 22300:2018).

(hazardous) event: Manifestation of a hazard in a particular place during a particular period of time.