Facing Hazards and Disasters Understanding Human Dimensions (2006) / Chapter Skim
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response to major natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Studies of hazards and disasters by social scientists is the primary focus of this report, particularly research undertaken during the past three decades with support provided by the National Science Foundation through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP)
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Historically, hazards and disaster research have evolved in parallel, with the former focusing primarily on hazards vulnerability and mitigation, the latter primarily on disaster response and recovery, and the two veins intersecting most directly with common concerns about disaster preparedness. It is vital, however, that future social science research treat hazards and disaster research interchangeably and view the above five core topics of hazards and disaster research within a single overarching framework (see Figure S.1)
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CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE The committee's primary mission is to provide NSF and other stakeholders with a detailed appraisal of the short- and long-term challenges facing social science hazards and disaster research, and also new and emerging opportunities for advancing knowledge within the social sciences and through interdisciplinary collaborations with the natural sciences and engineering. Of central importance to its statement of task, the committee is charged with examining the contributions and accomplishments of the social sciences since the establishment of NEHRP in 1977, the program that through NSF has provided much of the support for social science research on hazards and disasters for more than 25 years.
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There is a solid knowledge base at the household level of analysis on vulnerability assessment, risk communication, evacuation and other forms of protective action, and expedient disaster mitigation activities -- for example, how people in earthquake or flood prone regions communicate about risks and warning messages, and how they respond to warning messages. The knowledge base and related explanatory modeling under NEHRP are skewed toward natural hazards (most notably earthquakes)
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Particular attention is being given post-September 11, 2001 to vulnerability assessment of national energy, transportation, and information systems, terrorist threat detection and interdiction, the special requirements of nuclear, biological, and chemical agents, and the organizational requirements of developing multigovernmental preparedness and response systems. Fortunately these concerns are readily subsumed within the historically mainstream topics of hazards and disaster research depicted in Figure S.1 above.
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In discussing each one, the committee offers guidance to NSF and other stakeholders for their future consideration. Summary Recommendation 1: Comparative research should be conducted to refine and measure core components of societal vulnerability and resilience to hazards of all types, to address the special requirements of confronting disasters caused by terrorist acts, and to advancing knowledge about miti
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The Panel should be interdisciplinary and include social scientists and engineers from hazards and disaster research as well as experts on informatics issues from cognitive science, computational science, and applied science. The Panel's mission should be, first, to assess problems of data standardization, data management and archiving, and data sharing as they relate to natural, technological,
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Having learned what to look for after decades of postdisaster investigation by social scientists, the potential for highly structured research designs and replicable data sets across multiple disaster types and events can now be realized. Pre-impact investigations of hazards and their associated risks are no less important than post-impact investigations of disasters, less subject to the uncertainties of specific events, arguably more amenable to highly structured and replicable data sets, and no less in need of data archives that are readily accessible to both researchers and practitioners.
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Social science research on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as well as more limited observations that have been made thus far on Hurricane Katrina indicate, first, that many previous findings about societal response to hazards and disasters remain valid, and second, that there is still much to be learned about responses to truly catastrophic events. A VISION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE AND A SAFER WORLD While NSF social science studies supported through NEHRP are summarized in some detail in the report that follows, the committee's overall vision of future hazards and disaster research underlies the summary recommendations that have been developed.
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Considerable progress has been made during the past several decades by social scientists studying different types of hazards and disasters, sometimes working collaboratively with investigators from other disciplines. But the continuing challenge for the social sciences centers on unraveling the complexity of individual and collective action before, during, and after disasters occur, on providing research findings that improve loss reduction decision making, and on assessing hazards and disaster related policies and programs.
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