Recovery from Disaster

Citation

Clive M.J. Warren (2016), "Recovery from Disaster", Property Management, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 175-176. https://doi.org/10.1108/PM-01-2016-0006

The impact of climate change has been linked to a significant increase in the incidence of natural disasters resulting from extreme weather events. While the world reacts swiftly to these events, pouring in humanitarian aid to provide immediate relief, the longer-term recovery from a disaster event is far less understood and supported. This text focuses on the recovery phase from disasters, which are estimated to cause US$166 trillion in damage annually.

The recovery process can best be summarised in a short quote from the preface; “shelter is a process more than an end product […] but unfortunately many of the mistakes identified in 1978 are still being made today”. The objective of this book is to attempt to address this issue of continuing to make the same mistakes as each disaster strikes, the authors take the view that a disaster is also a window of opportunity for positive change and attempt to show how this can be achieved. The authors have drawn on their considerable experience over many years, and many and varied disaster responses to outline an approach to disaster recovery which is effective, efficient and fair. To achieve this objective it is necessary to learn both positive and negative lessons from real-world experiences.

Recovery from Disaster is written by Ian Davis, who is visiting professor in Disaster Management at the Lund, Oxford Brooks and Kyoto Universities, and David Alexander who is Professor at the Institute of Risk and Disaster Reduction at the University College, London. Both authors have considerable experience in disaster management, having published numerous articles and books on the topic.

The book is designed for a wide audience of disaster professionals, academics, media and students. It follows a logical chapter format but underlying this structure is a series of 21 models which underpin the text. Disaster recovery is a complex process which many organisations have struggled to understand over many years. The models put forward attempt to address this complexity by presenting logical decision-making tools. It is also recognised in presenting this series of models that it is not possible to copy models from one disaster situation to the next and expect the same result.

The 21 models presented are broadly broken down into four major categories, each containing several models. The grouping of models helps to focus on particular aspects of the recovery process. In presenting the recovery models, each has been drawn from past experiences and published research or has been developed and tested by the authors. In presenting the recovery process the book draws on a large number of recent major disasters from around the world and illustrates the positive and negative elements of each recovery process.

This is a well written text with an innovative mode of presentation through illustrated examples and discussion of decision-making models in the context of disaster recovery. This is an excellent text for any property managers with an interest in this rapidly developing area of research.