Managing Disasters: Concepts and Cycles

Natural phenomena such as earthquakes, floods, fires, glaciers, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, droughts, and excessive rainfall persistently endanger human lives and the state.

Since the beginning of industrialization in the 18th century, factors such as urbanization, population growth, migration, globalization, and climate change have combined to increase the destructiveness of disasters.

Globalization is exacerbating the impacts of disasters by spreading them across borders and threatening larger geographical areas.

Yangtze River Flooding caused 3.7 deaths which have the most death population over the last 100 years in natural disaster events.

Türkiye is one of the countries that has the highest number of active fault lines in the world. When it comes to the risk of earthquakes, Türkiye frequently experiences deadly seismic activity. In addition, floods, landslides, and extensive forest fires have emerged as significant challenges in recent times.

Damage to any specific component of any network might result in extensive malfunctions, greatly impeding the effectiveness of disaster response and recovery activities. Due to their complexity, these systems are also more challenging to quickly restore, which extends the recovery time and increases the disaster’s total impact. It occurs because of the complexities of infrastructure.

The earliest recorded major disaster in Türkiye’s history is the 1509 Istanbul Earthquake.

The Hilal-i Ahmer Society was established in 1868 with the assistance of disaster damages. The organization maintained its operations throughout the Republican era and underwent a transformation in 1947, evolving into the contemporary Turkish Red Crescent. The association’s main concentration lies in providing assistance in the aftermath of a disaster, rather than actively engaging in the management and prevention of disasters.

The Great Lisbon earthquake on November 1, 1755 can be considered the first “modern” disaster because it was first to evoke a coordinated state emergency response as well as a forward-looking comprehensive effort for reconstruction which included mitigation efforts to reduce future disaster efforts.

Based on Balamir’s analogy, the modern approach to disaster management was to replace a “fatalistic society” with the concept of a “risk society” (Balamir, 2001). A risk society is a disaster resilient community that anticipates future disasters and has a sustainable network of physical systems. It focuses on mitigation processes, protecting strategies, self-reliance, preparedness and discourse, and contingency planning.

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, 2016), a disaster is defined as “a 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 and environmental losses and impacts’’.

It seeks to prevent and mitigate disasters, promptly respond to affected communities, and establish a more secure environment overall.

According to the UNDRR, disaster risk is defined as “the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets that 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”.

These events is stated in men-made disaster based on causes of occurrences.

Contemporary disaster management includes four distinct stages: mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, and reconstruction.

The final phase of the process involves rehabilitation. This phase involves the removal or restoration of damage to infrastructure services such as electricity, water, natural gas that the disaster-stricken society needs in the short term, while in the long term it involves activities aimed at the return of this society to normal life.

The prepadness phase involves “the design of the physical network structure to enhance collaboration and enhancement of information and communications technology systems’’.

The advanced technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence are capable of analyzing huge quantities of data to identify patterns and predict potential disasters with greater accuracy.

Global cooperation is facilitated by multilateral agreements and frameworks, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, 2015). These frameworks facilitate the sharing of information and technologies, collaborative training exercises, and synchronized responses to cross-border disasters.

Nations must implement a proactive and comprehensive disaster management strategy in response to the increasing threats posed by climate change, technological advancements, and geopolitical tensions.