Disaster Forensics

Definition

A process to understand the root causes of disasters (rather than focusing exclusively on the dynamics of individual disaster events and response efforts), often yielding ‘systemic’ strategies for managing disasters.

Source

Masys (2016). Disaster forensics. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications Series. Switzerland: Springer Internatioanal Publishing.

Keating, A., Venkateswaran, K., Szoenyi, M., MacClune, K., & Mechler, R. (2016). From event analysis to global lessons: disaster forensics for building resilience. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 16(7), 1603-1616.

French, Adam, Reinhard Mechler, Miguel Arestegui, Karen MacClune, & Abel Cisneros. (2020). Root causes of recurrent catastrophe: The political ecology of El Niño-related disasters in Peru. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 47, 101539.

See also: Disaster, Systemic Perspective

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