From Disaster Risk Reduction to Policy Studies: Bridging Research Communities

Major conceptual and empirical advances over the past three decades have clarified how natural hazard events interact with community and human exposures and vulnerabilities to create risks that then become emergencies, disasters, or in the worst combinations, catastrophes. However, corresponding disaster risk reduction (DRR) knowledge and technology exist to significantly lessen the impacts of hazard events, but in many countries, including the United States, it requires major policy changes and implementation actions by public officials, particularly at local levels. With event losses continuing to mount, the DRR research community must demonstrate relevance and connections to the policy studies community in its most inclusive sense and draw in those scholars so that DRR research is more convergent and balanced and so that DRR advocacy is more informed and effective. To attract more policy studies scholars to DRR, and to disaster research more generally, a five-component bridge is offered based on the following equation: EmR/DR/CatR=H+ExxV, where the risk of an emergency (EmR), a disaster (DR), or a catastrophe (CatR) is a function of a community's hazard or hazards (H), its human and asset exposures (Ex) to those hazards, and the vulnerabilities (V) of those exposures.