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Disasters of the 21st Century, Knowns and Unknowns: Casualties, Costs...
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Disasters of the 21st Century, Knowns and Unknowns: Casualties, Costs and Resiliency

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 16285

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Francis O. Adeola

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Liberal Arts, Education & Human Development, The University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA
Interests: local and cross-national environmental justice issues; environmental pollution studies; socioeconomic development, poverty, population issues; comparative cross-national studies; environmental health; human rights issues; rural development; agribusiness, biotechnology and food issues; natural resources; technological impact assessment, natural and technological disasters

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Disasters and catastrophes are not new to societies. They have occurred since ancient times, as surviving historic tales of their tolls on human life and the economy suggest. However, in the first two decades of the 21st century, mega disasters and catastrophes triggered by natural hazards, technological accidents, sociopolitical hazards, other human activities, biological hazards, and a blend of these hazards have increased in frequency and magnitude, causing an unprecedented number of casualties in terms of deaths, injuries, and economic losses across the globe. In the latest Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, the United Nations emphasized that at no point in human history have we been confronted with such an array of both known and unknown risks, often interacting in a hyperconnected, rapidly changing globalized world. We are faced with new risks with intricate linkages, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior projections or predictions about climate change have come to pass much sooner than anticipated. Among the major disaster events of the 21st century are high-intensity hurricanes/tropical cyclones, massive flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, fires, dam failures, industrial technological disasters, aviation disasters, and terrorism.

I am calling for papers whose theoretical, methodological, and substantive approaches address specific aspects of catastrophe or disaster of the 21st century within a country or in a comparative cross-country setting. Potential contributions to this Special Issue might include but are not limited to:

Recommended/Suggested Topics

  • Trends in the frequency, magnitude, scale, and geographical spread of weather-related disaster events in the 21st century;
  • Trends in the social and geophysical vulnerability to natural and anthropogenic disasters in the past two decades;
  • The impacts of natural–technological (NATECH) or hybrid disasters in the 21st century;
  • Climate-change-induced disasters and their effects in terms of casualties, deaths, economic, and other related impacts over the past two decades;
  • The role of social capital in disaster mitigation, coping, adaptation, and recovery;
  • The cultural, economic, social, and psychological effects of a disaster;
  • Disaster risk communication and community’s inclination to mitigation and evacuation;
  • Novel theories of disaster behavior including coping, adaptation, and resiliency for different types of disasters;
  • Race, class, and gender differences in disaster encounter, losses, coping and recovery in the 21st century;
  • Environmental injustice and social injustice as incubators of natural and unnatural disasters.
  • The public health effects of disasters; or disaster epidemiology;
  • Assessing the cultural, economic, demographic, and sociopsychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic;
  • Disaster management in the 21st century.

Prof. Dr. Francis O. Adeola
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 2100 KiB  
Article
Effects of Reconstruction Planning on the Utility of Social Capital in Minamisanriku, Miyagi after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake
by Kayleigh Ward
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(7), 254; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/socsci10070254 - 02 Jul 2021
Viewed by 3068
Abstract
This mixed-methods community-based participatory research project is set in the rural coastal community of Minamisanriku, Miyagi. Ten years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, this study investigates whether and to what extent social capital acts as an asset to drive economic growth, [...] Read more.
This mixed-methods community-based participatory research project is set in the rural coastal community of Minamisanriku, Miyagi. Ten years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, this study investigates whether and to what extent social capital acts as an asset to drive economic growth, recovery, collaboration, and decision making for residents to address social and economic problems as they perceive them. The connection between reconstruction planning and recovery is also investigated. Primary data collection methods include a conceptual social capital mapping exercise (n = 200) to document resident bonding, bridging, and linking capital relationships (n = 1994), and semi-structured interviews (n = 70) to capture how residents with high linking capital do or do not utilize it. Participant observation and secondary data analysis contextualized resident maps and interviews. Overall, the study results suggest that the utility of social capital is highly sensitive to the cultural norms of social and power hierarchies, that it fortifies in group–out group dynamics, and enables residents to address immediate needs, but lacks the ability to enable residents to use the resources and information entrenched in their social networks and other structures effectively due to intermediating issues of unequal development of social and economic infrastructure across districts and other community disparities that emerge through the reconstruction process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disasters of the 21st Century, Knowns and Unknowns: Casualties, Costs and Resiliency)
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20 pages, 372 KiB  
Article
Considering COVID-19 through the Lens of Hazard and Disaster Research
by Liesel Ritchie and Duane Gill
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(7), 248; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/socsci10070248 - 30 Jun 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4925
Abstract
Decades of social science research have taught us much about how individuals, groups, and communities respond to disasters. The findings of this research have helped inform emergency management practices, including disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, [...] Read more.
Decades of social science research have taught us much about how individuals, groups, and communities respond to disasters. The findings of this research have helped inform emergency management practices, including disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us—researchers or not—have attempted or are attempting to make sense of what is going on around us. In this article, we assert that we need not examine the pandemic in a vacuum; rather, we can draw upon scholarly and practical sources to inform our thinking about this 21st century catastrophe. The pandemic has provided an “unfortunate opportunity” to revisit what we know about disaster phenomena, including catastrophes, and to reconsider the findings of research from over the years. Drawing upon academic research, media sources, and our own observations, we focus on the U.S. and employ disaster characteristics framework of (1) etiology or origins; (2) physical damage characteristics; (3) disaster phases or cycles; (4) vulnerability; (5) community impacts; and (6) individual impacts to examine perspectives about the ways in which the ongoing pandemic is both similar and dissimilar to conceptualizations about the social dimensions of hazards and disasters. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic is not merely a disaster; rather, it is a catastrophe. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disasters of the 21st Century, Knowns and Unknowns: Casualties, Costs and Resiliency)
25 pages, 1539 KiB  
Article
Geographies of Doing Nothing–Internal Displacement and Practices of Post-Disaster Recovery in Urban Areas of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
by Alexandra Titz
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(3), 110; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/socsci10030110 - 22 Mar 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3761
Abstract
Disaster-related internal displacement is on the rise in many countries and is increasingly becoming an urban phenomenon. For many people, as in the case of the earthquake disaster 2015 in Nepal, protracted or multiple disaster displacements are a lived reality. While the drivers [...] Read more.
Disaster-related internal displacement is on the rise in many countries and is increasingly becoming an urban phenomenon. For many people, as in the case of the earthquake disaster 2015 in Nepal, protracted or multiple disaster displacements are a lived reality. While the drivers of displacement are relatively well understood, significant uncertainties remain regarding the factors that trigger prolonged or secondary displacement and impede ending of displacement or achieving durable solutions. The purpose of this article is to illustrate and theorise the discourse of reconstruction and return that shapes experiences, strategies, and policies in order to gain a better understanding of the obstacles to pursuing durable solutions that are still shaping the reality of life for urban internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kathmandu Valley. I use the concepts of ‘fields of practice’ and ‘disaster justice’ to provide insights into the theorisation of the links between social inequality, structural forms of governance, and the reconstruction process itself. Findings demonstrate that the application of these concepts has great potential to expand our understanding of ‘realities of life’ and practices of IDPs, and thus contribute to a more differentiated evidence base for the development and implementation of appropriate disaster risk reduction policies and practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Disasters of the 21st Century, Knowns and Unknowns: Casualties, Costs and Resiliency)
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