This is a project to hold a 2 ½ day workshop on the Theory of Disaster Recovery. A lot of research has been done on disaster recovery, however little has been done to pull together the research results into an overall theory that could help shape and prioritize future research and to help those who can use it in communities affected by disasters. The workshop will ask the leading researchers in disaster recovery to help shape such a theory and develop a five year research plan for further disaster recovery research.
Recovery is the least understood aspect of emergency management. Researchers do not fully understand the roles of all the different types of organizations and interest groups that are involved in recovery. They also do not understand how these many different groups interact with each other or if the people that are more vulnerable (old, the infirm, minorities and the poor) can be properly taken care of by the government or the community. Most local governments also do not plan for disaster recovery and there is no state or federal government policy to help frame and to coordinate the disaster recovery process.
Recovery is also not understood by the practitioners that work in all three levels of government. Hurricane Katrina illustrated how dangerous it is when we fail to understand the recovery needs of a community, a region, and a state. Although Katrina struck almost five years ago many communities still struggle with the hardships of rebuilding homes, businesses, and infrastructure, as well as a sense of community. Since Hurricane Katrina many scholars have started looking at disaster recovery again so that the knowledge of how communities can recover best can be improved. These same scholars also now need to look at the overall results of this latest research and to see if there are common themes and ideas that can be drawn from these research efforts. They will then be able to determine if there are gaps in the knowledge there is about recovery and determine what still remains to be done to understand it better. Finally, the workshop results will help those that work in local, state, and federal government improve their disaster recovery policies and improve the chances that another catastrophe like Katrina will never happen again.
An increasingly important issue is how society can better understand and address long-term recovery from disaster. We have no validated theory of disaster recovery to help inform policy decisions, which are consequently made in isolation. To address this need, the Public Entity Risk Institute sponsored, with National Science Foundation support, a Recovery Theory Workshop in November 2010 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Participants were leading researchers in disciplines that study five areas of recovery: economic, social, environmental, institutional and built. The following were the major discussion threads: – Disaster recovery goes beyond rebuilding. – Disaster recovery does not mean a return to the pre-disaster state. – Disaster recovery is a non-linear process that does not progress smoothly. – Disaster recovery is not the same for everyone. – Pre-disaster recovery planning improves recovery outcomes. – Disaster recovery requires the involvement of all stakeholder groups. – Pre-disaster recovery plans may require revision to respond adequately to a specific event. – Disaster recovery is the product of many independent decisions by stakeholders. – Disaster recovery is affected by sequence and timing of aid. – Disaster recovery includes coming to terms with nature. – Disaster recovery may provide an opportunity for positive change. In a Workshop comprised of researchers from different disciplines and perspectives, the development of a single definition of disaster recovery was challenging and provoked much discussion. The Workshop attendees separated into working groups to begin the process. Each table discussed the issues and proffered a definition. Despite significant divergence in the table definitions, the entire group worked through the alternatives and agreed upon the following working definition for the purposes of the Workshop: "Following perturbation by an extreme event, recovery is a complex and urgent process to achieve functionality of socio-ecological systems and adapt to new conditions." Although the Workshop included a specific discussion devoted to developing a working definition for disaster recovery, the question of defining disaster recovery was woven throughout the entire Workshop. The major discussion threads surrounding the characteristics of disaster recovery and the variables that affect it added additional complexion to the definition that was finally adopted, and laid the foundation for development of the recommended research agenda. After the Workshop, to select the research topics that would be submitted to the National Science Foundation, we conducted a poll of Workshop participants to determine which of the topics identified at the Workshop had the greatest degree of interest. The topics were organized under one of five categories: economic, institutional, social, physical (built and environmental) and interdisciplinary. To simplify compliance, each participant was asked to check the five research topics that they believed should be recommended to the NSF. The top topics overall were the following: 8 votes: – In what ways is recovery influenced by the institutional arrangements (especially laws, policies and plans) that determine the character of the built and natural environments? (Physical) – Compared to pre-event normality, what are the characteristics of decision-making processes that affect the trajectory and speed of recovery? (Interdisciplinary) 6 votes: – How can betterment of social equality increase resilience and sustainability, and how can life recovery, community recovery and formal aid be directed toward reducing inequities of gender, race and class? (Social) 5 votes: – What is the makeup and nature of disaster recovery assistance networks? (Institutional) 4 votes: – What are the important variables of recovery from the victims' point of view? (Economic) – What is the role of organizations in recovery? (Institutional) – What is the relationship between an individual survivor's life recovery and the survivor's involvement in helping their community recover from the effects of a disaster? (Social) – How do inter-relationships between the physical, social and economic environments influence recovery? (Physical) – What are the characteristics of learning systems that enhance the self-organization of recovery actors? (Interdisciplinary) Long-term disaster recovery is a fertile field for researchers. The research agenda items identified by the participants capture some of the research topics that will be important. Also important is the participants' discussion about how research should be conducted and its outcomes recorded. The participants discussed that long-term disaster recovery research should be both comparative and longitudinal. Comparative research observes the outcomes in different regions and even countries, to see how recovery differs in various environments. Longitudinal research observes outcomes over time, and would enable researchers to see how disaster recovery unfolds over a period of years. Longitudinal research is especially appropriate for disaster recovery, which unfolds over periods of years. The participants also discussed that the resulting data should be centrally warehoused and available to other researchers in the field.
