Back
About RSIS
Introduction
Building the Foundations
Welcome Message
Board of Governors
Staff Profiles
Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
Dean’s Office
Management
Distinguished Fellows
Faculty and Research
Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
Visiting Fellows
Adjunct Fellows
Administrative Staff
Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
RSIS Endowment Fund
Endowed Professorships
Career Opportunities
Getting to RSIS
Research
Research Centres
Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
Research Programmes
National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
Social Cohesion Research Programme (SCRP)
Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
Other Research
Future Issues and Technology Cluster
Research@RSIS
Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
Graduate Education
Graduate Programmes Office
Exchange Partners and Programmes
How to Apply
Financial Assistance
Meet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other events
RSIS Alumni
Outreach
Global Networks
About Global Networks
RSIS Alumni
International Programmes
About International Programmes
Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)
Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)
International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS)
International Strategy Forum-Asia (ISF-Asia)
Executive Education
About Executive Education
SRP Executive Programme
Terrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
Public Education
About Public Education
Publications
RSIS Publications
Annual Reviews
Books
Bulletins and Newsletters
RSIS Commentary Series
Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
Commemorative / Event Reports
Future Issues
IDSS Papers
Interreligious Relations
Monographs
NTS Insight
Policy Reports
Working Papers
External Publications
Authored Books
Journal Articles
Edited Books
Chapters in Edited Books
Policy Reports
Working Papers
Op-Eds
Glossary of Abbreviations
Policy-relevant Articles Given RSIS Award
RSIS Publications for the Year
External Publications for the Year
Media
News Releases
Speeches
Video/Audio Channel
Events
Contact Us
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Think Tank and Graduate School Ponder The Improbable Since 1966
Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University
  • About RSIS
      IntroductionBuilding the FoundationsWelcome MessageBoard of GovernorsHonours and Awards for RSIS Staff and StudentsRSIS Endowment FundEndowed ProfessorshipsCareer OpportunitiesGetting to RSIS
      Staff ProfilesExecutive Deputy Chairman’s OfficeDean’s OfficeManagementDistinguished FellowsFaculty and ResearchAssociate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research AnalystsVisiting FellowsAdjunct FellowsAdministrative Staff
  • Research
      Research CentresCentre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      Research ProgrammesNational Security Studies Programme (NSSP)Social Cohesion Research Programme (SCRP)Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      Other ResearchFuture Issues and Technology ClusterResearch@RSISScience and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
      Graduate Programmes OfficeExchange Partners and ProgrammesHow to ApplyFinancial AssistanceMeet the Admissions Team: Information Sessions and other eventsRSIS Alumni
  • Outreach
      Global NetworksAbout Global NetworksRSIS Alumni
      International ProgrammesAbout International ProgrammesAsia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO)Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO)International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS)International Strategy Forum-Asia (ISF-Asia)
      Executive EducationAbout Executive EducationSRP Executive ProgrammeTerrorism Analyst Training Course (TATC)
      Public EducationAbout Public Education
  • Publications
      RSIS PublicationsAnnual ReviewsBooksBulletins and NewslettersRSIS Commentary SeriesCounter Terrorist Trends and AnalysesCommemorative / Event ReportsFuture IssuesIDSS PapersInterreligious RelationsMonographsNTS InsightPolicy ReportsWorking Papers
      External PublicationsAuthored BooksJournal ArticlesEdited BooksChapters in Edited BooksPolicy ReportsWorking PapersOp-Eds
      Glossary of AbbreviationsPolicy-relevant Articles Given RSIS AwardRSIS Publications for the YearExternal Publications for the Year
  • Media
      News ReleasesSpeechesVideo/Audio Channel
  • Events
  • Contact Us
    • Connect with Us

      rsis.ntu
      rsis_ntu
      rsisntu
      rsisvideocast
      school/rsis-ntu
      rsis.sg
      rsissg
      RSIS
      RSS
      Subscribe to RSIS Publications
      Subscribe to RSIS Events

      Getting to RSIS

      Nanyang Technological University
      Block S4, Level B3,
      50 Nanyang Avenue,
      Singapore 639798

      Click here for direction to RSIS
Connect
Search
  • RSIS
  • Publication
  • RSIS Publications
  • Managing Disasters 4.0: Need For New Thinking
  • Annual Reviews
  • Books
  • Bulletins and Newsletters
  • RSIS Commentary Series
  • Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses
  • Commemorative / Event Reports
  • Future Issues
  • IDSS Papers
  • Interreligious Relations
  • Monographs
  • NTS Insight
  • Policy Reports
  • Working Papers

CO19166 | Managing Disasters 4.0: Need For New Thinking
Angelo Paolo Luna Trias

23 August 2019

download pdf

SYNOPSIS

The UN Global Assessment Report (GAR) is a comprehensive review and analysis of worldwide progress on disaster risk management (DRM). This year’s edition challenges us to move beyond prevailing norms in DRM to consider the complex nature of systemic risk. What does this shift mean and how will it shape DRM policy, research, and practice?

COMMENTARY

IT IS becoming clearer that the drivers of natural and human-induced disasters, as well as opportunities to address them, often lie within socio-economic development. This awareness is leading to a better understanding of how to reduce and manage existing risks. We are seeing more disaster risk-informed development policies and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) plans geared towards sustainable development over the last decade. However, our way of living is also evolving and so are the dangers and threats emerging in our societies.

We now live in a networked world made up of interdependent systems that allow capital, goods, information, labour, and services to continuously flow. This creates opportunities for work efficiencies and human development enabling people to access different forms of wealth and wellbeing. But the same systems we depend on for everyday life are exposing us to intensified risks and generating unknown ones that could lead to new kinds of disasters. Managing systemic risk to sustain social progress and safeguard economic growth at a time of great change is more necessary than ever.

Age of Systemic Risk

Systemic risk, in the context of DRM, refers to the potential harm and damage to people and assets that could occur from complex interactions between humans and their natural and man-made environments. It is often described in two ways from a DRM standpoint:

First, as “new, emerging, and larger dangers and threats”: These arise when unsustainable development like unrestrained population growth and unplanned expansion of cities blend with global issues such as irregular migration and global warming. Our DRM approaches and tools need to go beyond capturing linear and singular risks. Mainstream DRM thinking and methods often deal with risks one at a time as it progresses from one stage to another. This is no longer enough.

Second, as the “growing potential” for one disaster to trigger or worsen another: This cautions us to consider that disasters moving forward will likely have cascading and compounding effects. We have seen this last year in Central Sulawesi where a shallow earthquake off the coast simultaneously triggered near-field tsunamis, major landslides, and extensive soil liquefaction.

Dealing with complexity, including the disasters that develop within and among our systems, is perhaps one of the biggest challenges of our time.

Embracing Complexity

The increasing dependencies of our social, economic, and physical systems presents opportunities and challenges to DRM. Deeper connections between such systems heightens mobility and allows for greater integration among regional DRM actors. But the ever-expanding interactions of these systems is also producing instabilities and uncertainties that put larger numbers of people and assets at-risk to disasters.

On one hand, less restrictive movement of capital and labour is making travel and foreign contacts easier, and the spread of creativity and innovation around the globe faster. The Internet continues to facilitate more direct access to other cultures, knowledge, and resources. Tightly coupled global supply chains are contributing in reducing manufacturing and logistical expenses.

On the other hand, global transportation networks that are expanding in reach and volume capacity can amplify biological and social contagion. Containing the spread of infectious diseases and diffusion of negative sentiments that could trigger panic and disorder becomes more challenging.

The growing dependence of contemporary societies to critical infrastructure is also making them more susceptible to technological hazards. Communication and power networks that could strengthen social ties are also increasing people’s vulnerability to abrupt failures, intentional disruptions, and targeted attacks.

The enhanced connectivity of global markets are increasing the economic costs and transnational impacts of disasters as we have witnessed in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. After the disaster, production and consumption in several countries had to be suspended for days to weeks.

It seems that systemic risk is an unavoidable consequence of modernisation. How can we better manage systemic risks and complex disasters in an interconnected world? There are many perspectives and no single and straightforward answer. But we know enough to know that we cannot hope to manage what we do not seek to understand.

Disaster Risk Management 4.0?

The value of DRM – its potential to save lives, lessen suffering, reduce damages and losses – depend on its applicability and relevance. Much of it has to do with how well it is aligned to the transforming risk environment and disaster context.

The evolution of DRM to-date can be summarised in three stages. The first stage, centrality, refers to top-down and centralised efforts back when DRM relied only on a few key actors. The second stage, diversity, pertains to bottom-up and participatory DRM that aims to raise awareness and expand partnerships.

The third stage, agency, indicates the aspiration to localise DRM and make it more inclusive and sustainable. Now, we are on the brink of the fourth stage, complexity, representing DRM that seeks to address disasters that do not have clear-cut and strictly defined causes, occurrences, and effects.

We need a Disaster Risk Management 4.0 that will enable us to survive and thrive as we move further into Industrial Revolution 4.0. This calls for fresh and novel approaches and tools that will allow us to integrate DRM policies, studies, and practices required in a networked world.

The DRM community will not be able to grasp this new disaster problem by using old thinking and methods that break it down into parts and address those in siloes. Before we can effectively cope with and adapt to present-day and future dangers and threats, we must understand the structures and behaviours of the systems we are embedded in first.

UN Secretary General António Guterres explains this well: “If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world, I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

About the Author

Angelo Paolo L. Trias is an Associate Research Fellow of the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme at the Centre of Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Categories: RSIS Commentary Series / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global
comments powered by Disqus

SYNOPSIS

The UN Global Assessment Report (GAR) is a comprehensive review and analysis of worldwide progress on disaster risk management (DRM). This year’s edition challenges us to move beyond prevailing norms in DRM to consider the complex nature of systemic risk. What does this shift mean and how will it shape DRM policy, research, and practice?

COMMENTARY

IT IS becoming clearer that the drivers of natural and human-induced disasters, as well as opportunities to address them, often lie within socio-economic development. This awareness is leading to a better understanding of how to reduce and manage existing risks. We are seeing more disaster risk-informed development policies and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) plans geared towards sustainable development over the last decade. However, our way of living is also evolving and so are the dangers and threats emerging in our societies.

We now live in a networked world made up of interdependent systems that allow capital, goods, information, labour, and services to continuously flow. This creates opportunities for work efficiencies and human development enabling people to access different forms of wealth and wellbeing. But the same systems we depend on for everyday life are exposing us to intensified risks and generating unknown ones that could lead to new kinds of disasters. Managing systemic risk to sustain social progress and safeguard economic growth at a time of great change is more necessary than ever.

Age of Systemic Risk

Systemic risk, in the context of DRM, refers to the potential harm and damage to people and assets that could occur from complex interactions between humans and their natural and man-made environments. It is often described in two ways from a DRM standpoint:

First, as “new, emerging, and larger dangers and threats”: These arise when unsustainable development like unrestrained population growth and unplanned expansion of cities blend with global issues such as irregular migration and global warming. Our DRM approaches and tools need to go beyond capturing linear and singular risks. Mainstream DRM thinking and methods often deal with risks one at a time as it progresses from one stage to another. This is no longer enough.

Second, as the “growing potential” for one disaster to trigger or worsen another: This cautions us to consider that disasters moving forward will likely have cascading and compounding effects. We have seen this last year in Central Sulawesi where a shallow earthquake off the coast simultaneously triggered near-field tsunamis, major landslides, and extensive soil liquefaction.

Dealing with complexity, including the disasters that develop within and among our systems, is perhaps one of the biggest challenges of our time.

Embracing Complexity

The increasing dependencies of our social, economic, and physical systems presents opportunities and challenges to DRM. Deeper connections between such systems heightens mobility and allows for greater integration among regional DRM actors. But the ever-expanding interactions of these systems is also producing instabilities and uncertainties that put larger numbers of people and assets at-risk to disasters.

On one hand, less restrictive movement of capital and labour is making travel and foreign contacts easier, and the spread of creativity and innovation around the globe faster. The Internet continues to facilitate more direct access to other cultures, knowledge, and resources. Tightly coupled global supply chains are contributing in reducing manufacturing and logistical expenses.

On the other hand, global transportation networks that are expanding in reach and volume capacity can amplify biological and social contagion. Containing the spread of infectious diseases and diffusion of negative sentiments that could trigger panic and disorder becomes more challenging.

The growing dependence of contemporary societies to critical infrastructure is also making them more susceptible to technological hazards. Communication and power networks that could strengthen social ties are also increasing people’s vulnerability to abrupt failures, intentional disruptions, and targeted attacks.

The enhanced connectivity of global markets are increasing the economic costs and transnational impacts of disasters as we have witnessed in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. After the disaster, production and consumption in several countries had to be suspended for days to weeks.

It seems that systemic risk is an unavoidable consequence of modernisation. How can we better manage systemic risks and complex disasters in an interconnected world? There are many perspectives and no single and straightforward answer. But we know enough to know that we cannot hope to manage what we do not seek to understand.

Disaster Risk Management 4.0?

The value of DRM – its potential to save lives, lessen suffering, reduce damages and losses – depend on its applicability and relevance. Much of it has to do with how well it is aligned to the transforming risk environment and disaster context.

The evolution of DRM to-date can be summarised in three stages. The first stage, centrality, refers to top-down and centralised efforts back when DRM relied only on a few key actors. The second stage, diversity, pertains to bottom-up and participatory DRM that aims to raise awareness and expand partnerships.

The third stage, agency, indicates the aspiration to localise DRM and make it more inclusive and sustainable. Now, we are on the brink of the fourth stage, complexity, representing DRM that seeks to address disasters that do not have clear-cut and strictly defined causes, occurrences, and effects.

We need a Disaster Risk Management 4.0 that will enable us to survive and thrive as we move further into Industrial Revolution 4.0. This calls for fresh and novel approaches and tools that will allow us to integrate DRM policies, studies, and practices required in a networked world.

The DRM community will not be able to grasp this new disaster problem by using old thinking and methods that break it down into parts and address those in siloes. Before we can effectively cope with and adapt to present-day and future dangers and threats, we must understand the structures and behaviours of the systems we are embedded in first.

UN Secretary General António Guterres explains this well: “If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world, I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

About the Author

Angelo Paolo L. Trias is an Associate Research Fellow of the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme at the Centre of Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Categories: RSIS Commentary Series / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Popular Links

About RSISResearch ProgrammesGraduate EducationPublicationsEventsAdmissionsCareersVideo/Audio ChannelRSIS Intranet

Connect with Us

rsis.ntu
rsis_ntu
rsisntu
rsisvideocast
school/rsis-ntu
rsis.sg
rsissg
RSIS
RSS
Subscribe to RSIS Publications
Subscribe to RSIS Events

Getting to RSIS

Nanyang Technological University
Block S4, Level B3,
50 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798

Click here for direction to RSIS

Get in Touch

    Copyright © S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. All rights reserved.
    Privacy Statement / Terms of Use
    Help us improve

      Rate your experience with this website
      123456
      Not satisfiedVery satisfied
      What did you like?
      0/255 characters
      What can be improved?
      0/255 characters
      Your email
      Please enter a valid email.
      Thank you for your feedback.
      This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to the use of cookies on your device as described in our privacy policy. Learn more
      OK
      Latest Book
      more info