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This study aims to compare the humanitarian supply chains and logistics of two countries in earthquake preparedness by modifying and using a previously established preparedness evaluation framework.

A European flood emergency management system (FEMS) is a seven-dimensional framework to assess a country’s preparedness for flood emergencies. The FEMS framework was modified to apply to earthquakes. Leveraging a multiple explanatory case study approach with data analysis, the authors reconstructed the events of the earthquakes in Pakistan (2005) and Japan (2011) with an applied grading (1–5). Findings were evaluated within the adopted FEMS framework. From a practitioner’s perspective, the framework is applicable and can accelerate support in the field.

Pakistan lacked emergency plans before the 2005 earthquake. In contrast, Japan possessed emergency plans before the disaster, helping minimise casualties. Overall, Japan demonstrated considerably better emergency management effectiveness. However, both countries significantly lacked the distribution of responsibilities among actors.

Practical factors in the humanitarian supply chain are well understood. However, synthesising individual factors into a comprehensive framework is difficult, which the study solves by applying and adopting the FEMS framework to earthquakes. The developed framework allows practitioners a structured baseline for prioritising measures in the field. Furthermore, this study exemplifies the usefulness of cross-hazard research within emergency management and preparedness in a real-world scenario.

The paper focuses on an aspect of disaster often overlooked by experts: that of disaster memory both as a prevention tool and one potentially contributing to the resilience of vulnerable communities in Japan. The objective is, more specifically, to explore one specific source of disaster memory in Japan, namely the disaster-related stone monuments scattered throughout the archipelago.

To achieve the goals, the authors have studied several types of materials. First, the authors have used the “Natural Disaster Monument” online database compiled by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GIS), data upon which the authors based the field research study, focused on water-related disaster in Otsu city (Shiga Prefecture). Simultaneously, the authors have systematically searched Japanese newspapers since the middle of the 19th century as well as the archives of Shiga prefecture in order to collect additional information on the statistical reality of these monuments, the context of their creation and in order to better estimate the severity of our case studies.

First, the findings show that stone monuments are indeed structuring elements of disaster memory in Japan. Not only are they present throughout the archipelago, but in addition, they are still for the most part visited by local communities. Second, the findings show how this material culture of disaster, as a vector of disaster memory, could be used as a tool to better understand and bring awareness to the occurrence of specific hazards, especially to future generations.

The authors promote an interdisciplinary approach by associating anthropology and history. The study offers a new and original character about an object of study relating to both the cultural and historical fields but still often neglected as a tool and object of research in DDR. The authors provide a method and suggest ways to integrate these stone monuments into DDR policies. Finally, the authors propose to better integrate these monuments into the overall reflection on disaster awareness and disaster mitigation.

This study examines fisheries affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 to explore how the collectivism appears during the recovery process.

The author questions the context of collaboration after the disaster among independent small-scale fishers in Miyagi by conducting semistructured interviews with more than 50 local fishers with anthropological observations of boat fishing operations and using local documents and statistics.

The corresponding collaboration among the fishers after the disaster is not a mere “disaster utopia,” but is embedded in the socioecological context of fishing. Fishers have developed individual and group fishing. They have institutionalized competitive distribution for sedentary fish with low resource fluctuation, while outcome-equal distribution is adopted for migratory fish with high resource fluctuation. This forms a fishing continuum that connects competitive individualism with collectivism in the community, which has contributed to resilience for disaster recovery.

The balance between individualism and collectivism is decisively coordinated in socioecological contexts. The multifaceted resource strategy for maritime biodiversity that features family-based occupational differentiation in a community is crucial for disaster recovery of small-scale fishers.

This study adopts the multi-step model developed by Avraham and Ketter (2008), for altering place images, based on past academic literature on destination marketing. The purpose of this study is to determine the state of Fukushima’s sake breweries before and after 2011, and its strategies for overcoming negative images and strengthening regional branding. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven sake breweries in Fukushima.

Fukushima Prefecture, located in northern Japan, is renowned for its hot springs, lakes, historical architecture, gastronomy, and particularly its sake (or Japanese rice wine). However, pre-existing problems such as the prefecture’s changing demographics and economic development, the effects of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and fears of radioactive contamination have made consumers reluctant to consume products from the region or to visit the prefecture. This study illustrates how various sake brewery stakeholders have sought to reverse and alter negative images associated with the prefecture. To examine these initiatives, this study uses the multi-step destination marketing and counter-branding model to identify the strategies and techniques used by the stakeholders, with the aim of altering the way the prefecture is perceived and reversing the negative image people may have of the prefecture. To acquire data for this model, this study uses semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 and 2020 with local sake breweries, tourism associations and the local government on how they sought to retore a positive image of the prefecture and rebrand it into a new type of tourism destination that focuses on the strengths of its breweries.

The results indicate that through a combination of collaboration between the breweries, local government and the local communities, the sake breweries were able to reverse many of the negative effects of the 2011 GEJE. The success of the sake industry has prompted the local government to focus more strongly on tourism marketing that places sake products and breweries at the center of its campaign to promote the region.

While this paper focuses on the recovery of breweries, it does not include the recovery of wineries in Fukushima, which have made similar progress in their recovery. In addition, the interviews focused primarily on the perspectives of the suppliers and not the consumers.

The results of this research can help guide other destinations undergoing prolonged association with negative images on the path toward image recovery. In particular, this paper highlights the importance of a coordinated strategy by all stakeholders, the local government, businesses and communities, to create a united image and response for addressing the causes of these image problems and to create new opportunities for all stakeholders.

This research contributes to the field of image restoration, which combines theories regarding destination marketing and crisis management. Also, the research highlights the importance of collective stakeholder mobilization when attempting to help communities that are facing economic and tourism crises.

This paper aims to identify key factors for a contextualised Systemic Risk Governance (SRG) framework and subsequently explore how systemic risks can be managed and how local institutional mechanisms can be tweaked to deal with the complex Indonesian risk landscape.

Using a case study from Palu triple-disasters in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, the authors demonstrate how inland earthquakes in 2018 created cascading secondary hazards, namely tsunamis, liquefactions and landslides, caused unprecedented disasters for the communities and the nation. A qualitative analysis was conducted using the data collected through a long-term observation since 2002.

The authors argue that Indonesia has yet to incorporate an SRG approach in its responses to the Palu triple-disasters. Political will is required to adopt more appropriate risk governance modes that promote the systemic risk paradigm. Change needs to occur incrementally through hybrid governance arrangements ranging from formal/informal methods to self- and horizontal and vertical modes of governance deemed more realistic and feasible. The authors recommend that this be done by focusing on productive transition and local transformation.

There is growing awareness and recognition of the importance of systemic and cascading risks in disaster risk studies. However, there are still gaps between research, policy and practice. The current progress of disaster risk governance is not sufficient to achieve the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030) unless there is an effective governing system in place at the local level that allow actors and institutions to simultaneously manage the interplays of multi-hazards, multi-temporal, multi-dimensions of vulnerabilities and residual risks. This paper contributes to these knowledge gaps.

This study investigated pre-evacuation times and evacuation behaviors of vulnerable people during the 2018 flooding in Shimobara, Okayama, Japan, and the flood-triggered factory explosion, a natural hazard-triggered technological accident known as a natural-hazard-triggered technological accidents (Natech). This study examined factors that affected evacuation decisions and pre-evacuation time, estimated the evacuation time in case of no explosion and identified community disaster prevention organization response efforts for vulnerable people.

Interviews with all 18 vulnerable people who experienced the event were conducted. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the effect of six factors on evacuation time and reasons for delayed evacuation.

Factors affecting evacuation decisions included the sound of the explosion, followed by recommendations from relatives and the community disaster prevention organization. Explosion-related injuries delayed early evacuation, but experience of previous disasters and damage had a positive effect on early evacuation. The explosion sound accelerated evacuation of non-injured people; however, explosion-related injuries significantly delayed evacuation of injured individuals. The Shimobara community disaster prevention organization’s disaster response included a vulnerable people registry, visits to all local households and a multilayered approach that enabled monitoring of all households.

This is the first study to examine the evacuation behavior of vulnerable people and community responses during a Natech event.

The Arab world is made up of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. These countries are subjected to many social, economic, political and geographical vulnerabilities contributing to increased risks or ineffective emergency and disaster management. This paper examines these vulnerabilities, how they may impact the country's ability to face disasters, and how they can improve disasters' overall management.

The author selected Qatar, Oman to represent the Arab oil-rich countries, while Jordan, Egypt and Morocco to represent non-oil rich countries. The research was conducted in a qualitative, inductive systematic literature review based on a well-established systematic literature review methodology. Selected literature was based on its recency and the countries in question.

The review reveals population gaps that could threaten the social system in the event of a disaster in countries like Qatar and Oman. The majority of the countries lack community engagement and pre-planning for emergency preparedness due to social and cultural barriers. Other nations like Jordan, Egypt and Morocco are prone to long-lasting economic challenges due to lack of resources, mismanagement or corruption. The paper also highlights the need to raise the educational attainment among citizens to understand disaster risk reduction.

This study utilized the research method developed by Williams et al. (2017) to present a comprehensive systematic and comparative review of disaster management in the Arab world. Considering that disaster and emergency management has remained disproportionately unexplored in the Arab world, this paper reviewed several vulnerabilities and how those vulnerabilities may affect disaster and emergency management efforts in the Arab countries.

The purpose of this paper is to deliver a detailed analysis of the functioning of upstream–downstream interface process of the tsunami early warning and mitigation system in Sri Lanka. It also gives an understanding of the social, administrative, political and cultural complexities attached to the operation of interface mechanism, and introduces an analytical framework highlighting the significant dynamics of the interface of tsunami early warning system in Sri Lanka.

Through the initial literature review, a conceptual framework was developed, highlighting the criteria against which the interface process can be assessed. This framework was used as the basis for developing data collection tools, namely, documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews and observations that focused on the key stakeholder institutions in Sri Lanka. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data according to the conceptual framework, and an improved and detailed framework was developed deriving from the findings.

The manner in which the interface mechanism operates in Sri Lanka’s tsunami early warning system is discussed, providing a detailed understanding of the decision-making structures; key actors; standardisation; technical and human capacities; socio-spatial dynamics; coordination among actors; communication and information dissemination; and the evaluation processes. Several gaps and shortcomings were identified with relation to some of these aspects, and the significance of addressing these gaps is highlighted in the paper.

A number of recommendations are provided to address the existing shortcomings and to improve the overall performance of tsunami warning system in Sri Lanka.

Based on the findings, a framework was developed into a more detailed analytical framework that depicts the interface operationalisation in Sri Lanka, and can also be potentially applied to similar cases across the world. The new analytical framework was validated through a focus group discussion held in Sri Lanka with the participation of experts and practitioners.

This paper uses various Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) approaches to study the efficiency of major airlines in Asia-Pacific region. To evaluate the operation efficiency of fourteen major airlines in Asia-Pacific region from 2003-2011, Available Seat Kilometers(ASK), Available Ton Kilometers(ATK), the number of employees are used as input factors, Revenue Passenger Kilometers(RPK), Revenue Ton Kilometers(RTK), the amount of Sales are used as output factors.

The non-radial SBM-DEA (Slacks-based Measure of Efficiency) model was able to provide a more comprehensive efficiency of combining economic performance and regional difference. And it was also able to capture slack values in input excess and output shortage.

The results demonstrate that Korea and Japan airlines are operated efficiently and could be regarded as the benchmarking airlines. On the other hand, most of the China and ASEAN airlines are deemed to be inefficient. Also analyzing slacks may be more suitable way for the evaluation or suggestion of an improvement scheme for the inefficient airlines. The excess of labor is the major cause of the airlines’ inefficiency.