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The frequency with which hazards turn to disasters is soaring. Besides the factor of climate variation, errors of decision making during planning are the critical factors. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring the relationship between land use planning, development, and disaster management.

This study takes hazardscape as the basis of a dialogue platform for land use planning and disaster management. The first portion of this study is to discuss the needed disaster management items in the planning process through thematic analysis; the second portion is to construct the relationship between disaster management and land use planning by the paired comparison method.

This study proposes the model for integrating planning and disaster management as the foundation of interdisciplinary collaboration. The phase of site choosing and assessment is the most critical point for starting the works of disaster prevention. The major works includes all‐hazard identification/hazardscape analysis and physical vulnerability: damage potential assessment.

This model is helpful to apply to land‐use decision making for evaluating the issues concerning disasters, and avoiding the increasing loss of lives and property. As the next step, attributes of people and environments and assessment techniques from different disciplines can also be included in the model, to achieve the ultimate goal of an environment.

Should disasters strike despite all relevant measures, the associated planning programs monitored and reviewed to enable necessary adjustments.

Between September 4, 2010 and mid-2013 a severe earthquake sequence struck Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, causing multiple fatalities and the destruction of much of the central business district. Large areas of suburban residential housing were condemned with the prospect that entire neighbourhoods would be abandoned for several decades if not permanently. The recovery and rebuilding process was immediately placed high on central and local government agendas since Christchurch and the surrounding Canterbury region were and continue to be seen as crucial to the security and stability of the national economy. Programmes for recovery developed initially relied principally on one-off funding packages and strategies from central government, local government recovery plans and the settlement of commercial insurance claims. There remains, however, the spectre of Christchurch as a city of demolition sites and vacant lots for the best part of a decade if not longer. Furthermore, although local and national Civil Defence and Emergency Management systems were activated during the most severe seismic events the response operations did not always reach those in need as promptly as was expected. Residents in a number of communities and neighbourhoods are now conscious that when disaster strikes they are still likely to have to fend for themselves. This chapter documents and evaluates two specific “gap-filling” responses to the Christchurch earthquakes over a three-year period. The first response considered is a community-based project called “Greening the Rubble” which took root in October 2010 as the prospect of a central city of vacant lots and car parks worried a number of volunteers into action to temporarily cheer up empty public and private sites with pocket parks, native plant displays and cultural interventions. The second initiative scrutinised, the “Mt Pleasant Community Response Plan 2012–2013,” is one of the first community-based emergency response plans to emerge that has sought to complement official civil defence planning arrangements. Both responses are discussed in detail in the context of constantly changing and evolving hazardscapes and socio-economic and political conditions.

This paper aims to review the performance of the flood forecasting, warning, and response system (FFWRS) during the 1997 Red River of the North flood to identify the factors that contributed to FFWRS underperformance during this flood disaster.

The individual components of the FFWRS are reviewed – data collection, flood forecasting, forecast dissemination, decision‐making, and action implementation, as well as the communication linkages between each system category. The unique challenges and breakdowns that occurred at each system category and communication linkage are identified for this catastrophic flood event.

Forecast uncertainty was poorly communicated by flood forecasters, and misunderstood by decision makers. Both forecasters and decision makers were rigidly committed to probability‐thinking based on what they thought was most likely to happen; neither group adequately considered the possibility of a worst‐case scenario.

Forecast uncertainty must be clearly communicated to and understood by local decision makers. Significant efforts at improved knowledge transfer to decision makers should be made to improve their ability to make rapid and informed decisions during catastrophic hazard events.

Decision makers would benefit from adopting a possibility‐thinking approach that thoroughly considered the possibility of a worst‐case scenario before such an event actually occurred.

This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of “sustainability,” and concludes that long-term resource management practices would not have been articulated prior to the development of the first cities starting c. 6,000 years ago.

Using biological concepts of population density and niche-construction theory, cities are identified as the first places where pressures on resources might have triggered concerns for sustainability. Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.

The implementation of a sustainability concept requires two things: individual and institutional motivations to mitigate collective risk over the long term, and accurate measurement devices that can discern subtle changes over time. Neither condition was applicable to the ancient world. Premodern cities provided the first expression of large population sizes in which there were niches of economic and social mutualism, yet individuals and households persisted in age-old approaches to provisioning by opportunistically using urban networks rather than focusing on a collective future.

Archaeological and historical analysis indicates that a focus on “sustainability” is not an innate human behavioral capacity but must be specifically articulated and taught.

The purpose of this paper is to identify lessons learned by schools from their involvement in the 2012 New Zealand ShakeOut nationwide earthquake drill.

The results from a survey conducted with 514 schools were collated to identify the emergency preparedness lessons learned by schools through their participation in the ShakeOut exercise.

Key findings indicated that: schools were likely to do more than the minimum when presented with a range of specific emergency preparedness activities; drills for emergency events require specific achievement objectives to be identified in order to be most effective in preparing schools; and large-scale initiatives, such as the ShakeOut exercise, encourage schools and students to engage in emergency preparedness activities.

Based on the findings, six recommendations are made to assist schools to develop effective emergency response procedures.

The present study contributes to the ongoing efforts of emergency management practitioners and academics to enhance the efficacy of school-based preparedness activities and to, ultimately, increase overall community resilience.

With regard to their utility in predicting the adoption of household hazard preparations, traditional approaches to public education directed at increasing awareness and/or risk perception have proven ineffective. Discusses reasons why this may have occurred from public education, vulnerability analysis, and community resilience perspectives and outlines strategies for enhancing preparedness. Describes a model of resilience to hazard effects that has been tested in different communities and for different hazards (toxic waste, environmental degradation and volcanic hazards). Drawing upon the health education literature, introduces a model for promoting the adoption on preparatory behaviour. Discusses links between these models, and the need for their implementation within a community development framework.

The recent shift in the Philippine Government’s emphasis from response to a more proactive approach came with the recognition that different stakeholders play important roles in the governance of disaster risk. The purpose of this paper is to look beyond the question as to whether all stakeholders are involved in disaster risk management planning and examines the extent by which the narratives of risk of actors at the margins shape how risk is framed in municipal DRM planning in Antique, Philippines.

This paper is based on a field study carried out in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique Province, Philippines. Data were gathered through key informant interviews and focus group discussions as well as a review of archival records and documents.

The narratives of CSOs and communities, which revolve around livelihoods and community life are conspicuously absent from the plans whereas that of government actors occupy a central position in the risk discourse. The study highlights the power-saturated process of defining and addressing risk to disasters, where knowledge is intimately linked to power as some voices shape plans and policies, whereas, others are excluded because their knowledge is socially constructed as less reliable and therefore irrelevant.

There is a dearth of studies that examine disaster risk as social constructions in the context of planning in the Philippines and in other disaster-prone countries.

This brief is designed to inform disaster risk reduction and management in Philippine jails and prisons. It draws upon research conducted in nine jails and prisons between July 2015 and January 2016. This research included 44 interviews with stakeholders, including inmates and prisoners, and nine focus groups with inmates and prisoners in different regions of the country. The research indicates that natural hazards are one amongst the many threats that inmates and prisoners face in their everyday life. Natural hazards are significant because inmates and prisoners are particularly vulnerable. Inmates' and prisoners' vulnerability stems from a thread of proximate and root causes that range from insalubrious and overcrowded facilities and limited resourcing from the government, to the neoliberal nature of the Philippine state. However, inmates and prisoners are not helpless “victims” in dealing with natural hazards. They display a wide range of skills, resources and knowledge (i.e. capacities) that are grounded in everyday practices and values reflective of the broader Philippine society. This policy brief finally makes some recommendations for strengthening hazard prevention, fostering vulnerability mitigation, enhancing preparedness, and reinforcing disaster management in Philippine jails and prisons. These recommendations emphasise the contributions of a number of stakeholders, including the active role of inmates and prisoners who are the first line of defence in facing disasters in jails and prisons.