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The authors investigate the role of community engagement in the connection between disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness. Using a vulnerability-to-hazard framework built by the European Union, the authors study the case of Aceh province, Indonesia, which was hit hard by Asian tsunami in 2004.

The research design uses a single case study research. The authors study the case of Aceh province, Indonesia, by comparing improvements in disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness in a period longer than ten years beginning in 2004, right before the Asian tsunami that devastated the province. Aware that the connection between mitigation and preparedness is a broad research topic, the authors focus on the domain of pre-disaster evacuation.

The authors find that Aceh province has made substantial improvements in healthcare facilities and road quality (mitigation) as well as early alert systems and evacuation plans (preparedness). Socio-economic indicators of the community have improved substantially as well. However, there is a lack of safe sheltering areas as well as poor road signaling maintenance, which threatens the effectiveness of infrastructural improvements. The authors propose that community engagement would connect disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness. The connecting element is community-based maintenance of critical infrastructure such as road signals, which the government could facilitate by leveraging on operational transparency.

The findings open avenues for future research on the actionable engagement of communities in disaster mitigation and disaster preparedness.

This paper contributes to three areas of humanitarian logistics research: disaster management cycle (DMC), pre-disaster evacuations and community engagement in disaster management.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) in Lebanon are among the most active groups supporting community welfare and advocating for human rights and policy reform. However, these organizations still lack the basic awareness and commitment needed to expand their role in earthquake disaster risk reduction. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the exposure of Lebanon to destructive earthquakes and to address the urgent need for CSOs to expand its contribution in earthquake disaster risk reduction supporting public awareness programs and strategic mitigation plans.

The paper sets out to alert CSOs about the seismic hazards of Lebanon and offers a discussion for an active engagement role of Lebanese CSOs in future earthquake disaster risk reduction. The focus is to outline a strategy that may facilitate the engagement of CSOs in building the resilience of Lebanese community against destructive earthquakes.

The proposed strategic plan suggests a leading role of Lebanese universities that call for the establishment of a disaster mitigation coalition leading to CSOs active involvement and effective contribution in collaborating with government and private sector to enhance the resilience capacity of the Lebanese community against future earthquake events.

The implication of the paper is beneficial to community leaders of Lebanon because it highlights the importance of direct engagement of CSOs in earthquake disaster risk reduction which has never been previously emphasized, evaluated or even discussed in the Lebanese studies.

Recent earthquake-induced liquefaction events and associated losses have increased researchers’ interest into liquefaction risk reduction interventions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there was no scholarly literature related to an economic appraisal of these risk reduction interventions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issues in applying cost–benefit analysis (CBA) principles to the evaluation of technical mitigations to reduce earthquake-induced liquefaction risk.

CBA has been substantially used for risk mitigation option appraisal for a number of hazard threats. Previous literature in the form of systematic reviews, individual research and case studies, together with liquefaction risk and loss modelling literature, was used to develop a theoretical model of CBA for earthquake-induced liquefaction mitigation interventions. The model was tested using a scenario in a two-day workshop.

Because liquefaction risk reduction techniques are relatively new, there is limited damage modelling and cost data available for use within CBAs. As such end users need to make significant assumptions when linking the results of technical investigations of damage to built-asset performance and probabilistic loss modelling resulting in many potential interventions being not cost-effective for low-impact disasters. This study questions whether a probabilistic approach should really be applied to localised rapid onset events like liquefaction, arguing that a deterministic approach for localised knowledge and context would be a better base for the cost-effectiveness mitigation interventions.

This paper makes an original contribution to literature through a critical review of CBA approaches applied to disaster mitigation interventions. Further, this paper identifies challenges and limitations of applying probabilistic based CBA models to localised rapid onset disaster events where human losses are minimal and historic data is sparse; challenging researchers to develop new deterministic based approaches that use localised knowledge and context to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of mitigation interventions.

This chapter discusses some issues of diversity in hazard mitigation when just recovery is considered or not. Justice in hazard mitigation becomes crucial considering unequal distribution of resources, systemic racism, and social vulnerability to hazards. While there has been research on just recovery, there is little or no evidence of research that examines the issue of equity and justice in hazard mitigation, This chapter discusses what hazard mitigation is, the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 focusing on the planning process, public involvement in the planning process, some planning theories on vulnerability, and building the case for achieving and striving for justice and equity in promoting diversity in hazard mitigation. The chapter makes some recommendation on how to achieve diversity in hazard mitigation.

Given the widespread lack of proper mechanism for disaster management, this paper aims to develop a disaster mitigation framework using quality circle (QC) – a bottom‐up approach.

The paper considers QC and discussing the utility of the concept with respect to disaster management. Discusses the process of systematically building a disaster mitigation framework.

By having the proposed framework, the disasters that occur can be tackled speedily. Owing to the direct involvement of public (key stakeholders), the proposed framework strengthens the knowledge and awareness on disaster management, which in turn helps towards disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation effectively.

The current efforts at disaster mitigation are not successful. The proposed framework provides proactive collaboration among all players including central, state governments and local people to examine risks and vulnerability to all hazards and to implement measures to reduce the damage to a minimum. The application of a framework will help to make plans more functional and relevant and will ensure successful disaster mitigation.

As no systematic frameworks exist in disaster management and planning, this paper offers to provide a comprehensive framework, which involves all the stakeholders. The value of the paper is largely in the area of bringing new possibilities to the attention of the government, public and research and practitioner communities dealing with disaster management.

This paper aims to reflect on Dennis Mileti's Disasters by Design ten years after its publication and to discuss the book's contributions and limitations. It seeks to uncover how Mileti's work relates to disaster and emergency management policy.

The paper examines scholarly reviews of Mileti's work and explores the theoretical and practical implications of his important research.

Disasters by Design recognizes the importance of environmental protection and poverty reduction in disaster policies. However, this work may not fully capture all the hazards, distinct types of vulnerability, phases and functions pertinent to emergency management.

This review both accepts and questions some of the assessments of Mileti's work. The perspective of this review may help shape the future of emergency management policy.

The paper provides a comprehensive view of disasters and offers recommendations to improve the emergency management profession.

The review is one of the few works that examines Mileti's work with a critical eye. It draws concern to his paradigm and suggests the need for continued refinement.

Emergency management has come to be regarded by many analysts as a critical part of the development of sustainable communities. The emergency management function has been linked to issues such as environmental stewardship and community planning. Especially important is the linkage between hazard mitigation efforts and community planning in the context of building sustainable communities. But this conceptual linkage has been difficult to implement in practice. The resolution of this difficulty and a clarification of the essential linkage of hazard mitigation to community planning will require a broader definition and a reformulation of the emergency management function. It will also require an assessment and the removal of impediments that currently stand in the way of the implementation of this linkage. Practical steps can be taken to begin this important chore.

The purpose of this paper is to create a valid and fit instrument to measure school resilience, and to understand teachers’ and students’ contributions to build school resilience.

The construct of school resilience is adapted from Henderson and Milstein’s (2003) concept regarding two factors: mitigating risk factor in environment and building resilience in the environment. Senior high school teachers and students in a disaster-prone area in Indonesia were chosen as the sample using purposive sampling technique.

The results of this research are that the instrument is considered as good, valid, reliable, and fit for measuring the students’ and the teachers’ contributions in building school resilience; and the results of the confirmatory factor analysis test of the hypothesized model of school resilience of teachers and students in a disaster-prone area are in line with the empirical data. Based on the analysis of the value of the major loading factors, teachers and students show different contributions. In building school resilience for disaster mitigation, teachers begin by mitigating risk factor in the environment whereas students tend to give a priority to build resilience in the environment.

The results of this study are applicable to develop school resilience on disaster mitigation, and the instrument of the research provides a practical contribution to broader research scope, in terms of different population, school level, socio-cultural background, and disaster-prone area.

This study presents reliable instrument to measure teachers and students’ contribution in building school resilience. This study also sought to understand the different contributions shown by teachers and students in building school resilience for disaster mitigation.

Multimedia, CD‐ROM, DVD, Internet, Web Sites and e‐mail are all part of a constantly changing, emerging array of the new information technologies which are being utilized in public education and are increasingly being applied to emergency planning and training activities to enhance emergency preparedness. Illustrations are presented which demonstrate the utility of multimedia, CD‐ROM, and Internet applications to this process. These technologies will be applied to demonstrate how emergency planners may more effectively accomplish their mission to educate the larger community on a variety of issues such as the need to adopt proposed mitigation strategies, to respond to disaster warnings and evacuation suggestions. These technologies will also be applied to demonstrate how response and recovery information can be readily disseminated to an impacted area. Applications will also be provided which demonstrate the utility of these technologies in enhancing training activities for emergency personnel as well as extending the opportunity for such training beyond the time and place of the original trainer.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the present level of knowledge about disaster preparedness and mitigation among undergraduate medical students. Rarely a week goes by when a major disaster is not reported in the media – a disaster that results in death and destruction. There is a general reluctance among the people to accept that tragedy can appear any time in the form of a disaster. Unfortunately, disasters are seen more in context of emergency responses than pre‐planning or preparedness measures. Continuous preparedness saves lives, lessens personal suffering and loss and reduces the destruction of property and economic losses. Emergency medical assistance is the most important and immediate post‐disaster need, second only to search and rescue operations. Hence, knowledge about disaster preparedness and mitigation is essential for medical students.

A total of 375 undergraduate medical students who volunteered for participation were included in the study. A pre‐tested and pre‐designed, structured questionnaire was administered for assessing the current level of knowledge, attitude and practice about disaster preparedness and mitigation. The percentage marks were analyzed and compared for statistically significant difference.

The mean score was 8.77 percent, which was slightly higher in females and was maximum in age group 26‐30 years. There was little variation according to the year (professional) of the MBBS course.

The paper shows that undergraduate medical students have little knowledge about disasters and disaster preparedness.