Crises and disaster management systems and plans

The multidimensionality of risks requires multidisciplinary collaboration to promote synergies between scientists, policymakers, practitioners and citizens. All administrative levels (from local to national) can implement specific emergency plans and arrangements . However, they require high participation and often training to be effective. The composition of stakeholders involved in the emergency plans may vary depending on the administrative level of the plan and on the specific nature of the disaster taken into consideration. The main actors involved are represented by: local and national public authorities; civil protection; army, firefighters and police corps; health sector; representatives of the main economic sectors¸ and local population.  

The central government often defines risk management strategies at the national scale. However, broader stakeholder participation is highly desirable at the local administrative level. 

Stakeholder participation should aim at: (i) defining actors’ roles and responsibilities before, during and after a crisis; (ii) identifying potential opposing values among actors; (iii) building trust and awareness through systematic sharing of information and experiences, education and training. For example, in Austria, the participation of citizens in DRR is ensured in different local and regional participation forums. At the local level, citizens are involved in planning activities and in the elaboration of local hazard maps and risk management plans. Moreover, various local channels and regional media communicate comprehensive information about hazard and risks to different stakeholders.

DRM can include measures that radically change land use and human activities, which can generate concern and even opposition. When emergency plans relocate infrastructure from risky to safer areas, they are generally highly appreciated, though cost and technical feasibility can be important barriers to their implementation. Conversely, the strategies aimed at disaster contingency planning and ensuring business continuity are considered tangible and risk-free solutions.  

When the plan is well structured and well implemented, the emergency is managed effectively, and the human and economic losses are minimised. Emergency and crises management plans are generally structured in a way that helps to standardise and prioritise the actions requested to respond promptly to natural or man-made disasters. They comprehend different catastrophic scenarios and the related strategies that need to be implemented to minimise the impacts. The plans are designed in a way that allows coping with a wide range of situations. Unfortunately, sometimes, the large uncertainty mainly characterising the rapid-onset (as for flash-floods) disasters or the combined occurrence of more than a disaster could seriously put the plans to a harsh test. 

The main objective of DRM plans should be to save human lives at any cost and use the best instruments available. The majority of the plans are designed to minimise not only human but also economic losses. In this context, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses are the main instruments used to design and characterize emergency plans. Total protection is virtually impossible and associated with infinite costs in terms of bringing the residual risk to zero. The emergency measures are designed to calibrate the level of protection with the associated cost, for what concerns the protection of economic assets. In this way, the plan offers the maximum level of protection at a cost that theoretically should not exceed the replacement cost. If correctly designed and implemented, disaster management plans generate benefits in terms of avoided losses greater that the associated investments.  

Many methodologies are used for the cost-benefit analysis of DRM. For example, the Triple Dividend of Resilience framework of the World Bank and Overseas Development Institute (ODI) identifies and quantifies three types of benefits (dividends) in any DRM investment:  

• avoiding losses and saving lives during a disaster (dividend 1),  
• unlocking economic potential as a result of stimulated innovations and economic activities that arise from the reduction in background risks related to disasters (dividend 2),  
• and generating social, environmental, and economic co-benefits of DRM investments even in the absence of a disaster (dividend 3).  

An analysis of 74 case studies carried out applying this methodology shows that the benefits of investing in disaster management and resilience against natural hazards (e.g., floods, earthquakes, heatwaves, and wildfires) are generally two to ten times higher compared to the DRM costs.

In Europe, Member States held the responsibility of civil protection. The European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) was first established in 2001 and helps to coordinate disaster prevention, preparedness, and response activities of national authorities contributing to the exchange of best practices. This facilitates the continuous development of higher common standards enabling teams to better understand different approaches and work interchangeably when a disaster strikes. In accordance with the UCPM, Member States have to report every three years to the European Commission (1) a summary of risk assessments, (2) an assessment of risk management capability, as well as (3) information on the priority prevention and preparedness measures. In the flood risk domain, the EU Floods Directive applies to all kinds of floods (river, lakes, flash floods, urban floods, coastal floods, including storm surges and tsunamis) on all the EU territory. It requires Member States to approach flood risk management by developing flood hazard and risk maps and flood risk management plans. These plans have to include measures to reduce the probability of flooding and its potential consequences.  

Flood risk management plans according to the Floods Directive address all phases of the flood risk management cycle but focus particularly on prevention and preparedness, whereas the UCPM addresses issues relevant for preparedness and response.  

Moreover, the European Commission, after the massive flood that hit the central part of the Union in 2002, founded the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF). The instrument has been created to assist the State Members in coping with natural disasters. Furthermore, the fund has been designed to financially assist the emergency management and the first recovery actions.

The time required to develop crises and disaster management systems and plans varies depending on many factors, such as the administrative level (local, regional or national), the number of sectors and natural hazards they address, the extent of stakeholder participation etc. However, they can approximately require 1-5 years. 

The implementation time for the different activities and measures envisaged by plans can also vary broadly. The construction of structural protection measures can take up to several years for implementation, while the set-up of non-structural measures usually requires less time (eg. for training and field exercises, stockpiling of equipment and supplies or for the development of arrangements for evacuation). 

Plans are usually conceived as dynamic documents. Thus, they should be revised and updated regularly after the first experiences are gained and after more specific knowledge is built up. In particular, plans should consider the developments and changes related to the exposed assets and people as well as any variation in the expected hazard scenarios. Training exercises also contribute to the updating of plans as they validate their contents and assess the operational and management skills of personnel. In some cases, the update is compulsory. For example, Municipal Civil Protection Plans in the Veneto region (Italy) have unlimited validity, however, they must be periodically updated every six months. At the European level, flood risk management plans developed in accordance with the Floods Directive need to be reviewed every 6 years.  

Actions foreseen by the plans and strategies are assumed to continue for the long-term. The different measures part of the emergency plan have different lifetimes, depending on their nature. Structural protection measures such as dikes or debris flow barriers usually have a lifetime of several decades. Non-structural measures such as weather monitoring and early warning system are instead a permanent task.