Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 63, Issues 2–3, 1 August 2007, Pages 331-343
Ecological Economics

Institutional development and scale matching in disaster response management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.01.007Get rights and content

Abstract

Recent large scale disasters have challenged institutions improve the effectiveness of their emergency response strategies. During the 2005 Katrina flood disaster in the United States institutions utilized different emergency response strategies with varying degrees of success. In this paper we consider the case of the Katrina hurricane to identify successful strategies that enable institutions to respond effectively and at the appropriate scale. The importance of cross-scale linkages matched to the size and needs of the disaster is discussed as a central component of socio-ecological resilience. A general strategy of adaptive management is proposed that emphasizes the importance of participatory planning with institutional actors where both initial response organizations, as well as institutions involved in longer term recovery are involved in emergency response exercises. Institutions should develop linkages that promote legitimacy, trust and the development of social capital that facilitates integrated and coordinated emergency response. The paper concludes by noting that new threats will require increased coordination, higher levels of institutional flexibility, and greater attention to issues of connectivity in disaster response management.

Introduction

Disasters and crises are opportunities for institutional learning bought and paid for at high cost in lives, damage to ecological systems and loss of productive capacity. The dislocation that follows from disaster also opens avenues to the development of new institutions that can respond more effectively to similar events in the future and at a variety of scales.

Shock over the severity of the damage from Katrina has been augmented by the perception that institutions supposed to be responsible for emergency response failed even though the disaster was anticipated days before it arrived. Attention has mainly focused on shortcomings in federal emergency response, specifically by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. Failures in communication, delays in deployment and mis-targeting of aid concerned and surprised many in the wake of 9–11 and the Bush Administration's subsequent emphasis on institutional preparedness. Furthermore, failures in disaster response occurred at multiple scales, including serious deficiencies at the level of local and national scale.

Among the questions that arose in the wake of Katrina is how emergency preparedness should be organized, particularly in the case of extensive impact. What is the balance between proactive and reactive behavior and the need for preparedness and resilience of systems? Who is responsible during a catastrophe and at what scale should the response be organized? Where should institutional development be emphasized so that the greatest range of likely contingencies can be accounted for?

This paper will consider institutional development that promotes learning and flexible approaches to disasters in social-ecological systems. A central question involves determination of the appropriate scale at which response must be organized and how this may change through the disaster ‘cycle’. The experience of the institutional response to the 2005 Katrina hurricane in the United States will be considered and compared to what was learned in other recent disasters. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for institutional development that increase the effectiveness of disaster response at appropriate scales.

Section snippets

Institutional development and disaster response

External events can launch a path of future development along an unpredictable course. During such times, uncertainty is high, control is weakened and confused, and unpredictability is great. But space is also created for reorganization and innovation. It is therefore also a time when individual cells, individual organisms or individual people have the greatest changes of influencing events. (Holling, 2004).

Disturbances are common and necessary ecological events, such as wildfire regimes that

Resilience

The concept of resilience is basic to emergency management and response. It refers to the ability of a social-ecological system (SES) to tolerate disturbances and recover in such a way that essential features of the system return to the earlier state. Following a disaster a resilient system would retain the structures, feedback mechanisms, functions and identity that existed prior to the disturbance (Holling, 1973, Folke et al., 2002, Olson, 2003, Walker et al., 2004, Adger et al., 2005).

Scale issues in disaster

Disasters can occur at the widest range of scales from household to international extents. Institutions operating in the emergency response arena must determine the scale of size of the disaster, develop a response strategy and implement the plan. This is particularly challenging when the scale of the disaster is not known until after the damaging event has occurred.

If an accurate assessment of the scale of the disaster can be made prior to impact institutions can take a number of actions to

Scale matching in disaster response

Scale matching has been recognized as a challenge in developing environmental policy (Costanza et al., 2001). Environmental issues are often trans-boundary and are influenced by time. Thus political institutions focused on nominal territories may be inappropriate for dealing with mobile toxins. Furthermore, the short time frames important to politicians may not match the regulation and oversight required by persistent pollutants. With regard to environmental policy Costanza et al. (2001:243)

Institutional development, disasters and capital stocks

Institutions exist in all areas of human endeavor and can be either formal or informal (Næss et al., 2005). Vatn (2005:60) defines institutions in the following way: Institutions are the conventions, norms and formally sanctioned rules of a society. They provide expectations, stability and meaning essential to human existence and coordination. Institutions regularize life, support values and produce and protect interests. Paavola and Adger (2004) argue that institutional analysis, particularly

Disaster response and the role of institutions in the 2005 Katrina Hurricane

The evidence that Hurricane Katrina qualifies as a large-scale disaster is undisputed. With sustained winds of 140 mph Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration notes that the hurricane was one of the strongest hurricanes to impact the United States coast within the past 100 years (NOAA, 2005a, NOAA, 2005b). Widespread and severe damage was sustained across central Gulf Coast states, including major cities such as New

Discussion and recommendations

In the case of Katrina, understanding of the potential for this type of disaster was quite well-developed and detailed. Both the popular press and government agencies described the likely impact of a likely natural event, but government and public authorities failed to act to prevent it or adequately prepare to respond to it. This final section of the paper will consider what lessons can be learned from recent disasters about developing institutions that effectively respond to disasters at

Conclusion

The disruption that follows a disaster presents opportunities for change, for example in infrastructure, natural resource management and the policy environment, that would not be possible prior to the disaster. Disasters open policy windows (see Farley in this issue) and determining the goals of communities during times of relative stability can enhance the rebuilding effort. The lessons learned during a catastrophe such as Katrina are bought at a high price in human life, as well as losses to

Acknowledgements

Thanks to student colleagues at Gund Institute for Ecological Economics for the valuable discussions throughout the development of the paper and to Prof. John Bryden, Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen, UK for constructive comments to the paper.

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