Natural Hazard Science: Building the Community through Integrated Research and Practice

Abstract:

When geographer Gilbert F. White founded the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado in 1975, he was adamant that the knowledge amassed by the research community be available to practitioners. Recognizing that it does not take an extreme event to produce extreme consequences, White argued for an equal emphasis on technologically-oriented solutions to natural hazards problems, alongside the social, economic, and political factors that lead to the non-adoption of the technological solutions, and then the translation of these findings into useful practices. In later writings (2001) he commented on the paradox of modern society in not achieving this balance suggesting that while we have more knowledge and abilities to manipulate nature, simultaneously we have increased our exposure and susceptibility to natural hazards through our own actions and development patterns.

This paper reviews the need for, status of, and role of integrated research on disaster risk in policy and practice. The reduction in economic and human loss requires such integrated knowledge on disaster risk, evidence-based policy appraisals, and more progressive approaches to hazards and disaster risk management. This means a re-framing of current programs and policies away from response to a more pro-active and longer term emphases on enhancing resilience at local to global scales. Linking hazards science and practice to larger societal and development objectives is the path toward a more resilient future, a goal that personifies the scholarship of Gilbert F. White.