Abstract:

It is all but certain that there will be more and worse disasters in the future. Other researchers as well as ourslef have detailed and documented this elsewhere. This undesirable outcome will result from the last stages of two master and worldwide social trends: industrialisation and urbanisation. However, crisis planning and emergency managing policies can be established and steps can be taken that will reduce and weaken some of the negative effects of the disasters of the twenty-first century. Among major ones are: I. Noting and accepting the fact that all disasters are essentially social occasions that initially and primarily have to be dealt with by social means; II. Dropping the distinction in planning between natural and technological disasters and moving to an all-hazard or generic approach; III. Making disaster mitigation at least as much a priority in planning and application as emergency preparedness, response and recovery; IV. More closely integrating disaster planning to the developmental planning or social change processes of the social system involved; and V. Ascertaining in what ways disaster problems are similar to and different from other environmental problems, and concurrently addressing both where there are similarities. If the right policies and measures are put in place, the future will not be the past revisited nor will it be only the present repeated.  

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