What Is a Disaster Management Cycle?

Cars pass by a hurricane evacuation route marker.

Disasters are not only emotionally devastating but also incredibly costly to both individuals and organizations. For example, the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, Katrina in 2005, caused an estimated $190 billion in damages. The next three costliest hurricanes all occurred within the last decade, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. 

The U.S. Geological Survey expects natural disasters to occur with greater frequency and severity in the future due to climate change. This makes the need for trained disaster management professionals even greater as communities across the country prepare for and respond to natural disasters of unprecedented intensity. While it is impossible to prevent natural disasters from occurring, professionals can take steps to minimize their impact. 

One such step is using the disaster management cycle as a guide for preventing or mitigating a disaster’s impact. Knowledgeable professionals utilize this cycle working alongside communities, local and federal governments, and organizations to develop the best strategies for reducing the damage and costs disasters cause. Those interested in taking the next step in their emergency management careers should consider the benefits of earning an advanced degree .

Why Disaster Management Is Important 

The disaster management cycle is a framework that defines the stages of a disaster. It can be used by both organizations and individuals to prepare for and respond to disasters of every kind, including natural disasters, technological disasters, and human-made disasters. It allows professionals to identify potential hazards, assess the risks, and develop plans to prevent, mitigate, and respond to them.

Unprecedented disasters can strike at any time. But, using the disaster management cycle as a guide, professionals can create plans that can help prevent the worst effects and lay the groundwork for a more effective recovery. With the loss of property, environmental damage, or fatalities on the line, the ability to respond to a disaster as quickly and effectively as possible is crucial. For instance, during a flood, a disaster plan may involve enabling communications, blocking off roads, organizing evacuations, or enabling victims to retrieve valuable items from flooded areas. 

Another crucial objective of disaster management is to ensure assistance to those who need it. When a disaster strikes, people may sustain injuries, require evacuation from dangerous locations, or need medical attention. Disaster management teams aim to assist and support those who require it, such as by contacting medical personnel, securing safe areas for people to evacuate to, and providing essential supplies such as water, food, and shelter. 

The disaster management cycle includes recovery from the disaster, both for the affected individuals and their property. The recovery process may involve rebuilding, providing medical attention, and creating a safe environment, and can also extend to an area’s infrastructure, economy, population, and ecosystem. 

Different disasters require different methods to ensure the highest chance of prevention and an expedient return to everyday life for everyone involved if the disaster becomes unavoidable. Trained professionals are key in this endeavor, as they can best determine the required level and type of assistance. For example, in a wildfire, disaster management may involve fighting the blaze, whereas, during a hurricane, the priority may be to search for survivors.

Stages of the Disaster Management Cycle

Disaster management typically is broken down into four stages: prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Managing and responding to disasters effectively requires paying careful attention to each stage. Despite being separated into different stages, each with its own goals, the cycle is designed to be holistic, as each stage is interdependent and builds on the previous one to achieve better outcomes. 

As the cycle reaches its recovery phase, professionals can collect and analyze performance data to help them improve their plans and potentially prevent the disaster or some of the effects of the disaster from happening again. Thus, with each disaster, outcomes should improve, reducing costs and reducing future hardships for individuals, families, and communities. The nature of this “emergency management cycle,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is that all communities are in at least one stage of emergency management at any time.

The first stage of the disaster management cycle is about preventing or mitigating the potential effects of a disaster before it happens. It aims to identify potential risks and hazards that could lead to a disaster. It involves analyzing the environment, assessing vulnerabilities and risks, and developing measures to prevent or mitigate potential hazards. While prevention requires preparation before a crisis occurs, implementing permanent measures that reduce hazard risk can benefit all stages of disaster management. 

For example, preparation can involve mitigating or reducing the effects of a disaster by ensuring building codes are up to date to withstand and reduce damage from an earthquake or tornado.

Preparedness

Preparedness refers to developing strategies, plans, and procedures to effectively deal with potential disasters. Preparedness involves creating emergency plans, training, and exercises to ensure that people, equipment, and systems are ready to respond to a disaster. 

Examples of preparedness measures include active shooter safety drills in schools and other community areas that help staff and students know how to respond to such an event in ways that increase their safety and the likelihood of their survival. Fire drills are another example of a preparedness measure, as they are intended to ensure all students or employees have procedures to follow in the event of a fire, including knowing where the proper exits are and where to gather away from the building.

The response stage involves the immediate response to a disaster. Response measures include search and rescue operations, providing emergency medical assistance, and setting up emergency shelters. Response teams work to stabilize the situation and reduce the potential for further harm. 

Examples of emergency response would be deploying emergency workers to guide residents toward evacuation routes or moving emergency supplies to a predetermined safety area where community members can convene in the event of a displacing flood.

The recovery stage focuses on restoring the affected community to a state of normalcy. Recovery efforts involve rebuilding infrastructure, providing medical assistance and social services, and helping individuals and families recover financially. A recovery plan could include continued medical assistance, such as physical therapy, for individuals who sustained an injury during a disaster or a support group for those who experienced any emotional trauma due to the event.

Prepare for the Next Step of Your Career by Learning More About the Disaster Management Cycle 

The need for professionals who can prepare for and respond to disasters using the framework of the disaster management cycle is likely to continue to rise as catastrophic weather events become more common. Those who desire to become leaders in the field of disaster preparedness should consider the benefits of earning an advanced degree such as Tulane University’s Online Master of Public Health in Disaster Management . 

With coursework covering topics from disaster communication and environmental monitoring to risk assessment and response planning, Tulane University’s MPH in Disaster Management curriculum is designed to educate students about how to become leaders in the field of disaster preparation using evidence-based research and scientific principles. Discover how you can play a role in preparing for the unexpected crises of the future with Tulane University.

Recommended Readings

Benefits of Earning a Disaster Management Degree

Disaster Operations Specialist: Salary and Job Description

Emergency Preparedness Coordinator: Role and Requirements

Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, Emergency Management Cycle

Federal Emergency Management Agency, Emergency Management in the United States

Indeed, “What Is the Disaster Management Cycle?”

National Centers for Environmental Information, Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

National Centers for Environmental Information, Costliest U.S. Tropical Cyclones

U.S. Geological Survey, How Can Climate Change Affect Natural Disasters?

Request Information

Get important details about Tulane's Online MHA, MPH, MSPH, and DrPH programs, such as admission requirements, your financial aid options, and how to apply.

Disaster Management Cycle

Disaster preparedness and management.

Disaster Risk Management includes sum total of all activities, programmes and measures which can be taken up before, during and after a disaster with the purpose to avoid a disaster, reduce its impact or recover from its losses. The three key stages of activities that are taken up within disaster risk management are as follows

Initiatives taken

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Three phases of disaster management cycle

  • Pre Disaster Phase Before a disaster (pre-disaster). Pre-disaster activities those which are taken to reduce human and property losses caused by a potential hazard. For example, carrying out awareness campaigns, strengthening the existing weak structures, preparation of the disaster management plans at household and community level, etc. Such risk reduction measures taken under this stage are termed as mitigation and preparedness activities.

During disaster phase

These include initiatives taken to ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met and suffering is minimized. Activities taken under this stage are called emergency response activities.

  • Post disaster Phase After a disaster (post-disaster). There are initiatives taken in response to a disaster with a purpose to achieve early recovery and rehabilitation of affected communities, immediately after a disaster strikes. These are called as response and recovery activities.

Explanation

The Disaster risk management cycle diagram (DRMC) highlights the range of initiatives which normally occur during both the Emergency response and Recovery stages of a disaster. Some of these cut across both stages (such things as coordination and the provision of ongoing assistance); whilst other activities are unique to each stage (e. g. Early Warning and Evacuation during Emergency Response; and Reconstruction and Economic and 48 Social Recovery as part of Recovery). The DRMC also highlights the role of the media, where there is a strong relationship between this and funding opportunities.

This diagram works best for relatively sudden-onset disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, bushfires, tsunamis, cyclones etc, but is less reflective of slow-onset disasters, such as drought, where there is no obviously recognizable single event which triggers the movement into the Emergency Response stage. According to Warfield (2008) disaster management aims to reduce, or avoid the potential losses from hazards, assure prompt and appropriate assistance to victims of disaster, and achieve rapid and effective recovery.

The disaster management cycle illustrates the ongoing process by which governments, businesses, and civil society plan for and reduce the impact of disasters, react during and immediately following a disaster, and take steps to recover after a disaster has occurred. Appropriate actions at all points in the cycle lead to greater preparedness, better warnings, reduced vulnerability or the prevention of disasters during the next iteration of the cycle.

The complete disaster management cycle includes the shaping of public policies and plans that either modify the causes of disasters or mitigate their effects on people, property, and infrastructure. The mitigation and preparedness phases occur as disaster management improvements are made in anticipation of a disaster event. Developmental considerations play a key role in contributing to the mitigation and preparation of a community to effectively confront a disaster. As a disaster occurs, disaster management actors, in particular humanitarian organizations become involved in the immediate response and long-term recovery phases.

The four disaster management phases illustrated here do not always, or even generally, occur in isolation or in this precise order. Often phases of the cycle overlap and the length of each phase greatly depends on the severity of the disaster.

Minimizing the effects of disaster.

Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; public education.

Preparedness

Planning how to respond.

Examples: preparedness plans; emergency exercises/training; warning systems.

Efforts to minimize the hazards created by a disaster.

Examples: search and rescue; emergency relief.

Returning the community to normal.

Examples: temporary housing; grants; medical care.

To analyze the scope of disaster management in the revised context, it should be studied the cycle of the phenomenon. Disasters are as old as human history but the dramatic increase and the damage caused by them in the recent past have become a cause of national and international concern. Over the past decade, the number of natural and manmade disasters has climbed inexorably.

From 1994 to 1998, reported disasters average was 428 per year but from 1999 to 2003, this figure went up to an average of 707 disaster events per year. Figure 3 presents the deadliest disasters of the decade (1992-2001).

Global economic loss related to disaster events average around US $880 billion per year (CBSE, 2006). Conclusions There has been a dramatic increase in disasters and the damages caused by them in the recent past. Over the past decade, the number of natural and manmade disasters has climbed inexorably. Accordingly to the statistics, the number of disasters per year increased with 60% in the period 1999-2001 in comparison with the previous period, 1994 -1998. The highest increase was in the countries of low human development, which registered an increase of 142%.

In these countries, the responsible institutions should play an important role but, in general, the disaster management policy responses are influenced by methods and tools for cost-effective and sustainable interventions. There are no long-term, inclusive and coherent institutional arrangements to address disaster issues with a long term vision. Disasters are viewed in isolation from the processes of mainstream development and poverty alleviation planning. For example, disaster management, development planning and environmental management institutions operate in isolation and integrated planning between these sectors is almost lacking.

Absence of a central authority for integrated disaster management and lack of coordination within and between disaster related organizations is responsible for effective and efficient disaster management. State-level disaster preparedness and mitigation measures are heavily tilted towards structural aspects and undermine nonstructural elements such as the knowledge and capacities of local people, and the related livelihood protection issues. In conclusion, with a greater capacity of the individual/community and environment to face the disasters, the impact of a hazard would be reduced.

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