Territorial Crisis Management E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 494

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Our societies have become very crisis-prone. This book explores crises and the methods of anticipation, management and reconstruction, and considers a risk-crisis-territorial development continuum. The aim is to better understand a widely used concept and clarify the methods of action in the field of crisis management. The different forms of learning proposed to better face future crises are also questioned. This book invites us to analyze the resources available to support crisis management and reconstruction, and consider the unequal access to these resources in different territories in order to design future territorial strategies. This often results in a form of territorial inertia after the crises. However, some innovate, imagine renewed territories, prepare for reconstruction, or even recompose territories now in order to make them more resilient. The crisis can then be the driving force or the accelerator of these changes and contribute to the emergence of new practices, or even new urban and territorial utopias.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Introduction

1 Territorial Crisis, Elements of Definition

1.1. Crisis and catastrophe

1.2. Disasters of natural origin: a circumscribed crisis territory

1.3. Localized crises of natural origin aggravated or provoked by human activities

1.4. Industrial, technological and nuclear disasters and crises: localized crises and spatial consequences

1.5. More diffuse environmental, food and health crises on a regional or continental scale

1.6. “Reticular” crises

1.7. The “mega-crises” on a global scale, the domino effects

1.8. Conclusion

2 General Principles of Crisis Management

2.1. Nature of the crisis and forms of crisis management

2.2. Preparing for the crisis: the prevention/preparation link

2.3. Information in times of crisis

2.4. Crisis management: an integrated approach

2.5. Conclusion

3 Learning from Crisis Management

3.1. Feedback: objectives, contents, actors

3.2. Crisis management exercises and simulation

3.3. Conclusion

4 Crisis Management Resources

4.1. The reason for a shift from risk to crisis

4.2. How to identify crisis management resources?

4.3. The benefits of a resource-based approach

4.4. Conclusion: thinking about a “risk–crisis–development” continuum

5 Post-disaster Recovery: Challenges and Resources

5.1. The challenge of coordinating a multitude of actors with inadequate regulatory frameworks

5.2. Financial resources for reconstruction and the weight of solidarity in individual recovery

5.3. Land resources and territorial restructuring

5.4. Conclusion

6 Crises and Territories: Legacies, Inertia and Dynamics

6.1. Crises and territories: always complex articulations, in constant renewal

6.2. Inertia of representations

6.3. Crises feed territorial inertia

7 Founding Crisis of Territorial Renewal

7.1. Managing a risk territory on a global scale

7.2. Reducing risk through protection

7.3. Adapting the habitat

7.4. Adapting the neighborhood and the city

7.5. Strategic retreat

7.6. Conclusion

References

List of Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1.1. Damage severity scale (sources: Mission d’inspection spécialisée de l...

Table 1.2. Damage severity scale. The 10 most costly natural disasters since 198...

Table 1.3. Some 20th century disasters related to land transport (source: georis...

Table 1.4. Systems approach and mapping approach

Chapter 3

Table 3.1. Objectives and feedback content (source: Ministère des Solidarités et...

Table 3.2. Elements of crisis management exercise parameterizations. Modality ra...

Chapter 4

Table 4.1. Crisis management resources for the SIRAD project (d’Ercole et al. 20...

Table 4.2. Criteria for selection of major resources

Table 4.3. Types of emergency health resources analyzed in the SIRAD project in ...

Table 4.4. Prioritization of emergency health resources (Robert 2012)

Chapter 5

Table 5.1. Public and private actors and their main missions during the differen...

Table 5.2. Non-exhaustive list of international sources of reconstruction fundin...

List of Illustrations

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. Decision chain and operational chain in crisis management. For a col...

Figure 3.2. Fire at an oil depot in Buncefield, North London (realization: René ...

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1. Spatial dimensions of crisis management

Figure 4.2. The authorities of the municipality of La Paz have been using tanker...

Figure 4.3. Structure of the SIRV-TAB project database

Map 4.1. All emergency health resources in Lima Callao; number of beds by health...

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1. Phases of the post-crisis period and main associated actions (produc...

Figure 5.2. Schematic representation of territorial constraints in the reconstru...

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

1 Territorial Crisis, Elements of Definition

References

List of Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

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SCIENCES

Geography and Demography, Field Director – Denise Pumain

Geography of Risk, Subject Head – Samuel Rufat

Territorial Crisis Management

From Emergency to Reconstruction

Coordinated by

Richard Laganier

Yvette Veyret

First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

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© ISTE Ltd 2022

The rights of Richard Laganier and Yvette Veyret to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022939248

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78945-080-4

ERC codes:

SH2 Institutions, Values, Environment and Space

SH2_1 Political systems, governanceSH2_5 International relations, global and transnational governanceSH2_11 Human, economic and social geography

Foreword

Samuel RUFAT

Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France

In France, in 2021, the Council of State pointed out that after the 2015 attacks and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, France has spent more than half of the last six years under a state of emergency. Magistrates are concerned about the recent inclusion of emergency measures in common law. However, these are not the first attacks, nor the first pandemic. As Albert Camus already pointed out: “pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends upon us. There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared” (1947, The Plague). Crises reveal the vulnerabilities of our societies, often overwhelming planning and anticipation, imposing uncertainty in decision-making, the difficulty of committing sufficient resources in advance and the necessary adaptation to the degraded functioning of territories, sometimes over the long term. Are we witnessing an increase in the number of environmental, climatic, social and economic crises that increasingly appear to be an obstacle to the sustainability of territorial development? In return, should we rethink the functioning and management of territories in order to make uncertainty, degraded functioning, even improvisation, the generalization of emergency and exceptional measures the new normality?

In this subject, “Geography of Risk”, works take stock of the renewal of notions, approaches, issues and tools at the articulation between risks, societies and the environment, because risks do not always translate into crises or disasters and the increase of risks is not inevitable. It is possible to reduce the exposure of populations and their vulnerabilities, and support their adaptation or the resilience of societies in the face of risks that cannot be reduced, or the effects of crises that cannot be distributed. Risk prevention, disaster reduction and crisis mitigation require cutting edge approaches, in a subtle balance between the social demand for coordinated action at all scales and the imperative of reflexive criticism, in order to address the substance of the problems, rather than the most visible symptoms or the most fashionable solutions. This book shows that, as for other concepts, “scientific production in this field of crisis management remains limited, particularly in the field of geography, and does not seem to meet the needs of managers, which are often still ill-defined”.

Everything in the media and political discourse becomes a crisis, an emergency or an uncertainty. This book shows that it is because “our societies seem to be becoming more and more crisis-prone” that it is essential to propose a critique of the staging of crises, and question the heuristics of crisis thinking and the effects of its management on territories. Richard Laganier and Yvette Veyret have brought together a multidisciplinary team of French-speaking specialists, researchers and academics in order to put their expertise into dialogue. The authors offer a critical analysis of the links between risks, crises, disasters and territorial development, without glossing over the political and ethical issues, as well as the practical difficulties. They show in a pedagogical way the conceptual, practical and strategic questions under the great diversity of crises, always with the aim of drawing lessons from experience and proposing ways to improve crisis and territorial management: “crises are not only dysfunctions and disturbances, they are also moments of rupture in the organization and functioning of territorial systems, ruptures that can lead to a different way of thinking about post-crisis preparation and reconstruction.”

In this book, Richard Laganier, Yvette Veyret and their team draw up a critical assessment of the issues, lessons learned from a wide variety of case studies on all continents, uncertainties, scale and collateral effects, while suggesting that social scientists and managers adopt a renewed look at the links between crises and territories. On the one hand, they propose to consider the crisis “as an opportunity to rethink the development of a society in order to make it less vulnerable, more equitable and to implement a more sustainable use of resources”. On the other hand, they warn that “the crisis can feed territorial inertia, providing emergency solutions at certain scales, while at other scales, its management contributes to the maintenance of vulnerable or ill-adapted organizational frameworks, but also to the permanence of inequalities and power relations between actors, territories or countries”. They stimulate an essential reflection to support societies and territories in the face of the global climate crisis, environmental degradation, with an emphasis on emergencies, in the perspective of a sustainable and livable future for all.

Introduction

Richard LAGANIER

Université de Paris, France

Societies, which are now largely globalized and almost 60% urban, have become very tense. Due to high human concentrations, multiple mobilities and flows on a global scale, interrelationships and interdependencies, as well as the civilizational, cultural, political, economic or religious tensions that result from them, they carry within them the seeds of crises of various origins.

These last few decades have been struck by multiple crises, some of them limited to portions of territories (September 11, 2001 attack in New York, September 21, 2001 AZF industrial disaster in Toulouse) but with indirect impacts that go far beyond the areas immediately affected. Others are immediately global in scope (climate change and its impacts; Covid-19 health crisis in 2020–2021) to the point that they can sometimes be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as imported crises of distant or unknown origin. The intertwining of vital infrastructures (energy, water, communication), which is increasingly characteristic of our societies, is also an aggravating factor, both in terms of the spread of the crisis through domino effects (earthquake in Japan, which led to a tsunami and a nuclear accident in Fukushima on March 11, 2011), and in terms of the often complex and multidimensional management of the crisis. Moreover, some of these crises can destabilize because of their speed, power and the surprise effect induced (an attack, a very rare and large-scale natural hazard), while a large part of the population finds it difficult to consider others, which are more diffused and slower (global environmental changes), as crises.

However, all of these crises have many points in common. They reveal many underlying fragilities and vulnerabilities of our societies. They underline the complexity of territorial systems and thus the organizational challenge of dealing with catastrophic events. They threaten the values that structure the foundation of our societies and even the very functioning of the territorial and political systems that organize life. Crises question the decision-making processes and put the decision-makers who have to act in an uncertain environment under pressure, due to a lack of information or resources, to ensure, despite everything, the functioning of the territorial system in degraded mode. However, crises do not respect the crisis management plans prepared in advance. Each time, they constitute an organizational challenge that requires innovation, rapid reconsideration of action methods and adaptation to deal with the many unknowns that mark out the crisis.

Because our societies are increasingly crisis-prone, it seems necessary, not to say urgent, to explore these crises and the associated practices of anticipation, management and post-crisis, and to think of a risk–crisis–territorial development continuum. In this perspective, this book proposes both conceptual and strategic questioning. Conceptual because it allows us to better define a notion that is widely used today in many spheres of society and whose contours need to be clarified (Chapter 1). Strategic because it aims to clarify and make the modalities of action in the field of crisis management robust (Chapter 2), adjust the practices of those in charge of managing crises and territories and finally, reinforce the learning of decision-makers and citizens to better face future crises (Chapter 3). It is strategic because it also invites us to analyze the resources on which crisis management is based (Chapter 4), as well as those that can be mobilized to think about and organize post-crisis reconstruction (Chapter 5). But societies are not equal in terms of financial, land, cognitive or political resources for integrating crises and drawing lessons from the past in order to design future territorial strategies. Thus, we often see a form of territorial inertia expressed after crises, which should be analyzed (Chapter 6). Others, on the contrary, seek to innovate, imagine renewed territories, integrate preparation for reconstruction into the pre-crisis period and recompose territories now, in order to make them more resilient. The crisis can then be the driving force of these changes and contribute to the emergence of new practices, or even new urban and territorial utopias (Chapter 7).

1Territorial Crisis, Elements of Definition

Richard LAGANIER1 and Yvette VEYRET2

1Université de Paris, France2Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, France

An earthquake in Haiti, a tsunami in Indonesia, hunger riots, terrorist actions, the Covid-19 crisis and so on, in the media, as well as in political speeches, everything is in crisis. The term crisis is borrowed, through the Latin crisis, from the Greek krisis, which first meant the action or ability to choose before covering the idea of an “accident of a medical nature, sudden and unexpected”. For the French language dictionary, it is essentially this last aspect that is preserved, as well as its figurative uses, to designate “a sudden event that comes as a sudden alteration of health, disturbing and upsetting a hitherto peaceful situation”. The dictionary of geography defines crisis as “a rupture, or reversal of tendency in an evolution”. It can be a rapid, violent manifestation, a worrying situation, a lack of something. We can consider that crisis is manifested by important modifications to the environment (taken in the broadest sense: natural, economic, social, etc.) in which the individual or the group lives, modifications responsible for worries, uneasiness, insecurity or even threats to the lives of the individuals and death. Crisis requires decisions and treatment for maximum resilience. Morin and Béjin (1976) insist on the idea of decision: “it is the decisive moment in the evolution of an uncertain process, which allows the diagnosis to be made.” But these authors also emphasize that today, crisis means indecision: “it is the moment when, at the same time as a disturbance, uncertainties arise” (Morin and Béjin 1976). If we follow Lagadec (1991), crisis is “a situation in which multiple organizations, faced with critical problems, subject to strong external pressures and bitter internal tensions, find themselves suddenly and for a long period of time, at the front of the stage, projected against each other”. Libaert et al. (2018) insist on the unexpected event at the origin of the crisis, which requires a response, decisions for its management. The work of these different authors is similar and we can, following Crocq et al. (2009) define crisis as a:

crucial moment in the life of individuals, groups and populations, which marks a break in continuity and uncertainty about the evolution of events, which involves a threat to the values, objectives and functioning of these individuals and groups and which discovers major stakes for their freedom, their integrity, or even their survival; crisis implies the need to act urgently and possibly in a deteriorated situation, it can lead to the return of the previous state, the establishment of a new state of equilibrium or the worsening of the deteriorated state.

A crisis is therefore the consequence of a major event of natural or anthropogenic origin (in the broadest sense), both a process and a state, whose effects affect a large number of people and cause significant damage that may exceed society’s capacity to respond.

Morin attempted to establish a theory of crisis, which he named “crisology” (Dorna and Costa 2015) whose three basic principles reflect complexity: systemic, cybernetic and negentropic. The systemic principle is related to the complexity of the structures underlying any organization characterized by the attraction and connection existing between the components of the system. The cybernetic principle attributes the maintenance of the stability and coherence of a system to feedback. Feedback, in the broadest sense, is the return action of an effect on the device that gave rise to it, and thus on itself. Negative feedback, triggered by the variation of an element, tends to seek to cancel this variation in order to re-establish the stability and integrity of the system, whereas positive feedback corresponds to a “deviation that increases as it feeds its own development [...] If nothing comes to inhibit or cancel it, the feedback develops in a chain throughout the system. The principle of entropy (the opposite of negentropy) implies that every system is heading towards a natural degradation.” If no action is taken, entropy will increase, and this is the crisis (Morin 1976; Masclet 2010). “Crisology” allows us to emphasize the importance and variety of crises inherent to life and to our societies. The risk society envisaged by Beck (2001) is naturally also one of crises that can affect the individual, the group, society and, in the broadest sense, the environment, as shown by the example of the 2020 pandemic, whose effects are sanitary, psychological, economic, social and political.

The analysis of crisis(es) is carried out in many works (Pauchant 1988; Guillaumin 2004). If in the Middle Ages, the term crisis was only used in a medical sense, in the 17th century, on the contrary, Furetière added “a figurative sense, relating to human actions (intrigue, trial) [...] it is from this figurative sense that, according to Walther von Wartburg, the term ‘crisis’ was transposed from the medical domain to the economic domain, thanks to the difficult economic situation at the end of the 17th century” (Morsel 1988). From the 19th century onwards, the term crisis was used to describe cultural, political and economic changes (Morin op. cit.) and any situation characterized by disturbances and associated uncertainties, whatever its nature, was then defined as a crisis (Revault d’Allonnes 2013). Crisis is present in the works of Malthus, in those of Ricardo in the 18th century, and for 19th century economists, crises appear as inescapable.

There are no remedies against crises in the sense that crises are inevitable. No measure can avert them; it is at most if one can attenuate their effects, shorten their duration, calm the panic that is inseparable from them. A crisis is an accident in the economic life of people, as it is in the life of individuals: it is feverish activity (Jourdan 1882 cited by Gallois 2012).

Historical works have taken up this notion of crisis. The first theories were born in the middle of the 19th century joining in this the analyses of economists (see Juglar, Marx, etc.). As Morsel (1988) points out, “the use of the notion of ‘crisis’ in history depends very closely on the historiographic or even epistemological stage of the moment, and probably also, to a degree that is difficult to appreciate, on the context in which the historian is immersed”. The historian Perroy recalled that “the word ‘crisis’ has been used to designate two distinct phenomena. Sometimes it is about sudden depressions, limited in time […] sometimes a movement of durable and prolonged collapse of the economy” (Morsel op.cit.). Psychology insists on the subjective dimension of crises associated with ruptures in human relationships, “with the confrontation of antagonistic forces; with imaginary stupefaction and difficulties in making decisions” (Barus-Michel et al. 1996). Thus, Morin can underline that “the notion of crisis has spread in the twentieth century to all horizons of contemporary consciousness [...] But this notion, by generalizing, has been emptied from the inside”. According to the author, “The word crisis is used to name the unnameable; it refers to a double gap; the gap in our knowledge (at the very heart of the term crisis), the gap in the social reality where the crisis appears” (Morin 1976).

The very broad use of the term crisis sometimes leads to a lack of readability and to the questioning of the use of this term itself, with crisis being considered as inherent to all living systems. How far should we go in its use? Is any change, any modification in relation to a previous situation a crisis? The idea of disturbance or rupture associated with crisis is similar to the deterministic analysis developed by certain ecologists (Duvignaud 1974), according to whom any disturbance or crisis is harmful to an organism or a system, even though these disturbances or crises are intrinsically associated with the evolution of these systems. The proponents of such fixist conceptions defend the idea of an earlier “equilibrium”, of a lost golden age to be rediscovered, of the climax and so on. The idea of crisis has also been used in a cyclic conception by historians (Toynbee) or geographers (cycles of erosion, etc.) who rely on the ternary notion of cycle, any system being characterized by three phases of “life”: youth, apogee and decline in which the crisis occurs at the time of the passage of the apogee to the decline or designates the whole of the period of decadence. In fact, the notion of crisis must be understood as a change, not implying a return to a time or a point zero, but associated with bifurcations towards new forms of organization or ruptures implying new “departures”, with forms of resilience allowing the system to function even on other bases and in a degraded mode.

How do we classify crises? A crisis is always a unique situation to which specific actions correspond (Pauchant and Douville 1993). To facilitate their implementation, the literature presents certain classifications of crises according to their triggers (Mitroff et al. 1987; Roux-Dufort 2003; Westphalen 1992 in Libaert 2018), the internal or external nature of the crisis (Lagadec 1991) or the “targets” concerned: the product, industrial and institutional aspects (Ogrizek et al. 1997). The identification and classification of crises is thus intended to provide managers with a reference framework for the analysis (Lagadec 1995) of these situations, including when the phenomenon is uncertain and evolving (Perrow 1984; Thiétart et al. 1997). Among the ways of considering and dealing with crises (Aluson et al. 1999), the literature offers two approaches: the more event-based approach (Hermann 1963) and the more process-based approach (Forgues 1996). Many authors insist on the importance of threats that generate disruptions and ruptures in organizations or systems and concern the security, safety, integrity of the system and people, in other words, aspects that concern the vital systems of society. The necessary decision-making must take place in a context of uncertainty. Crises also refer to the perception of the different actors who are affected by them (Laganier 2013).

We will consider crises according to the process or processes that justify them, crises related to natural hazards, industrial and technological crises: climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, seismic crisis or industrial accident, and also economic, geopolitical, social and health crises, excluding open conflicts and wars. The geographical extension of crises constitutes another criterion of distinction: the crisis can concern a district, city, region or even the planet. The duration of crises, whether brief (a few days to a few weeks) or much longer (several years, for example), also makes it possible to distinguish them. The types of impact lead us to consider several types of crises: environmental, economic, social and/or political, and also complex crises combining these different aspects. Finally, we can distinguish between crises of unequal importance and highlight “mega-crises” that concern the entire planet, a large number of political and economic actors and the population. The climate crisis, for example, is the result of changes in the climate system and the climate machine on a planetary scale, linked to the quantities of greenhouse gases released by societies into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This crisis reflects the changes that have taken place over a fairly long period of time in economic practices, transport and, more broadly, lifestyles (industrialization, urbanization, tourism, etc.). It is revealed by numerous and/or more intense manifestations than in the past: heat waves, repeated cyclones, retreat of the summer ice pack in the Arctic Ocean. Some episodes of high intensity are the cause of repeated disasters (storms of 1999, storm Xynthia, cyclone Irma in France). Thus, global crisis can give rise to short-lived events (storms, cyclones, etc.) that are sometimes repetitive, sometimes seasonal (retreat of the ice pack) or more random, all of which nevertheless reinforce the effects of the climate crisis, which also manifests itself over longer periods of time (rise in sea level, accelerated seasonal melting of permafrost, for example).

From what thresholds (economic, social, cultural, etc.) can we speak of crisis? And do we not apply this term to situations of different magnitude and nature? Moreover, the perception of a crisis situation varies a lot according to the individuals. What can appear dangerous and unbearable to some is not for others who accept the danger for religious reasons, for example, or because no other solution can allow them to defend themselves. In other words, is it possible to envisage an objective reality of crisis and on the basis of what criteria? All the more so as one must insist on the importance of the media in “creating a crisis”. The media do not simply report on the crisis, but contribute to the “creation” of this event, by giving it the status of a crisis or a catastrophe. The crisis becomes, through the associated media coverage, a kind of spectacle, a theater. “The theater does not have a monopoly on tragedy: radios, televisions and newspapers are the permanent reflection of contemporary tragedies” (Steinle-Feuerbach 1995). Media coverage can help to find solutions to the crisis, while in some cases, its total absence contributes to the forgetting of dramatic events. Since the Armero disaster, we know that “putting a face – that of the little girl gradually swallowed up by the lahar – on this disaster has made it possible to show its magnitude, and has given rise to a great surge of international solidarity” (Arboit 2007). Nevertheless, if communicating in case of crisis is a necessity, in particular to reassure the population, this communication must be transparent, not hide the facts, not modify them for ideological purposes, all of which implies presenting the different useful expertises.

According to the origins of the crisis, its duration, its intensity and its consequences, we can distinguish crises and catastrophes, between which, there exists a “radical difference” (Thom 1976).

1.1. Crisis and catastrophe

The term catastrophe comes from the Latin catastropha, which itself comes from the Greek, and means “reversal”. Catastrophe is in essence a very visible phenomenon, an observable discontinuity and a rupture (Thom 1976). “There is an obvious link between crisis and catastrophe, crisis is often a precursor of catastrophe that it precedes or provokes” (Thom op.cit.). Catastrophe is a product of a social order. Any catastrophe taking place in a given social context is often the revelation of a crisis situation. Catastrophe can cause or at least aggravate a crisis, political or economic (Revet 2007; Cabane et al. 2015). Nevertheless, this distinction is not unanimously accepted, so what we refer to as a disaster is sometimes defined as a crisis, as Le Bouëdec (2011) does in his historical works for which “crisis is a short social time marked by natural accidents, economic setbacks that weaken society. Crisis is a mirror to discover the organization and functioning of the community at the heart of a model”. The author contrasts crisis with the more complex and longer lasting rupture that translates the passage from one economic, social “model” to another. However, in most cases, a disaster is defined as the result of a sudden event causing damage to property, people and ecosystems. Disaster also has a psychological dimension (loss of reference points, social links). In fact, if certain processes at the origin of a disaster are rapid or even almost instantaneous (consequences of a cyclone, an earthquake, an explosion, etc.), in many cases, the process at stake has a certain temporal dimension (droughts, for example) and is more widely part of a crisis situation of variable scale. Disaster results from the unfolding of a hazard, and is a source of danger for populations. But disaster is also the result of an accumulation of multiple vulnerabilities (organizational, material, cultural) that hazards reveal over time. Several criteria make it possible to define a disaster, in particular its origin: a natural or technological event and so on, but it is above all a social event; disaster amounts to transform a natural hazard into a social construction. Without human society, there would be no disaster. Berque (2012) emphasizes that “natural phenomena, whatever their scale (from a shock of particles to a shock of galaxies), are not disasters”. In Fukushima, “on the other hand, it is a disaster, that is to say, something that implies human existence [...] The disasters following the tsunami of March 11, 2011 [...] have as their primary cause the mode of the relationship that modernity has established between Japanese society and its environment, in the oblivion of history and the abstraction of the human subject from its environment, reduced to a clean slate defined by profit alone” (Berque 2012). Disaster is the result of a negative event, even though some actors may benefit from it; it is an extraordinary, exceptional event. There is a disaster when the system concerned does not have the capacity to absorb the event; this technical, cultural, mental and economic capacity, which proves to be insufficient, translates into a weak resilience and, in many cases, a crisis situation. Thus, disaster in a certain number of cases is the revelation of a deeper crisis; a land movement (landslide, rock fall, collapse) responsible for victims and degradation can be a marker of the slow dynamics of a slope often not perceived by the populations concerned, dynamics itself an indicator of deforestation or poorly conducted development of this space. The hazard that manifests itself from a certain threshold of moisture in the rocks and soils can cause a disaster affecting developments and populations. The earthquake in Haiti in 2010 revealed by the magnitude of its effects, more than any other dramatic event (cyclones in particular), the dysfunctions, the socio-political crisis affecting the society of this developing country (corruption, inorganization, poverty, embezzlement of money for the benefit of the leaders alone, mafia system, violence… questionable action of NGOs). To be effective, repairing the effects of the earthquake and the crisis would require discussing and reviewing the functioning of the Haitian political and economic system, which is marked by social and environmental injustice. This is far from being the case, and it is therefore understandable that 10 years after the disaster, the effects of the earthquake are still present. In these examples, we must therefore distinguish between the existence of a multiform crisis generally involving long periods of time, multiple interactions, a complex system and, within the crisis, a disaster that is generally of a shorter duration due to a well-identified triggering process, in this case an earthquake, the effects of which can only aggravate the prior crisis. The example of the Kobe earthquake in 1995, which destroyed the great Japanese port and caused many victims, shows the role of the urbanization of the city of Kobe itself, the price of land, the extreme densification of urban space, and the types of precarious constructions filling the gaps in the urbanization. All of this explains the importance of the fires which broke out during the earthquake and caused the greatest number of victims (more than 5,000 dead and tens of thousands injured) and damage (105,000 homes destroyed and 145,000 damaged). In all these examples, reconstruction should require a broader analysis of the disaster in order to consider what contributed to the extent of the damage of all kinds, beyond the triggering event itself, which is the source of vulnerability. In many cases, the natural or technological event responsible for the disaster is only the emerging part of a more complex situation, of dysfunctions affecting multiple domains (social, economic, etc.). Thus, we can consider the process that triggers the disaster as the immediate cause of the situation, and the crisis in which the disaster occurs as the result of broader, more “distant” factors, in the same way that historians distinguished between immediate and distant causes in the analysis of wars. In many cases, the hazard may appear to be directly responsible for the greater or lesser number of victims and most of the damage, but these are to be put in relation to the vulnerability of the populations, which is itself a function of their economic and social situation, and of their culture, which could potentially bring about the existence of a crisis. “It is enough,” writes Rieu (2012) about Fukushima, “to pull the threads of an affair or a disaster so that whole sections of a society are revealed”. This observation demonstrates the difficulty of proposing a classification of crises and disasters, which is important to include in a systemic analysis.

When should we use the term disaster? The UN defines a disaster as a process that results in death or loss of life and material damage. A “significant disaster” is characterized by losses of at least 100 human lives and 1% of GDP. The term “cataclysm” refers to events responsible for more than 10,000 victims. Dauphiné (2000) proposed a synthetic scale based on three criteria, the number of victims (from 100 to 9999, the most discriminating factor), financial losses and biomass losses. The database of the Centre de Recherche sur l’Epidémiologie des Désastres (CRED 2010) defines a catastrophic event as one that has caused at least 10 deaths, affected 100 people, or required international assistance. The Reinsurance Company Swiss Re uses the term “catastrophe” when the event causes economic losses of at least 85.4 million dollars, more than 20 dead or missing, 50 injured and 2000 homeless. Munich Ré distinguishes among the six degrees of severity of large-scale disaster when the victims are several thousand. In France, if we follow the classification established by the specialized environmental inspection mission, the effects of storms Martin and Lothar in 1999, then Xynthia in 2010 fall into the category of “catastrophe”, while the 2020 pandemic is part of the “major catastrophes” category.

Table 1.1.Damage severity scale (sources: Mission d’inspection spécialisée de l’environnement (MISE), 1999)

Category

Human damage

Property damage

Incident

No injuries

Less than 0.3 million euros

Accident

One or more injured

Between 0.3 and 3 M

Serious accident

1–9 deaths

Between 3 and 30

Very serious accident

9–99 deaths

From 30 to 300

Disaster

100–999 deaths

Between 300 and 3 G

Major disaster

More than 1,000 deaths

3 G or more

These categorizations have certain limitations. They do not take into account the socio-political consequences of events, which are difficult to measure and sometimes do not become apparent until later (Dauphine 2000), nor do they take into account damage to the environment and/or to heritage.

All natural or technological events do not necessarily fall into the category of disaster, if the number of victims is reduced or even non-existent, and the damage relatively limited. Nevertheless, for the individual or the population who have experienced a disturbing event, generally unforeseen or of very high intensity, and who have lost part of their possessions and memories, the perception of the event is that of a disaster. Thus, in Rouen during the accident at the Lubrizol factory in 2019, the expression “catastrophe” (industrial, economic, ecological) was very quickly used by the media, as well as by the very worried population who even compared the Lubrizol fire to the disasters in Toulouse, Chernobyl and Bhopal.

In France, the term “catastrophe” is widely used. Damage suffered by individuals during a natural event (floods, storms, etc.) can be covered by the “natural disaster” decree. The insurance system instituted by the law of July 13, 1982 relating to the compensation of victims of natural disasters is based on the obligation to include a guarantee against “uninsurable direct material damage caused by the abnormal intensity of a natural agent” in all property damage and business interruption insurance contracts. When an “exceptional” event occurs, the coverage is subject to the publication of a natural disaster decree (“catnat”) which specifies the municipalities and periods where the phenomenon and its characteristics occurred. This decree is issued following the opinion of an interministerial commission referred to by the prefect at the request of the commune. This commission recognizes, on the basis of the scientific report, the exceptional character of the natural phenomenon that caused the damage.

The French Institute for the Environment (Institut français de l’environnement, IFEN) points out that three quarters of French communes have been subject to at least one “catnat” decree since the law was promulgated. These decrees have concerned municipalities in flood-prone valleys, on the Mediterranean coast, and also on the plateaus of northern France, where mudflows and/or land movements related to mines or underground quarries occur. The effects of the droughts which affect sedimentary France (Paris Basin, Provence, Aquitaine) are at the origin of processes of shrinkage/swelling of clays and of considerable damage to the habitat.

The cost of disasters is difficult to measure. Nussbaum (in Veyret et al. 2013) points out that over the last 25 years, 36 major events have resulted in compensation of more than 100 million euros, their total cost is estimated at more than 35 billion euros, a third of which in 2011 alone, the human cost is 406 deaths, 129 of which were in 1999 (storm Martin and Lothard). Floods are the most frequent disasters, but storms are the most deadly. The increasing costs of disasters are obvious despite the importance of risk management and crisis prevention. However, the concentration of the population and various developments in areas at risk is also a reality (coastal development, urban expansion along rivers, etc.). In addition, the worsening of high intensity phenomena in relation to global warming contributes to the multiplication of “catnat” decrees.

Finally, the distinction between crisis and disaster is sometimes difficult to make, as one term can replace the other. In France, institutional actors widely use the term crisis, including to designate the consequences of natural hazards or industrial dangers at the origin of an incident and/or disaster. The state and its deconcentrated organizations also use the term crisis when it comes to managing a dangerous event at the national and regional levels, while mayors are responsible for crisis management at the communal level. The term crisis is often used both to consider what is more akin to a disaster and to define the political, social, economic and health situation that creates vulnerabilities, which we have defined as a crisis in the strict sense.

Can we consider the modalities of the unfolding of a crisis often defined as a cycle characterized by several phases or stages? A large number of authors have described different stages in the development of a crisis, the preliminary phase that allows precursory signs to appear, more or less recognized according to their nature and the level of preparation. During the next phase, the signs of the crisis or disaster appear, to which the organizations concerned respond in the third phase, which must contribute to limiting the damage. The last phase is that of the end of the crisis, but the crisis may remain present through the material traces that persist (change in the use of a space affected by the crisis, expropriation, etc.), in the collective memory as well as in that of individuals (Mitroff et al. 1987; Fink 2000). This last phase is not a return to the initial precrisis situation. Crises and disasters are not all of the same magnitude; they will be considered first by taking into account the nature of the triggering processes, the space and the associated time.

1.2. Disasters of natural origin: a circumscribed crisis territory

Hazards (avalanches, floods, storms, earthquakes, etc.) occur in a specific area, which may be a portion of a commune (in the case of a very localized fire hazard or landslide), in several communes, or in a linear pattern that extends over several communes or even several regions in the case of floods. The hazard can also affect a large area, as was the case with the storms that swept through municipalities, departments and regions of Europe in 1999. Some hazards can also affect several states: flooding of border rivers (e.g. Rhine). The territory affected by the crisis or disaster resulting from the manifestation of the hazard is sometimes different from the territory of the hazard; such a situation is frequent in the case of an earthquake because of the nature of the rocks. For example, in the 1987 Mexico City earthquake, the effects were not concentrated in the area of the epicenter (defined as the projection of the focus on the Earth’s surface, the point where the rupture occurs), as might be expected. The earthquake caused thousands of deaths and extensive damage in Mexico City, even though it was 400 km from the epicenter. The reasons for this are related to the nature of the subsoil; the loose lacustrine deposits of the Mexico City basin accentuated the effects of the tremors. The consequences of a dangerous event are also unequal according to the vulnerability of the affected territory, its accessibility, the density of the population concerned, its knowledge of the danger, and the types of construction, which themselves reflect social inequalities.

Table 1.2.Damage severity scale. The 10 most costly natural disasters since 1980 worldwide (source: assurland.com, 2017)

Origin of disasters and countries concerned

Date

Damage in billions of USD

Earthquake and tsunami, Japan

2011

210

Hurricane Harvey, United States

2017

180

Hurricane Katrina, United States

2005

125

Earthquake, Japan

1995

100

Earthquake, China

2008

85

Hurricane Sandy, United States/Canada/Caribbean

2012

68,5

Earthquake, United States

1994

44

Flooding, Thailand

2011

43

Hurricane Ike, United States/Caribbean

2008

38

Earthquake and tsunami, Chile

2010

30

The course of disasters related to natural hazards is generally circumscribed in space and time, although the consequences of such an event sometimes have longer effects. These are hazards of lithospheric origin: earthquakes, land movements and volcanic eruptions or hydroclimatic hazards: cyclones, storms, very heavy rainfall, heavy snowfall, hail or long-term drought. Heavy rains or snowmelt are sometimes responsible for flooding. Thus, in France, between 2001 and 2015, more than 1,300 natural events caused damage both in metropolitan France and in the overseas departments, resulting in more than 25,000 victims. Their cost amounted to about 27 billion euros. The 2003 heat wave represented a very deadly episode (about 15,000 victims), and the storms Klaus (in 2009) and Xynthia (in 2010) had a respective cost of 4.7 and 3.6 billion euros (see: https://www.catnat.net/).

These hazards are not distributed anywhere on the planet, they respond to geological, tectonic and climatic logics. Seismic and volcanic hazards are numerous on the Pacific border (Japan, Kamchatka, Alaska, California, Andes), at the contact of tectonic plates, earthquakes are frequent along the Mediterranean border. They affect Morocco (earthquakes of 1755, 1909, 1960), Egypt (1992) Portugal (1755), Greece (1810, 1928, 1953, 1978), Algeria (1716, 1980, 2003, 2010, etc.), Turkey (1939, 1983, 2011, etc.), France is not totally spared (1564, 1887 in Nice), then beyond, they appear in Iran, India and China. With the exception of California, Alaska, southern Europe and Japan, the areas affected by earthquakes and volcanism are in many developing countries where, when these processes occur, their effects are multiplied by the weakness of the infrastructure and an often insufficient preventive policy. Many cities have been or could be subject to disasters of lithospheric origin: Lima, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo, and many others, such as Algiers or Istanbul in the Mediterranean basin. In 2016, earthquakes in Taiwan, Japan, Ecuador, Italy and New Zealand caused USD 40 billion in economic losses, with only USD 7.41 billion in insured losses. The earthquake that ravaged central Italy in 2016 caused USD 5.6 billion in damages, with the losses borne by insurers only amounting to USD 320 million. In Italy, a country highly exposed to this type of hazards, only 1% of homes are insured against earthquakes. The Kumamoto earthquake (Ryukyu, Japan) in 2016 was responsible for nearly USD 20 billion in economic damages for which insurers only covered USD 5 billion.

At the forefront of climatic disasters are the consequences of cyclones that affect the oceanic facades located to the east of continents at tropical latitudes (Florida, West Indies, Bangladesh, Japan, Southeast China, Philippines, etc.). The violence of the winds and the heavy rainfalls which characterize them can cause victims and damages.

Cyclones are also very dangerous for populations when they occur in low-lying coastal areas. They can cause sea surges that can reach several meters, allowing the sea to penetrate far into low-lying areas and increase the effect of flooding often generated by cyclonic rains, as rivers have difficulty reaching the sea. Storms are frequent on European coasts (Xyntia in 2010 on the French coast). Heavy snowfall can occur in North America and block activities in Montreal, New York, Chicago. Heat waves also occur in temperate areas. Avalanches occur in most mountains as soon as the snowfall feeds a sufficiently thick and sometimes unstable snowpacks. The probability of occurrence of the phenomenon increases greatly with the occupation and use of the mountain, especially by skiers, who can cause snowpacks to break up. Disasters due to floods are largely the result of the settlement of populations in flood-prone areas (cities in developing countries, developed areas of the Indo-Gangetic and Chinese deltas, etc., and establishing of cities and economic activities in the valleys of industrialized countries).

All of these crises have significant costs, in terms of victims and damage to buildings, facilities, heritage, critical infrastructures and so on. The activities of the corresponding places must sometimes cease for fairly long periods, particularly when it comes to tourist activities. These effects are all the more important and damaging as the territory concerned is more vulnerable. A number of vulnerability factors can be seen in the example of Saint Martin (West Indies). Thus, the Caribbean island of Saint Martin affected by the passage of Hurricane Irma in 2017 reflects the consequences of the vulnerability of this space and its population, vulnerability prior to the course of Irma. In Saint Martin, if the physical data contributed to explaining the passage of the cyclone, the disaster that resulted is due to the fragility of people, facilities and the economy of the island. One of the main factors of vulnerability is the density of the population and the modes of occupation of the island, whose area in the French part does not exceed 53 km2. The strong growth of the population from 8,000 inhabitants in 1982 to 28,500 in 1990 and 35,600 in 2016 is linked in particular to the development of tourism on the island at the end of the 20th century, itself related to the enactment of the Pons law in 1986 on tax exemption, which allowed people to benefit from a tax reduction on rental property investments made in overseas departments.

This development is taking place on the necessarily very attractive coastlines. However, the vulnerability of the population is all the more greater because a large part of the population of immigrant origin is impoverished and lives in informal, poorly built neighborhoods, where the fragile buildings are subject to the risks of submergence, flooding and violent winds. In 2010, 12,394 foreigners were living in Saint Martin, which represents about one-third of the total population. Most of these foreigners came from the Caribbean (77%), particularly Haiti (47%), Dominica (16%) and the Dominican Republic (6%), and left their countries after natural disasters and because of poverty. A significant portion of the immigrant population has no professional training, sufficient knowledge of risks or means to protect itself effectively when a crisis occurs. The topographical characteristics of the island, whose very uneven central part, not very conducive to construction, is difficult to access, have historically pushed the population to settle in the immediate vicinity of the coastline, even “waterfront” that is sought by the actors of tourism and the population. Groups of dwellings or economic activities are established directly on the dunes. As these areas are reaching saturation point, urbanization is progressing on the heights. Saint Martin is now seeing an increase in construction on the hills (mornes), sometimes in the immediate vicinity of gullies which are frequently filled in during urbanization work. The edges of wetlands (ponds) have also been largely occupied by uncontrolled development, which has reduced their capacity to absorb water from rainfall, already reduced by siltation phenomena (Veyret 2017).

The anarchy of construction in Saint Martin is a major factor of vulnerability. The only urban planning document in force is a very old Land Use Plan, called the Plan d’Occupation des Sols (POS), which is little or not respected, including by the public authorities. A draft, called the Local Urban Plan (Plan Local d’Urbanisme, PLU), now exists, but what about the “de facto” constructions? Will illegal occupations cease with this new document? The mission conducted by the National Assembly (2014 mission report) emphasizes that the land registry is “in a dramatic state” and that the number of building permits filed in Saint Martin is ridiculously low (less than 200 per year), even though construction has been very considerable over the past few decades. According to the conclusions of the National Assembly report, it “would not be excessive to consider that more than half of the built heritage on Saint Martin has been built in an irregular manner and in particularly dangerous areas”, as evidenced by the developments on the east coast of the island where many hotels and summer rentals are located. On the west coast, hotels and restaurants have been built directly on the beach, and the area known as “Sandy Grounds” located southwest of Marigot, consisting mainly of hard-wall housing built in an uncontrolled manner, is located less than one meter above sea level, on a thin strip of land between the coast and the large lagoon of Saint Martin. For the population, and many elected officials, it is possible to build anywhere, including in the “50 geometric steps” zone. Consisting of a strip of land 81.20 meters wide determined from the limit of the shoreline, the “50 geometric steps”, created by Colbert, define a coastal strip. It was used for military purposes to protect the inhabitants, and belonged to the state public domain. Over time, parcels of land in the 50 steps zone were appropriated, particularly after the promulgation of law No. 55-349 of April 2, 1955, which placed this zone in the state private domain, making it alienable and prescriptible. The littoral law No. 86-2 of January 3, 1986 again classified the “50 steps” zone in the state maritime public domain, prohibiting any transfer and any private appropriation. However, the land located in this area and belonging to private or public persons who can prove their title of ownership are considered as not being part of the state maritime public domain. In addition, law No. 96-1241 of December 30, 1996 relating to the development, protection and enhancement of the “50 geometric steps” zone in the overseas departments has led to the regularization of the situation of untitled occupants, by allowing them to acquire the land they occupy for their main residence, in order to improve the hygiene of buildings often built in precarious conditions. However, if we follow the work of the ONERC (Observatoire national sur les effets du changement climatique, National Observatory on the Effects of Climate Change), the consequences of climate change on coastal areas should result in particular in the acceleration of marine submersion and coastal erosion, the strengthening of the frequency and intensity of storms, and changes in the wave regime and ocean circulation.

The vulnerability of the island is largely related to political and social factors. The French part of Saint Martin was established as an Overseas Collectivity (Collectivité d’Outre-Mer, COM) under Article 74 of the Constitution, by organic law No. 2007-223 (February 21, 2007), amended in 2010 (organic law No. 2010-92). Saint Martin was previously administratively attached to Guadeloupe as a simple commune, but now has its own administrative organization, powers and legislative regime. The community of Saint Martin has a territorial council elected by universal suffrage, a president assisted by an executive council. The community has an economic, social and cultural council. A delegated prefect, representing the French State, is responsible for national interests, compliance with laws and treaties, public order and administrative control. Saint Martin has a magistrates’ court and a deputy public prosecutor. The community exercises and combines the powers previously vested in the commune, the department and the region of Guadeloupe. It is also the beneficiary of state competences, notably concerning taxes, duties and fees, road traffic and road transport, property rights, access to work for foreigners, tourism, urban planning, construction, housing and energy. It does not have jurisdiction over the environment. The role of the state in environmental matters is to ensure that laws are enforced and that public policies are implemented in the relevant areas. However, the community of Saint Martin has the possibility of adapting the laws and regulations in force in environmental matters to the island’s specificities. In 2017, the highly indebted COM had hardly implemented the regulations on construction and risk. The use of the territory for the sole purpose of developing waterfront tourism for the exclusive benefit of a few, largely explains the consequences of the course of Irma. The balance of destruction and damage amounted to 3 billion euros, including 1.9 billion insured losses (Irma CCR 20178), making this event one of the most expensive for the French insurance system. Overall, 95% of buildings and infrastructure were damaged. The prefecture, the multimedia library and four of the 21 schools were considered too dangerous to be occupied again (Moatty et al. 2019). The intertwining of physical, human and economic factors must be considered in its entirety. The disaster expresses the physical event and its dramatic consequences and justifies the implementation of an adapted management that is part of a specific social, economic, institutional situation indicative of crisis and high vulnerabilities. Thus, from a brief and well-localized event (a cyclone or an earthquake, for example), a disaster occurs, which is part of a more or less vulnerable context at the origin of a crisis of variable duration and magnitude.

1.3. Localized crises of natural origin aggravated or provoked by human activities