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1. Toward equitable coastal community resilience: Incorporating principles of equity and justice in coastal hazard adaptation

   https://doi.org/10.1017/cft.2023.24  

   Fox, Natasha; Tilt, Jenna H; Ruggiero, Peter; Stanton, Katie; Bolte, John (January 2023, Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures)

   Abstract To meet the challenges of hazards impacting coastal communities, demand is growing for more equitable coastal natural hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation approaches, supported by co-productive research partnerships. This review paper outlines contemporary advances in hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation with attention to how an equity and justice framework can address the uneven impacts of hazards on marginalized and underserved communities. Drawing upon the allied concepts of distributive, procedural, systemic, and recognitional equity and justice, we illustrate how these concepts form the basis for equitable coastal resilience. To demonstrate how equitable resilience can effectively advance contemporary adaptation and mitigation strategies, we present two vignettes where collaborative partnerships underscore how equitable coastal hazard planning and response practices complement these processes in coastal zones subject to large earthquakes and tsunamis. The first vignette focuses on disaster response and takes place in the Tohoku region of Japan, with diverse gender and sexual minority community members’ experiences of, and responses to, the 2011 Tohoku disasters. The second vignette centers on hazard planning and takes place on the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast along the Cascadia Subduction Zone to demonstrate how principles of distributive, procedural, systemic, and recognitional equity can inform the co-production of alternative coastal futures that prioritize equitable resilience. From this discussion, we suggest applying an equity lens to research processes, including alternative futures modeling frameworks, to ensure that the benefits of hazard adaptation and disaster mitigation strategies are equitably applied and shared. 

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2. Hurricane Harvey Unstrapped: Experiencing Adaptive Tensions on the Edge of Chaos

   Denham, M; Baker, N. (January 2019, WIT transactions on the built environment)

   This paper is based on the analysis of data collected as part of a research conducted through National Science Foundation (NSF) grant 1760504 – RAPID: Disaster Preparedness and Response within Communities Affected by Hurricane Harvey. Our co-autoethnographic study focused on response and short-term recovery in Hurricane Harvey. It consisted of in-depth interviews conducted with emergency management officials, first responders, members of non-governmental organizations, civic leaders, spontaneous volunteers, and flooding victims coupled with an analysis of Crowdsource (spontaneously created virtual platform for citizens’ response) data. Our results point to the phenomenon of unstrapping identified across standard operating procedures, organizational arrangements, formal communication flows, formal emergency management processes, and resource utilization protocols. While unstrapping has been evidenced in our study to be perceived as threatening by emergency management and response entities, we adapt a complexity-informed worldview to propose unstrapping representing natural processes inherent to complex adaptive systems. Our study highlights unpredictability and change in human and organizational systems and give rise to self-organization, self-regulation that ultimately gives rise to resilience and adaptability. Implications for emergency management and policy are discussed. 

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3. Understanding Multi-Sector Stakeholder Value Dynamics in Hurricane Michael to Facilitate Collaborative Decision Making in Disaster Contexts

   https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784482858.028  

   Pathak, Aishwarya; Zhang, Lu; Ganapati, Nazife Emel (November 2020, Construction Research Congress 2020)

   Despite the broader acknowledgement of shared responsibilities in emergency management, one of the hidden and overlooked issues in disaster literature is the integration of multi-sector stakeholder values: the things that are of importance to the stakeholders (e.g., safety, profit, electability). Stakeholders (e.g., different levels of government, the private sector, the non-profit sector, and the communities) hold numerous values with varying degrees of importance, forming a system of value priorities. Stakeholder values and value priorities—referred to as value systems—are not static in a disaster context; they are dynamic, time-sensitive, and event-driven. A more in-depth understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder value systems is surely needed to allow policy-makers to introduce more pro-active and timely measures towards more resilient communities. To address this need, this paper focuses on identifying and understanding the stakeholder values in the context of Hurricane Michael. Semi-structured interviews (n=24 with 30 interviewees) were conducted to understand what public and private stakeholders value in different phases of Hurricane Michael. Based on the interview results, ten stakeholder values were identified: safety, resource efficiency, natural resource preservation, culture preservation, community growth, community adaptability, community cohesion, social welfare improvement, personal achievement, and business development. This study advances the knowledge in the area of disasters by empirically investigating public and private stakeholder values across different phases of the disaster. Such knowledge will help practitioners implement disaster resilience strategies in a way that accounts for diverse stakeholder needs and priorities, thus facilitating human-centered decision making towards building more resilient communities. 

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4. CONSTRUCTING EMERGENCY ACCOMMODATION FOR DISPLACED PERSONS IN URBAN CONTEXTS: A GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE

   Hacker, Miriam; Kaminsky, Jessica; and Faust, Kasey (May 2017, Leadership in Sustainable Infrastructure)

   In the summer of 2016, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with government agencies in four German cities. Data from these interviews were qualitatively analyzed to discover the various approaches taken by each city’s government. The data describe participant’s perceived challenges, success and priorities involved with coordinating accommodations and present predominant themes within each of these areas, highlighting what needs to be improved, what worked well and what was prioritized throughout the process. Results from this study contribute critical insight to the limited research regarding construction practices and organizational design of infrastructure for emergency accommodation in an urban context. For example, the greatest challenge expressed by government officials were associated with the process of finding available housing and preparing facilities. External coordination with the community and private companies was identified as one of the predominant successes of the housing operation. Lastly, different aspects of the preparation of facilities was expressed as the biggest priority, such as minimizing costs, finding available properties and providing utility upgrades. Describing governments’ organizational structures along with their benefits and drawbacks provides other government agencies with foresight in emergency planning and crisis response techniques, and contributes to increased infrastructure resilience in future emergency response. 

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5. Race, Planning, and Emergency Management: Combating Inequities in Community Planning Policies

   https://doi.org/10.1177/08854122231188145  

   McKnight, Steve (September 2023, Journal of Planning Literature)

   Disaster preparedness and relief is a key service provided by the American system of government, but emergency management practices have produced varying outcomes. Based on the existing literature, emergency management, community planning, and a history of racial inequities are inextricably interconnected. Based on the concepts presented by social equity, community planning, emergency management, and environmental policy literature, an interdisciplinary approach was used to create an original checklist of considerations for emergency managers, community planners, and policymakers to use in a collaborative manner to proactively address potential threats to their constituents and communities. 

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