Talk:Disaster

Disaster is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 20, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
February 7, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed

Current status: Former featured article candidate

Disaster management Top‑importance

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Climate change Mid‑importance

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Section sizes

Section size for Disaster (17 sections)
Section name	Byte count		Prose size (words)
Section name	Header	Total	Header	Total
(Top)	3,999	3,999	308	308
Definitions	4,691	4,691	363	363
Types	1,402	10,298	69	396
Related to natural hazards	3,133	3,133	21	21
Unrelated to natural hazards	3,645	3,645	191	191
Others	2,118	2,118	115	115
Impacts	393	3,691	43	255
Economic losses	698	698	58	58
Human impacts	842	842	78	78
Effects of climate change	1,758	1,758	76	76
Prevention and response	28	797	0	38
Disaster risk reduction	714	714	38	38
Disaster response	55	55	0	0
Etymology	1,041	1,041	52	52
See also	341	341	0	0
References	1,378	1,378	0	0
External links	579	579	0	0
Total	26,815	26,815	1,412	1,412

Archives

Archive 1

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nuckollsmelanie, Kmasuda7, Bwilson96.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

definition of disaster

What is the current standard definition of a disaster? Is there a consensus in literature? Does a disaster by definition kill people? Fsikkema (talk) 17:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Natural and man made disaster

Examples of natural hazards include: avalanche, coastal flooding, cold wave, drought, earthquake, hail, heat wave, hurricane (tropical cyclone), ice storm, landslide, lightning, riverine flooding, strong wind, tornado, tsunami, volcanic activity, wildfire, winter weather.[6] Anthropogenic hazards can be grouped into societal hazards (criminality, civil disorder, terrorism, war, industrial hazards, engineering hazards, power outage, fire; hazards caused by transportation and environmental hazards. 106.51.242.229 (talk) 14:44, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re-tooling this article to better reflect research

The closest we have to scholarly consensus argues that disasters result from the interaction between hazard systems and human systems, which make all disasters inherently man made. The current description gives this some credit, but still argues for the natural vs man made dichotomy. I think the wording of "difficult to draw" is misinterpreting the issue with the natural vs man made discussion.

I think it would be more accurate to lead with a description that disasters are human caused (i.e. a tornado is not a disaster until it produces human impacts), and than follow that with a section detail how it is still common to find the natural vs man made dichotomy discussed.

Additionally, I think this article needs a clearer link to disaster vulnerability, which describes a community, individuals, or organizations capacity to experience the negative impacts of disasters.

Finally, my question re: the responses section of the disaster list, is, who is this for? what unit of analysis (individual, organizational, government) is this intended for? Risky Bussiness (talk) 21:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I also think "difficult to draw" is not right. Have you got a better wording that also expresses how other non-human systems can sometimes trigger or induce a disaster?

I agree the disaster list in responses is not too useful . In this section I have added something more general on the different ways/phases of managing disasters. Maybe the list itself could be transferred into disaster response as it seems to fit well there.

Speaking of research, I think what is also missing is some data on the numbers of disasters, losses and and economic costs, and trends. On the other hand, the best available data such as that from CRED only covers natural hazard-related disasters, so it might be better to place it in WP natural disaster and include the text as an excerpt in WP disaster Richarit (talk) 17:22, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the last column of the table under "responses" because it was more of a how-to guide. I've broken up that long table and moved it to "classification". EMsmile (talk) 09:33, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Moving away from the term "natural disaster"

I would like to come back to the naming issue that has been raised here on the talk page a few times and also at the talk pages of natural disaster and natural hazard. We really ought to move away from the term "natural disaster" altogether. I've started a new discussion thread about it, please see here and contribute to the discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Natural_disaster#Moving_away_from_the_term_%22natural_disaster%22 EMsmile (talk) 08:10, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removed further reading list

I've removed this further reading list as I don't think that it was adding value:

Barton, Allen H. Communities in Disaster: A Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations, Doubleday, 1st edition 1969, ASIN: B0006BVVOW
Susanna M. Hoffman, Susanna M. & Anthony Oliver-Smith, authors & editors. Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster, School of American Research Press, 1st edition 2002, ISBN 978-1930618152
Bankoff, Greg, Georg Frerks, Dorothea Hilhorst. Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 978-1853839641
Alexander, David. Principles of Emergency planning and Management, Oxford University Press, 1 edition 2002, ISBN 978-0195218381
Quarantelli, E. L. (2008). "Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities". Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities in Social Research: an international Quarterly of the social Sciences, Vol. 75 (3): 873–904.
Paul, B. K et al. (2003). "Public Response to Tornado Warnings: a comparative Study of the 4 May 2003 Tornadoes in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee". Quick Response Research Report, no 165, Natural Hazard Center, Universidad of Colorado
Kahneman, D. y Tversky, A. (1984). "Choices, Values and frames". American Psychologist 39 (4): 341–350.
Beck, U. (2006). Risk Society, towards a new modernity. Buenos Aires, Paidos
Aguirre, B. E & Quarantelli, E. H. (2008). "Phenomenology of Death Counts in Disasters: the invisible dead in the 9/11 WTC attack". International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. Vol. 26 (1): 19–39.
Wilson, H. (2010). "Divine Sovereignty and The Global Climate Change debate". Essays in Philosophy. Vol. 11 (1): 1–7
Uscher-Pines, L. (2009). "Health effects of Relocation following disasters: a systematic review of literature". Disasters. Vol. 33 (1): 1–22.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (2005). "Katrina: the disaster and its doubles". Anthropology Today. Vol. 21 (6).
Phillips, B. D. (2005). "Disaster as a Discipline: The Status of Emergency Management Education in the US". International Journal of Mass-Emergencies and Disasters. Vol. 23 (1): 111–140.
Mileti, D. and Fitzpatrick, C. (1992). "The causal sequence of Risk communication in the Parkfield Earthquake Prediction experiment". Risk Analysis. Vol. 12: 393–400.
Perkins, Jamey. "The Calamity of Disaster – Recognizing the possibilities, planning for the event, managing crisis and coping with the effects", Public Safety Degrees

EMsmile (talk) 09:31, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Find a better image for the lead?

I wonder if we should look for a better image in the lead. Maybe a 2 x 2 collage would be good. This one seems a bit odd as it's from very long ago and could be seen as U.S. centric (like a lot of Wikipedia's content). I don't have a strong view, just putting this question out there. EMsmile (talk) 13:27, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]