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By Root 1004 0

medicine, restoration of critical infrastructure, and provision of food, clothing, and shelter. These concerns were inherently related to the dominant policy issues of that era—issues that, in turn, were still influenced by notions of “civil defense.” Federal authority for disaster response was spread among more than two dozen agencies. It was not until 1978 that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created. Prior to this, the primary emphasis at the federal level was on war preparation and nuclear attacks.

Under the influence of economists during the 1980s, urban planners, geographers, psychologists, sociologists, and policy analysts shifted the focus of research to disaster mitigation and recovery. These two areas illustrate both the impact of research on the formulation of mitigation policy and the emerging policy on disaster recovery that is being stimulated by research.

Since then, research has focused on the adoption of both structural and nonstructural mitigation measures by individuals, organizations, communities, and societies. The purpose of mitigation is to implement actions that lessen the likelihood that natural and technological hazards will produce disasters. We will always have hurricanes, for example, but smart actions can reduce their effects on humans and property. Structural mitigation measures include improved building codes, the design of more resilient structures, and physical protection works such as dams and levees. Nonstructural measures include local land-use planning mechanisms, coastal management programs, and augmentation of local capacity and resilience.

Research findings accumulated at an increasing rate over the years, indicating that mitigation was important not only in terms of saving lives and property but also as a strategy for creating more resilient and sustainable communities. Research on the benefits and costs associated with structural and nonstructural measures demonstrated the feasibility of putting in place effective measures that would ensure that the reduction in expected losses would be greater than the cost of such measures. The key to mitigation adoption is strong local capacity that can overcome the barriers of poverty, a lack of resources accessible to governments, competing opposition groups, and the low-probability, high-consequence nature of disaster agents. The 1999 publication of Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States by Dennis Mileti captured the meaning and importance of such research.

In a process most effectively captured by the Advocacy Coalition Framework, this research attracted “policy entrepreneurs” and champions of mitigation policy. Interest in mitigation stimulated activities ranging from international World Bank actions to FEMA’s national Project Impact program (encouraging local disaster mitigation planning) to state and local, public and private initiatives. Consistent with these activities that grew out of research, Congress passed the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, which facilitated mitigation planning through a collection of incentives and penalties for compliance and noncompliance. The Act mandated the development of state and local hazard mitigation plans as a precondition for receiving federal pre- and post-disaster mitigation funding, leading to thousands of mitigation plans across the country.

Research on disaster recovery has exploded over the past thirty years as well. The initial research viewed recovery as a straightforward, value-added process that focused on reconstructing and rebuilding communities. Subsequent research discovered that this characterization was suspect. Indeed, community recovery from disasters was found to be a messy, ad hoc, serendipitous process of indeterminate length and outcome. As research progressed over the decades, investigators began to focus on the recovery experiences of different social groups and classes; among the most dramatic findings along these lines were those displayed in studies of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The central thrust