Designing Resilience: Preparing for Extreme Events

361 Pages·2010·5.417 MB·English

by  Louise K. Comfort, Arjen Boin, Chris C. Demchak

Designing
Resilience

Designing
Resilience
PreParing for extreme events
Edited by Louise K. Comfort, Arjen Boin,
and Chris C. Demchak
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2010, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
isBn 13: 978-0-8229-6061-4
isBn 10: 0-8229-6061-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Designing resilience : preparing for extreme events / edited by
Louise K. Comfort, Arjen Boin, and Chris C. Demchak.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-8229-6061-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Emergency management. 2. Preparedness. 3. Disasters.
I. Comfort, Louise K. (Louise Kloos), 1935– II. Boin, Arjen.
III. Demchak, Chris C.
Hv551.2.D47 2010
363.34’7—dc22 2010011784
Contents
List of Tables and Figures vii
Preface ix
1 The Rise of Resilience 1
    Arjen Boin, Louise K. Comfort, and Chris C. Demchak
2 Resilience: Exploring the Concept and Its Meanings 13
    Mark de Bruijne, Arjen Boin, and Michel van Eeten
3 Designing Adaptive Systems for Disaster Mitigation
and Response: The Role of Structure 33
    Louise K. Comfort, Namkyung Oh, Gunes Ertan, and Steve Scheinert
4 Lessons from the Military: Surprise, Resilience,
and the Atrium Model 62
    Chris C. Demchak
5 Building Resilience: Macrodynamic Constraints on
Governmental Response to Crises 84
    Alasdair Roberts
6 Federal Disaster Policy: Learning, Priorities, and
Prospects for Resilience 106
    Thomas A. Birkland
7 Designing Resilience: Leadership Challenges in
Complex Administrative Systems 129
    Arjen Boin
8 Rapid Adaptation to Threat: The London Bombings
of July 7, 2005 143
    David Alexander
    v
9 The Price of Resilience: Contrasting the Theoretical
Ideal-Type with Organizational Reality 158
    Michel van Eeten, Arjen Boin, and Mark de Bruijne
10 Planning for Catastrophe: How France Is Preparing for
the Avian Flu and What It Means for Resilience 180
    Claude Gilbert
11 The Limits of Self-Reliance: International Cooperation
as a Source of Resilience 196
    Mark Rhinard and Bengt Sundelius 
12 International Disaster Resilience: Preparing for
Transnational Disaster 220
    Thomas W. Haase
13 Designing Resilient Systems: Integrating Science, Technology,
and Policy in International Risk Reduction 244
    Hui Ling, Taieb Znati, and Louise K. Comfort
14 Resilience Revisited: An Action Agenda for Managing
Extreme Events 272
    Louise K. Comfort, Arjen Boin, and Chris C. Demchak
Notes 285
References 295
List of Contributors 329
Index 335
vi    Contents
taBles anD figures
Tables
Table 2.1    Development from the Narrow Interpretation of Resilience
to the Broader Social Ecological Context 19
Table 2.2 Appropriate Strategies for Different Risk/Information
Conditions 22
Table 3.1 Number of Requests for Assistance Registered in
LOHSEP Situation Reports 44
Table 3.2 Frequency Distribution of Requests for Assistance, Louisiana 46
Table 3.3 Change in Status of Requests for Assistance, Louisiana 48
Table 3.4 Types of Ratio for Changes in Status, Requests for
Assistance in Disaster Operations, Louisiana 52
Table 3.5 Total Time Delay in Hours Reported for Each Change
of Status 55
Table 3.6 Total Time Lag for Each Responding Organization 56
Table 3.7 Regression Coefficients for Mean Hours of Delay against
Duration of Time Spent in Mission Phase 58
Table 3.8 Network Measures for Disaster Management Categories 61
Table 4.1 Major Military Failures to Forecast, Adapt to, or Absorb
Critical Infrastructure Knowledge 83
Table 9.1 Comparison of California’s Stage 1, 2, and 3 Emergencies 169
Table 9.2 Performance Conditions for California Independent
System Operator (CAISO) 170
Table 11.1 Summary of Cooperation Variables 209
Table 11.2 Cooperation Attempts between U.S. and Foreign Governments,
and Outcomes 211
Table 12.1 Organizations Identified in the Interacting Response System 234
Table 13.1 Average Node Degree g in a Network of n Nodes 263
    vii
Figures
Figure 2.1 Alternative definitions of resilience 17
Figure 3.1 Bowtie architecture for the iterative flow of information
within a disaster management system 38
Figure 3.2 Number of requests for assistance registered in LOHSEP
situation reports 45
Figure 4.1 Conceptual portrayal of an Atrium 78
Figure 5.1 Total prime-time viewership for the major cable news
networks 90
Figure 6.1 Topics of testimony on earthquakes 116
Figure 6.2 Topics of testimony on hurricanes 117
Figure 12.1 Change in cumulative percentage of organizations detected in
the interacting tsunami response system 236
Figure 12.2 Number of organizations engaged in interactions 237
Figure 12.3 Density of organizational interactions 238
Figure 12.4 Maximum betweenness of organizations in the interacting
tsunami response system 239
Figure 12.5 Number of components identified in the interacting tsunami
response system 240
Figure 13.1 Location estimation through trilateration 250
Figure 13.2 An illustration example of underwater sensor network 255
Figure 13.3 Range estimation 256
Figure 13.4 Localization algorithm at reference nodes 258
Figure 13.5 Localization algorithm at unresolved nodes 259
Figure 13.6 The effect of h in networks with four reference nodes 262
Figure 13.7 The effect of node degree in location discovery 263
Figure 13.8 Location estimation error 264
Figure 13.9 Reference node uses out-of-range information 266
Figure 13.10 Unresolved node uses out-of-range information 268
Figure 13.11 Unresolved node uses out-of-range information 269
Figure 13.12 Location discovery using out-of-range information 271
viii    Tables and Figures
PrefaCe
This project has its origins in two small international workshops orga-
nized around the intriguing topic of resilience. The University of Pitts-
burgh hosted the first workshop, Managing Extreme Events: Transatlantic
Perspectives, held on March 3–4, 2006, sponsored by the European Union
Center of Excellence and the Graduate School of Public and International
Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, with financial support from the Swedish
Emergency Management Agency. The second workshop was held in Leiden
in June 2007, with support from the Department of Public Administra-
tion, Leiden University, the Dutch National Science Foundation, and the
Swedish Emergency Management Agency. The discussions and papers pre-
sented in Pittsburgh and Leiden inspired the participants to rewrite their
papers and bring them together in this volume.
We incurred our debts along the way and want to take a moment to ac-
knowledge some key players who were instrumental in the process of put-
ting together this volume.
We thank all participants in both workshops for creating an exciting at-
mosphere, delivering sharp comments, and being such nice colleagues. We
are particularly indebted to our long-standing friend Todd R. LaPorte, who
provided us with a lengthy set of comments after the Leiden workshop. Be-
ing an editor could not be easier or more fun than it is with such a wonder-
ful group of colleagues.
All this was possible because of the generous funding of the Swedish
Emergency Management Agency, the Dutch National Science Foundation,
the Department of Public Administration at Leiden University, the Euro-
pean Union Center of Excellence (EUCE), and the Graduate School of Pub-
lic and International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh. We
thank Alberta Sbragia, the director of EUCE; Timothy S. Thompson, the
associate director of EUCE; Carolyn Ban, the dean of GSPIA; and Thomas
    ix