Complexity and Disaster Forensics: Paradigms, Models and Approaches for Natural Hazards Management in the Pacific Island
“Complexity and Disaster Forensics: New Paradigms, Models and Approaches for Natural Hazards Management in the Pacific Islands Region” assesses and applies complex systems theory, modeling and analysis to disaster forensics policy and research. To better
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Abstract “Complexity and Disaster Forensics: New Paradigms, Models and Approaches for Natural Hazards Management in the Pacific Islands Region” assesses and applies complex systems theory, modeling and analysis to disaster forensics policy and research. To better understand the root cause and complex causality of disasters, complex systems theory, with roots in the fields of statistical physics, information theory, and non-linear dynamics, and systems analysis, is applied to help communities and nations achieve important social development goals, reduce institutional brittleness and increase disaster resilience by promoting positive transformations in the co-evolving and mutually dependent human-environmental condition, and by capitalizing on opportunities provided by human creativity, diplomatic openings, technologic capacities and environmental change. The case studies, investigations and models outlined in this chapter collectively demonstrate the quality, breadth and depth of complex systems and disaster forensics methodologies. Game-theoretic (“Small World”) decision analyses, “Large world” (complex systems) models of mutually interactive game design are put forth to capture the complexity of climate related disasters and to reduce the threat of climate refugees in the Pacific Island region. The resulting risk management lessons learned were applied to communities in the Pacific Island of Vanuatu, the most natural disaster prone country in the world.
Keywords Complexity Climate change Disaster forensics Forensic disaster analysis Game theory Large world decision making Paradigms risk analysis Root cause analysis
J. Levy (&) University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A.J. Masys (ed.), Disaster Forensics, Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41849-0_16
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1 Introduction: Complexity and Disaster Forensics for Pacific Island Nations Pacific island communities are faced with a unique set of environmental, economic and cultural issues pertinent to the management of natural disasters and disaster forensics investigations. In 2011, 80 % of global disaster-related economic losses occurred in the Asia and Pacific region [60]. These large disaster losses include not only destroyed property and critical infrastructure, but also the large scale loss of life and damage to ecological systems in the Asia-Pacific. For example, there have been several major coastal storms to affect Pacific islands in recent decades: Hurricane Iniki (central North Pacific) hit the island of Kauai in Hawaii in 1992, leading to $2.5 billion in physical damages while Super Typhoon Pongsona (western North Pacific) struck Guam on December 8, 2002 and caused $700 million in damages. Other notable historical storm “event anatomies” in the Pacific Ocean region include Typhoon Chata’an (western North Pacific) and Cyclone Heta (central South Pacific). The strong winds, heavy rains, and high seas (storm surge, etc.)
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