Emergency management (or disaster management) is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks.[1] It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response (e.g., emergency evacuation Emergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or approaching hurricane. In situations involving hazardous, quarantine Quarantine is voluntary or compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty day period, mass decontamination Mass decontamination is the decontamination of large numbers of people, in the event of industrial, accidental, or intentional contamination by toxic, infective, caustic, polluted, or otherwise unhealthful or damaging substances, etc.), and supporting, and rebuilding society after natural A natural hazard is a threat of a naturally occurring event that will have a negative effect on people or the environment. Many natural hazards are interrelated, e.g. earthquakes can cause tsunamis and drought can lead directly to famine. A concrete example of the division between a natural hazard and a natural disaster is that the 1906 San or human-made Arson is the criminal intent of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. The definition of arson was originally limited to setting fire to buildings, but was later expanded to include other objects, such as bridges, vehicles, and private property. Arson is the greatest cause of fires in data repositories. Sometimes, human-induced fires can be disasters have occurred. In general, any Emergency management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards This category is for hazards , as opposed to incidents, accidents and disasters (actual events that have taken place). Please put actual events and disasters in Category:Disasters in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed.[2] Effective emergency management relies on thorough integration of emergency plans at all levels of government and non-government involvement. Activities at each level (individual, group, community) affect the other levels. It is common to place the responsibility for governmental emergency management with the institutions for civil defense Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to prepare non-combatants for military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery. Programmes of this sort were initially discussed at least as early as the 1920s but only became widespread or within the conventional structure of the emergency services Emergency services are organizations which ensure public safety by addressing different emergencies. Some agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies whilst others deal with ad hoc emergencies as part of their normal responsibilities. Many agencies will engage in community awareness and prevention programs to help the public. In the private sector, emergency management is sometimes referred to as business continuity planning Business continuity planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical (urgent) functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. The logistical plan is called a business continuity plan.
Emergency Management is one of a number of terms which, since the end of the Cold War The Cold War (1945–1991) was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II (1939–1945), primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States. Although the primary participants' military forces never officially, have largely replaced Civil defense, whose original focus was protecting civilians from military attack. Modern thinking focuses on a more general intent to protect the civilian population in times of peace as well as in times of war. Another current term, Civil Protection is widely used within the European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generates an estimated 30% share (US$ 18.4 and refers to government-approved systems and resources whose task is to protect the civilian population, primarily in the event of natural and human-made disasters. Within EU countries the term Crisis Management Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major unpredictable event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time. Venette argues that & emphasises the political and security dimension rather than measures to satisfy the immediate needs of the civilian population.[citation needed] An academic trend is towards using the term disaster risk reduction Disaster Risk Reduction is a term used for techniques focus on preventing or minimising the effects of disasters. For instance, certain areas of a city that are prone to flooding may have development restricted or building codes may be implemented that protect up to a specified level of shaking, to protect against earthquakes. The term has been, particularly for emergency management in a development management context. This focuses on the mitigation and preparedness aspects of the emergency cycle (see below).
Phases and professional activities
The nature of management depends on local economic and social conditions. Some disaster relief experts such as Fred Cuny Frederick C. Cuny was an American disaster relief specialist who was active in many humanitarian projects around the world from 1969 until his forced disappearance in Chechnya in 1995 have noted that in a sense the only real disasters are economic.[3] Experts, such as Cuny, have long noted that the cycle of emergency management must include long-term work on infrastructure, public awareness, and even human justice issues. This is not important in developing nations. The process of emergency management involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
A graphic representation of the four phases in emergency management.Mitigation
Mitigation efforts attempt to prevent hazards from developing into disasters altogether, or to reduce the effects of disasters when they occur. The mitigation phase differs from the other phases because it focuses on long-term measures for reducing or eliminating risk.[1] The implementation of mitigation strategies can be considered a part of the recovery process if applied after a disaster occurs.[1] Mitigative measures can be structural or non-structural. Structural measures use technological solutions, like flood levees. Non-structural measures include legislation, land-use planning (e.g. the designation of nonessential land like parks to be used as flood zones), and insurance.[4] Mitigation is the most cost-efficient method for reducing the impact of hazards, however it is not always suitable. Mitigation does include providing regulations regarding evacuation, sanctions against those who refuse to obey the regulations (such as mandatory evacuations), and communication of potential risks to the public.[5] Some structural mitigation measures may have adverse effects on the ecosystem The term ecosystems refers to the combined physical and biological components of an environment. An ecosystem is generally an area within the natural environment in which physical factors of the environment, such as rocks and soil, function together along with interdependent (biotic) organisms, such as plants and animals, within the same habitat.
A precursor activity to the mitigation is the identification of risks. Physical risk assessment Risk assessment is a step in a risk management process. Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat . Quantitative risk assessment requires calculations of two components of risk: R, the magnitude of the potential loss L, and the probability p, that the refers to the process of identifying and evaluating hazards.