Examining the incorporation of small-scale recurring disasters in emergency management frameworks: Insights from Aotearoa-New Zealand

Abstract

Risks pertaining to small-scale recurring disasters are generally not considered by emergency management policies. While their impacts are not immediately recognisable, their recurrent manifestation may result in cumulative as well as indirect impacts. Yet, small-scale recurring disasters both remain under-studied in disaster studies and are often not incorporated in disaster planning and policy. This paper contributes to filling this gap in knowledge by investigating the extent to which the emergency management framework of Aotearoa-New Zealand addresses small-scale recurring disasters through a targeted analysis of high-order policy documents. The findings confirm the incomplete reflection of risk identification related to small-scale recurring disasters in the documents analyzed. The paper reaffirms that small-scale recurring disasters should be more explicitly integrated in disaster management policy regimes to eliminate the differences at the lower administrative levels of risk treatment. It also argues for the re-evaluation of short-term solutions (such as insurance coverage) that only improve recovery outcomes temporarily, and the consideration of long-term risk reduction policies for achieving more sustainable recovery outcomes.