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Social capital discourse occupies an important place in disaster studies. Scholars have adopted various inflections of social capital to explain how those with greater amounts of this crucial resource are generally more resilient to disasters and experience speedier recovery. Disaster scholars have also discovered that people typically display altruistic tendencies in the wake of disasters and develop novel networks of mutual support, known as 'communitas', which is also seen to build resilience and boost recovery. In this paper, we use the work of Pierre Bourdieu to synthesise these literatures, conceptualising communitas as 'disaster social capital'. We offer a fleshed-out definition of disaster social capital to distinguish it from regular social capital and discuss the barriers to, and the enablers of, its formation. While primarily a conceptual discussion, we believe that it has practical and policy value for disaster scholars and practitioners interested in inclusive disaster risk reduction as well as full and just recoveries.يحتل خطاب رأس المال الاجتماعي مكانة هامة في دراسات الكوارث. واعتمد الباحثون مختلف أوجه رأس المال الاجتماعي لشرح كيف أن أصحاب رأس المال الاجتماعي الأكبر هم عموماً أكثر قدرة على مواجهة الكوارث ويتعافون بسرعة أكبر. واكتشف علماء الكوارث أيضاً أن الناس عادة ما يؤثرون غيرهم على أنفسهم في أعقاب الكوارث وينشئون شبكات مستحدثة للدعم المتبادل، تعرف باسم “المجتمعات المحلية” التي لها دور أيضاً في بناء القدرة على التحمل وتعزيز التعافي. في هذا المقال، نستخدم عمل بيير بورديو للجمع بين هذه الأدبيات، ووضع مفهوم المجتمعات المحلية باعتبارها “رأس المال الاجتماعي المتعلق بالكوارث”. ونقوم بتقديم تعريفاً منقحاً لرأس المال الاجتماعي في حالات الكوارث للتمييز بينه وبين رأس المال الاجتماعي العادي ومناقشة الحواجز التي تحول دون تكوينه وعوامل تمكينه. رغم أنها مناقشة مفاهيمية في المقام الأول، فإننا نأمل أن تكون لها آثار عملية وسياسية على علماء الكوارث والممارسين المهتمين بالحد من أخطار الكوارث بصورة شاملة، بالإضافة للتعافي الكامل والتام.社会资本话语在灾害研究中占据重要位置。学者采用了多个社会资本变化阐明了人们的社会资本越大，在面对灾害时就会越坚韧，且恢复得更快。灾害学学者也发现人们通常在面对灾害前展现利他主义倾向，建立称为“共态”的全新互助网络，该互助网络增强人们的坚韧性和推动恢复。在本文中我们采用皮埃尔•布尔迪厄的研究并综合文献，将共态概念化为“灾害社会资本”我们提供了一种具体的灾害社会资本概念，使其区分于常规社会资本，并讨论了其形成过程的障碍和促成因素。虽然文中主要进行概念讨论，我们希望文章为灾害学学者和相关从业者，就全面降低灾害风险和全面合适的灾后恢复，提供实际性和政策性建议。.

ZusammenfassungKatastrophen, Krisen, Unglücksfälle – sie stehen für kritische Ereignisse und Phasen, die binnen kurzer Zeit das gesellschaftliche Geschehen beherrschen und vor große Herausforderungen stellen. Neben den sofortigen Auswirkungen zeichnen sie sich oft durch nachhaltige Konsequenzen aus, die auch Jahre nach dem eigentlichen Ereignis noch abge- und verarbeitet werden müssen. Manchmal werden diese Wiederaufbau- und Nachbereitungsphasen bereits von weiteren Krisen und Katastrophen überschattet, obwohl deren Abschluss längst noch nicht in Sicht ist.

Die Bedeutung von Organisationen des Zivil- und Katastrophenschutzes sowie der internationalen humanitären Hilfe bei der Bewältigung der Flüchtlingssituation 2015/16 in Deutschland ist kaum erforscht. Dabei wurden Mitte September 2015 mit den »Warteräumen Asyl« in Feldkirchen und Erding in Bayern Erstversorgungs- und Registrierungszentren für Flüchtlinge aufgebaut, die nach internationalen humanitären Standards betrieben wurden. Diese - ebenso wie die vielen anderen Notunterkünfte - konnten in der Hochphase der Flüchtlingssituation von Mitte 2015 bis Anfang 2016 nur durch den Einsatz aller verfügbaren Einheiten des Zivil- und Katastrophenschutzes aufgebaut und so eine Erstversorgung der Flüchtlinge sichergestellt werden. Der Artikel zeigt die Ambivalenzen, Herausforderungen und Potenziale auf, die sich durch den Einbezug höchst unterschiedlicher Praktiken aus dem Zivil- und Katastrophenschutz sowie der humanitären Hilfe im Laufe der Bewältigung der Situation ergaben.

In 2015, the needs of hundreds of thousands of refugees who arrived in Germany could only be met by deploying all available civil protection units. This article presents procedures and practices of state and non-state formal actors in the field of civil protection and related crisis management structures implemented and established across the board in the municipalities, the Federal Government and mass shelters, in particular in Bavaria. From a disaster research and humanitarian studies perspective we use the concept of “patterns of interpretation” to analyse the application of the “humanitarian emergency” and the “disaster situation” procedures to discuss whether the situation can really be categorized as “either-or” or whether the coexistence of the two served a function in managing such a complex situation. Finally, we discuss some developments that occurred after 2015/16 and consider the extent to which these developments shift or expand the existing patterns of interpretation.

Recent policy changes highlight the need for citizens to take adaptive actions to reduce flood‐related impacts. Here, we argue that these changes represent a wider behavioral turn in flood risk management (FRM). The behavioral turn is based on three fundamental assumptions: first, that the motivations of citizens to take adaptive actions can be well understood so that these motivations can be targeted in the practice of FRM; second, that private adaptive measures and actions are effective in reducing flood risk; and third, that individuals have the capacities to implement such measures. We assess the extent to which the assumptions can be supported by empirical evidence. We do this by engaging with three intellectual catchments. We turn to research by psychologists and other behavioral scientists which focus on the sociopsychological factors which influence individual motivations (Assumption 1). We engage with economists, engineers, and quantitative risk analysts who explore the extent to which individuals can reduce flood related impacts by quantifying the effectiveness and efficiency of household‐level adaptive measures (Assumption 2). We converse with human geographers and sociologists who explore the types of capacities households require to adapt to and cope with threatening events (Assumption 3). We believe that an investigation of the behavioral turn is important because if the outlined assumptions do not hold, there is a risk of creating and strengthening inequalities in FRM. Therefore, we outline the current intellectual and empirical knowledge as well as future research needs. Generally, we argue that more collaboration across intellectual catchments is needed, that future research should be more theoretically grounded and become methodologically more rigorous and at the same time focus more explicitly on the normative underpinnings of the behavioral turn. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance Science of Water > Water Extremes, The work carried out by Sebastian Seebauer was supported by the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund and was carried out within the Austrian Climate Research Program, Austrian Climate and Energy Fund

Combating disasters necessitates taking advantage of all means and resources that are available. A number of events in recent years have demonstrated the necessity, as well as the potential of well-integrated and coordinated action between unaffiliated and professional responders. Nevertheless, in practical situations this potential remains largely untapped. This article investigates the case in Germany and asks to which extent known and researched disaster myths impede the cooperation between unaffiliated and professional responders. We combine data from observations of a full-scale exercise, a representative population survey (N = 1.006), and expert interviews with professional rescue workers to answer our research question. With the results of our research, we have deduced that these disaster myths still significantly influence the perceptions and practical actions of the various involved actors and, as such, that approaches aiming to improve the various forms of cooperation between all available forces must take these underlying assumptions into account.

In June 2013, the “Himalayan Tsunami” occured in the Indian Himalayas. Heavy rain triggered a lake outburst flood, landslides and flash floods. An estimated several thousand people were killed, mainly around the Hindu temple in Kedarnath, and the tourist infrastructure between four Hindu temples was massively destroyed along with the source of income it had provided for the local population. This article addresses the nexus of tourism, vulnerabilities and disasters and analyzes its manifestations during and after the events of 2013. What role did tourism play in the disaster as a driver of social vulnerability during and especially after the events of 2013? To answer this research question, the paper describes the historical development of tourism in the region, tourism-related vulnerabilities and their actualization by the “Himalayan Tsunami” and in the process of reconstruction. The research shows that the disaster continues years after its supposed end due to tourism-related vulnerabilities, and the significance of secondary effects of the disaster threatens livelihoods more than the immediate events.

The paper presents contributions to the widespread resilience paradigm from a social science perspective. Certain aspects of social systems, especially their symbolic dimension of meaning, need to be taken into account in the endeavor to research coupled social–ecological systems. Due to the symbolic dimension, disasters are defined as the failure of future expectations, and social resilience is defined as the social system property of avoiding or withstanding disasters. In relation to this, three capacities of social systems (adaptive, coping, and participative) that constitute resilience are presented. The adaptive capacity is the property of a system in which structures are modified to prevent future disasters, whereas the coping capacity is the system’s property of coping with calamitous processes that occurred in the past. The participative capacity is a measure of the system’s ability to change its own structures with regard to interventions by other systems, decreasing the system’s resilience. The concept of resilience provides important epistemological and political insights and can help overcome an orientation tied together with the concept of vulnerability that blocks social capacities for the mitigation of disasters.

Resilience is a widely discussed topic in various fields of application. Within the context of socio-scientific disaster research and psychological research on traumatic events, the concept has been used since the late 1970s. Since then, some important and quite remarkable transformations have occurred which have changed the concept, its application, and its scope.

Die zunehmende Vernetzung von Infrastrukturen wie zum Beispiel für Elektrizität, Trinkwasser und Telekommunikation erhöht das Schadenspotenzial, das von Störungen in diesen Systemen ausgeht. Entsprechend gilt es, Vulnerabilität und Resilienz kritischer Infrastrukturen zu verstehen, jedoch nicht nur aus technischer, sondern auch aus sozialer Perspektive.

Mapping has become an important tool in disaster research. How physical and social conditions are described by geographical methods decides the way risks, vulnerability, and resilience are evaluated and influences the efforts that are made for disaster control—as well as their fair distribution. However, the predominant methods of mapping have certain constraints concerning cultural and social factors and particularities. Addressing a comprehensive ethical consideration, these limitations and blind spots have to be taken into account. Certain aspects cannot be mapped to the full extent, such as specific forms of knowledge, risk perception, and preparedness measures. If the unmapped preconditions of mapping remain unconsidered, this can lead to problematic effects with respect to an appropriate understanding of maps on the one hand and a fair and context-related distribution of official measures to control risk and to care for resilience processes on the other hand. Map makers and map users should be aware of the problems connected to maps in order to avoid pitfalls and misinterpretations.