Research

Cascading disasters is an emerging topic in the scientific and political community. The concept is often associated with the analogy of toppling dominoes, and intended vaguely to describe some disruptive events where there is a sequence of cumulative chain effects. Our perspective is different, and distinguishes cascading by the complex, non-linear escalation of secondary emergencies as reported in Figure 1.

Globalization and its technological assets have created an interconnected network of risk, raising the complexity of events and reducing their predictability. This implies new challenges for disaster managers, politics, enterprises and citizens. We think that cascading disasters develop through existing vulnerability paths in society. The primary physical impacts of a disaster can be amplified into large-scale crisis by escalating in the built environment, human organizational context, technological infrastructure, and cyber space.