Glossary

National civil protection body is a national institution developed for providing immediate assistance in case of disaster. They may include search and rescue teams, medical posts, basic necessities, equipment decontamination in case of chemical or biological accidents, and aircraft and firefighting teams. [1]

[1] Taken from CARISMAND WP2 'Actors, Systems, Processes, Policies in Disaster Management', Task 2.1 'Actors in Disaster Management'. For more information, please follow the link.

National research bodies are research organizations and individuals addressing hazard related issues. This category includes universities, independent laboratories, researchers, NGOs and all other bodies identified throughout CARISMAND producing knowledge and state of the art scientific data.

Natural hazards, defined as natural event that overwhelm local capacity, necessitating a request for assistance from national or international levels. The natural hazards could be divided into:

geophysical hazards - hazards originated from solid earth as earthquakes, dry mass movements or volcanic activity;

meteorological hazards - hazards caused by short-lived, micro - to meso - scale extreme weather and atmospheric conditions that last from minutes to days as extreme temperatures, fog or storms;

hydrological hazards - floods, landslides or wave actions are hazards caused by the occurrence, movement, and distribution of surface and subsurface freshwater and saltwater;

climatological hazards - hazards caused by long-lived, meso - to macro-scale atmospheric processes ranging from intra-seasonal to multi-decadal climate variability. This includes drought, glacial lake outbursts or wildfires;

biological hazards - hazards represented by the exposure to living organisms and their toxic substances or vector-borne diseases that they may carry, and can be caused by animal incidents, epidemics or insect infestations;

hazards of extra-terrestrial origin - hazards caused by asteroids, meteoroids, and comets as they pass near-earth, enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and/or strike the Earth, and by changes in interplanetary conditions that affect the Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere; this subgroup includes meteoroid, asteroid or comet impacts and space weather.

NGOs are independent non-profit organizations, local or international, whose main mission are not commercial but focused on humanitarian, social, cultural, environmental, educational and similar issues. Most of the NGOs are engaged in disaster management, being of primary importance in the early warning mechanisms, filling the gaps left by “official” actors in case of a large-scale emergency, giving an essential help in disaster response and recovery. [1]

[1] The categorization follows the one used in WP2 ‘Actors, Systems, Processes, Policies in Disaster Management’, Deliverable D2.1 ‘Report on Actors in Disaster Management'. For more information, please follow the link.

Non-active citizens are individuals living inside hazard area that are subject to potential risk situations; cultural specificities shape different social groups inhabiting the area. Furthermore, the category includes outsiders present in the area at the moment of the disaster that should be targeted by disaster management policies accordingly to specific cultural traits (e.g. tourists, migrants).

Norms are socially and/or culturally established rules which describe the expected, and accepted, behaviour within a group or society. Values represent a set of general beliefs of an individual or a group what is deemed to be good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable.

Examples

Charitable behaviour (e.g. helping in reconstruction; hospitality) in the disaster recovery phase.

Family value: In case of a disaster, people may contact first their family members and close friends to ensure their safety rather than contacting emergency services.

Respect for elders: Children may have a better knowledge of adequate response in disaster situations, e.g. due to drills at school, than their parents. This knowledge can only be activated for “children educating parents” if an overly strong (expected) respect for elders is overcome.

Civic value: In case of a disaster, people may contact as many people as possible (independently from family/ friendship ties) to ensure their safety; moreover, they also contact the emergency services.