Towards a moral philosophy of natural disaster mitigation

While there is often considerable discussion about the effectiveness, political feasibility, legality, and other aspects of natural disaster mitigation, moral and ethical dimensions are usually overlooked. This paper argues that the disaster planning community should begin to explicity consider the moral foundations of public natural disaster mitigation policy. At the most basic level the key question arises: what is the extent of government's moral obligation to protect and property from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes? While no definitive theory or position is put forth here, the author identifies several possible bases or elements of such a moral theory of mitigation. Among the moral criteria considered are: utilitarian and market failure rationales; the concept of basic rights; culpability and prevention of harm standards; and paternalism. Other non-disaster moral obligations, some conflicting and some complementary, are also identified and discussed

Influences on local adoption of planning measures for earthquake hazard mitigation

This article assesses the extent to which various planning measures are used by communities for mitigating earthquakes hazards. A secondary aim is to examine how planning process activities and community context characteristics influence local adoption of planning measures for mitigation. A number of conclusions based on data from a national survey of communities are risk to earthquakes were derived. Communities use a wide variety of planning measures for earthquake mitigation, but the frequency of adoption of such measures was greater in California than in other states. Planning process activities had a more important influence on local adoption than context characteristics. This conclusion implies that local efforts to advance local earthquake mitigation programs have a substantial potential for success. This paper examines local government planning efforts aimed at earthquake hazard mitigation. Utilizing data from a national survey, we focus on how planning process activities and community context characteristics influence local adoption of planning measures; e.g., land use regulations and development controls. More specifically, we seek to address the following three questions: first, to what extent have various planning measures been adopted for earthquake hazard mitigation? Second, what is the relative importance of process activities compared to context characteristics? third, to what degree do factors that influence adoption differ between communities in California, and those in other states?