Evaluating the range of perspectives on lessons-learning from the 2005 storm in Sweden

• Lessons learning from systematic analyses of past natural disasters is of great importance for future risk reduction and vulnerability management. It is one crucial piece of a puzzle towards disaster resilient societies, together with e.g. models of future emerging climate-related risks, globalization or demographic changes. Systematic analyses of impact and management of past events have commonly been produced in many sectors, but the knowledge is seldom shared outside the own organization or produced for other actors. LPHC (low probability high consequences) disasters usually comprise most analytical activities, since they often are met with surprise and highlight the failure to integrate resilience into normal societal planning. During the last 50 years, several LPHC events in Sweden have functioned as alarm clocks and entailed major changes and improvements in government policies or legislations, safety management systems, risk assessments, response training, stakeholder communication, etc. Such an event occurred in January 2005 when Northern Europe was confronted with one of the most severe storms in modern history. Accidents that caused 24 fatalities occurred (17 in Sweden), several regions in UK and Germany were flooded and extensive areas of storm-felled forests left nearly one million households in Scandinavia without electricity. In Sweden the quantity of storm-felled trees was equivalent to the combined volume felled by other storms during the whole of the 20th century, which caused exceptional damage to forests, roads, railways and electricity and telecommunications networks, including cell-phones. Follow-ups and evaluations at local level, as regulated by law, together with government commissions to central authorities and interest from research communities, have resulted in an extensive production of documented lessons learning. The production of in total 24 reports, 7 scientific articles and 2 economic reports from business associations divides thematically quite equally within coping capacity and exposed and susceptible elements. Most attention allots crisis management and response issues (45 %). Only one attempt is made to present a holistic view of the event and it is not a law bounded initiative. Evaluations from other recent events, e.g. the flood 2000 in Arvika and the landslide at Munkedal 2006, show the same clear focus on crisis management and less or none consideration taken to environmental, social or socioeconomic consequences. It reflects the traditional political financial will to invest in a high level on response capacity on expense of preventive work

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Naturgeografi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Physical Geography (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Physical Geography

Naturgeografi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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