Managing natural catastrophies

Produktbeschreibung

This book will assess the O'ahu disaster management system's current ability to manage a high-impact low-probability (HILP) event, a Category 4 or 5 hurricane striking the Hawai'ian island of O'ahu. It will investigate through one of the core diagnostic tool of management cybernetics, the Viable System Model (VSM), deficiencies of the existing disaster management system used across the United States and offers suggestions to improve its effectiveness. Further, this book represents a general assessment of the application of management cybernetics to disaster management systems worldwide. 

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents German preface for editionMALIK 7 Introduction: Natural disasters in
the light of management cybernetics 9 1. The Hawai'ian hurricane tale 16
1.1Background on State of Hawai'i and O'ahu 18 1.2Background on hurricanes 22
1.3Hurricanes in Hawai'i and the risk of a future hit 33 1.4Damage scenarios and
vulnerability analysis for O'ahu 33 2. Keys to solutions of a complex disaster
management world -the Viable System Model 59 2.1The Viable System Model's core
concepts 64 2.2Am I me? - On subjectivity and identity 66 2.3The structure of
the Viable System Model 68 2.4What a heart needs to be whole - understanding VSM
in depth 82 3. The Hawai'ian disaster management system - diagnosis and
suggestions for redesign with the Viable System Model 3.1Time - the vital factor
to measure viability 99 3.2Structural diagnosis of the Hawai'ian disaster
management 102 3.3Diagnosis and redesign of the Hurricane Hazard Management
System processes 164 3.4The HHMS's viability requirements 224 3.5VSM application
Summary 243 4. Is the Viable System Model worth the effort? 250 4.1System
Science - its important role in the field of Geography 254 4.2Insights for the
field of hazard management research 256 5. Appendix: Other potential approaches
inspiring future research 262 5.1Potential redesign of the HHMS using Human
Activity Systems (HAS) 262 5.2Ackoff's Idealized Design 262 5.3The Analytical
Hierarchy Process by Saaty 264 5.4Designing a cybernetically sound
infrastructure system -Critical Path Analysis 264 5.5Further research potential
266 List of Abbreviations 270 References 271 Internet sites 276 Presentations
and interviews 278 Events and conferences 281 Grey literature 281 Newspaper
Articles 281 E-mail contacts 282 Glossary 283 Glossary of Beer's cybernetic
language 283 Glossary of rules for the Viable System 284 Glossary of FEMA's
acronyms 285 Index 286 

Autoreninfo

Dr. Anja Reissberg was born in Munich and studied Economic Geography at the Ludwig-Maximilians University. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA where she deepened her focus on the interface of natural disasters, the economy and society, specifically human-induced social, economic, environmental and cultural vulnerabilities researching in particular the functioning of the Hawai'ian hurricane hazard management system. For coping with the extreme complexity, interconnectivity and dynamics of such challenges for the first time she applied the most innovative and powerful cybernetic tool of the (so called) Viable System Model which led her to entirely new and highly relevant insights into the inner workings and deep structures of the organizations involved and, most importantly, reasons for inefficiencies and mismanagement. Immersing herself in the islands for seven years, she worked with local, state, federal, non-governmental and privat-sector organizations, departments and agencies to overcome interdisciplinary and bureaucratic boundaries thereby coming to highly relevant recommendations for the functioning of the wholistic total emergency system which would save countless lives in the case of any major disaster. Her dissertation on these complex systemic challenges in Management Cybernetics brought her to Malik Management in 2010 as a Systems Expert with a focus on the functioning of loosly-coupled dynamic networks of organizations.