A multi-hazards earth science perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic: the potential for concurrent and cascading crises

Mark C. Quigley (), Januka Attanayake, Andrew King and Fabian Prideaux
Additional contact information
Mark C. Quigley: University of Melbourne
Januka Attanayake: University of Melbourne
Andrew King: University of Melbourne
Fabian Prideaux: Humanitarian Benchmark Consulting (HBC)

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2020, vol. 40, issue 2, 199-215

Abstract: Abstract Meteorological and geophysical hazards will concur and interact with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) impacts in many regions on Earth. These interactions will challenge the resilience of societies and systems. A comparison of plausible COVID-19 epidemic trajectories with multi-hazard time-series curves enables delineation of multi-hazard scenarios for selected countries (United States, China, Australia, Bangladesh) and regions (Texas). In multi-hazard crises, governments and other responding agents may be required to make complex, highly compromised, hierarchical decisions aimed to balance COVID-19 risks and protocols with disaster response and recovery operations. Contemporary socioeconomic changes (e.g. reducing risk mitigation measures, lowering restrictions on human activity to stimulate economic recovery) may alter COVID-19 epidemiological dynamics and increase future risks relating to natural hazards and COVID-19 interactions. For example, the aggregation of evacuees into communal environments and increased demand on medical, economic, and infrastructural capacity associated with natural hazard impacts may increase COVID-19 exposure risks and vulnerabilities. COVID-19 epidemiologic conditions at the time of a natural hazard event might also influence the characteristics of emergency and humanitarian responses (e.g. evacuation and sheltering procedures, resource availability, implementation modalities, and assistance types). A simple epidemic phenomenological model with a concurrent disaster event predicts a greater infection rate following events during the pre-infection rate peak period compared with post-peak events, highlighting the need for enacting COVID-19 counter measures in advance of seasonal increases in natural hazards. Inclusion of natural hazard inputs into COVID-19 epidemiological models could enhance the evidence base for informing contemporary policy across diverse multi-hazard scenarios, defining and addressing gaps in disaster preparedness strategies and resourcing, and implementing a future-planning systems approach into contemporary COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Our recommendations may assist governments and their advisors to develop risk reduction strategies for natural and cascading hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Coronavirus; COVID-19; Natural disasters; Decision-making; Multi-hazards (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10669-020-09772-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:envsyd:v:40:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10669-020-09772-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10669

DOI: 10.1007/s10669-020-09772-1

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment Systems and Decisions from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().