Conceptual change of disaster management models: A thematic analysis

Abstract

Different models have been proposed for disaster management by researchers and agencies. Despite their efficiency in some locations, disasters are still a fundamental challenge in the way of sustainable development. The purpose of this research is developing a comprehensive conceptual model for disaster management using thematic analysis. In this regard, first, disaster management models are collected. In the next stage, the themes of each model are extracted and categorised in three phases. In the first phase that is descriptive coding, available elements in each model are extracted as code and the basic themes are recognised. Then, in the phase of interpretive coding, basic themes are classified in three categories that are called organising themes (i.e. hazard assessment, risk management and management actions). In the final phase, strategic management is selected as the global or overarching theme to integrate all the other themes. Based on thematic analysis, it can be concluded that disaster management has three main elements that are the three organising themes. Therefore, comprehensive model of disaster management should include these three elements and their sub-basic themes that is called the ideal or criterion type. Results showed that some scientists have looked at disaster management one dimensionally (one theme). Even in two-dimensional models, one dimension has advantage over the other one. While the proposed typology in this study showed that the comprehensive model should include all the three mentioned elements.