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      What are cascading disasters?

      research-article
      1 ,   1 , *
      UCL Open Environment
      UCL Press
      built environment, cascading disasters, cascading effects, interdependencies, critical infrastructure, complex systems, scenarios, the environment, policy and law
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            Abstract

            Cascades have emerged as a new paradigm in disaster studies. The high level of dependency of modern populations on critical infrastructure and networks allows the impact of disasters to propagate through socio-economic systems. Where vulnerabilities overlap and interact, escalation points are created that can create secondary effects with greater impact than the primary event. This article explains how complexity can be categorised and analysed in order to find those weak points in society that enable cascading impacts to develop. Scenarios can be used to identify critical dependencies and guide measures designed to increase resilience. Experience suggests that many potential impacts of cascading disasters remain uninvestigated, which provides ample scope for escalation of impacts into complex forms of crisis.

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UCL Open Environ
            UCLOE
            UCL Open Environment
            UCL Open Environ
            UCL Press (UK )
            2632-0886
            08 August 2019
            2019
            : 1
            : e003
            Affiliations
            [1 ]University College London, London, UK
            Author notes
            *Corresponding author: University College London, London, UK; Email: g.pescaroli@ 123456ucl.ac.uk
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3468-2970
            Article
            10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000003
            10171413
            fa7edca1-ed1e-4c79-9c3d-dc6c19abd54e
            © 2019 The Authors.

            This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

            History
            : 13 February 2019
            : 02 July 2019
            Page count
            Figures: 3, References: 23, Pages: 6
            Categories
            Research Article

            the environment,built environment,cascading disasters,interdependencies,policy and law,critical infrastructure,complex systems,scenarios,cascading effects

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            2020-09-23 15:05 UTC
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