The response phase of the disaster management life cycle revisited within the context of ‘disasters out of the box’

Since the second half of the latest century the disaster landscape has experienced important changes. Disasters are not only increasing in quantity, they are also qualitatively different and seem to distress humanity to a considerably higher degree than in the past. This evolution does not only deeply affect modern societies; it might also have a disruptive impact on the intervening units of emergency management organizations. Recent disaster research mainly focuses on mitigation efforts, risk reduction and resilient societies. Though, despite good mitigation efforts and up-to-date preparation initiatives, still millions of people are affected and thousands killed annually by some kind of disaster. As a consequence, disaster response remains a vital aspect of disaster management and will even become more important in the future taking into consideration the changing disaster landscape. On that account, our study aims to remodel the response phase of the disaster management life cycle, focusing on a new and fresh approach. We consider the response phase as an unfolding global process and its ensuing sub-processes rather than just an enumeration of potential activities.