Earthquake Culture: A Significant Element in Earthquake Disaster Risk Assessment and Earthquake Disaster Risk Management

Abstract

This book chapter brings to attention the dramatic impact of large earthquake disasters on local communities and society and highlights the necessity of building and enhancing the earthquake culture. Iran was considered as a research case study and fifteen large earthquake disasters in Iran were investigated and analyzed over more than a centurytime period. It was found that the earthquake culture in Iran was and is still conditioned by many factors or parameters which are not integrated and do not work harmoniously towards building and sustaining an earthquake culture in Iran. A historical possibility of an earthquake culture in Iran was mainly severed by culture, especially beliefs, strong geopolitics in Iran and in Middle East, a complex and dynamic political landscape in Iran, foreign invasions and wars. However, there is a great potential in Iran for the earthquake culture to be built and developed. The earthquake culture is recommended to be integrated within earthquake disaster risk assessment and earthquake disasters risk management studies which are performed and carried out in Iran and other countries at seismic risk. The contribution of this book chapter is towards the earthquake disasters studies and policies for the countries at earthquake risk.Keywords: earthquake, earthquake culture, earthquake disaster risk assessment, earthquake disaster risk management, Iran, earthquake disaster risk reduction

The Earthquake Disaster Risk in Japan and Iran and the Necessity of Dynamic Learning from Large Earthquake Disasters over Time

“…Over the last century and in the present century, learning from earthquake disasters, building of the earthquake culture and earthquake disaster risk reduction were not among the national priorities of Iran. The earthquake culture in Iran is still far from becoming a reality of the present time [1].…”

“…Over more than a century, the earthquake disasters were frequently overshadowed by other disasters in Iran, such as: the 8 years Iran-Iraq war, intervention of foreign powers in Iran (Russia, UK, USA), political turmoil (Mosadeq 1953, Iranian Revolution 1979. Despite very rich oil and gas resources of Iran, the country focus and support have been shifted further from mitigation and preparedness for earthquake disasters and development of an earthquake culture [1]. One of the critical issues faced nowadays by the Japanese society is the aging of population, which can have serious negative impact on disaster preparedness.…”

“…Laws, regulations and policies in Iran, in the last decades, did not encourage development of a catastrophe insurance pool [27]. Earthquake disasters in Iran brought many lessons to be "learned" and with great potential to contribute to the social-cultural learning and social-cultural memory [1,4,12]. However, from the investigated case studies of large earthquake disasters, only few lessons were consistently oriented towards the earthquake disaster risk reduction in Iran [4].…”

“…Moreover, Djalante et al [11] emphasized that long-term planning, technical, logistical and financial preparations, implementation of legislation and policies, trainings and awareness programs, proper coordination and longterm monitoring would have their sound contributions to the learning from and adaptation to disasters. Ibrion [1] and Ibrion et al [2,4,12] brought to attention that over the time the earthquake disasters in Iran have provided many lessons to be "learned" and with great potential to contribute to the socio-cultural learning and cultural memory about earthquakes and earthquake disasters. Learning from earthquake disasters is a long-term complex process, which involves various levels of participation and accountability for and requires an integrated disaster risk management and a sustainable framework such as an earthquake culture [1,4].…”

“…Earthquakes disasters build over time and an earthquake is a dramatic context that takes tiny units of time to bring huge human loss, injuries and massive destruction and damages [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”