Exploring recovery complexity in the context of consecutive disasters

Abstract

Consecutive disasters, where two or more disasters occur in close succession, can interrupt ongoing recovery processes and create additional layers of complexity compared to isolated events. While research has increasingly examined interactions between multiple hazards, recovery processes in the context of consecutive disasters remain comparatively understudied. In this perspective paper, we draw on empirical examples and insights from scientific literature to explore how consecutive disasters can affect recovery across four interconnected societal domains representing a cross-section of society: human settlements, human health, the economic domain, and socio-political domain. Through these examples, we illustrate how incomplete recovery can alter vulnerability and exposure conditions, creating feedbacks that shape recovery trajectories within and across societal domains, as well as across spatial and temporal scales. Reflecting on these examples, we discuss the implications of disrupted recovery for long-term societal resilience, including the potential for reinforcing feedbacks associated with negative tipping and the role of consecutiveness as an inhibiting factor for positive transitions. We further highlight how interpretations of recovery and consecutiveness depend on system definitions, including the indicators, scales, and interconnections considered, and discuss the conceptual ambiguities surrounding the distinction between disasters, impacts, vulnerability, and exposure. Together, these reflections demonstrate that recovery under consecutive disasters cannot be understood independently from the systems, scales, and conceptual framings through which it is assessed. Ultimately, a better understanding of the complexities of recovery in a consecutive disaster context, both conceptually and in practice, is essential for developing more nuanced approaches to disaster risk assessment and to support long-term resilience building in a future characterised by increasingly frequent and intense hazards.