The “boundary” between prevention, mitigation, response and recovery is hard to identify clearly. This is due to the fact that these fields are inter-linked to a certain extent, and there is a certain confusion as to the exact meaning and scope of each term. We can’t, of course, do anything about the first point, but we can do a lot for the second. This is our idea of how these four words should be defined :

Prevention

“Prevention” actions are those done to prevent any catastrophic event from occurring. It is important that this notion be made clear so that certain other types of action are not mistakenly seen as “prevention”.

For example : a special fast train is provided to enable people to rapidly evacuate a certain zone of the city during an earthquake, so that everybody can escape in time.

This could be seen as “prevention”, because in order to reduce the number of casualties, a special train was created “preventively” for that specific purpose. However, this is the wrong way to look at things. Every thing done within the scope of Prevention, Mitigation, Response and Recovery must be “preventively” foreseen and planned. You obviously need to create or decide how to behave if a catastrophe happens, but the fact you decide this before the event occurs, doesn’t necessarily mean that this is strictly prevention, otherwise the majority of actions could be classed under prevention.

The term “Prevention” should refer to actions done to prevent the actual catastrophe from occurring. However, although the majority of catastrophes are due to “human error”, there are some events that we cannot control or prevent (Tsunami, Earthquake etc.)

What is a catastrophe?

A catastrophe is a disastrous and unforeseeable event. But what really makes an event a “catastrophe” ?

Differently from what many may think, it’s not its “nature”, but the damage that is caused. A small earth tremor may occur that destroys 50 buildings and kills more than 1,000 people. This could therefore be considered a catastrophe.

On the other hand, a much stronger earthquake may occur that, due to several factors, does not cause any major damage. Would that earthquake still be called a “catastrophe” ? Of course not, it would probably be considered as “just” an earthquake. Although in some cases Prevention cannot achieve its main goal (i.e. actually prevent an event from occurring), it can work together with the other 3 fields, to ensure that a certain event does nor become a catastrophe (in some respects this notion is therefore similar to Mitigation).

Mitigation

Mitigation refers to a series of actions taken once a catastrophe has already occurred and has not (or not completely) been prevented. Mitigation will work instantaneously to reduce the extent of the catastrophe and contain the damage caused, possibly eliminating it altogether.

Response

More than a phase that is clearly identifiable at a certain moment between other phases, response lies behind all of them. Response concerns infrastructures; it is an instrument that prevention, mitigation and recovery can and must use to obtain better results. Response is technology and vital communication between actors.

Recovery

Recovery is the last possible phase, when a catastrophe could not be prevented and all possible Mitigation actions have been implemented. Recovery is about how to handle and manage things once a catastrophe has already occurred and caused damage. Recovery is about trying to “recover” the situation as fast as possible, making sure no more damage happens, and aiming to get back to a “normal” status as soon as possible.