A post-COVID-19 research agenda for disaster prevention, response and research

The COVID-19 pandemic challenges disaster prevention, response, and research in many ways and demonstrates once again how closely linked they are. Although manifold plans, concepts, and frameworks for pandemic preparedness and response existed in civil protection and disaster management, they were hardly ever practiced and utilized, as can be seen in the current response. Additionally, the current pandemic, as a complex disaster of the 21st century, highlights pivotal conceptual gaps in the understanding of crises, disasters, and pandemics in general. The causes of this increase in complexity are numerous side effects of interacting societal processes at different levels and across scales. Hence, they have to be conceptualized beyond scenario-based disaster definitions. In our chapter, we argue that we entered a "Pandemocene" in which social, political, or economic processes are interpreted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and raise questions about what future disaster research might look like against the backdrop of the current pandemic and in the face of complex disasters originating from new social risks and hazards. Moreover, we reflect upon how this revised research agenda could be translated into disaster prevention and response.