Geohazards in Social Systems: An Insurance Matrix Approach

Abstract

The principle goal of the chapter is to explore ways of solving social accounting matrices (SAMs) that may be useful for estimating the impact of natural and other disasters and the effectiveness of recovery programs. To this end my chapter introduces a model to assess the way in which disasters affect social actors and propagate through society. It adopts findings from disaster research and anthropology, to embody social transactions in an insurance accounting matrix. This assumes that the predisaster secular and spatial structure of any economy is a reflection, at least in part, of the various uncertainties associated with regular production, transportation, financing, daily survival, and so on. These may result in formal expenditures — as with insurance or stocks, or informal effort — such as maintaining social networks. Each measures the opportunity cost against other income. With a major disturbance, the proportion of failed transactions is increased beyond the capability of these afforded precautions to cushion the impacts, resulting in a “disaster” or even a “catastrophe”.

This chapter develops ideas presented at the IV Latin American Symposium on Urban Geohazards, San Jose, Costa Rica, 9–13 September, 1996 and in Living with Uncertainty, Disasters, and Acts of God presented at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Fort Worth, Texas, April 1–5 1997, session on Spatial Analysis in Mathematical Models and Quantitative Methods Specialty Group/IGU Commission on Geographical Modeling. The initial work was supported by the National Center for Earthquake Engineering and Research with funding from the National Science Foundation.