What is the difference between Emergency Management and Disaster Management?
These two books might assist:
1. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=p9sxDwAAQBAJ
2. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QbxmCgAAQBAJ
Much comes down how "emergency" and "disaster" are defined. In many cases (not all) an emergency is seen as smaller scale than a disaster. On occasion, the emergency phase might be presumed to be more confined in time than the disaster phase. Fundamentally, it is the definition and scope taken for each word which makes them similar or different.
Basically they sound some what similar. The emergency management is mostly for the ongoing emergency events with very short notice or even no notice situations like a flood, sudden bomb blast etc whereas the disaster management might be pre- and post - disaster management which includes the chain like mitigation, preparedness, planning and recovery like in the case of earthquake . Roughly speaking, an emergency is for very urgent response where as disaster management is the broad term, I guess. But, in some literature, they are used simultaneously. These are addressed sufficiently in literature, and one can find easily about these in detail.
There is a definite difference between disaster and emergency management, but at the same time there are similarities.
Both areas are engaged in the PPRR process, but Emergency Management is more the management function, whereas Disaster Management can be seen as a resource for an organisation, community, local government etc. in managing its hazards and risks.
Semantics...each one can become another. Better prevent that discuss.
The Emergency you attend with your own resources. Disaster requires external support because your community does not have sufficient response capacity.
Consistent with Kelman's comment, it might be helpful to consider the following:
"According to E. L. Quarantelli (2005), these are emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes. Emergencies are defined in two different ways. Emergencies are unforeseen but predictable, narrow-scope incidents that regularly occur. They include house fires, vehicle accidents, medical crises, and small hazardous materials releases. Fire departments, emergency medical services agencies, police departments, and public works employees respond to these events by using standard operating procedures. The term emergency is also used in a broader sense to mean a crisis—an event that is expected to cause significant impacts in the near future. ... This type of emergency is distinguished by the need for vigilance, careful monitoring, and the expectation of high losses.
Quarantelli (2000:682) defines disasters as sudden onset occasions that seriously disrupt social routines, cause adoption of unplanned actions to adjust to the disruption, are designated in social space and time, and endanger valued social objects. Disasters, which are more rare than emergencies, are defined by many human casualties, much property damage, and severe social disruption. ... Disasters interrupt the ability of major community systems to support reasonable conditions of life. This means that significant subsystems in a community no longer work to allow people to pursue their work, education, shopping, recreation, and other activities. ... The distinctive feature of a disaster is that it disrupts only a single community. This allows resources from nearby communities and higher levels of government to support the affected community’s response and recovery.
A catastrophe is a large scope of impact event that affects multiple communities, produces very high levels of damage and social disruption, and sharply and concurrently interrupts community and lifeline services. A broad scope of impact impairs each community’s emergency response system and greatly limits extracommunity support."
From Perry, R.W. & Lindell, M.K. (2007). Emergency Planning. Hoboken NJ: John Wiley, Chapter 1.
Also emergency management focuses on managing the emergency once it takes
place including preparedness, whereas Disaster Management includes a wide range of activities that tries to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond and recover from the emergencies/disasters.
Its not about comparing emergencies to disasters. Emergency management is more holistic in that the underlying prinicples can be applied across a wider cross section of domains and functions, whereas Disaster Management is just that - while it employes many of the same prinicples by defintion you are limiting the scope of practice.
Any distinction between emergency management and disaster management is rather arbitrary. The four textbooks below all address hazard/vulnerability analysis, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery regardless whether they use the term emergency management or disaster management in the title.
Haddow, G., Bullock, J., & Coppola, D. P. (2017). Introduction to emergency management. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Phillips, B., Neal, D. M., & Webb, G. (2016). Introduction to emergency management. CRC Press.
Lindell, M. K., Prater, C., & Perry, R. W. (2006). Wiley pathways introduction to emergency management. John Wiley & Sons.
Coppola, D. P. (2006). Introduction to international disaster management. Elsevier.
Emergency management is applied to events that can be managed by the available local resources of the country and no need to request external assistance. Disaster management is applied to events that cannot be managed by the local resources and there is a need for external assistance.
As discussed before, emergency management relates to a specific geologic area often defined as a city, county or state. Disaster management a event that that affects a much larger geographic area entailing multiple jurisdictions such as is found in a hurricane event. Emergency management is proactive in anticipation of an event, disaster management reactive in rescue and rebuilding post event.
Emergency management is a circle inside the disaster management spectrum. Or DM is broader than EM.
Not sure about the difference. But these two terms are used interchangeably. In US they use the word emergency management more. In Asia (maybe UK too), they use the word disaster management.
I think the main difference is the need for external resources. A disaster exceeds local capacities.
From UN-SPIDER website
In the framework of response and recovery, there is a large difference between the terms emergency and disaster. An emergency is an event that can be responded to using the resources available at hand, implying that there is no need to request external assistance. A disaster, on the other hand, is characterized by impacts that overwhelm the capacities of local responders and place demands on resources which are not available locally. Hence, an event is declared as a “disaster” when there is a need for external assistance to cope with its impacts. A national government declares a state of disaster or national calamity as a way to request international humanitarian assistance and the support of the international community to cope with the impacts of the disaster.
"Disaster Preparedness" is part of and related to all the 4 (for me 5) Phases of Disaster Management Cycle i.e. (1) Prevention; (2) Mitigation; (3) Preparedness; (4) Response; and (5) Recovery & Reconstruction.
"Emergency Preparedness" is specifically part of and more precisely related to the "Response" Phase before, during, and immediately after the occurrence of an event. For example, emergency evacuation.