Socio-technical Resilience and Disaster Preparedness
Disruptive events like storms, floods, earthquakes, pandemics, and terrorist attacks threaten the functioning of society and the well-being of individuals. Overarching trends like climate change and the growing complexity and interdependency of critical infrastructures lead to additional systemic risks. Our research aims to enable both people and socio-technical systems to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from such events. We use resilience as a concept to develop research and strategies that heighten coping capacity.
News
Publication | CSS Policy Perspectives 11, 4
Satellite Imagery for Disaster Resilience
Increasing natural hazards and complex emergencies require optimizations in the Swiss civil protection system. Joining the EU’s Copernicus program could ensure satellite imagery access for disaster risk reduction, helping to save lives.
Publication | CSS Analyses in Security Policy
DownloadNo. 328: Managing Disaster Costs (PDF, 1.8 MB)
The increasing frequency and magnitude of climate-exacerbated hazards, coupled with the growing vulnerability of societies worldwide, are raising the financial costs of disasters. Governments finance a larger share of these costs through post-disaster measures. However, reducing risk and optimizing the allocation of pre-disaster resources can reduce the negative financial impact on governments.
Recent Publications
Other Activities
Media Blog | From Natural Hazards to Cyber Resilience: Moving Beyond Traditional Risk Analysis
Affluence and vulnerability are often seen as opposite sides of a coin – with affluence generally understood as reducing forms of vulnerability through increased resilience and adaptive capacity. The need for re-examination of this dynamic relationship – in the context of climate change, natural hazards, and associated disasters - has consistently been highlighted by CSS’ Christine Eriksen in the past. In this blog post, Eriksen explains how she applied the resilience thinking mirrored in given dynamic relationship to another area of research: cyber security.
Media Citation | Garantir l'approvisionnement de l'Europe en terres rares
The platform prosilience provides a summary of the newly published CSS Policy Perspective by Julian Kamasa on Europe's dependence on rare earths from China. The report argues that European countries need to invest in domestic mining, processing and recycling capacities as well as in international cooperation.
external pageRead more (in French)
Media Interview | KlimaZeit: Smartphones und Windparks - Was seltene Erden mit Klimaschutz zu tun haben
We wanted to get away from dependency on Russia for gas, but now we're running into a new dependency – rare earths from China. We should take responsibility for our climate goals and not delegate this responsibility to countries that have significantly lower environmental and social standards, says CSS' Julian Kamasa in this interview with KlimaZeit of tagesschau24. (from minute 6:07).
external pageWatch the interview (in German)
Media Interview | Chipmangel: "Das nächste Nadelöhr ist rasch verstopft"
In an interview with Inside IT, CSS' Julian Kamasa talks about the complex supply chains of the chip industry, identifies future perspectives, and highlights the need for action in Switzerland.
external pageRead the interview
Contact
Andrin Hauri
Tel: +41 44 633 81 74