the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 22 Aug 2025
Recovery under consecutive disasters: how recovery dynamics shape societal resilience
Abstract. Consecutive disasters, where two or more disasters occur in succession before recovery from the first event has been completed, can have non-linear impacts on societies that can surpass the effects isolated events. Drawing on empirical examples and insights from scientific literature, we explore how consecutive disasters affect societal recovery across four interconnected pillars of society: human settlements, human health, economic systems, and socio-political systems. We identify pathways through which repeated disasters can either erode a community's ability to effectively respond to and recover from disasters or provide opportunities for social learning and positive change. By examining both immediate and long-term effects, we show how societies might be pushed towards critical tipping points, resulting in either a systemic breakdown of societal resilience, or transformative adaptation and improved capacity to manage future risks. Recognising these dynamics underscores the need for a long-term, multi-hazard approach to disaster risk reduction. Recovery planning must move beyond short-term, reactive measures toward integrated, forward-looking strategies, supported by reliable, proactive, and equitable financing mechanisms. Addressing the complexity of recovery under consecutive disasters is essential for both research and policy to enable adaptive, resilient societies in a future of increasingly frequent and intense hazards.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3200', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Nov 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3200', Anonymous Referee #2, 06 Jan 2026
General Comments
Dear Authors,
Thank you for this very interesting and timely manuscript. The paper addresses an important and still underexplored gap in the multi-hazard and multi-risk literature, an area that is rapidly expanding. I believe this work represents a valuable contribution and has the potential to become an influential reference in the field.
My main overarching suggestion is to strengthen and clarify the paper’s focus on consecutive disaster recovery. While I provide a detailed set of comments below, these are intended to be constructive rather than discouraging. On the contrary, I believe the authors have conducted a valuable and insightful study, and that further clarification and refinement would significantly enhance its impact and readability.
- Introduction
The introduction opens with a real-world example, and the manuscript as a whole makes extensive and effective use of empirical illustrations. Given this, I would suggest that the introduction focus less on additional examples and instead prioritize clearly framing the problem, introducing key definitions, and establishing the conceptual focus of the paper.
In particular, the scope of the paper would benefit from greater clarification. For example, in line 74 the authors state: “Even when recovery is completed between events, decisions made during the recovery process… can fundamentally shape a society’s resilience to subsequent events.” At this point, it is unclear whether the paper focuses specifically on consecutive disaster recovery, recovery processes more generally, or whether the concept of “consecutive disaster” itself still requires clearer definition. I encourage the authors to explicitly clarify this distinction early in the paper.
Following this, the subsystems proposed by Spaiser et al. (2024) are introduced, and a systemic definition is developed. However, the rationale behind adopting and adapting this framework remains unclear. I recommend explaining in greater detail why this particular framework was selected, how it relates to other existing approaches, and how the authors arrived at the proposed system definition.
Additionally, the introduction refers to “health crises” alongside “disasters.” It would be helpful to clarify whether health crises are conceptualized as disasters within the framework of this paper, or whether they are treated as distinct phenomena.
Regarding Figure 1, since uncertainty in recovery outcomes is a central theme of the paper, it is unclear why uncertainty is not visually represented in the recovery phase following the first event. As currently presented, the figure seems to associate uncertainty only with the recovery from the second event.
Between lines 90 and 100, the authors introduce the concept of societal recovery. It would be beneficial to clearly define this term and explain how it differs from “recovery” more generally. Furthermore, I recommend clarifying the criteria and process used for selecting the recovery events and cases discussed in the paper. Although the authors note that this is not a systematic review, a more transparent methodological explanation would add rigor and clarity.
Finally, briefly outlining the key issues addressed in each section at the end of the introduction with their related section numbers could greatly improve readability and guide the reader through the manuscript.
- Impacts within Human Settlements
In the opening of this section, human settlements and critical systems are defined; however, health is not included among the listed critical systems unlike in section 2.3. This omission raises questions and should be either justified or clarified.
I also suggest shortening the sentence in lines 105–107 for clarity and readability.
In the first pathway, the authors discuss increased exposure and vulnerability through displacement and relocation. However, the connection between this argument and the discussion in lines 114–117 is not entirely clear and could be strengthened.
In lines 139–144, the manuscript refers to the lack of critical services such as WASH infrastructure. Here, it would be useful to clarify whether health-related impacts are considered disasters in their own right, and whether this example is intended to illustrate a consecutive disaster. If WASH is considered part of the health subsystem, human settlement subsystem, or both, this should be explicitly stated.
In Section 2.3, healthcare is identified as a critical system. This highlights the importance of clearly defining what constitutes a “critical system” and how these systems relate to the societal subsystems introduced earlier. Such clarification would also help explain why food systems are treated as critical systems rather than as considering ecosystems as critical system or why the issue of the food is not addressed economy societal subsystem section.
In Section 2.4, it is unclear whether the focus is on resource shortages, unworkable environments, or response capacity. I suggest maintaining a clear focus on one dimension and addressing others in relevant subsections. For example, maybe resource depletion could be discussed more comprehensively within the economic system section.
The statement in lines 184–185 regarding emergency systems remaining functional also requires clarification. If emergency workers are unable to perform their duties, it is difficult to consider the system functional.
Sections 2.5 and 2.6 appear to address similar concepts related to “Build Back Better” and could potentially be merged to reduce redundancy.
In line 198, the discussion refers to situations where recovery is completed, which may fall outside the paper’s stated focus on consecutive disasters. Some examples in Section 2.6 similarly refer to completed recovery and may introduce ambiguity.
- Health-Related Pathways
Section 3 presents four pathways, three of which focus on outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, and one on mental health impacts. In my view, these topics could be more effectively integrated into earlier sections. For example, health-related impacts could be framed as disasters shaping a consecutive disaster environment, with health systems treated consistently as critical systems. Changes in working environments due to outbreaks could also be discussed within Section 2.4.
Please consider this as a suggestion. In my view, this section could be structured differently and, rather than being framed around the health system, it could be presented with a stronger focus on human health as shown in figure 1. I recognize that this would require substantial changes to the overall structure of the paper; however, I encourage the authors to reflect on this possibility and to consider alternative conceptual frameworks beyond the current organization around four societal subsystems. There is also an easy solution to partiality address this confusion: just change the title of the section to impact on the human health! and keep it consistent through the section.
- Economic System
Section 4 is, in my opinion, one of the strongest parts of the paper. One aspect that could be further strengthened is a clearer definition of economic recovery. Specifically, what does it mean for an economic system to be considered “recovered”?
Section 4.4 raises important questions about the scale of analysis. I suggest explicitly incorporating scale into the definition of consecutive disasters, clarifying at which spatial and temporal scales events are considered consecutive.
In Section 4.5, the relevance to consecutive disaster recovery is less evident and may require further justification or reframing.
- Socio-Political System
A key issue in this section is whether political instability is conceptualized as a disaster. This point should be clarified explicitly. If political instability is considered a disaster, then it would be useful to apply a similar logic across other societal subsystems (e.g., economic instability as a disaster interacting with other hazards).
I recommend revisiting page 18 with a strong focus on consecutive disaster recovery dynamics. Additionally, the issue mentioned in line 474 would benefit from a concrete example.
Finally, the term “socio-political system” may be too broad to capture the concepts discussed in this section. Alternative framings such as disaster risk governance, institutional capacity, or disaster risk management may be more precise.
Section 5.3, in particular, appears only loosely connected to consecutive disaster recovery dynamics. The ideas presented here may be more effectively integrated into the next sections like in section ragrding the tipping point that leads to increase societal resilience.
- Implications
Section 6 has the potential to be a core contribution of the paper; however, in its current form it reads more as a summary of previous sections. I encourage the authors to deepen the analytical discussion, particularly by strengthening the link between their findings and the framework proposed by Spaiser et al. (2024).
Specifically, clarifying what constitutes tipping points within each societal subsystem and what is meant by “system transformation” would greatly enhance the paper’s theoretical contribution. Examples discussed earlier in the paper, or new illustrative cases, could be used to demonstrate how societal resilience may be improved.
Finally, in line 557 migration is described as a negative feedback loop. I would caution that migration is not necessarily negative and can also be understood as an adaptive strategy, particularly for populations facing adverse or uninhabitable conditions.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3200-RC2
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- 1
Dear authors,
The paper addresses an interesting topic and is generally well written. I agree with the authors that the recovery process has received comparatively little attention in the literature, especially when it comes to consecutive disasters.
The paper is extremely broad and examines four different societal subsystems: human settlements, human health, the economic system, and the socio-political system. In my view, each of these subsystems is already extremely complex in terms of recovery processes and challenging to address in a single paper, let alone when combining all of them. Moreover, the paper aims to explore the interactions between these systems, considering how they may lead to a deterioration of resilience or to transformative learning. This broad focus inevitably results in a superficial conceptual discussion with rather ad-hoc assembled examples. This issue is also reflected in Figure 1, which essentially indicates that recovery trajectories are diverse, unknown, and involve interactions. Overall, I question whether this approach truly provides many new insights.
In this regard, while the authors accurately describe the examples as empirical, I would consider them anecdotal evidence to support the conceptual points the authors wish to convey. Perhaps presenting the paper as a conceptual piece would be more appropriate, as the title led me to expect something else.
Although the paper largely focuses on the potential negative impacts of consecutive disasters, considerable evidence suggests that disasters can serve as "windows of opportunity" leading to transformative learning (see e.g., Kreibich et al. 2017). This is rather briefly addressed in sections 5.3 and 4.2, but many more examples could be provided for each of the subsystems discussed. For instance, in Section 2, I am sure you can find numerous examples where disasters have led to revised spatial planning policies and/or building codes, significantly reducing the impact of subsequent disasters.
Section 6 also remains vague, offering little insight into what leads to tipping points in terms of deterioration or enhanced learning. The conclusion that these are linked to disaster intensity and frequency seems quite evident based on existing literature and cannot be derived directly from the empirical approach provided in the paper. We gain limited understanding of which discussed pathways are important or common.
Due to the broad focus, most recommendations remain vague, and it is unclear how or why the authors arrived at these specific recommendations. For example, the authors state, “…to support efficient and equitable recovery after disasters, countries need more reliable and proactive financing solutions. These may also include pre-arranged recovery financing mechanisms such as forecast-based financing, where funds are automatically released for humanitarian actions that are agreed upon in advance (IFRC & RCCC, 2020) or parametric insurance, which offers rapid, flexible payouts based on pre-defined parameters such as certain rainfall or wind speed, ensuring rapid payments in post-disaster settings (Ocampo & Moreira, 2024)." (lines 631ff). While I do not disagree with the recommendation itself, I question how this particular suggestion is derived from section 4, and why it was chosen as one of four key recommendations among potentially many others?