Forensic Disaster Analyses

In late 2011, CEDIM embarked on a new style of disaster research known as Forensic Disaster Analysis. In the new research program CEDIM Forensic Disaster Analysis (CEDIM FDA), CEDIM researchers will analyse disasters and their impact in near real-time. The core of CEDIM’s new style of analysis is to examine disasters in an interdisciplinary manner with a focus on the complex interactions between
(1) the natural hazard,
(2) the technical installations, facilities, and infrastructures, and
(3) the societal structures, institutions and capacities.

The aim of FDA activities is to evaluate immediately after the occurrence of a disaster this event, assess the impacts, retrace the temporal development, and identify the most important factors that determine the impacts. Forensic means the combination of methods and findings from different disciplines with the aim of describing and reconstructing disasters and their relevant drivers as comprehensively as possible. The approach in interdisciplinary teams takes into account the complexity of the loss events and the risk of natural disasters with manifold interactions and cascade effects in both natural and anthropogenic systems.