How Does Crisis Learning Contribute to Disaster Resilience?—A Case of Two Flood Disasters Caused by Rainstorms in Shouguang County on the North China Plain of China

Abstract

As an important branch of organisational learning, crisis learning can play a unique function in enhancing resilience in the field of disasters. However, the current knowledge and research on the relationship between crisis learning and disaster resilience are very limited. By establishing the research framework of the “Subject-Process-Resilience Capacity” of crisis learning, this paper indicates that resilience in the disaster field can be improved by the multiple subjects of the social system through crisis learning behaviour in the whole process of responding to disasters. Through the longitudinal comparative analysis of a case of two flood disasters caused by rainstorms in Shouguang County, this study found that the subjects of crisis learning are not only public departments and governments, but also market subjects, social organisations and individuals. These multiple subjects can adopt different crisis learning behaviours before, during and after disasters, so as to improve the preventive, response and recovery capabilities of disaster resilience. In addition, the causal relationship between crisis learning and disaster resilience explored in this paper can also help enrich the connotation of resilience in the field of disaster research and provide reference value for social systems to enhance their resilience to natural disasters.