Disaster waste management for resilient communities: A systematic literature review

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aim to ‘strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related risk and natural disasters’, highlighting the urgent need for management of disaster waste. While there is a growing body of work on disaster management and resilience, it is still unclear how targeted disaster waste management practices can contribute to resilient outcomes. The study therefore aimed to explore the evolving relationship between disaster waste management (DWM) and resilient communities using a systematic literature review. The review includes an analysis of 75 conceptual and empirical articles selected from four research databases offering a resilience perspective. The findings indicated the ad hoc and limited use of DWM and established a conceptual model portraying the relationship between resilience and DWM. This model proposes opportunities in the areas of planning, waste treatment, environment, economic, organizational and legal aspects. The review also highlighted different aspects of resilience including conspicuous, community, urban, climate, circular economy, medical supply chain, technology and how they are applied in DWM to enable targeted use of DWM. A range of theories was evaluated and three key theories including Resilience theory, Protection Motivation theory, and Network Governance theory were identified as the most relevant lenses for research in DWM and resilience. The authors conclude the benefits of purposeful disaster management practices and contribute to better the bottom line, people and planet. This review uncovers a suite of theories and models, that can facilitate innovative ways to be incorporated in future DWM research.