ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a pentagonal representation of five aspects of disaster impact and recovery such as environmental recovery, institutional and governmental recovery, recovery of the economy and livelihoods, psychosocial recovery and physical recovery. Disaster can disrupt, damage or destroy critical infrastructure of local or national significance, although systems are generally resilient to most kinds of impact. Thus, the earthquake and tsunami in north-east Japan in March 2011 affected vehicle production in Europe, and the floods in Thailand in October and November 2010 led to a worldwide shortage of computer components. Macroeconomic impacts such as large disasters tend to cost between 0.2 per cent and 10 per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP). The main psychological effects of disaster are depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some persistent cases of PTSD are prolongations of critical incident stress (CIS), the effect of close experience of casualties and destruction at the height of the disaster.
