Case Studies & Factsheets

USINDOPACOM Foreign Disaster Response in the Indo-Asia-Pacific April 1991 – January 2024

This report looks at U.S. military foreign disaster response operations in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, and provides a brief summary of each event and the accompanying response from U.S. forces.

Partner Case Studies

CFE-DM partners with various academic institutions, humanitarian organizations, and service academies for various research and information sharing initiatives. A wide variety of case studies in civil-military coordination, disaster response and other humanitarian issues are featured on this page.

Naval Post Graduate School (NPS)

"Civil and Military Cooperation in International Humanitarian Operations"
This is a teaching case study on civil-military coordination. The authors asked the question: ‘What can be done to improve civilian and military working relations?’ To get to an answer, the authors interviewed experts in disaster response, peacekeeping, economic development, and inter-cultural relation-building. Interviewees included staff from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), and the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM)

“United States Navy Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Costs: A Preliminary Study”
Abstract: “Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations, one of the core capabilities for USN need to be studied, particularly in these times of budget cuts, realignment of forces, and restructuring of the Services. We study selected past disasters to organize their costs and propose future studies that can provide operational and financial policy recommendations that will induce efficiency and effectiveness.”

“Death, taxes, and disasters: AFSOF’s utility in disaster response”
“This thesis investigates the use of AFSOF as a rapid responder through two case studies: the 2004 HADR operation following the earthquake and tsunami in Southeast Asia and the HADR operation following the 2013 super typhoon in the central Philippines.”

Other Studies

While making every attempt to ensure the information is relevant and accurate, Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, reliability, completeness or currency of the information in the case studies listed below.

All Partners Access Network (APAN)
Case studies range from recent disaster responses (i.e., Typhoon Haiyan) to recent exercises (i.e., RIMPAC 2018)

AmeriCorps
“A Case Study of the Incident Command System in Missouri”
Summary description: “Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) Spring 2016 Capstone class worked with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to study the AmeriCorps Disaster Response Teams’ (A-DRTs) experiences under the Incident Command System (ICS) during recent deployments to the December 2015 flood in Missouri.”

Asian Development Bank (ADB)
“Natural Disasters, Public Spending, And Creative Destruction: A Case Study Of The Philippines”
Abstract: “Using synthetic panel data regressions, the paper shows that typhoon-affected households are more likely to fall into lower income levels, although disasters can also promote economic growth. Augmenting the household data with municipal fiscal data, the analysis shows some evidence of the creative destruction effect: Municipal governments in the Philippines helped mitigate the poverty impact by allocating more fiscal resources to build local resilience while also utilizing additional funds poured in by the national government for rehabilitation and reconstruction.”

Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University
“Disaster Response Regional Architectures: Assessing Future Possibilities”
Document description: “This report captures the workshop discussions and presents key findings and recommendations for policymakers and decision-makers in governments, international organizations, academic institutions, and civil societies.”

Center for Naval Analysis (CNA)
“Improving U.S.-India HA/DR Coordination in the Indian Ocean”
According to CNA’s website: “The CNA Corporation conducted this study to determine how the United States can best deepen coordination with India on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) in the Indian Ocean.”

Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC)
Various case study from CCOUC

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Information on disaster risk management: case study of five countries: Jamaica”
Document description: “Jamaica, as a result of its location in the north-western Caribbean basin, is prone to numerous specific natural hazards. These include hurricanes, of which recent hurricanes experienced within the last few years (and in fact since 1988 with hurricane Gilbert), have reminded us of Jamaica's great vulnerability to the effects of this hazard. Next, it is also envisaged that a large earthquake could do considerable damage to sectors of the population and to infrastructure and could result in displacement and homelessness among large sections of the population, particularly in the highly urbanized areas of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA). These two hazards, though perhaps not the most frequent, have the potential to do the most widespread damage to the population and to infrastructure.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Various Case Studies
Featured Case Studies include: Risk Assessment, Design and Construction, Private- and Public-sector Cooperative Efforts, Costs and Funding Mechanisms, Expected Benefits, and Performance of the Measures in Subsequent Hazard Events.

International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Various Case Studies
Case studies are available on the following topics: Disaster preparedness, Early warning, Food security and livelihoods, Population movement, Risk reduction, Shelter, Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments:

“Case Studies: Red Cross Red Crescent Disaster Risk Reduction in Action – What Works at Local Level, June 2018”
Document description: “These case studies demonstrate the Red Cross Red Crescent contribution to climate-smart disaster risk reduction action in Asia Pacific”

“Risk reduction in practice: a Philippines case study”
Document description: “Since 1995, the PNRC has broadened its approach towards more proactive risk reduction. With support from the Danish Red Cross (DRC), PNRC initiated community based disaster preparedness in five mountain, coastal and urban provinces.”

Naval Post Graduate School (NPS)
“United States Navy Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Costs: A Preliminary Study”
Abstract: “Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations, one of the core capabilities for USN need to be studied, particularly in these times of budget cuts, realignment of forces, and restructuring of the Services. We study selected past disasters to organize their costs and propose future studies that can provide operational and financial policy recommendations that will induce efficiency and effectiveness.”

“Death, taxes, and disasters: AFSOF’s utility in disaster response”
“This thesis investigates the use of AFSOF as a rapid responder through two case studies: the 2004 HADR operation following the earthquake and tsunami in Southeast Asia and the HADR operation following the 2013 super typhoon in the central Philippines.”

Civil and Military Cooperation in International Humanitarian Operations

Peacekeeping and Women’s Rights Latin American Countries Rise to the Challenge

Naval War College (NWC)
Center on Irregular Warfare & Armed Groups (CIWAG) Case Studies
From the NWC website: “CIWAG's aim is to make these cutting edge research studies available to various professional curricula that assist professionals preparing to meet the complex challenges of the post-9/11 world, while aiding the work of operators, practitioners, and scholars of irregular warfare.”

Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
“Delivering disaster risk reduction by 2030: Country Case Studies”
Document description: “These case studies form the basis of the report Delivering disaster risk reduction by 2030: Pathways to progress (2017) (annexes 2–10). They provide analysis of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) (HFA) country reports of nine countries: low-income countries (Guinea Bissau, Togo and Nepal), lower-middle-income (Fiji, Sri Lanka and Thailand) and upper-middle-income (Czech Republic, Mexico, and St Kitts and Nevis). These countries have different starting points, trajectories of progress, risk profiles and levels of per capita income. The reports give a good indication of what was prioritized by governments from 2005 to 2015.”

Pacific Journalism Review
“Social media and disaster communication: A case study of Cyclone Winston”
Abstract: “This article presents an analysis of how social media was used during Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest recorded tropical storm that left a wake of destruction and devastation in Fiji during February 2016.”

RAND Corporation
“Lessons from Department of Defense Disaster Relief Efforts in the Asia-Pacific Region”
Document description: “This report highlights key lessons for DoD involvement in HA/ DR with regard to communication with the affected country, coordination with other state and non-state actors, regional best practices with regard to HA/DR coordination, and prospects for security cooperation and building partner capacity (BPC) programs for disaster response capacity. This report should interest military leaders and staff concerned with increasing the effectiveness of U.S. HA/DR interventions and HA/DR–focused engagement activities.”

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Various UNISDR Case Studies
Description from UNISDR website: “The following case studies were selected from across the breadth of scientific disciplines and from all parts of the globe. They demonstrate that science can: (i) be driven by the need to address the adverse effects of disasters on lives, livelihoods, economies and societies (ii) enable more focused disaster risk assessment (iii) reduce the impact of disasters by better forecasting (iv) improve disaster risk mitigation programs.”

United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Government of India
“Best Practices and Case Studies on Disaster Management: The Maharashtra Experience”

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
"The Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction: Case Study and Exercise Source Book"
From UNEP website: “This ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction case study booklet is designed as a guided learning resource and supports a problem-based learning approach. The booklet enables masters students of the Eco-DRR course to work independently on the provided case studies and exercises, but it can also be used as a freestanding publication.”

World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) “Resilient Recovery Country Case Studies”
Various case studies are listed here: from Bangladesh Post Sidr Recovery to the Pakistan Earthquake.

“Natural Disaster Hotspots Case Studies”
Document description: “This second volume of the Natural Disaster Hotspots project presents a series of case studies undertaken to support the global analysis, published in 2005 as Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis. The Hotspots initiative aims to provide information to inform development strategies and investments and to prioritize actions for reducing disaster risk. The initiative began in 2001 under the umbrella of the ProVention Consortium as a collaborative effort of the World Bank, Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and a number of international partners.”