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A Dilemma of Language: “Natural Disasters” in Academic Literature

Chmutina, Ksenia, von Meding, Jason·2019·International Journal of Disaster Risk Science
DOI 10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2
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Abstract

For decades sections of the academic community have been emphasizing that disasters are not natural. Nevertheless, politicians, the media, various international organizations—and, more surprisingly, many established researchers working in disaster studies—are still widely using the expression “natural disaster.” We systematically analyzed the usage of the expression “natural disaster” by disaster studies researchers in 589 articles in six key academic journals representative of disaster studies research, and found that authors are using the expression in three principal ways: (1) delineating natural and human-induced hazards; (2) using the expression to leverage popularity; and (3) critiquing the expression “natural disaster.” We also identified vulnerability themes that illustrate the context of “natural disaster” usage. The implications of continuing to use this expression, while explicitly researching human vulnerability, are wide-ranging, and we explore what this means for us and our peers. This study particularly aims to stimulate debate within the disaster studies research community and related fields as to whether the term “natural disaster” is really fit for purpose moving forward.

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Metadata

Authors
Chmutina, K., & von Meding, J.
Venue
International Journal of Disaster Risk Science
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-09
Volume
10
Issue
3
Pages
283-292
ISSN
  • 2095-0055
  • 2192-6395
DOI
10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2
Cited by
225
References
0
Language
en
Licence

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A Dilemma of Language: “Natural Disasters” in Academic Literature. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2
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Chmutina, K., & von Meding, J. (2019). A Dilemma of Language: “Natural Disasters” in Academic Literature. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-019-00232-2

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.