EVOLUTION OF NATURAL DISASTER TERMINOLOGIES, WITH A CASE STUDY OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Emergency, disaster, catastrophe, calamity, and cataclysm are some of the terminologies that describe the nature and severity of adverse natural events. Civilians, reporters, and even professionals often use these terminologies for communication and reporting any event's severity as using this linguistic method is the most practical way during disasters to rapidly reach all levels of local, regional, national, and international stakeholder groups. Therefore, these disaster terminologies play a significant role in the disaster management field. However, attaining the actual magnitude of a disaster’s severity cannot be comprehended simply by using this linguistic method because these terminologies are used interchangeably. Unfortunately, there is no consistent method to differentiate disaster terminologies from one another. Additionally, no globally accepted standard technique to communicate the level of severity of disasters exists; one observer’s ‘disaster’ event can be another’s ‘catastrophic’ event depending on their personal experience and knowledge. Hence, a nations’ ability to manage extreme natural events is difficult when there are no agreed terminologies among emergency management systems. Thus, a standard severity classification system is required to understand, communicate, report, and educate stakeholders during ferocious natural events. This paper presents people's perceptions about disaster terminologies, rankings and differences in disaster lexicon (dictionary) meanings and lexical (verbal) meanings. It explores how people consider major events (e.g., the Covid-19 pandemic), and proposes a ranking of disaster terminologies to create a severity classification system suitable for use on a global level.