Integrated research on disaster risk: Is it really integrated?

This paper traces the development of peer-reviewed, integrated research on disaster risk over the past fifteen years to assess the current state of knowledge. We define integrated research as those studies that engage multiple scales, stakeholders, knowledge (scientific to indigenous), disciplines, and methods. Using 39 peer-reviewed academic English-language journals as the basis of our analysis, we conducted both a content analysis and a bibliometric analysis on the characteristics of the research: disciplinarity, knowledge, place and scale, stakeholder involvement, and policy applications as well as the integration across these traits. While integrated disaster risk research has made great strides over the past 15 years, much of it is still discipline or multi-discipline centric and largely produced by North American and European scholars. The co-production of knowledge is limited and implementation gaps between research and practice persist. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.