Editorial: Cross-Boundary Disaster Communication: Building Systems Thinking and Breaking Traditional Divisions in the Field

Kees Boersma^1*Nathan Clark¹Rob Grace²Alice Ncube³Serena Tagliacozzo⁴

• ¹Vrije University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• ²University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, United States
• ³University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
• ⁴Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy

Our societies are facing risks that are increasingly complex, interconnected, and unpredictable. Globalization, technological interdependence, and climate change mean that hazards are no longer confined to a single location, sector, or phase of the disaster cycle. Risks such as systemic and cross-border threats disrupt the functioning of critical societal systems and essential businesses, ranging from healthcare and energy to transportation and information networks (UNDRR, 2023; Jordan & Shaw, 2024; OECD, 2023). Such risks challenge the very foundations of resilience and governance (Clark et. al, 2024; Tierney, 2022). Addressing such threats requires disaster communication scholarship to move beyond traditional boundaries of place, discipline, and hazard type, and to develop systemic solutions that can operate across scales, sectors, and contexts. This shift calls for the design of innovative and integrative communication strategies that span organizational, disciplinary, cultural, and territorial divides (Balog-Way et al., 2020; Boersma et al., 2021; Comfort et al., 2019). It demands the creation, nurturing, and strengthening of partnerships among diverse actors including government agencies, emergency services, private sector stakeholders, community organizations, and the media through cross-actor and cross-organization dialogue (Palen et al., 2009; Tierney et al., 2006; Kapucu & Hu, 2020). This shift requires both robust theoretical frameworks and evidence-based practices that can be adapted to multiple contexts (e.g., urban and rural settings), hazard types (e.g., multi-hazard and cascading events), and temporal phases in the disaster cycle (from preparedness to recovery). The accelerating emergence of systemic and transboundary risks makes it urgent to explore new ways for disaster (risk) communication, and integrate lessons from different disciplines and societal sectors. Achieving this transformation is a complex undertaking. It requires sustained collaboration between researchers across disciplines who advance theoretical and methodological innovation, and practitioners who translate these insights into actionable strategies in the field. Only by bringing these perspectives together can disaster communication evolve to meet the demands of an increasingly interconnected and risk-prone world. This Special Issue builds on these challenges and opportunities by bringing together insights from different disciplines and actual practice to overcome traditional boundaries in disaster communication research. Recognizing that no single discipline can fully grasp or address the multifaceted nature of contemporary risks, the Special Issue brought together experts with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise from a wide range of disciplinary fields including communication studies, disaster risk reduction, public administration, and information sciences. Fostering interdisciplinary dialogue to bridge often siloed fields, this Special Issue includes articles that advance conceptual understanding and offer actionable strategies for addressing systemic, cross-boundary threats to guide policy, practice, and future research in disaster communication. The eight articles featured in this Special Issue address the cross-boundary focus from a different perspective, yet collectively they highlight common priorities around trust, collaboration, accessibility, and gaps in data quality and use, which are crucial for advancing disaster communication research and practice. The Issue begins with the contribution "Can data cross frontiers? Challenges and drivers for cross-border data sharing for disaster risk reduction", by Anouck Adrot, Henri Isaac and, Salome Ritouret, who argue that while adequate data sharing is critical for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and cross-border resilience, it remains a challenge for most crisis management organizations. For this article they examined the Italy–France border, where efforts to develop a cross-border DRR data ecosystem face many challenges. Based on qualitative interviews, observations, and archival analysis, they found that cross-border settings amplify challenges related to trust, coordination, and (the lack of) unified data strategies. Despite these difficulties, crisis management actors are gradually transforming practices through cooperative, inclusive, and trust-based relationships. This contribution highlights the importance of context-sensitive communication approaches, emphasizing the need to account for border-specific dynamics in building effective international DRR data-sharing ecosystems and crisis communication. The next contribution by Hamilton Bean, Kensuke Takenouchi, and Ana Maria Cruz titled "Mobile public warning in Japan and the United States: a sister cities collaboration" explores how, over the past decade, cell broadcast systems have been adopted to deliver mobile public warnings for natural and human-caused disasters. Despite good practices in Japan and the U.S., these systems are often underused, misused, or misunderstood. This article presents the outcomes of an analysis of official documents and transcripts from four Japan–U.S. meetings and workshops involving researchers, crisis management officials, and residents in Yamagata, Japan, and Boulder, USA. The findings highlight the need to balance local adaptation with global standardization in mobile public warning systems. This contribution to the Special Issue offers cross-national insights to improve system effectiveness and communication, supporting crisis management officials in safeguarding communities amid intensifying climate-related and other hazards. Indeed, this need for improving public warning systems is increasingly highlighted as a key priority in international research and policy agendas (e.g. the midterm review of the Sendai Framework). In the article "Bridging gaps in research and practice for early warning systems: new datasets for public response" by Gianluca Pescaroli, Sarah Dryhurst and Georgios Marios Karagiannis Georgios, explore the high potential for the use of Early Warning Systems (EWSs) for disaster and crisis response and communication across diverse hazards. While this potential is recognized among most crisis management organizations, gaps remain in understanding the technical, social, and organizational factors that determine their effectiveness. Drawing on literature and global datasets, including the World Risk Poll, the authors highlight four key areas to improve the design and use of EWS: leveraging public responses, understanding trust in information sources, addressing limitations in current analyses, and overcoming operational challenges such as data accessibility and harmonization. Based on their analysis of the literature and current practices with regards to EWS, they propose a multi-country benchmarking approach to identify shared patterns, improve the management of complex and cross-border crises, and enhance socio-technical integration of disaster risk knowledge in early warning operations. Even at national and local levels, public warnings systems require more attention to ensure that guidance can be translated into effective actions. In this regard, the article "What to do when the earth shakes? DCH or door-frames: evaluating generalised risk minimisation guidance" by Sheena Ramkumar examines the effectiveness of Protective Action Measures (PAMs) for earthquake risk reduction, challenging the prevailing one-size-fits-all communication approach. Drawing on research in Nepal and Aotearoa/New Zealand, it applies critical discourse analysis to explore how expert paradigms, narratives, and knowledge systems shape PAM development and dissemination. This article builds on fieldwork conducted by the author during the 2015 Gorkha earthquakes and revealed widespread confusion, misapplication of guidance, and even heightened risk when generalized advice was followed. It used Google Trends data to show heavy reliance on outdated recommendations during the disaster events. This contribution to the Special Issue calls for context-specific, critically evaluated PAMs to ensure risk communication truly reduces vulnerability. Innovative cross-boundary disaster communication also means transcending traditional sources and channels from gathering and sharing risk and crisis data, especially in scenarios where data gaps persist. In the contribution "Framing of disaster impact in online news media: a case study from Malawi on flood risk management" the authors Hannah Bailon, Kees Boersma, Claudia Orellana-Rodriguez and Marc Van Den Homberg argue that while high-quality impact data should underpin adequate and pro-active disaster risk management and communication, serious gaps persist in actual crisis management and communication practices, particularly in data-poor contexts. Local news media can potentially help bridge these gaps. Focusing on flood-prone Malawi, this article compares impact information from four leading national newspapers with the international Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) records, applying natural language processing (NLP) to analyse linguistic features and framing disasters. This contribution to the Special Issue shows that online news adopts a human-focused narrative and provides impact details that are indeed useful for quantifying damage. The findings highlight the potential of local media as a complementary data source, offering richer, context-specific insights to strengthen impact databases and support disaster risk management and communication. Over the past decade social media has emerged as a promising medium in risk and crisis communication, and as bridging mechanism among traditional DRM actors and the public. Yet the full potential of social media use is still largely unrealized, owing to slow adoption processes, mistrust, and competency/knowledge gaps around its application by DRM organizations. The first article in this Special Issue to address this topic is "Bridging the gap in flood risk communication: a comparative study of community and organizational social media posts using natural language processing". The authors Christin Salley, Nathan Fox and Alyssa Schubert present their research on flood risks in the U.S., which are rising due to climate change. They argue that while these new risks require new ways of communication, flood risk communication often remains one-directional, limiting community preparedness. This article pleas for a stronger alignment between community and formal crisis management organizational messages. It presents the findings of a study on social media communication during July–August 2022 flood events across nine states. Using Natural Language Processing, the authors analyzed message content, sentiment, and emotion to assess whether organizational communication reflects public needs and fosters two-way dialogue. The results reveal temporal and spatial patterns in messaging and highlight gaps in engagement of crisis management organization with citizens. Based on these insights, the authors propose concrete recommendations to improve interactive flood communication, supporting more responsive, context-sensitive strategies for diverse populations and various disaster scenarios. In a similar vein, the article "Social listening and crowdsourcing in disaster communication— A citizen-centered media and communication consumption perspective" by Nina Blom Andersen, Louise Hill, Nina Baron, and Anne Bach Nielsen argue that building resilient communities requires strong connections between disaster management organizations and citizens, with communication and engagement as key tools. The authors explored the potential of crowdsourcing and active social listening in a Danish urban setting through expert interviews, citizen focus groups and surveys, and a media ethnographic study of local social media interactions. The findings presented in this contribution reveal that while some organizations already apply these principles, local context and media consumption habits present challenges. Platforms preferred by the citizens often limit digital crowdsourcing and communication to occur across multiple networks. The contribution to the Special Issue highlights the need for specific strategies, both digital and non-digital, to enhance engagement and strengthen citizen–organization relationships in disaster management and communication. Finally, the last article "Enhancing Two-way Communication in Disaster Management in the EU -practical insights" by Maike Vollmer, Maike Overmeyer and Benjamin Kaluza challenges current practices in risk communication, and proposes solutions for two-way communication approaches in disaster risk management. As natural and complex disasters increase, effective two-way risk communication between civil protection agencies and citizens is vital. The authors show how social media enables rapid information exchange but also spreads misinformation. The article builds on research outcomes from two EU Horizon 2020 funded projects that addressed this challenge. From the project PANDEM-2 they distilled how agencies, media, and experts operationalize two-way communication in pandemic preparedness, collecting data across disaster phases. Furthermore, they integrate results from the RiskPACC project to propose a co-creative approach to design solutions enhancing authority–citizen interaction. As an important conclusion to this Special Issue, the article stresses co-creation with diverse stakeholders, trust-building, harmonized narratives, knowledge exchange, and careful use of social media. It highlights the need for interactive, stakeholder-driven strategies as essential for disaster communication in today's complex risk environment. The eight articles in this Special Issue provide a unique and crucially needed examination of how we can transcend the boundaries around disaster communication research and practice. Collectively, they highlight several key issues. To improve the effectiveness of disaster communication, we must first recognize and address the existing limitations of current systems and be open to innovative approaches that can integrate new data sources to account for diverse contexts (e.g. hazard, geographical, cultural, etc.). This could include combing data sources in place of gaps, such as traditional risk/impact data with more human focused narratives, as well as more strategic uses of social media and crowdsourcing. It also requires ensuring the accessibility and actionability of data and information, through both technical and nontechnical approaches, by tailoring communication to diverse audiences and contexts. Moreover, crossing boundaries to achieve truly impactful and effective disaster communication practices requires deeper investigation into the mechanisms for learning and collaboration across borders, organizations, and the whole-of-society, as these mechanisms are essential to strengthening co-creation, trust-building, and knowledge exchange. In truth, this is rarely achieved in practice. However, the studies in this Special Issue provide evidence-based examples and recommendations for how to better meet these challenges moving forward.