28-01-2026 | Posted by Joaquín Martí
Our post When there are no catastrophes dealt with flooding disasters such as those experienced in Derna, Libya, in September 2023 and Valencia, Spain, at the end of October 2024.
Dr Gordon Woo has published several papers on exploring downward counterfactuals for public administration capacity building; the reference to the latest one, dated August 2024, appears at the end. The paper considers not just floods, but also pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and other disasters. A downward counterfactual is a thought about the past where things turned for the worse. The terminology originates from social psychology, combining two key aspects of human cognition: imagination and regret. We quote below.
After a month’s rain fell in 24 h over parts of Greece, causing catastrophic flooding in the Thessaly region, Storm Daniel transitioned into a Mediterranean cyclone on 9 September 2023. Medicanes, as they are called, are relatively rare, but can have devastating landfall impacts, due to their associated flooding, storm surge and strong winds. Climate change is supercharging the rainfall from Medicanes. On 10 September 2023, strong winds of 70 to 80 km/hr were recorded in north-eastern Libya. Associated record rainfall caused flash flooding in several cities. The average regional September rainfall is only 1.5 mm, but Storm Daniel generated sustained rainfall of 400 mm. This led to a classic cascade disaster scenario, of a kind that might happen in many parts of the world under a global climate change environment.
The two Libyan embankment dams with clay fill in the river valley named Wadi Derna were constructed between 1973 and 1977 for urban water supply and agricultural irrigation. The upper Derna dam had a height of 75 m and had a capacity of 22.5 million m3; the lower and smaller Mansour dam had a height of 45 m and had a capacity of just 1.5 million m3. The lower dam was just 1 km upstream of Derna.
Once the upper dam was breached and collapsed, a torrent of water and entrained debris overwhelmed the lower dam, which collapsed and flooded the city of Derna, with a population of about 100,000. The sudden release of flood water in the early hours gave no time for evacuation, and with about 20% of the city destroyed, thousands lost their lives. Several bridges were also destroyed, which hampered relief
efforts to the stricken region. Water contamination brought the risk of cholera which would have extended further the cascade of loss.
The high flood risk and corresponding need for periodic dam maintenance had been pointed out the previous year by Ashoor, a Libyan hydrologist. There were previous major flood events in 1941, 1959 and 1968. Counterfactual risk analysis of these historical floods would have emphasized the importance of routine dam inspection and maintenance. Counterfactual thinking would also have drawn attention to the need for a reliable flood warning system.
Derna is situated in the eastern part of Libya, which has for decades suffered from lack of government investment, which contributed to dam neglect and deterioration. The internal political conflict in Libya is one of the key human risk factors in the September 2023 Libyan dam disaster, along with the lack of regular dam maintenance. The standard of public administration was poor in Libya, beset by political instability.
Nevertheless, additional capacity could have been built upon some basic downward counterfactual thinking. Ashoor had pointed out that the 1959 flood event would have overwhelmed the dams, had they existed at that time. So the flood risk to the Derna population was high. Despite the lack of sufficient public funds for dam maintenance, the capacity to warn the downstream population of Derna, and save lives, might have been developed at comparatively low cost. A key part of this warning system would have been public messaging about the impact of progressive climate change on extreme rainfall that might threaten dam safety.
Similar thoughts could be written about the Valencia floods. The power of exploring downward counterfactuals should be considered for building capacity by public administration, especially as global climate change threatens to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters. Such an approach may also contribute to the prevention of other categories of adverse events, including technological and transportation accidents, as illustrated by the recent collision between high-speed trains in Spain.
G. Woo et al (2024) “Public Administration Capacity Building through Exploring Downward Counterfactuals”, Public Organization Review, 9 August, Springer
