The ultimate goal of disaster risk science is to understand disasters and risks. In fact, understanding disaster risks and their cause-effect chains does not necessarily benefit vulnerable communities.

Disaster risk science might be best called crowd science, because its strength lies in both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary subjects —basic sciences, engineering, social and economic sciences, philosophy and theology.

Every approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Some claim that the science consists of 20s subjects. Some even count more than 30 to include the least-used subjects such as graph and network theory, a branch of mathematics.

In Indonesia, the systematic study of disasters through an interdisciplinary approach is just beginning. If we watch tsunami videos from Dec. 26, 2004, we witness how nature demonstrates its forces.

In many of Aceh...