Small island developing states: natural disaster vulnerability and global change

Abstract

This paper sets out an examination of natural disaster amongst small island developing states (SIDS), and presents a framework for assessing the interaction of global pressures and local dynamics in the production of human vulnerability. Change at the global level is found to be a source of new opportunities as well as constraints on building local resilience to natural disaster. Much depends on the orientation of the state in global economic and political systems. The United Nations is a key global actor with relevance to shaping vulnerabilityin island states, and the impact of the UN Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction is reviewed. It is concluded that this is a critical time for SIDS which must contend with ongoing developmental pressures in addition to growing pressures from risks associated with global environmental change and economic liberalisation that threaten their physical and economic security.     

Understanding the causes of vulnerabilities for enhancing social-physical resilience: lessons from the Wenchuan earthquake

ABSTRACT

In an effort to understand the social-physical vulnerabilities from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, this research established and validated a conceptual model for natural disaster analysis. The earthquake severely impacted the built environment, with many buildings being destroyed in the earthquake and from secondary impacts. This vulnerable environment exacerbated the poverty in the local residents because of the lack of flat land and the inaccessibility of the mountainous areas. Therefore, there was an interactive relationship between the built environment vulnerability and the social vulnerability. Due to general poverty and low education levels, social vulnerability in rural areas is often the result of poor quality building construction; in the event of an earthquake, therefore, most economic losses and casualties are the result of building destruction. To enhance social-physical resilience, measures should be adopted to mitigate the vulnerability of the built environment and society through actions such as land use planning, the use of seismic-resistant technologies, and investment in infrastructure, education, industrial development, and environmental protection. This research extracts the reasons for the vulnerabilities through an examination of the interactions between the natural environment, the built environment, and the local society. The insights gained have significant theoretical and practical implications in assisting vulnerable communities resist and adapt to natural hazards to achieve sustainable development.     

The plight of some of the poorest of the poor: vulnerabilities of fishing families on Kutubdia Island,Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Globally, fisheries are important economic resources and support many coastal communities, but the people that rely on fishing experience a range of environmental hazards. This research surveyed 300 fishing households on Kutubdia Island, Bangladesh, regarding their fishing activities and the conditions and perceptions of risk while fishing at sea. This is an artisanal fishery of small boats used for day trips, and larger but still simple boats used for multi-day trips farther offshore. Many households (62%) reported sickness or health problems while at sea. Medicine or first aid kits are carried by only 35% of the boats. Hazards encountered at sea included bad weather (69%), pirates (60%), unfriendly encounters with larger boats (20%), and engine failure (13%). The 300 households reported that 109 fishers had been lost at sea during the past 21 years. From this we estimate an annual death rate of 1335 per 100,000 fishers here, making it among the most dangerous in the world. Bangladesh needs a regulatory framework for its fisheries to include environmental, economic, political, cultural, and social components. Such a regulatory arrangement would support the Kutubdia fishers and should be incorporated into Bangladesh’s national policy for achieving its sustainability goals.     

Securing our energy future: three international perspectives on microgrids and distributed renewables as a path toward resilient communities

ABSTRACT

This paper will examine three diverse microgrid cases in the US, Canada, and the European Union. The paper will explore how microgrids can help build resilient communities, facilitate distributed renewable energy, and ultimately lead to a secure energy future. The cases will include both urban and remote settings and compare the social, legal, and policy lessons learned from these cases to advance microgrid policy for long-term community resilience.     

Towards an earthquake-resilient world: from post-disaster reconstruction to pre-disaster prevention

ABSTRACT

Destructive earthquakes in urban or rural areas around the world have caused severe damage to local societies. Pre-disaster prevention and post-disaster reconstruction can significantly reduce the impact of earthquakes on communities. To explore the popular research topics and trends in this area, CiteSpace was used to develop a knowledge map visualization. It was found that the main research into earthquake disaster prevention and reconstruction has been focused on disaster risk reduction planning, disaster mitigation knowledge, participatory disaster governance, and community resilience building. In this Special Issue, there were six distinctive earthquake disaster research papers that covered scientific, social, and institutional aspects. It was concluded that to reduce the effects of earthquake disasters, an interdisciplinary research approach and systems thinking is needed. The investigation also revealed that there has been a paradigm shift from post-disaster reconstruction to pre-disaster prevention to build community and urban resilience.     

Social capital and the political economy of violence: a case study of Sri Lanka

This article examines the links between militarised violence and social capital (trans)formation. It first maps out emerging theoretical and policy debates on social capital and violent conflict and questions a number of the assumptions underpinning these debates. This is followed by an empirical analysis of several war-affected communities in Sri Lanka. The case studies illustrate that the links between militarised violence and social capital are complex, dynamic and context specific. It is argued that social capital cannot be understood in isolation from political and economic processes, and the belief that violent conflict inevitably erodes social capital is questioned. Finally, the implications for external agencies are highlighted. Rather than focusing on engineering social capital, external agencies need to focus on understanding better the preconditions for social capital formation and how they can contribute to the creation of an enabling environment. This requires as a starting-point a rigorous analysis of political and economic processes.     

Action-oriented resilience assessment of communities in Chennai,India

Building resilience to disasters is indispensable in cities, like Chennai, India, which are challenged by emerging urban disaster risks caused by impacts of urbanization and higher probability of future disasters due to climate change. In this paper, an action-oriented resilience assessment (AoRA), consisting of 63 actions, divided into 21 parameters and 5 dimensions (physical, social, economic, institutional and natural), is defined which has the objective to enhance the resilience of communities of Chennai to climate-related disasters. On the basis of responses from the selected target group, community leaders (councillors) in the 155 wards, the local government of Chennai is the key stakeholder to implement the proposed actions in the AoRA. However, further findings underpin that a multi-stakeholder approach, involving communities, academia, private organizations and NGOs, is needed to create disaster resilient communities.     

The adoption of a Climate Disaster Resilience Index in Chennai,India

Results derived from the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI)—consisting of five dimensions (economic, institutional, natural, physical, and social), 25 parameters, and 125 variables—reflect the abilities of people and institutions to respond to potential climate‐related disasters in Chennai, India. The findings of this assessment, applied in the 10 administrative zones of the city, reveal that communities living in the northern and older parts of Chennai have lower overall resilience as compared to the flourishing areas (vis‐à‐vis economic growth and population) along the urban fringes. The higher resilience of communities along the urban fringes suggests that urbanisation may not necessarily lead to a deterioration of basic urban services, such as electricity, housing, and water. This indication is confirmed by a strong statistical correlation between physical resilience and population growth in Chennai. The identification of the resilience of different urban areas of Chennai has the potential to support future planning decisions on the city's scheduled expansion.     

An overdue alignment of risk and resilience? A conceptual contribution to community resilience

A systematic review of literature on community resilience measurement published between 2005 and 2014 revealed that the profound lack of clarity on risk and resilience is one of the main reasons why confusion about terms such as adaptive capacity, resilience, and vulnerability persists, despite the effort spared to operationalise these concepts. Resilience is measured in isolation in some cases, where a shock is perceived to arise external to the system of interest. Problematically, this contradicts the way in which the climate change and disaster communities perceive risk as manifesting itself endogenously as a function of exposure, hazard, and vulnerability. The common conceptualisation of resilience as predominantly positive is problematic as well when, in reality, many undesirable properties of a system are resilient. Consequently, this paper presents an integrative framework that highlights the interactions between risk drivers and coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities, providing an improved conceptual basis for resilience measurement.     

The socioeconomic effects of a landslide in Western Washington

Abstract

Landslides can create permanently unstable sites that cannot be repaired or developed, and as a result, can cause severe economic and social consequences for families and communities. This study examines the economic and social effects of a landslide that struck Western Washington in February 1999. Two years after the landslide, property owners completed a confidential questionnaire. Property owners experienced significant personal financial losses and received little financial assistance to recover. Most (93%) did not receive any relief from their insurance policies, and 7% received only temporary rental assistance. Participants reported a variety of monetary and personal losses that were associated with emotional distress. They also reported a variety of gains and new perspectives on life. In this paper, we consider mechanisms to reduce the economic losses of landslides as well as implications and future research directions.     

A review of coastal community vulnerabilities toward resilience benefits from disaster reduction measures

The coast has always been an area of significant hazards. In situations of community self-sufficiency, consequences of coastal hazards might be isolated to regions directly affected by the hazard. But, in the current global economy, fewer and fewer communities are isolated; damage to one location frequently has consequences around the globe and coastal community resilience can have broad-reaching benefits. Hazard responses for the built coastal environment have typically been resistance: constructing stronger buildings, enhancing natural barriers or creating artificial barriers. These approaches to hazard reduction through coastal engineering and shoreline defence efforts have been crucial to sustained coastal development. However, as coastal forces continue or magnify and resources become scarcer, resistance alone may be less effective or even unsustainable, and interest in resilience has grown. Resilience is a community's ability either to absorb destructive forces without loss of service or function, or to recover quickly from disasters. Community resilience encompasses multiple elements, ranging from governance to structural design, risk knowledge, prevention, warning systems and recovery. This paper focuses on hazards of coastal communities, and provides a review of some recent engineering efforts to improve the resilience elements of risk knowledge and disaster warnings for coastal disaster reduction.     

The role of schools in helping communities copes with earthquake disasters: the case of the 2010–2011 New Zealand earthquakes

ABSTRACT

This article draws from the author’s four-year study of five school communities hit by the 2010–2011 earthquake sequence in the Canterbury region of New Zealand to highlight the roles that schools played in supporting their communities in the aftermath of the disaster. The article begins by synthesising the relevant literature on disasters, schools in earthquake disasters, and the importance of schools to their communities, pre- and post-disaster. The following themes from the data are discussed: (a) the role of schools in their communities prior to the earthquakes; (b) the role of schools in immediate rescue and response; (c) the role of schools in short-term relief; and (d) the role of schools in long-term recovery. The author then argues that as more evidence shows that schools play such crucial roles in post-disaster response and recovery, we need to better prepare and support them to undertake these functions. Further, we need to recognise the wider roles schools play supporting local communities to build and sustain resilience as part of on-going community cohesion and connectedness, so that society is better prepared when major disasters occur.     

Economic resilience to natural and man-made disasters: Multidisciplinary origins and contextual dimensions

Economic resilience is a major way to reduce losses from disasters. Its effectiveness would be further enhanced if it could be precisely defined and measured. This paper distinguishes static economic resilience—efficient allocation of existing resources—from dynamic economic resilience—speeding recovery through repair and reconstruction of the capital stock. Operational definitions are put forth that incorporate this important distinction. The consistency of the definitions is examined in relation to antecedents from several disciplines. The effectiveness of economic resilience is evaluated on the basis of recent empirical studies. In addition, its potential to be enhanced and eroded is analyzed in various contexts.     

Hazardscapes in reunified Germany

Abstract

German reunification had significant political, economic, social, and environmental impacts. A major environmental impact involved changes to the German technological hazardscape (especially in the East). Hazardscapes are defined here as the spatial distribution and attributes of human engineered facilities such as industrial plants, military bases and power stations that contain or emit substances harmful to humans and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why the German technological hazardscape changed after reunification. A cursory analysis might ascribe hazardscape change to the application of strict West German environmental laws and sophisticated environmental protection technologies to the East. This paper contends, however, that it was a political economy rather than an environmental imperative that drove the changes to the hazardscape, and that this continuing conflict may have serious repercussions on the future environmental health of eastern Germany.     

An ecosystem-based resilience analysis of Infanta,Philippines

An exploratory study is conducted to assess the resilience of Infanta through an analysis of its ecosystems from ecological, physical, economic, social and institutional perspectives. Recognizing the strong interdependencies of ecological, physical, economic, social and institutional dimensions in ecosystems and that community-level perceptions can shape adaptation actions, a survey is conducted in 36 village councils in Infanta, Quezon, Philippines utilizing a questionnaire covering 5 dimensions, 25 parameters and 125 measures selected based on the local context of Infanta to gain an understanding of the level of resilience in mountain, riverine, urban, agricultural plain, estuarine and coastal ecosystems. Results show that overall resilience levels of ecosystems lie between 3.08 (medium resilience) and 3.26 (high resilience) on a scale of 1–5. However, resilience scores in the five dimensions vary from 2.57 (low resilience) to 3.51 (high resilience). On the whole, overall resilience levels in the 36 villages exhibit high levels in the social dimension and low levels in the economic dimension. By assessing the resilience of ecosystems as attempted in this study, a baseline is determined where entry points for adaptation actions that are responsive to prevailing ecosystem conditions can be identified, positive and negative factors addressed and gaps and opportunities acted upon to enhance the resilience of Infanta's ecosystems.     

On the amount of counterpart assistance to be provided after natural disasters: from the perspective of indirect economic loss assessment

China’s counterpart assistance policy is of vital importance in providing guidance for emergency management and post-disaster reconstruction. However, the amount of assistance that partner provinces should provide as well as the criteria that partners should abide by in offering counterpart assistance remain a main challenge. The goal of this research is to fill this gap by proposing a new framework consisting of an interregional input–output (IRIO) model and a resilience index. Subsequently, the indirect economic loss is obtained by utilizing the index system of provincial economic resilience assessments, with measures of indirect economic loss developed from the IRIO. Furthermore, to examine the internal validity and systematic error, the reliability of the adopted models, the calculation methods, and the index systems are investigated. To assess the external validity of the proposed measures and resilience index of the framework, data from the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake are applied for estimating parameter values of the framework, and a follow-up investigation was conducted for examining the fairness and enhanced effectiveness of the new counterpart assistance criteria. In summary, this paper attempts to present some new ideas about the analysis of economic motivations of mutual aid and the improvement of the counterpart assistance policy.     

The secret history of natural disaster

Abstract

This paper explores the failure of historians to properly engage the study of natural hazards. It argues that by focusing mainly on individual calamities, historians have overlooked the larger social and economic forces that have shaped the response to natural disaster over the last century. Two important trends, real estate capitalism and the entry of the state into the political economy of hazards after World War II, are singled out as crucial for understanding US society's response to natural disaster. As a result of these historical forces, risk became a commodity, with harmful environmental consequences.     

Building disaster‐resilient micro enterprises in the developing world

Family‐owned micro enterprises operating within the informal sector of most developing countries provide millions of citizens with a livelihood and are the economic backbone of many communities. Yet, the turbulence that emanates up or down respective supply chains following a disaster can cause these entities to fail. This study develops a model that recognises the relative weakness of micro enterprises to such disaster‐related shocks. The model proposes that micro enterprises can moderate the effect of such shocks by creating resilience through cognitive preparation, continuous learning, and the generation of various forms of social capital (cognitive, relational, and structural). The propositions for the model are established through an extensive literature review, coupled with examples drawn from the documents of humanitarian agencies performing disaster relief work in India. This model also serves as a preliminary basis with which to derive metrics to set benchmarks or to assess the viability of a micro enterprise's ability to survive disaster‐related shocks.     

Development policy: a driving force of environmental hazard in Russia

Abstract

The scale and severity of environmental deterioration in Russia—and its accompanying hazards—constitute a true environmental crisis. Its characteristic features are a gradual continuing loss of environmental quality accompanied by acute environmental impacts associated with industrial accidents and related emergencies. The underlying causes are a mixture of political and social factors in association with the unbridled technological development. These were along the main driving forces of environmental hazard in the former Soviet Union and they continue to play that role in contemporary Russia. But the current environmental crisis is not only a time of adversity; it also has the potential to provide the necessary conditions for improvements in the economic wellbeing and environmental quality.