Community Resilience in the Face of Natural Disaster: Puerto Rico’s Adventure Tourism Industry

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Mechelle N. Best ◽  
José H. González
2021 ◽  
Vol 884 (1) ◽  
pp. 012039
Author(s):  
Assriyani ◽  
Hastuti

Abstract A disaster is an event or series of events which threaten and disrupt the human lives. The studies of disaster are constantly considered related to humans because humans act as the causative factor, victim and at the same time the executant of the effort in disaster handling. Pioneered by Gilbert White and pursued by other experts, human geography later shows the roles in examining issues in disaster studies especially in disaster mitigation. Based on several research and notions, many experts in human geography agree that there is nothing natural in natural disaster. Although the disasters are often affected by geosphere physical phenomenon but various human actions and activities on the face of the earth cause certain population to be more prone to natural disaster. If the risks toward disaster need to be reduced, bigger attention needs to be given to minimize population vulnerability, increase people capacity to overcome disaster and strengthen people capability to adapt to disaster area in a long term. Currently, UN as the responsible party in reducing risk of international disaster has been doing community resilience effort adopting Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015: building the nation and community resilience towards disaster, followed by Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDR) 2015-2030: reducing disaster risk and loss.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Fenjie Qi ◽  
Yaxin Zhou ◽  
Shuo Feng

Climate change has brought people’s attention in recent decades, which demonstrates a critical phenomenon of increased natural disaster risks. The consequences of natural hazards are highly potential to bring significant economic, reputational, social, and environmental impacts on Australia’s tourism industry. Considering the close relationship between the unique natural environment and the local tourism industry, natural disasters always play critical roles in terms of the destinations’ resilience. This paper aims to examine the cause-and-effect of natural disaster resilience for the tourism industry in Eastern Australia with the particular concern of bushfire. Representative bushfire events will be studied to locate the industry’s preparedness and the existed action gaps mainly with the focus on government and destination management organizations, as well as discuss the disaster prevention implications, direct/indirect impacts and tourism-related issues. Also, a natural disaster resilience assessment framework for the industry will be developed with the key indicators from multiple aspects. A couple of future directions will be proposed regarding recovery methods, including the needs of destination image recovery, supportive policies for small businesses and cross-functional partnership.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alima Ogah ◽  
Tracey Crosbie ◽  
Theresia Komang Ralebitso-Senior

Abstract Background Climate change and its impact have taken centre stage in contemporary political economic discourse. Climate change is posing complex problems that far outweighs the solutions suggested by the conventional analytical tools used for guiding responses to major environmental challenges. This is particularly the case in developing countries like Nigeria. Unsurprisingly the concept of community resilience towards climate change has received a great deal of attention from researchers and policy makers. However, community resilience is a contested concept, which leads to disagreement about the methods of achieving it. The nature of community resilience makes the measurement of the efficiency of the policies designed to increase community resilience problematic, particularly in developing countries where limited funds must be prioritised. Methods The research presented uses a Grounded Delphi Method (GDM) to identify how experts in Nigeria define community resilience and reach a consensus on its measurement in Nigeria’s context and other developing nations. The data collection involved three rounds of Delphi with a panel of 21 experts, the first round employed semi-structured interviews, following the exploratory Delphi approach, and subsequent rounds employed online surveys. Findings: The findings indicate that there is a process of stages that communities need to go through to become resilient to climate change. These begin with coping with climate change, followed by adaptation to climate change with the final stage being transformation in the face of climate change. Twenty indicators are identified categorised under eight elements that are suitable for measuring community resilience at the different stages of this process. It is interesting to note that the experts in Nigeria who participated in the study excluded notions of transformation in their conceptualisation of community resilience illustrating a potential gap in their perceptions of the requirements for how communities can become fully resilient. Conclusion This research provides a method of prioritising specific, measurable indicators to inform policies designed to reduce the impacts of climate change by supporting community resilience in the context of developing countries with limited funding.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ladan Ghahramani ◽  
Katelin McArdle ◽  
Sandra Fatorić

The Gullah Geechee community of the south-eastern United States endures today as a minority group with a significant cultural heritage. However, little research has been conducted to explore this community’s resilience in the face of climate change and other environmental impacts. The database Web of Science was searched and 109 publications on the Gullah Geechee community were identified. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we analyzed the publications to identify patterns and primary research themes related to the Gullah Geechee community’s resilience. Findings revealed that Gullah Geechee‘s cultural heritage is vulnerable to climatic and societal changes, but can also be a source for enhancing community resilience and promoting more sustainable community-led heritage and tourism developments. A framework is proposed for building community resilience in the context of minority and/or marginalized communities (e.g., Gullah Geechee). This study highlights the urgent need to not only better understand and incorporate a community’s economic dimensions and losses in various decision- and policy-making processes but also their cultural and social dimensions and losses. This systematic analysis can help inform both heritage preservation and community-led tourism practices and policies related to the Gullah Geechee community, as well as help direct new research efforts focusing on minority and/or marginalized community resilience.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Katherine O'Neill ◽  
Andrew J. McLean ◽  
Renetta Kalis ◽  
James M. Shultz

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