Climate Change-Induced Flood Disaster Policy Communication Issues for Local Community Adaptation Resilience Management in Uganda

Effective climate change and disaster policy communication services are vital for enhancing the adaptive resilience capacity of the vulnerable local communities in poor countries like Uganda. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness of the Ugandan national climate change and disaster policy information communication strategies in addressing national flooding disaster risks, highlights the recent trends of knowledge based responses to climate change induced floods, assesses the impact of the flood on the socio-economic well-being of local households and communities, and determines the vulnerability issues with corresponding adaptation strategies to floods in the flood prone country. Climate change flood risks have continued to exact huge socio-economic loss and damage effects due to the vulnerability and weak adaptation strategies to floods. The national meteorological services tend to forecast seasonal flood events; some flood forcing factors; and the impact of floods on social, economic, ecological, and physical infrastructure are on the rise in some parts of the country.

National Estimates of Climate-Related Disasters among Older Adults with Dementia

Climate-related disasters can have devastating consequences, particularly for the growing population of older adults with dementia. Increasingly, older adults with dementia are aging in place at home, where they often receive assistance for mobility or self-care activities from family and/or paid caregivers. Understanding this population’s experience with climate-related disasters is integral to mitigation, preparedness, and emergency response outside of institutional (e.g., nursing home) settings. We aimed to estimate the population of community-dwelling older adults—including those with dementia—who live in counties that experienced climate-related disasters. We used 2000-2016 data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), linked 2000-2018 with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster data. We flagged each occurrence of climate-related disaster (e.g., hurricane, flood) and then identified HRS participants living in counties with a disaster declaration. Using survey weights, we obtained population-level estimates by disaster frequency and sample characteristics. In each two-year HRS period, we found that 14.26-20.50 million community-dwelling adults over age 65 in the contiguous US (32.2%-53.7%) resided in a county with at least one disaster. This includes 0.62 -1.12 million persons with dementia, 67.2%-76.8% of whom are reliant on caregivers. On average (per two-year period), more than one-third (36.3%) of community-dwelling older adults living with dementia lived in a county with a least one disaster. Policy makers and emergency planners should strongly consider the needs of older adults at the intersection of dementia and risk of climate-related disasters, with an eye towards ensuring access to mobility and self-care assistance.

Private Support for Public Disaster Aid

Despite its growing economic and political importance, this is the first study in economics to investigate public opinion in the United States regarding both the allocation of government disaster aid to stricken households and communities as well as total expenditures by government on such aid. This is also the first study to bridge a gap in previous research on disasters by comparing and contrasting our results to related behavioral studies from political science, social psychology and sociology. Combining individual data from the 2006 General Social Survey with county-level information about the local environment of survey respondents, we estimate probit models to ascertain the magnitude and significance of the socioeconomic, demographic, political and experiential determinants of public opinion on these issues. Among other results, we find that Black survey respondents strongly support increasing total aid expenditures and aid to affected households and communities while income, age and a conservative political ideology largely exert a negative influence on these same variables. Surprisingly, the effects of prior experience with disasters and educational level have only a weak effect on the allocation of aid and none on the level of expenditures on aid. These and other results are consistent with only a portion of previous findings from other disciplines. Several implications of our results for current federal disaster policy are discussed and we also suggest directions for further research into this important topic.

Adding insult to injury: The fiscal impact of a failed FEMA disaster reimbursement system upon Florida municipalities

The financial aspects of natural disasters test fiscal solvency by draining municipal reserves and diverting funds from vital operations until Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursements arrive, if they arrive. With record-breaking natural disasters, the resulting fiscal strain is hampering nearly every community’s effort to increase resiliency. Without systemically assessing the financial responses to natural disasters at the local government level, we are perpetuating the paradox of government disaster policy making and decreasing our community’s resiliency. This study bridges the gap between the financial management and disaster recovery literatures by applying resource dependency theory to an exploratory case study of local emergency managers and city managers in Central Florida following hurricanes Matthew, Irma, and Michael. Collectively, the respondents describe the reactive and dependent nature of the current federalist approach to natural disaster financial management practices; which ultimately threatens fiscal viability for many American communities.

The Mediating Role of Disaster Policy Implementation in Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development in Sierra Leone

This research reports the role of disaster policy implementation achieving disaster risk reduction (DRR) and sustainable development (SD) in Sierra Leone. The factors were highlighted to help policymakers measure disaster risk perception (DRP), disaster adaptation (DA), community participation (CP), and disaster policy implementation (DPI) towards achieving disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. A questionnaire was administered to collect data from the respondents in six disaster-prone communities (Dwarzarck, Portee-Rokupa, Kroobay, Susan’s Bay, Moyiba, and Colbot) in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Employing the structural equation model approach, we found that all the disaster risk reduction factors (DRP, CP, DA, and DPI) directly influence SD. Furthermore, disaster policy implementation serves as a channel through which disaster risk reduction influences sustainable development. This study suggests to policymakers to use the factors mentioned earlier to design effective disaster policy implementation to achieve disaster risk reduction and sustainable development in Sierra Leone.

Inflation Expectations and Risk Premia in Emerging Bond Markets: Evidence from Mexico

Can we reduce the damage from climate change by investing in seawalls, stilts, or other forms of adaptation? Focusing on the case of severe storms in the US, I develop a macro heterogeneous-agent model to quantify the interactions between adaptation, federal disaster policy, and climate change. The model departs from the standard climate damage function and incorporates the damage from storms as the realization of idiosyncratic shocks. I find that while the moral hazard effects from disaster aid reduce adaptation in the US economy, federal subsidies for investment in adaptation more than correct for the moral hazard. I introduce climate change into the model as a permanent increase in either or both the severity or probability of storms. Adaptation reduces the damage from this climate change by approximately one third. Finally, I show that modeling the idiosyncratic risk component of climate damage has quantitatively important implications for adaptation and for the welfare cost of climate change.

Strategic Disaster Management

In this study, by considering the relationship between disaster management and sustainable development in general, disaster management is handled with strategic management and planning approach and its roles in sustainable development are emphasized. Besides literature search, the study primarily focused on disaster management, then, through the example of Turkey, disaster management and development of disaster policy were evaluated on the basis of sustainability and strategic planning. In addition, it was emphasized that for Turkey and other countries alike, disaster management should not only be considered as an emergency event, but it should also be handled in the national strategic plans and targets with a multi-stakeholder, governance approach that includes all dimensions such as risk mitigation, intervention, improvement and reconstruction. For this purpose, it is planned to include suggestions on how common development and cooperation models should be on a national and international scale.