Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction

Disasters and their devastating consequences are increasingly evident in the world. Although nobody can prevent a hazard from occurring, individuals, societies, and governments can take necessary steps to avoid a hazard being transformed to a disaster. It is becoming clear that if sufficient efforts are not made, higher costs and greater losses including lives are inevitable. Thus, understanding risk and vulnerability and developing methods to reduce the impact of disasters and increase community resilience are priorities in development agendas. Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) includes protection, restoration, and sustainable management of ecosystems to obtain nature’s “free services” to reduce disaster risk. The Eco-DRR concept is deeply rooted in nature, ecosystem services, and human practices in contrast to conventional structural disaster management methods. Eco-DRR approaches also contribute to successful implementation of postdisaster recovery. The implementation of Eco-DRR concepts can be challenging, and planning and making integrated decisions leading to sustainable development and nature conservation to harness safety and reduce community risks must be the way forward.

Persistent Homology for Land Cover Change Detection

The need for environmental protection, monitoring, and security is increasing, and land cover change detection (LCCD) can aid in the valuation of burned areas, the study of shifting cultivation, the monitoring of pollution, the assessment of deforestation, and the analysis of desertification, urban growth, and climate change. Because of the imminent need and the availability of data repositories, numerous mathematical models have been devised for change detection. Given a sample of remotely sensed images from the same region acquired at different dates, the models investigate if a region has undergone change. Even if there is no substantial advantage to using pixel-based classification over object-based classification, a pixel-based change detection approach is often adopted. A pixel can encompass a large region, and it is imperative to determine whether this pixel (input) has changed or not. A changed image is compared to the available ground truth image for pixel-based performance evaluation. Some existing change detection systems do not take into account reversible changes due to seasonal weather effects. In other words, when snow falls in a region, the land cover is not considered as a change because it is seasonal (reversible). Some approaches exploit time series of Landsat images, which are based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index technique. Others evaluate built-up expansion to assess urban morphology changes using an unsupervised approach that relies on labels clustering. Change detection methods have also been applied to the field of disaster management using object-oriented image classification. Some methodologies are based on spectral mixture analysis. Other techniques invoke a similarity measure based on the evolution of the local statistics of the image between two dates for vegetation LCCD. Probabilistic approaches based on maximum entropy have been applied to vegetation and forest areas, such as Hustai National Park in Mongolia. Researchers in this field have proposed an LCCD scheme based on a feed-forward neural network using backpropagation for training. This paper invokes the new concept of homology theory, a subfield of algebraic topology. Homology theory is incorporated within a Structural Hidden Markov Model.

Assessment Principles for Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions

Glacier and permafrost hazards encompass various flood and mass movement processes that are directly conditioned or triggered by contemporary changes in the alpine cryosphere, threatening lives and livelihoods in most mountain regions of the world. These processes are characterized by a range of spatial and temporal dimensions, from small-volume icefalls and rockfalls that present a frequent but localized danger, to less frequent but larger-magnitude avalanches of ice and/or rock and related process chains that can travel large distances and thereby threaten people and infrastructure located far downstream. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have proven particularly devastating, accounting for the most far-reaching disasters in high mountain regions globally. GAPHAZ, the Standing Group on Glacier and Permafrost Hazards of the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS), and the International Permafrost Association (IPA) recently published a technical guidance document on the assessment of glacier and permafrost hazards in mountain regions, drawing on internationally accepted best practices of integrated hazard assessment, reflecting the scientific state of the art. Here, the main aspects of this guidance document are summarized and reflected in the context of the historic development, current state, and future challenges related to the assessment of glacier- and permafrost-related hazard assessments. In a comprehensive assessment of glacier and permafrost hazards, two core components (or outcomes) are typically included: 1. Susceptibility and stability assessment: Identifying where from, and how likely an event could be, based on analyses of wide-ranging triggering and conditioning factors driven by interlinking atmospheric, cryospheric, geological, geomorphological, and hydrological processes. 2. Hazard mapping: Identifying the potential impact on downslope and downstream areas through a combination of process modeling and field mapping, providing the scientific basis for decision-making and planning. Glacier and permafrost hazards gained prominence around the mid-20th century, especially following a series of major disasters in the Peruvian Andes (Huaraz, 1941, and the Huascarán events of 1962 and 1970), Alaska (Lituya Bay, 1958), and the Swiss Alps (Mattmark, 1965). At the time of these events, related hazard assessments were reactionary and event-focused, aiming to understand the causes of the disasters and assess the ongoing threat to communities. These disasters, and others that followed (e.g., Kolka–Karmadon, 2002), established the fundamental need to consider complex geosystems and cascading processes with their cumulative downstream impacts as one of the distinguishing principles of integrative glacier and permafrost hazard assessment. Nowadays, the widespread and free availability of satellite imagery enables a pre-emptive approach to hazard assessment, beginning with regional-scale first-order susceptibility, hazard assessment, and modeling that provide a first indication of possible unstable slopes or dangerous lakes and related cascading processes. Detailed field investigations and scenario-based hazard mapping can then be appropriately targeted to high-priority areas. In view of the rapidly changing mountain environment, leading beyond historical precedence, there is a clear need for future-oriented scenarios to be integrated into the hazard assessment, considering, for example, the threat from new lakes that are projected to emerge in a continuously deglaciating landscape. In particular, low-probability events with extreme magnitudes are a challenge for authorities to plan for, but such events can be appropriately considered as worst-case scenarios in a comprehensive, forward-looking, multi-scenario hazard assessment.

Women at the Forefront of Civil Society Advocacy in Disaster Risk Reduction Governance

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. Please check back later for the full article. Today, women are widely recognized around the world as leaders, innovators, and trailblazers in promoting important agendas to uplift society. Mother Teresa’s charitable work is one example, and Malala Yousafzai’s work on children’s rights is another. Both are Nobel Peace Prize awardees. The dramatic shift, from regarding women as simply a homogenous group to seeing a growing number of women at the forefront of advancing innovative ways to build safe and resilient communities, has been embraced. Women’s constructive role in development on many fronts and at various levels is celebrated globally. Their capacities, tempered by compassion and sharpened by tenacity, contribute significantly to further strengthening their own resilience, as well as the resilience of their communities. In the world of disaster risk reduction and development, women have become vanguards in promoting good disaster risk reduction governance. The role of women (as individuals or as members and leaders of civil society organizations) in advocating for the mitigation, or even elimination, of disaster risks has become more pronounced as they bear the double burden of caring for home and community. That women now speak with greater authority on disaster risk reduction, environmental governance, or sustainable development in the larger public sphere, is a testament to their hard-won victory in making the world sit up and listen to those whose voices are least heard—including theirs.

Agent-Based Modeling of Flood Insurance Futures

Agent-based models have facilitated greater understanding of flood insurance futures, and will continue to advance this field as modeling technology develops further. As the pressures of climate-change increase and global populations grow, the insurance industry will be required to adapt to a less predictable operating environment. Complicating the future of flood insurance is the role flood insurance plays within a state, as well as how insurers impact the interests of other stakeholders, such as mortgage providers, property developers, and householders. As such, flood insurance is inextricably linked with the politics, economy, and social welfare of a state, and can be considered as part of a complex system of changing environments and diverse stakeholders. Agent-based models are capable of modeling complex systems, and, as such, have utility for flood insurance systems. These models can be considered as a platform in which the actions of autonomous agents, both individuals and collectives, are simulated. Cellular automata are the lowest level of an agent-based model and are discrete and abstract computational systems. These automata, which operate within a local and/or universal environment, can be programmed with characteristics of stakeholders and can act independently or interact collectively. Due to this, agent-based models can capture the complexities of a multi-stakeholder environment displaying diversity of behavior and, concurrently, can cater for the changing flood environment. Agent-based models of flood insurance futures have primarily been developed for predictive purposes, such as understanding the impact of introductions of policy instruments. However, the ways in which these situations have been approached by researchers have varied; some have focused on recreating consumer behavior and psychology, while others have sought to recreate agent interactions within a flood environment. The opportunities for agent-based models are likely to become more pronounced as online data becomes more readily available and artificial intelligence technology supports model development.

Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in South Asia

Both the impact and the frequency of natural disasters and extreme events in South Asia are steadily increasing due to growing exposure and vulnerability. These vulnerabilities are compounded by fast economic growth and an increase in natural disasters across the region. Disaster losses in South Asia are rising and are felt across many domains. From the formal to the informal economy, natural disasters have increasingly strong impacts in terms of lives lost, social impact, and impediments to growth. New challenges in disaster risk reduction are emerging due to an increase in the duration and frequency of natural disaster events attributable to climate change. Though both climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts exist to some degree throughout South Asia, integrating climate change adaptation into disaster risk reduction is critical to successful and inclusive growth of economies in the region. Challenges remain, and national and subnational governments are making some progress in policies aimed at both climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. However, many of these efforts are planned, designed, and implemented separately, with limited understanding of how disaster and climate risk are linked. Moreover, progress is hindered by poor understanding of how integration of these concepts can result in better governance of risk in South Asia. Additionally, political will, capacity constraints, and institutional barriers must be overcome. Efforts by the international community are making progress in unifying these concepts, yet gaps and challenges still exist. The benefits of converging climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Asia are significant, from minimizing climate-related losses to more efficient use of limited resources and more effective and sustainable development.

Natural Disaster Risk Financing and Transfer in ASEAN Countries

ASEAN countries are frequently hit by a variety of natural disasters, and a large fraction of economic activity in ASEAN countries is located in areas exposed to these natural perils. Increasing disaster damages require ASEA countries to manage the financial losses in a more efficient and proactive manner. Currently, most risk-transfer mechanisms in this region rely on ad-hoc government relief, which is not sustainable. Multilateral cooperation in the areas of risk-modeling and mapping as well as joint efforts to establish financial risk-transfer solutions could help to overcome existing challenges in this area.

Managing Vulnerability During Cascading Disasters: Language Access Services

Communication underpins all phases of disaster risk reduction: it is at the heart of risk mitigation, by increasing resilience and preparedness, and by interacting with affected communities in the response phase and throughout the reconstruction and recovery after a disaster. Communication does not alter the scope or severity of a disaster triggered by natural hazards, but the extent to which risk reduction strategies impact on affected regions depends greatly on existing differences inherent in the society of these regions. Ethnic minorities and multilingual language groups―which are not always one and the same―may become vulnerable groups when there has been little or no planning or no awareness of the impact of limited access to trustworthy information when the disaster strikes. Furthermore, large-scale disasters are likely to involve personnel from the humanitarian sector from both local and international offices. Communication in most large-scale events has progressively become multilingual; from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it is expected that large disasters see collaboration between intergovernmental, governmental, local, national, and international entities that operate in different ways in rescue and relief operations. Regardless of linguistic contexts, communication of reliable information in a trustworthy manner is complex to achieve in the aftermath of a disaster, which may instantaneously affect telecommunication infrastructures (overloading VOIP and GPS systems). From coordination to information, clear communication plays a role in any activity intending to reduce risks, damages, morbidity, and mortality. Achieving clear communication in crisis management is a feat in a monolingual context: people from different organizations and with different capacities in multi-agency operations have at least a common language, nonetheless, terminology varies from one organization to another, thus hampering successful communication. Achieving effective and clear communication with multilingual communities, while using one language (or lingua franca), such as English, Arabic, Spanish, or Hindi, depending on the region, is impossible without due consideration to language translation.

Non-Governmental Organizations and Natural Hazard Governance in Africa

A growing number of civil society actors across the African continent are in the forefront of disaster risk reduction (DRR) engagements that span service delivery, humanitarian response, community mobilization, capacity building, and policy advocacy. Their roles include valorization of local knowledge and harnessing pressure for transformative change. All of this contributes to natural hazard governance. In contrast to early post-colonial dominance by central governments, natural hazard governance across the continent has gradually been dispersed downward to local institutions and outward to civil society. A series of factors has shaped African civil society and its engagement with DRR-related activities since the 2000s, including heavy debt burdens, neoliberal market reforms, the formation of substantial national NGO sectors out of diverse social movements, and the growth of international humanitarian networks with substantial African presence. Although country- and region-specific political dynamics have created different pathways for civil society engagement with DRR, macro forces have produced strong overarching similarities in state–civil society interaction, particularly with regard to the shrinking of the state and a movement toward technical approaches in DRR. Common pressures of debt, violent conflict, mega-project investment, corruption, and the “natural resource curse” have inflected state–non-state relations because some civil society organizations in all regions have had to become advocates of “another development” and critics of business-as-usual. Within such limitations, practitioners have much to learn from best practices of a diverse set of organizations that span the continent.

Natural Hazards Governance in Algeria

Natural hazard governance has become complicated. This is because many recent disasters had the biggest impact in urban areas with a large concentration of people heavily dependent on infrastructure and services. The rapid urbanization, population increase, development of critical engineering works, industrialization of cities with modern types of buildings, and the concentration of population living in hazardous areas are matter of growing concern, as they are likely to contribute to heavier loss of life and increasing economic losses in future disaster damage. The El-Asnam (formerly Orléansville) earthquake of October 10, 1980 (Ms 7.4) raised the awareness of both the Algerian government and the civil society of the need for disaster risk reduction policy. Since then, disaster risk reduction has been on the agenda of the government programs, and concrete measures have been undertaken in organization, legislation, institutions, training, education, communication, and information. The government has made significant efforts to improve the natural hazard governance. It has made a substantial impact on academic research and higher education in some disciplines of engineering and natural science in the country’s largest universities. Risk governance for natural hazard in Algeria will be seen here in light of the implementation mechanisms, the main achievements and progress, the new legal and regulatory tools and mechanisms, and cooperation aspects. In conclusion there will be a discussion about global evaluation and perspectives.