Rethinking the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation from a disaster risk perspective

Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation are three fundamentally inter-related concepts among such research communities as global environmental/climatic change, social–ecological and disaster risk science. However, their mutual relationships are still unclear so far particularly in the field of disaster risk reduction, which to some extent blocks the reasonable risk analysis and scientific decision making. This paper performed a brief overview on the basic definitions and evolution processes of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, and tentatively categorized past diverse thoughts of their relationships into three modalities, such as, vulnerability preference, resilience preference, and overlapped relationships. From a “hit-damage-recovery-learning cycle” insight and based on an empirical case study, we put forward two conceptual frameworks to address the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation within the disaster risk domain, and we further discussed their broader implications in terms of disaster risk management and social–ecological sustainability. In an attempt to bring together the analytical frameworks of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, this study indicates that a sustainable adaptation strategy to the unavoidable disasters or changes should not only seek to reduce the vulnerability of a social–ecological system, but also to foster its resilience and adaptive capacity to future uncertainties and potential risks.     

Assessing the resilience of Delhi to climate-related disasters: a comprehensive approach

The study addresses disaster risks in Delhi through a resilience approach. It utilizes the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI) tool, which assesses disaster resilience from five dimensions: physical, social, economic, institutional, and natural. Each dimension comprises 5 parameters, and each parameter consists of 5 variables. The study is carried out in the nine revenue districts of Delhi and reveals that East Delhi is least resilient and New Delhi is most resilient. The CDRI analysis in East Delhi points out the urgent need to focus on key parameters such as housing and land use, population, intensity and frequency of natural hazards, ecosystem services, and land use in natural terms. On the other hand, New Delhi is the most resilient due to all five dimensions, where most significant parameters responsible for its high resilience are housing and land use, population, income, employment, intensity and frequency of natural hazards, ecosystem services, and land use in natural terms. In addition, the overall results of all nine districts show an inverse relationship between resilience score and population density. For example, districts with higher population density show low resilience and vice versa. Moreover, districts located on hazard-prone areas show low resilience. For example, East Delhi and North East Delhi scored low resilience because they both are situated on the Yamuna flood catchment areas. The study further develops key suggestions that are required to address disaster risk in all nine districts of Delhi and discusses future implications of CDRI to address city??s vulnerability. The approach??s distinctness is reflected through its consideration of micro-level diversities and presents some implications to resilience.     

Implementing post-earthquake reconstruction plans in China: a resilience perspective

This paper offers a critical investigation on the implementation of reconstruction plans in China following Wenchuan Earthquake through the lens of disaster resilience. The analysis is built upon a resilience in planning framework which consists of nine attributes. Empirical cases of two typical towns in Wenchuan County, Weizhou and Yingxiu, are discussed and compared. This paper upholds an evolutionary perspective of resilience and argues that reconstruction planning is a contested and politically laden field for different stakeholders, such that social aspect resilience is key to understanding plan implementation.

     

An examination of midwestern US cities’ preparedness for climate change and extreme hazards

Disasters continue to have a dramatic impact on lives, livelihoods and environments communities depend on. In response to these losses, the global community has developed various theories, assessment methodologies and policies aimed at reducing global losses. A contemporary outcome of these interventions is to build the disaster resilience. However, despite the disaster resilience-building endeavours espoused by policies, theories and methodologies, very little progress is being made in reducing disaster losses. This paper argues that a possible reason behind the limitations of current resilience-building policies and methodologies could be that most of these policies are based a mechanistic scientific paradigm that places an emphasis on system components that are perceived to build resilience and not the function of systems as a whole. This often leads to resilience-building initiatives that are based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This paper argues for the use of a complex adaptive systems approach to building resilience. This approach argues that contextual factors within different social systems will have a nonlinear affect on disaster resilience-building efforts. Therefore, it is crucial to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to more flexible approaches to building resilience. These hypotheses are tested by means of a correlation statistical analysis of agricultural communities in Southern Africa. Results of this analysis indicate that unique resilience profiles are evident in almost all of the communities studied. This indicates that resilience is not the same for everybody, and that resilience-building endeavours should be flexible enough to be adapted for different contexts.     

Older people’s psychosocial needs in a post-disaster rural community of China: an exploratory study

Older people are arguably one of the most vulnerable groups during a disaster. Existing studies either in China or in other countries predominantly focus on the more Western, pathology-based mental health approach in addressing the impact of disasters on older victims and their needs. However, the concept of ‘psychosocial’ recognises that problems caused by emergencies can simultaneously be of a social nature and a psychological one. This concept emerged from a growing critique on individual oriented mental health approach in disaster contexts. The present study was conducted to explore older people’s needs from a psychosocial perspective. The research site was a Chinese rural community located in the epicentre of ‘5.12’ Wenchuan earthquake (Ms = 8.0) occurred in 2008. The authors conducted content analyses on the qualitative in-depth interviews with 10 (5 males and 5 females) out of 30 older persons from this community. The findings revealed three major psychosocial problems: (1) constant fear of recurring debris flows; (2) sense of helplessness; and (3) disruption to previous social network. Indubitably, the participants reported family members and neighbours as their major sources of social support in emergency situations. This exploratory study argues that older people being exposed to disasters will not only develop psychological problems but also suffer disruption to their social support network and puts forward that empowering family and strengthening community cohesion are important initiatives for helping professionals to promote older people’s psychosocial well-being and enhance their resilience to natural disasters.     

Disaster resilience in a flood-impacted rural Australian town

This paper reports exploratory research conducted in a flood-impacted rural Australian town to identify the factors which residents perceived as supporting community resilience to disaster. There is a gap in this research area centred in the Australian disaster context. Since Australia is predicted to be highly impacted by the effects of climate change in the form of an increased incidence of flooding, an urgent need exists to examine the factors that confer resilience to disaster-impacted localities to inform suitable disaster mitigation and adaptation policies for the future. Because of the complexity of community resilience and its interrelationship with individual resilience, a multi-method approach was used: a demographic study to assess community stability and functioning before and after the flood disaster, focus group interviews to obtain from community members their views on what supported them and their community resilience and a survey to generalise the interview findings. Our operating hypothesis was that individuals remaining in the town post-flood were likely to be resilient to the flood disaster. The demographic study results pointed to a resilient community after the floods as they reflected stability in population numbers and socio-economic indicators. The interviews and survey showed that individual resilience was promoted by social connectedness and a sense of place, a factor that was also negatively linked to the desire to relocate from the community. The use of structural equation modelling of our results provided verification of prior research findings about the role of sense of place in supporting individuals’ resilience. Results are discussed in the context of future climate change adaptation policy.     

The diversity of resilience: contributions from a social science perspective

The paper presents contributions to the widespread resilience paradigm from a social science perspective. Certain aspects of social systems, especially their symbolic dimension of meaning, need to be taken into account in the endeavor to research coupled social–ecological systems. Due to the symbolic dimension, disasters are defined as the failure of future expectations, and social resilience is defined as the social system property of avoiding or withstanding disasters. In relation to this, three capacities of social systems (adaptive, coping, and participative) that constitute resilience are presented. The adaptive capacity is the property of a system in which structures are modified to prevent future disasters, whereas the coping capacity is the system’s property of coping with calamitous processes that occurred in the past. The participative capacity is a measure of the system’s ability to change its own structures with regard to interventions by other systems, decreasing the system’s resilience. The concept of resilience provides important epistemological and political insights and can help overcome an orientation tied together with the concept of vulnerability that blocks social capacities for the mitigation of disasters.     

Research on Cultural Dimension of Natural Disaster:A Literature Review

Culture provides an important perspective to understand society. It is one of the key factors that impact how people behave themselves, interact with one another, view the world; what they believe and value. Therefore, a good understanding of public disaster awareness and disaster coping is impossible without taking their culture context into consideration. Since the 1960s, cultural dimension in disaster issues and/or disaster reduction practices has been attracting increasingly attention; many empirical or theoretical explorations have been reported. This review aims to give an overview of research progresses on how culture impacts public awareness and coping of disasters, and analyze the corresponding implications for disaster research and disaster reduction practice. This review summarizes that: ①There is unanimous consensus on public awareness and coping of disaster, which are affected by their culture context. While the knowledge about the ways and degree of impact is still limited, further research is warranted. In addition, more systematic and in-depth studies conducted from cross-cultural perspectives are needed to design to further explore the origins of variance in public disaster awareness and coping, and to what extent from cultural differences. ②Research on public awareness of disaster, emergency response and recovery indicated that culture might have double-side impacts on disaster management—sometimes cultural factors such as value, norm, custom and belief might lead to people more vulnerable than the others, even could be the root causes, but they could also be the source of people’s resilience to disaster in some cases. How to identify those positive and negative impacts, then develop cultural-oriented disaster management policy is a challenge issue, which need special attention. ③There is an increasing acknowledgement that local knowledge and disaster subculture could play an important role in public disaster coping, while the lacking of the awareness of the value of local knowledge, the change of lifestyle, and the impact from external culture pose a threat to the inheritance of some local, traditional disaster coping strategies. So exploring how to conserve, protect, identify, document them, then combine them with modern science and technology should and will be the focus of relevant studies. On the bases of these summarizations, in terms of cultural dimension of natural disaster research in China, systematic and in-depth studies are needed to explore how Chinese culture affects public disaster awareness and coping, what cultural resources can be used in disaster (risk) reduction and for building and enhancing disaster resilience, and how to use them.     

冰冻圈变化的适应框架与战略体系

冰冻圈变化的适应研究是冰冻圈科学领域的新兴研究方向, 是当今全球变化研究中自然科学与社会科学交叉融合研究的典型代表。文章阐述了冰冻圈变化适应研究的内容框架, 分析了目前国际冰冻圈变化适应研究的现状、 动态与发展趋势。在此基础上, 从理论探索与实践研究两方面, 详细介绍了中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究。在理论与方法研究方面, 中国冰冻圈变化适应研究2007年起步至今, 已建立了由冰冻圈变化影响（冰冻圈服务和冰冻圈灾害）-风险-恢复力-适应构成的中国冰冻圈变化适应研究理论与方法体系; 在实践研究方面, 从致利与致害两条线, 开展了冰冻圈服务与冰冻圈灾害风险研究; 从冰冻圈与人类圈交互视角, 开展了冰冻圈变化的脆弱性、 恢复力与适应典型案例研究。未来, 一方面需进一步完善和深化现有理论体系, 尤其是冰冻圈与人类圈相耦合的灾害风险、 脆弱性与适应定量评估方法; 另一方面, 既要针对不同冰冻圈问题, 加强案例研究, 又要拓展尺度, 深入宏观研究, 为国家和地方政府决策提供科学依据与对策建议。     

Climate disaster resilience of the education sector in Thua Thien Hue Province, Central Vietnam

Recognizing the importance of building disaster resilience for education sector, this study aims to develop a methodology to measure the level of educational resilience to cope with natural disasters and is then applied in Central Vietnam. The assessment tool in this paper is developed through a combination of climate disaster resilience indexes and the 16 tasks of Hyogo framework for action designed for education sector. It looks at five dimensions namely physical conditions, human resources, institutional issues, external relationships, and natural conditions, with each dimension characterized by three parameters and five variables. Findings from this study provide important insights into enhancing resilience of the education system in Thua Thien Hue at the provincial, local, and school levels. By giving the overall resilience situation, it can help policy-makers and practitioners in developing an effective plan to increase the level of educational resilience. In addition, it provides the School Management Board with a means to assess the school??s resilience level and set out priorities that need to be focused on with regard to the improvement of school safety and disaster risk reduction education.     

Using Lego NXT to explore scientific literacy in disaster prevention and rescue systems

This study explores the effectiveness of disaster prevention programs using NXT control techniques. The purpose of the cultivation of scientific literacy is to develop a more rational, scientific perspective on the current social changes and the impact of natural disasters. Using NXT as an effective scientific tool to support science education, we can further explore science education for the development of scientific literacy. The expectation confirmation model and technology acceptance model are used to explain the effect of technology products on the user??s satisfaction and intention. However, for the interpretation of scientific literacy, there is a lack of environmental and cognitive factors. So we combine social cognitive theory with social and scientific theories in our exploration of the use of NXT for the dominant effect of scientific literacy. The results demonstrate that users?? self-efficacy and the ease of use of NXT have low significance on use of scientific tools, but, at the end, it did not affect the user wishes. The interactions of NXT features and climate are the main causes of enhanced user intentions. Therefore, environmental factors are identified as an important reason for the development of scientific literacy. The results of this study on scientific literacy stimulate more directions for discussion.     

Spatial and temporal evolution of community resilience to natural hazards in the coastal areas of China

With the accelerating progress of industrialization, urbanization and population growth in recent decades, community resilience, the ability of communities to function effectively and recover successfully in the aftermath of disasters and shocks, has received great attentions. A number of studies had been conducted focusing on community resilience. This article applied community resilience framework to the coastal areas of China, which are the most densely populated and economically developed areas in China with the most frequent marine disasters. City-level social and economic data were used to construct a community resilience index (CRI). Using factor analysis and the global principal component analysis method, 55 city-level indexes were reduced into 15 factors that explain 73.99% of the variance. Getis–Ord G* Statistics were used to depict the high-value clusters and low-value clusters of the CRI. Clearly identified spatial and temporal variations of the CRI showed that both the overall level and regional differences of the CRI increased from 2003 to 2013; the overall spatial agglomeration characteristic of community resilience was not significant. Our findings also highlighted the key elements to improving community resilience: a robust and developed economic system; excellent education programs and training to improve consciousness on disaster prevention and mitigation; adequate investment on critical infrastructure, especially transportation and communication; proper environmental policies to protect ecosystems and water rouses; and extra attention and disaster risk budgets for vulnerable populations.     

Partnership approach to disaster management in Bangladesh: a critical policy assessment

The geographic location of Bangladesh at the confluence of the three mighty river systems of the world renders her one of the most vulnerable places to natural disasters. Human-induced climate change exacerbates the problem. This study shows that the Government of Bangladesh has already established a multi-layered institutional mechanism for disaster management, with formal recognition of the role of various stakeholders. Historically, NGOs and other informal support mechanisms in the country also have made significant contributions during and after disaster recovery. Despite the presence of some strengths, such as long experience in disaster response and recovery, the people’s resilience, and donor support, the current management strategies suffer from a host of policy and institutional weaknesses. Most prominent is the absence of a functioning partnership among the stakeholders within these formal set-ups. What is lacking is the development and embodiment of a culture of collective decision-making in planning, in resource sharing, and in implementing disaster management policies and programs in an integrated and transparent way. The paper suggests a partnership framework to implement prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery phases of disaster management.     

Re-specifying disaster risk: concepts,methods, and models

The discussion on the social-ecological dimensions of hazards is constantly evolving. This paper explores the trajectory of research relating to hazards and their impact on vulnerable human populations. Interpretations of disaster risk have included estimating losses in terms of human life and property, and analyzing the social mechanisms in place that exacerbate or mitigate a population’s sensitivity to hazard events. In keeping with recent trends in research relating to disaster risk, the paper focuses on the social dimension of vulnerability and the contribution of social structures and relationships in building community resilience. Institutional frameworks and policies in particular determine the quantity and quality of resources and services available to people that contribute to resilience over time. The hazard-risk-location-model (HRLM) is proposed that is based on re-specifying disaster risk in terms of exposure and coping ability to capture the focus on social vulnerability and resilience. The framework of the HRLM incorporates the following components: (1) linkages within existing social capital; (2) spatial variation in social and institutional frameworks; (3) positive and negative feedbacks; and (4) characteristics of the hazard event. The model contributes to the range of place-based assessments designed to address the human-environmental impacts of hazards and disasters.     

Environmental disasters in social context: toward a preventive and precautionary approach

The paper examines relations between natural hazards and social conditions in disaster, and problems of their integration in disaster management. This must be done against a background of ever-increasing numbers of disasters. The initiating roles and impacts of environmental hazards are acknowledged. However, expanding losses are not explained by increased geophysical risks. To the extent that scientific knowledge or engineering and planning skills are involved, the problems seem more one of (in)effective deployment than major deficiencies. Social analyses suggest the scope of today’s disasters follows primarily from greater concentrations of vulnerable people, exposed in dangerous situations, and lacking adequate protections. Firstly, the question of disaster causality is revisited as a problem of damage diagnostics. A basis is developed from the findings of formal disaster inquiries. Despite their limitations, well-conducted inquiries offer unusually comprehensive anatomies of the social and physical conditions of disasters. They demonstrate and trace out the interplay of environmental, societal, technological, and institutional components of emergencies. In the examples described, environmental hazards are investigated in great detail. Nevertheless, societal preconditions are shown to be more critical. Inadequacies in emergency preparedness, performance, and post-disaster response are highlighted, and for those most at risk. The conclusions present major challenges for the agent-specific view of disasters, and for disaster management preoccupied with natural forces, uncertainty, and emergency responses. Rather, a view of disaster causality emerges emphasizing avoidable failures of preventive, protective, and intervention measures. Evidence is cited to show this is increasingly relevant in so-called natural disasters lacking such inquiries. The discussion considers the relevance of a preventive and precautionary approach in this context. The histories of accident, disease, fire, and crime prevention support arguments for greater attention to context-specific environmental and societal aspects of risk. Aligning disaster management more closely with preventive priorities depends upon a much greater focus on people, places, and livelihoods most at risk, reversing the social processes that put them at risk. It requires listening to their voices and concerns, recognizing and bolstering their resilience. Much more can and should be done to disseminate the protections, from building regulations to insurance, that actually do save so many others in the disasters that happen. As such, the case for greater attention to issues of governance and social justice is strengthened.     

自然灾害风险初议

自然灾害风险的研究与评价是制定减灾对策、土地利用规划、社会发展与经济建设规划及保险展业的基础工作。自然灾害风险是灾害科学的前沿性研究课题。本文对自然灾害风险的特点、分类、形成原因、构成要素、结构层次、分析方法和研究风险的基本步骤进行了初步的讨论,以期在推动我国自然灾害风险研究中起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

Source inversion and numerical simulation of 2017 <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Subscript>w</Subscript> 8.1 Mexico earthquake tsunami

Post-disaster social recovery remains the least understood of the disaster phases despite increased risks of extreme events leading to disasters due to climate change. This paper contributes to advance this knowledge by focusing on the disaster recovery process of the Australian coastal town of Cardwell which was affected by category 4/5 Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2011. Drawing on empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews with Cardwell residents post-Yasi, it examines issues related to social recovery in the first year of the disaster and 2 years later. Key findings discuss the role played by community members, volunteers and state actors in Cardwell’s post-disaster social recovery, especially with respect to how current disaster risk management trends based on self-reliance and shared responsibility unfolded in the recovery phase. Lessons learnt concerning disaster recovery governance are then extracted to inform policy implementation for disaster risk management to support social recovery and enhance disaster resilience in the light of climate change.     

Spatial modelling of soil erosion potential in a mountainous watershed of South-eastern Serbia

This study employed genetic adaptive neural networks in the classification of high-resolution satellite images from which data related to surface conditions in mountainous areas of Taiwan were derived. Principal component analysis was then used to extract factors associated with the threat of natural disaster, and logistic regression was used to compute the probability of disaster occurrence. Through field surveys, interviews with district officials and a review of relevant literature, the probability of a sediment disaster was estimated as well as the vulnerability of the villages concerned and the degree to which these villages were prepared, to construct a risk evaluation model. A geographic information system was used to plot regional risk maps as a means to enhance the safety of residents in the study area. The risk assessment model can be used by authorities to make provisions for high-risk areas, to reduce the number of casualties and social costs of sediment disasters.     

灾害恢复力研究进展综述

自20世纪以来,随着人口、资源与环境矛盾的日益加深,全球各区域的自然灾害成灾次数、经济损失和受灾人口明显增多,自然灾害灾情不断上升,灾害风险已经成为可持续发展的最大障碍。风险、脆弱性、恢复力和适应性相关的灾害综合管理和减灾作为实施可持续发展的重要途径,已被学术界、经济与社会界予以高度重视。在国际减灾十年（IDNDR）活动、国际减灾战略（ISDR）的相继实施的大背景下,国内外学者兴起了研究灾害脆弱性和恢复力的新一轮热潮。目前国内外对承灾体脆弱性的研究较多,但对于灾害恢复力的恢复力研究才刚刚起步,虽然承灾体的恢复力建设近年来也逐渐被认识到是减灾行动中的一个重要环节。20世纪70年代开始,恢复力这一概念首先从力学被引入生态领域,目前,它已经成为生态、灾害和气候变化等多个学科共同关注的对象。对恢复力的概念发展和国内外目前的研究动态进行了较全面的综述,论述了灾害恢复力的科学价值和重要性,分析了灾害脆弱性与灾害恢复力的关系,总结了恢复力评估的主要方法、特点和难点,并在此基础上对灾害恢复力未来研究进行了展望,提出了研究的关键问题并建议进行更深入的研究。     

自然灾害风险防控和应急救援平台构建与实践

为了适应当前常态减灾与非常态救灾情景下信息化管理的深度应用,提出一种面向自然灾害突发事件应对过程的业务平台的设计方案。采用数据交换方法,实现多部门之间的信息共享;建立自然灾害综合数据库,实现统一数据源管理和实时更新;采用智能移动终端推送自然灾害信息,实现政府-社会-公众多元协同;基于网络地理信息系统实时显示自然灾害风险状况,实现自然灾害风险监测预警、综合研判和应急指挥应用。该平台有效提升了自然灾害风险防控的管理水平和应急管理的工作效率,真正实现了跨领域、多灾种、全流程的自然灾害风险闭环管理和精准管控的目标。