climate change and local level disaster risk reduction …huardda/articles/prabhakar09.pdf ·...

Climate change and local level disaster risk reductionplanning: need, opportunities and challenges

S. V. R. K. Prabhakar & Ancha Srinivasan & Rajib Shaw

Received: 23 August 2007 /Accepted: 13 May 2008 /Published online: 13 June 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract The field of climate change is full of uncertainties that are limiting strategicdisaster risk reduction planning. In this paper, however, we argued that there is lot to dobefore we get our hands on reliable estimates of future climate change impacts. It includesbringing together different stakeholders in a framework suggested in this paper, developingcase studies that reflect long-term local impacts of climate change, capacity building oflocal stakeholders that enables them to take decisions under uncertainty etc. We proposed asimple scheme that brings together climate, disaster and policy community together to starta dialogue in a run-up to understanding wider aspects of long-term risk reduction at locallevel. Strategic thinking, which has only been restricted to national and regional planning todate, needs to be inculcated in local level disaster risk reduction and policy personnel aswell. There is a need to move from the attitude of considering local level players as‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ for which developing a network of self learning andevolving organizations are required at the local level.

Keywords Local disaster risk reduction planning . Climate change . Strategic planning .

Uncertainty . Climate task group

AbbreviationsAWWA American Water Works AssociationCRED Center for Research on Epidemiology of DisastersCTG Climate task groupGHG Greenhouse GasesIPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2009) 14:7–33DOI 10.1007/s11027-008-9147-4

S. V. R. K. Prabhakar : R. ShawGraduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

S. V. R. K. Prabhakar (*) : A. SrinivasanInstitute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), 2108-11, Kamiyamaguchi, Hayama,Kanagawa 240-0115, Japane-mail: [email protected]

UK CIP United Kingdom Climate Impacts ProgramUNDP APF United Nations Development Program Adaptation

Policy Framework

The linkage between development and disasters is well known (Wisner et al. 2004; Oteroand Marti 1995; Stenchion 1997; Pelling 2003a; McEntire 2004; UNDP 2004). Climatechange has brought another dimension to the development (Denton et al. 2002; McCarthyet al. 2001; Michael 2003; Richards 2003). The Brundtland Report identified climatechange as one of the three problems bearing on our survival way back in 1987 (WorldCommission on Environment and Development 1987). The Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) has indicated that climate change will interact at all scales andsectors including disaster risk (page 70, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change2007b). The IPCC also reported an increase in global atmospheric temperature by 0.74°C inthe past 100 years with associated changes in precipitation (Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change 2007a). There are evidences for longer droughts in tropics and subtropics,increasing frequency of heavy rainfall events on most land areas and for increasing intensityof tropical cyclones in North Atlantic. These changes are expected to have multi-foldimpacts in the form of floods and droughts in various parts of the world. The extremeevents can be devastating for the developing countries which have less capacity to adapt(Mendelsohn and Dinar 1999; Ravindranath and Sathaye 2002; Winkler 2005; Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007a). This establishes an undeniable unholy alliancebetween climate change, disasters, and development. This calls for better understanding theimpacts of climate change in terms of disasters and what it means to disaster riskmanagement professionals and policy makers.

Mitigation and adaptation approaches were devised to address the problem of climatechange (McCarthy et al. 2001). While mitigation aims at reducing greenhouse gasemissions, adaptation aims at reducing current and future impacts of climate change.Adaptation has gained much importance due to the fact that the already caused damage tothe global environment would continue to show impacts long time into the future,irrespective of the mitigation practices taken up and implemented at present (Smithers andSmit 1997). Adaptation enhances the capacity of people and governments to reduce climatechange impacts (Tompkins and Adger 2003). However, there have also been cautions fornot investing heavily in adaptation as such investments may lead to mal-adaptations andunsustainable development (Kates 2000; Adger et al. 2003). In the context of climatechange, disaster risk management is considered as an adaptation option (Smit andPilifosova 2001; Vulnerability and Adaptation Resource Group 2006). Disaster riskmanagement has also been seen as a way to sustainable development (Boulle et al. 1997;Smit and Pilifosova 2001; Yodmani 2001). The linkage between climate change anddisaster risk reduction was subject of intensive formal and informal debates at the WorldConference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) (Vulnerability and Adaptation Resource Group2006). In addition, the ‘Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilienceof Nations and Communities to Disasters’ identified climate change as one of the threatsposing the world future and identified disaster risk management planning as one of the keypoints of entry to tackle the climate change threats (United Nations International Strategyfor Disaster Reduction 2005). In the words of the Framework:

Promote the integration of risk reduction associated with existing climate variability andfuture climate change into strategies for the reduction of disaster risk and adaptation to

8 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2009) 14:7–33

climate change, which would include the clear identification of climate related disasterrisks, the design of specific risk reduction measures and an improved and routine use ofclimate risk information by planners, engineers and other decision-makers.

Hence, in this paper, bearing in mind the disaster risk management as an adaptationissue, we looked at the problems in the existing disaster risk management planning,presented a simple scheme that we believe would make a beginning in mainstreamingclimate change concerns in disaster risk reduction, and discussed possible limitations forrealizing the scheme to the full satisfaction. We first argued that there is a need for differentapproach in disaster risk management due to new dimension brought by climate change andproblems with the existing disaster risk management planning. Subsequently, we proposeda scheme for incorporating climate change concerns in disaster risk management planningand factors to be considered for such mainstreaming.

1 Need for a different approach in disaster risk management now

Disaster risk management refers to the systematic management of administrative decisions,organization, operational skills and abilities to implement policies, strategies and copingcapacities of the society or individuals to lessen the impacts of natural and relatedenvironmental and technological hazards (United Nations Development Program 2004).Disaster risk management planning involves understanding hazards, vulnerabilities andpotential losses and developing appropriate preparedness and mitigation strategies tomitigate such losses. Disaster risk management encompasses complete realm of disasterrelated activities. Disaster management is not a new subject for many nations. While somenations have been responding to disasters since time immemorial some others wereintegrating disaster risk management concerns in various developmental programs withvaried degree of success. Developed nations have been relatively successful on this frontdue to their access to better technological and financial resources than the developing andunderdeveloped nations. There is a need to re-look at the existing disaster risk reductionapproaches due to new risks brought by climate change and due to problems in the existingrisk management approaches. In this section, we elaborated these two aspects.

1.1 Climate change has brought new risks

One of the important reasons that could be put forward is that climate change has potentialto bring considerable change in the hazard profile and its interaction with the dynamicvulnerability and risk profiles of countries. It includes change in the kind of disaster that aregion is vulnerable to (e.g. from no disasters in the past to more disaster events), change intype of hazards (e.g. from more floods to more droughts) or change in hazard intensitiesand magnitudes. The debate on impacts of climate change vis-à-vis disasters conclusivelyestablish the possibility of rise of extreme weather events resulting in disasters due toincreased energy within climate system. There are numerous examples stating disasterrelated impacts such as typhoons and hurricanes (Walsh 2004; Emanual 2005; Trenberth2005; Landeas et al. 2006); floods (Ely et al. 1993; Whetton et al. 1993; Loukas and Ouick1999; Schreider et al. 2000; Milly et al. 2002); droughts (Le Houerou 1996; Qian and Zhu2001; King 2004; Wood et al. 2004); sea level rise (Titus et al. 1991; Permetta 1992;Gornitz 1995) and health hazards (Haines et al. 2000; Patz et al. 2000; Reiter 2001; Kovatsand Haines 2005) due to climate change. It shows that the hydro-met disasters are mostly

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2009) 14:7–33 9

influenced due to their close linkage with the hydrological cycle which is consecutivelyclosely linked with global atmospheric circulations and heat balance dynamics (Allen andIngram 2002; Helmer and Hilhorst 2006). Many of these impacts may not be uniformacross spatial and temporal scales (McCarthy et al. 2001).

There is a clear evidence for growing trend of disasters undermining the disastermanagement capacities of countries. The data available from the Center for Research onEpidemiology of Disasters reveals a staggering increase in number of hydro-met disastersduring the period of 1900 to 2006 (CRED 2007), though it was not clear if it was mainlydue to increase in hydro-met events or due to more human systems coming under the wayof the same number of hydro-met events. During this period, the number of registeredhydro-met disasters had risen from single digit number to nearly 343 per year withcorresponding increase in the number of people affected. Though the number of lives lostdoes not follow the similar trend, the economic losses out of these disasters had risen tonearly USD 16,338 millions per year with a peak in 2004 (Fig. 1). According to MunichRe, the frequency of hydro-meteorological disasters has increased between 1960 and 2005(Munich Re 2007). There was apprehension that the impacts felt till-to-date are not yetsevere and that the consequences are likely to be incremental and cumulative (Burton et al.2002). Examining some of the highly disaster prone countries gives an indication ofchanges happening in their disaster profiles (Fig. 2; CRED 2007). For example, amongother disasters, the number of drought events had raised during recent times in Vietnam.Similar rise could be seen in the number of extreme temperature events in India. There wasa steep increase in number of floods in both the countries.

Surprises in terms of extreme events have become common during recent years. Theyear 2004 proved to be most devastating for Japan as ten intense typhoons landed in thesame year, while the earlier record used to be landing of 6 typhoons in 1990 and 1993,surprising many (Government of Ehime Prefecture 2005; Yatsuka 2006). Climate changewas attributed to this behavior (Japan Meteorological Agency 2004). The year 2004 alsosaw many other natural disasters including drought like conditions in the Indian sub-

Fig. 1 Number of natural disasters and the economic losses since 1900 (CRED 2007)


continent, devastating floods in South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal andPakistan; typhoon in Philippines and a series of hurricanes in Florida reflecting impacts ofchanging climate (Asian Economic News 2005). The hurricane Katrina and Rita whichoccurred in August and September 2005 respectively further raise the debate on theirlinkage with the global climate change (Kluger 2005; Anthes et al. 2006), though there are

Fig. 2 Five-year moving averages of number of hydro-met disasters in a Vietnam and b India (CRED 2007)


no enough evidences to establish the link as a fact. In the case of hurricane Katrina, the riskbeing known couldn’t make much difference in terms of how quickly the local residentsand governments could react and reduce the impacts (Travis 2005). This shows how humandesigned physical and social protection systems could fail when a catastrophic event haveto occur (Bohannon and Enserink 2005).

While attributing all the above changes only to climate change is a much debated issue,it is safe enough to conclude that the disaster profile of countries is changing for sure. Thisaffirms the need for the disaster management and developmental world to address thegrowing threats in its planning as they could undermine the development of nations andcommunities. It is not only about more emphasis on disaster risk management but alsoabout how differently it should be done than before.

1.2 Problems with the existing disaster risk management planning

Considerable amount of efforts have gone into understanding disaster risks; thanks to themajor disasters those struck the humanity from time to time acting as reminders (Alexander1997; McGranahan et al. 2001; Pelling 2003b; Wisner et al. 2004). One of the majorapproaches of disaster risk reduction is through pragmatic disaster risk managementplanning (Salter 1997; Christoplos et al. 2001). The disaster risk management plans aredeveloped by identifying local hazards, risks, vulnerabilities, and capacities leading toplanned interventions by the governments, corporations and communities to reduce disastervulnerabilities and risks while enhancing the capacities. The present day disaster riskmanagement planning largely aim at reducing the current disaster risks, i.e. those risksemanating out of current hazards and vulnerabilities. Often, these risk assessments heavilyrely on the historical data of hazards at a given location (Ferrier and Haque 2003; Dilley2005). However, the future is not always the repetition of the past (Quarantelli 1996).Moreover, the assessments from historical data often fail to look into the futurevulnerabilities and risks and hence cannot incorporate them in terms of added strength in theplan. Many times, the hazard assessments fail to consider the changing frequencies andmagnitudes of disasters in their fine details. We are also limited by our understanding on whatproportion of our current vulnerabilities and risks are contributed by the climate change thougha broad conclusion is possible that the risks assessed at a given point of time are results ofinteraction between past climate change impacts and vulnerabilities. It should be noted that thecurrent and future risks are equally important for the risk management professionals as they aimat the welfare of the society from the angle of risks and sustainability. Thomalla et al. (2006)tried to compare the contexts of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation andemphasized that the disaster risk management community focus more on the current riskswhile the climate change experts look more into the future risks. Vulnerabilities to naturalhazards will continue to increase unless these two communities come together. It is importantthat these two communities talk to each other and arrive at a functional plan of disaster riskreduction that reasonably considers the future risks as well.

One of the important questions to be asked is what makes a disaster risk managementplan to work even in a climate change scenario or what is termed as abrupt climate change(Alley et al. 2003). It has been agreed that the current responses to disasters will no longerbe sufficient in a changed climate (Sperling and Szekely 2005a). Adaptation to currentclimate variability has also been suggested as an additional way to approach adaptation tolong-term climate change (Burton 1997). Further, it was suggested to identify ‘win–win’ or‘no regrets’ measures that addresses the current vulnerabilities (Schipper and Pelling 2006).The possible best win–win measures could be to tighten the disaster risk management


systems by identifying loopholes and improving upon them while continuously be in touchwith developments in risk projection methodologies.

Climate change can bring two important dimensions to the risk. The Fig. 3 shows theinteraction of hazard (circle A) and vulnerability (circle B) domains. Intersect of both,shown as C, represents the proportion of current risks dealt by the current disaster riskmanagement planning. The figure highlights that the current disaster risk managementplanning does not cover entire vulnerabilities at any given point of time due to limitationswith the current risk assessments. While this is the static representation of the hazard, riskand vulnerabilities; the Fig. 4 shows the progression of risk over the time and successivedisaster management planning and revisions as bars. The figure depicts that thevulnerabilities are dynamic, applicable universally, and ever increasing (McEntire 2001)in some parts of the world as it depends on the effectiveness of human interventions as aresponse. As vulnerabilities may grow continuously in some locations, either in linear orexponential manner as there are no clear assessments available on risk progression in theavailable literature, as a result of climate change and many other dynamic pressures, adisaster management plan prepared based on a risk assessment done at X1 point of timeremains static during X1–X2 while disaster risks could continue to grow. This is because ofthe fact that the vulnerabilities are difficult to assess and assessments don’t consider thegrowing risks in future (Lewis 1999; Cardona 2004). This indicates that the Plan 2 (P2) willsoon be negligent of the growing vulnerabilities and risks till it is revised into Plan 3 (P3)and so on (shaded area in Fig. 4). Regular revision of hazard and vulnerabilities are adviseddue to the dynamic nature of the risk (Dilley 2006). Some have suggested a regular reviewof once in a year while others have suggested to revise the plan after a major disaster(Kuban and MacKenzie-Carey 2001; Government of India 2005; Islamic Republic ofAfghanistan 2005). However, regular revision of disaster management plans is far fromreality in many countries as hazard and vulnerability assessments are done when funds areavailable through a project and any revision is not possible after the termination of theproject. It was reported that many revisions were done only after a major disaster has struck

Fig. 3 Domain of different disaster management plans considering the current and future climate changerisks


(Pacific Disaster Center 2005a). This argument is supported by suggestions made by thepost-disaster assessment committees (Pacific Disaster Center 2005b; Government of HyogoPrefecture 2006). Part of the problems seems to rest with the financial and other resourcesneeded to undertake such regular revisions as well as lack of strict enforcement ofguidelines in place (Bender 1991).

For a sustainable risk reduction, disaster risk management planning should deal withcurrent and future risks. As for a plan’s effectiveness in dealing with current risks, the plancould be judged against a set of basic principles governing disaster risk managementplanning such as hazard, risk and vulnerability assessment, better coordination, prepared-ness and response measures as these basic principles are sound in considering current risks(Quarantelli 1988; Quarantelli 1997a, b). As for assessing the robustness of a plan towardsfuture risks, since knowing future risks involves uncertainty, we suggest that the plan maybe assessed for its redundancy. It is well known that the redundancy could strengthen adisaster management plan against unforeseen risks such as those caused by the climatechange. Let us look at the redundancy characteristic a little deeper. The redundancy in adisaster management plan is shown in the form of shaded area in Fig. 5. The redundancyindicates that the disaster management plans are prepared and implemented with morestrength than required to deal with the perceived and assessed risks at a given point of time.If we introduce redundancy in Plan 2 (P2), which is the shaded area in Fig. 5, the plan’svalidity in terms of dealing with the growing risks could be enhanced for a longer duration.The hypothesis is that the redundancy can enhance the plan’s robustness in dealing withclimate change related uncertainties especially the extreme events as climate change wassuggested to influence the tails of weather distributions if a significant shift in the means isto be expected (Burton 1997).

The amount of redundancy a disaster risk management plan could incorporate dependson various factors such as the rate at which risks are assumed to grow and availability offinancial, human and technological resources since incorporation of redundancy meansadditional demand for these resources. A close observation of global and regionalprojections of climate change may help in deciding the redundancy one may want toincorporate at the local level though such incorporations are solely qualitative decisions and

Fig. 4 Growing risks and theprocess of continuous disasterrisk management planning.Shaded areas denote uncoveredrisks


pose the risk of being questioned for the decisions taken at a later point of time. Suchdecisions may be widely supported when the disaster risk management planning addressessome critical sectors. Redundancy can bring lots of benefits to the plan and disaster riskmanagers. Added redundancy means lesser frequent revisions and updating of the plans,more reliability, and effectiveness leading to sustainable risk reduction. However, one needto be cautious in overweighing this option in policy decisions as a balanced approach wascalled for (Kates 2000). In the next section, we provided a simple scheme that facilitatesdecisions like these in the context of climate change.

2 A scheme for incorporating climate change concerns in disasterrisk management planning

One of the best ways to mainstream climate change concerns in disaster risk managementplanning is to understand current and future possible impacts and address them indevelopmental and risk reduction planning. For this, one need to look at a range of climatescenarios generated and overlay them with future socio-economic scenarios to obtain futurerisks (Jones and Mearns 2005). However, there are limitations such as lack of availability ofdependable high-resolution climate change scenarios and unaddressed uncertainties even inbest available scenarios and projections (Burton 1997; Jones 2000). Hence, there is a needto look for alternative means of addressing uncertain climate risks. One of the wayssuggested was to identify no-regret or win–win options as these options would hold goodover a range of climate change scenarios in reducing the vulnerabilities (Smith et al. 1996;Klein and Maciver 1999; Wheaton and Maciver 1999; Lomborg 2007). Some authors havesuggested better preparedness as important (Bruce et al. 1999; Smit and Pilifosova 2001;Helmer 2006). Also, questions often arise on how different and how better the preparednessshould be from the preparedness which has been advised by many disaster managementprofessionals (Paton et al. 2003). In addition to these challenges, the media coverage onclimate change has been on rise though in a cyclical fashion (McComas 1999; Fortner et al.2000; Shanahan 2000). As a result, public interest and perception of climate change hasbeen influenced including raising anxieties on extreme events (Trumbo 1999; Leiserowitz2005). Hence, it would be in the interest of disaster risk managers to know implications of

Fig. 5 Shaded areas showingredundancy built in consecutivedisaster risk management plans


climate change for their region in general and on how they can deal with such impacts inparticular so as to either alley such extreme fears of climate change impacts or to design fora better preparedness.

The ‘UNDP Adaptation Policy Frameworks (APF) for Climate Change’ and ‘UKClimate Impacts Program Climate adaptation: Risk, uncertainty and Decision-makingFramework’ provide ample ground for adaptation policy makers for taking adaptationdecisions (Willows and Connell 2003; Lim and Spanger-Siegfried 2005). These frame-works could be used in disaster risk management planning as well. However, we could notfind suitable example to cite a disaster risk management planning process that drew fromthese advancements. While the UNDP APF is considered as more elaborate and complexprocess aimed at policy makers and project formulators, the UK CIP decision framework issimpler and covers broadly the uncertainty that one may face while taking decisions relatedto those sectors which are impacted by climate change. We presented the comparison ofboth the frameworks in Table 1. However, both frameworks cannot be used by the locallevel disaster risk management personnel and policy makers who often do not have accessto information as well as tools necessary to implement such elaborate frameworks. Thiscalls for a simpler framework, which could go as a subset of these sophisticatedframeworks, for local level disaster managers and policy making personnel. In this section,we provided a simple framework for mainstreaming climate change concerns in local leveldisaster risk management process.

We propose that, for any mainstreaming to happen, it is important for the local disasterrisk managers and other stakeholders to understand what national and regional climatechange assessments mean for the scales at which these personnel operate. Because thesepersonnel work at local scale (city, group of villages etc.) and often lack the perspective ofclimate and long-term implications of climate change, it is essential that a local ClimateTask Group (CTG) is established. The CTG should consist of personnel from disaster riskmanagement, climate and atmospheric and policy making domains (OBrien et al. 2006).Such a group is necessary as the disaster management personnel alone cannot obtain andinfer the often challenging climate information available from global and regional climatechange studies and reports. However, the required personnel may not always be available atthe administrative scale under consideration (e.g. small and medium cities and institutions).Under those circumstances, cross-scale collaboration becomes necessary. There may besimilar groups existing for monitoring drought or flood conditions, similar to the DroughtMonitoring Center established in Karnataka State of India or Flood Management Boards inVietnam which are provided with capacities to assess and monitor local drought and floodsituations (Imamura and To 1997; Samra 2004). These Centers and Boards could form agood beginning as they have capacities such as data processing that are relevant for theoperation of CTG. In addition to its role in disaster risk reduction planning, the CTG canalso play a vital role in integrating disaster and climate risk reduction aspects indevelopmental planning as well. For example, the representative of CTG could be amember in local level development committees similar to the District DevelopmentCommittees and Village Watershed Committees established in India. Such integrationwould enable free flow of information.

The next step is to identify the region’s vulnerabilities and how climate change mayinfluence those vulnerabilities (Thomalla et al. 2006). This brings the crucial need foridentification of climate change impacts in a region which are currently available at globaland regional scales. Often, such assessments are not reliable for taking concrete decisionsthose will have local long-term financial and social implications. Hence, a structured butsimple decision making scheme is required to support the local level decision making


process. A simple scheme has been presented in Fig. 6. Please note that the scheme canonly direct one to qualitatively assess the possible climate change impacts and it is beyondits jurisdiction to quantify impacts.

The regional climate change impacts and projections may be obtained from agenciessuch as Project Management Cells established by national governments, usually under theaegis of Ministry of Environment, which are assigned with the responsibility of producing

Table 1 Comparison of UNDP APF and UKCIP climate adaptation frameworks

S no. Element ofcomparison

UNDP adaptation policy framework UKCIP climate adaptation framework

1 Objective To guide studies, projects, planning andpolicy exercises (collectively calledprojects) towards identification ofappropriate adaptation strategies, policiesand measures and integration of same intolocal, sector specific and nationaldevelopmental planning

To take account of the risk and uncertaintyassociated with climate variability andchange; and to identify and appraisemeasures to mitigate the impact or exploitthe opportunities presented by futureclimate change i.e. to identify goodadaptation options

2 Target audience Primarily designed for technical analysts,climate project coordinators anddevelopers and climate change policymakers

Particularly relevant to decision makersand their advisors who work in climatesensitive sectors, who manage the climaterelated consequences and whosedecisions are vulnerable to climate risks

3 Number ofstages

Five main components and twocrosscutting processes

Eight stages grouped into four

4 Complexity The assessment heavily relies uponavailable data on various climateparameters and developmental indicators

While depends on model outcomes andscenarios, it gives due emphasis on otherkinds of techniques such as checklists,consultation processes, pedigree analysis etc

5 Methods andtools

A mix of quantitative analytical andqualitative tools is used. Uses modeloutputs in assessing the future climaterisks

Uses a mix of qualitative and quantitativemethods and tools. It lists various tools tobe used at every decision making steplisted in the methodology

6 Practicality Practical though complex process requiringthorough understanding of variousconcepts, methods and tools

Practical approach with more focus ondecision making process. Still far fromreach of the local level personnel

7 Dealing withuncertainty

Deals with uncertainty while assessing thefuture risks and using the same in APF

The process is designed in such a way thatthe uncertainty is discussed and dealtwith at all most all the stages of decisionmaking process

8 Flexibility Provides sufficient flexibility by providingoptions such as hazard-based approach,vulnerability-based approach, adaptive-capacity approach, and policy-basedapproach

The process is more a risk based approachand provides sufficient flexibility indecision making process

9 Levels covered Covers both local level and national levelsin the decision making process

Covers both local level and national levelsin the decision making process

10 Intendedoutcomes

Policy development, integratedassessments, and project formulations

Provide answers to questions such as whatkind of adaptation decisions can be takenand when in a changing climate with dueemphasis on uncertainty

11 Advised userlevel

For advanced users and professionals For those with elaborate understanding ofprinciples underlying climatevulnerability and risk assessments


National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA, for Least Developed Countries) orNational Communications submitted to UNFCCC (both Annex I and Non-Annex I parties)depending on the country under question. These reports state the existing knowledge onclimate change impacts and the mitigation and adaptation programs implemented by thegovernments to deal with the climate change. Digging down from these national andregional reports, one could also obtain information from specific reports interfacingscientific and policy realms produced by the national and regional institutions. This all mayseem to be an up-hill task for a local level disaster risk manager as availability of suchinformation is scanty and daunting. However, it will be easy for the CTG as it has a groupof experts who have better understanding on the subject.

Once national and regional projections are obtained, a 1- or 2-day brainstorming sessionmay be useful to list all those impacts the location under question may experience. Whileidentifying these specific impacts, careful consideration may be given to the specificcircumstances or characteristics the location may have. These special circumstances couldinclude strengths such as vicinity to perennial water sources, soil types those could reducethe drought impacts, better natural drainage that could avoid inundation of water for longduration etc and vulnerabilities such as deeper water tables, poor drainage conditions, lackof irrigation facilities etc. By such consideration, one will be able to discern whether or notobserved and projected impacts stay valid to the region in question in entirety or in part.This is also the stage where questions related to how a particular impact translates intodisaster risk management. For this, identification of what is called ‘coupling points’ isnecessary. The Fig. 7 depicts various stages involved in disaster risk management and‘coupling points’ where climate change may have influence. It can be seen that almost allstages of disaster risk management cycle could be targeted to mainstream the climatechange concerns.

Fig. 6 Flow-diagram of steps to be followed by the Climate Task Group to mainstream climate changeconsiderations in developmental and risk reduction plans and policies


The discussants could ask certain questions in order to identify the above couplingpoints. The Table 2 presents various questions one could ask while identifying the couplingpoints. These questions enable various functionaries to identify climate change as a factorwhile planning for interventions. Once local impacts are identified and all the stakeholdersagree upon them, it is time to classify them according to short-term and long-term impactsand identify appropriate risk reduction measures. Consultation process could also include

Fig. 7 Disaster management cycle (Tearfund 1999) and climate change coupling points that give an insighton what should be considered while planning for risk reduction

Table 2 Questions to be asked while integrating climate change concerns into disaster risk management

S no. Stage in disastermanagement cycle

Questions to be asked

1 Disaster event Is this disaster a regular feature in that location?Is there a shift in disaster profile of the region?Ha7s there been a shift in the intensity and magnitude of the disaster?Was there any change in the nature of impacts that reflected a change in localvulnerabilities?

Has there been any change in the impacts?Were the vulnerabilities and risks changed from previous disaster events ofsimilar intensity and magnitude?

2 Relief phase Is the previously planned relief preparedness sufficient?What are the gaps in capacities at this phase?

3 Rehabilitation andreconstruction

Does the rehabilitation and reconstruction requirements are growingcontinuously?

What is the rate of such increments?How such rehabilitation investments could be met in future?What are gaps in capacities at this phase?Does the increased needs correspond to the risks?

4 Mitigation What are the climate vulnerabilities of the region?What mitigation measures worked and what measures didn’t work in the light ofincreasing intensities of disasters?

Are the mitigation measures increasingly becoming inadequate?Is there any need for enhancing design standards to face future threats?What are gaps in capacities at this phase?

5 Preparedness Was the existing level of preparedness sufficient?What elements of preparedness failed to respond to the unexpected events?


identification of resources required such as capacity building needed to handle the newinterventions, finances required and its source and threats due to the decisions made underuncertainty. It is important for the so drafted strategy to explicitly acknowledge theuncertainty with which the decisions were made.

3 Factors to be considered for mainstreaming

In this section, we discussed various factors to be considered for achieving satisfactory reali-zation of the above presented scheme. We divided the factors into uncertainty in climate changerisk, capacity limitations, perception and awareness limitations, and economic limitations.

3.1 Uncertainty in climate change risk

One of the important limitations in implementing the above suggested scheme isuncertainty in projected climate impacts itself. Global Circulation Models (GCMs) areconsidered to be too course resolution and hence are not sufficient for decision making foradaptation (Prudhomme et al. 2003). Hence, employment of techniques such as regionalcirculation models has come into vogue. However, there are limitations with downscalingtoo (Wilby et al. 2002). One of the major bottlenecks limiting decision making based onthese techniques is the unaddressed uncertainty of climate change (Tol 2003; Webster et al.2003; Forest et al. 2004; Lempert et al. 2004; Trenberth 2005). Predictions are uncertainbecause of unknown future concentrations of greenhouse gases and other anthropogenicand natural forcing agents (e.g. injections of stratospheric aerosol from explosive volcaniceruptions), because of natural (unforced) climate variations and because our models whichwe use to make predictions are imperfect (Collins et al. 2006). Heal and Kristrom (2002)provided a comprehensive review of sources of uncertainty in climate change. Questionswere also raised on the amount of certainty required in climate change projections to justifyinvestments in adaptation measures and whether such certainty can be delivered (Dessaiand Hulme 2007). Various techniques have been identified to quantify the uncertainty andprobabilistic climate scenarios were tried with certain degree of success (Katz 2002;Hulme et al. 2002). Employing probabilistic climate scenarios too found to misrepresentuncertainty (Hall 2007). Hence, two separate groups suggesting ‘wait and watch’ and‘precautionary principles’ have emerged (Baker 2005). According to Baker (2005), findinga mid-way between these groups gained importance as one can expect to resolve much ofthe uncertainty in the next 100 years. Other alternative approaches suggested include bettercharacterizing the uncertainty while communicating with policy makers and adaptingappropriate means of communicating uncertainty to policy makers, which includeconsideration for the mismatch between the rigid framework of probability and peoples’intuitive use of language (Lempert et al. 2004; Patt and Dessai 2005). While addressing theissue of disaster risk management in a changed climate, Comfort (2005) suggested buildingnetworks of organizations committed to a process of continual inquiry, informed action, andadaptive learning as a more flexible and robust strategy than the standard practice ofestablishing greater control over possible threats through administrative structures.

3.2 Capacity limitations

The uncertain nature of climate change has lead to greater need for capacity enhancement.In the context of the climate change, capacity considerations include adaptive capacity to


increasing threats of climate change. This refers to potential and capacity to improve to ahigher state in order to face the impacts of climate change (Brooks and Adger 2004).Efforts have been made to explain the concept of adaptation and adaptive capacity (Burtonet al. 2002). In general, the improvement in adaptive capacity refers to either increment infinancial resources, reduction in poverty, provision of diversified income sources, bettergovernance, social and political capital and even equitable flow of resources etc (Smithersand Smit 1997; Yohe and Tol 2001).

Capacity building has been the integral part of various disaster risk managementprograms worldwide (Alexander 1997; Benson et al. 2001; Rocha and Christoplos 2001).The usual topics covered in such programs are disaster risk management planning, rescueand evacuation planning, relief planning, emergency communication, fire fighting,conducting risk and vulnerability assessments, hazard and vulnerability mapping, disasterrisk mitigation systems etc. Some times, these programs also include the role of differentstakeholders and achieving coordination among them in disaster risk reduction (Lynne et al.1997; Seth and Jain 2002). Involvement of communities in disaster risk management andplanning has been considered a necessity owing to the capacities and knowledge that thecommunities possess those could be of use in effective disaster risk reduction (Yodmani2001; Pearce 2003; Allen 2006). There is a need to enhance the existing capacities in orderto deal with the future disasters and increasing uncertainty (Courtney et al. 1997; Shook1997). Experiences have suggested that the existing capacities are not sufficient even todeal with the current level of disasters and that the disaster intensities would only increasein future (Burton et al. 2002; McEntire et al. 2002; Sperling and Szekely 2005b).Consideration of future vulnerabilities is important in order to design effective capacitybuilding programs as the current and future vulnerabilities differ in the context of climatechange (Brooks 2003).

Capacities are of different kinds and different stakeholders need to asses their capacitiesin order to deal with the climate change related risks (Adgers et al. 2005). In the context ofclimate change and disaster management, capacities refer to institutional, technological,economic and social capacities to plan and implement programs of change that couldreduce the vulnerabilities and increase the capacities of communities. Capacity needs couldinclude simple aspects such as mutual understanding on the terminology used by climatechange and disaster risk management personnel. Often, it required to make a cleardistinction for the meaning of the word ‘mitigation’ used in climate change and disastermanagement communities to avoid miscommunication and misconceptions (Newton et al.2005). Similar confusion on the word ‘mitigation’ was reported among the Canadian policymakers (Newton 1997). Hence, appropriate education is required to facilitate an effectivecommunication among the climate change and disaster risk reduction communities.Standardization of terminology at a global scale should also solve this problem to a certainextent. This necessitates mapping different capacities required at the local level in order todeal with the threats from the changing climate. Table 3 provides a list of capacitiessuggested in the literature for an effective climate risk reduction.

3.3 Perception and awareness limitations

Perception can be viewed as a process of transforming inputs (e.g. flood warning) to out put(e.g. public mitigation response; Burn 1999). People who perceive that they are vulnerableare more likely to respond to warnings and undertake protective measures (Michael andFasil 2001). Thus, understanding how people will perceive the risks communicated to themwill influence how effective a risk management measure will be. Creation of appropriate


perception was found to be important for devising and implementing suitable policyinterventions. The importance of risk perception in shaping people’s behavior and disastermanagement planning is affirmed in several studies. For instance, Slovic (1987)emphasized the role of risk perception by indicating that the public relies on risk perceptionto evaluate hazard situation. Some studies tried to emphasize the importance of riskperception both in design and operationalization of flood management (e.g., Michael andFasil 2001). Similarly, Weber identified public perception and expectations of climatechange as important preconditions for technological and economic adaptation to climatechange (Weber 1997).

There are few studies on perception of communities and policy makers about climatechange and about actions to mitigate the same. The studies on perception of global climatechange conducted in the Swedish town of Umeå (Löfstedt 1991) and USA (Leiserowitx2006) revealed the belief of the residents about temperatures becoming warmer. However,very few interviewees perceived link between global climate change and the energy use(Löfstedt 1991) or their perceptions were influenced by the psychological and socio-culturalfactors (Leiserowitx 2006; Stedman 2004). The Swedish survey also revealed confusion

Table 3 Capacities required by various stakeholders for mainstreaming climate change concerns in disasterrisk management

S no. Stakeholders Capacity needs

1 Communities Human capital (Yohe and Schlessinger 2002)Social capital of societies (Yohe and Schlessinger 2002;Adger et al. 2003)

Underlying health of the communities under question to dealwith the climate change threats (Adger 1999)

Knowledge on climate change and its implications for thedisaster profile of their region (Yohe and Schlessinger 2002;Adger et al. 2005)

Enhanced response capacity (Kelly and Adger 2000; Tompkinsand Adger 2003)

Functional social networks (Yohe and Schlessinger 2002;Tompkins and Adger 2003)

Empowerment and enfranchisement (Ribot 1995)2 Government and non-governmental

disaster management personnelConsideration of uncertainty in planning (Handmer et al. 1999;Barnett 2001; Willows and Connell 2003)

Flexibility and innovation in the institutions (Kelly and Adger2000; Adger et al. 2003)

Policies and regulations (Adger et al. 2005)Strengthening early warning systems (Klein 2002)Spatial planning (Nichollas 1995)Finances (Kandlikar and Sagar 1999)Analytical skills to identify climate change impacts and relateddisaster dynamics (Kandlikar and Sagar 1999)

Respond to the developmental pressures and resource crises(Downing et al. 1997)

Risk spreading instruments (Yohe and Schlessinger 2002)Governance (Denton et al. 2002)

3 Research and educational institutions Resources (manpower and funds; Kandlikar and Sagar 1999)Proactive participation in relevant policy research (Kandlikarand Sagar 1999; Yohe and Schlessinger 2002)

Integrating with the local disaster management community(Alast 2006)


among the respondents between climate change and ozone layer depletion. Such lack ofperceptions could lead to failure in any policy response that involves residents. Forexample, any restriction on energy consumption on grounds of climate change couldhave lead to lack of support. However, Gossling (2002a) argued that the increasededucation on environment and better perceptions may not always lead to betterenvironmental preservation. He reasoned that the personal environmental behaviour ofenvironmental tourists may be characterized by increased resource consumption andpreferences (Gossling 2002b).

Environmental managers of public and private sector organizations play an importantrole in directing business and organizational decisions in directing resources toenvironmental preservation. It is important that these managers not only able to see theenvironment as a problem needing common action but also willing to direct organizationalefforts in effective tackling of these problems (Hill and Thompson 2006). In this context,the environmental managers are found to be more aware about the global environmentalproblems than non-environmental managers. The decisions of environmental managers indealing with environmental problems seems to be influenced by how seriously they viewthe threat and how appealing or attractive the potential response strategy appears whichcould lead to four kinds of actions such as meaningful action, precautionary action,symbolic action and no action.

The nature of climate change is such that it is invisible to many as an entity as it can onlybe identified through some ‘proxy’ indicators such as ‘change in temperatures’ and ‘changein rainfall intensities’ or ‘increasing extreme events’. Often the degree of change could haveimportant bearing on how perceptions are formed. For example, the change in a givengeographical location may be perceived insignificant in short run but such changes mayhave compounding impacts which are significant in the long run. This very nature ofclimate change makes it difficult to create uniform perception across all communities. In astudy conducted by the authors (unpublished), it was revealed that the old members ofcommunity are more likely to perceive changes than young members. The difficulty to formappropriate perception of climate change may also be due to lack of uniformity in theimpacts across geographical and time scales. Added to this is the unpredictable nature of theclimate change. The unpredictability of climate has lead to lack of trust among respondentsto forecasts leading to poor response in many situations. Such a poor response to weatherforecasts has been cited in literature (Patt 2001; Patt and Gwata 2002). Patt and Gwata(2002), while examining the constraints in effective seasonal climate forecast applications,identified six constraints limiting the usefulness of climate forecasts. They are credibility,legitimacy, scale, cognitive capacity, procedural and institutional barriers, and availablechoices. According to them, these problems arise due to making forecasts in probabilisticsense rather than deterministic, when forecasts help only a group of stakeholders benefitedin a preferential manner, inability to downscale the forecasts that would also enhance theaccuracy of the forecast, dissemination of forecast information in a format that is not wellunderstood by many due to use of highly technical jargon, when standard operatingprocedures stand in the way of using the new information which makes it too delayed suchthat the end users find it useless, and finally the choices that ultimate stakeholders make areenormous which may not always be supported by such forecasts. We believe that theclimate change information should avoid all these constraints in order to be effective indecision making.

A study by Oxfam-Vietnam and Kyoto University revealed that the communities havedifficulty to express what climate constitutes and that it is difficult for them to explain theconcept of climate as different from weather phenomenon which has been used for planning


agricultural operations on daily basis (Oxfam-Vietnam 2007). It appears that communitiesdidn’t have a suitable word in their local languages that readily represents climate or itschange. However, the respondents were able to identify changes in climate as moreattributed to changes in weather parameters such as temperatures and rainfall over theperiod that they could remember. They attributed such changes to reduction in forest coverthan any thing else. The respondents believed that the actions of ‘other communities’ at‘other location’ were more responsible for changes and they couldn’t identify any badmanagement practice within their community which might have contributed to the globalproblem. These findings are in line with the findings elsewhere that the communities areaware about changes in climate but are flawed in terms of why (causes) such a change ishappening (McDaniels et al. 1996; Kempton 1997). The explanation could be lack ofknowledge regarding the link between causes and consequences, the cumulative nature ofthe causes, trading off risks and benefits, and/or causes involve familiar technologies (Hilland Thompson 2006). We believe that it may be difficult for communities to considerclimate as a factor in the local level risk mitigation planning due to the time scales involvedand need for addressing the immediate concerns such as education, health and livelihoods.Appropriate education and awareness schemes may bring needed change in communityperceptions. This change could also be brought by participatory methodologies. Globally,participatory planning in development has become a major strategy in affecting sustainabledevelopment. This has roots from the need for bottom-up approaches when the top-downapproaches failed to achieve the goals of policies and plans. One of the limitations of top-down policy making approaches is no or poor consideration of priorities of people who areaffected by the same policies. Hence, a gradual shift could be seen from top down tobottom-up approaches leading to a holistic approach (Dessai et al. 2004). With climatechange impacts increasingly becoming evident globally, the participatory planning processgains even more importance for implementing disaster risk management programs ascommunity participation was called for shaping perceptions and for an effective climate riskreduction (Yamin et al. 2005; Chen et al. 2006; OBrien et al. 2006; Khan and Rahman2007). However, it has been cautioned that such participatory methodologies may putexcessive pressure on communities by trying to address such issues which have lessjurisdiction with communities (Allen 2006). Hence, empowering local communities wassuggested such that the decisions taken at their level are implemented to the fullestsatisfaction and effectiveness in the context of climate change.

3.4 Economic limitations

In the Article 3, Para 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCC) it is stated that the “…lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as areason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures todeal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at thelowest possible cost (United Nations 1992).” Though this statement sounds more appro-priate for climate change mitigation, it equally holds good for adaptation as well. Cost-effectiveness has been considered as one of the important tools by policy makers formaking investment decisions (Detsky 1996). Investments in climate adaptation too fall inthe similar category since we understood that climate change has economic implications aswell (Toll et al. 2000).

From the perspective of economists, climate change is sometimes viewed as new anduntested hypothesis (Howarth and Hall 2001). Economists showed interest on economics ofglobal climate change and its impacts with major thrust on estimates of costs and benefits of


GHG emissions and its abatements. Application of welfare economics, as a rule rather thanexception, and employing complex models that integrate climate and economies have beenused in these assessments (Nodhuas 1994). Though, there has been tremendousimprovement in the way economists approach the problem of climate change adaptationespecially in the light of Stern Review (Frankhauser 2006; Stern 2006; Callaway andHellmuth 2006; Milne 2006), the economic assessments are still in nascent phase inassessing the climate change implications for disaster risk management. It is now possibleto arrive at broad calculations on economic implications of climate change adaptation interms of % of GDP. The crux of the problem seems to lie in understanding the uncertaintyof future impacts on human and natural systems, which form the basis for investments onthe adaptation programs. Hence, it was suggested to take into consideration the win–winoptions as they tend to be valid under broad range of circumstances and hence have lowcost of bad decision (Frankhauser 2006).

Though the Kyoto Protocol is heavily based on mitigation approach, globally it has beenaccepted that the adaptation also need to be considered along with the mitigation and policymakers do understand and agree that the adaptation efforts would affect the mitigationtargets (Kane and Shogren 2000). Kane and Shogren (2000) also argued that the society canselect any combination of risk avoidance systems among mitigation and adaptation andsuch decisions affects the level of risks and the costs of risk reduction. Cost-effectiveness hasbeen found to be crucial factor in climate change. They further stated that the risk reductionefforts of people are affected by the economic circumstances and hence the economic cir-cumstances must be taken into consideration while making risk reduction recommendations.

Establishing climate change-proof disaster risk management mechanism is a form ofanticipatory adaptation mechanism. It is logical for governments to have such investmentsas they may have to pay heavy price if further delayed or are done after the impacts werefelt. Policy considerations for anticipatory adaptation are yet to be seen in many countries.Very few available examples in this area are the recommendations of the Public AdvisoryForum of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) which called all the watermanagement professionals for review of design assumptions, practices and contingencyplanning (Public Advisory Forum 1997). Some of these recommendations include bothstructural and non-structural measures. Economic implications of anticipatory adaptation indisaster risk management are a major deterrent to adaptation itself for many developing andunderdeveloped countries. Haddad and Merrit (2001) described that the least costapproaches may not work in deciding suitable climate change adaptation mechanisms asyet times the outputs of public negotiations may not consider cost implications; forexample, when it comes to deciding between the priorities of a water storage structure forflood control and reliable water supply. Hill and Thompson (2006) reported difference ofopinion between environmental managers and non-environmental managers about the needto integrate environmental and economic goals in a “win–win” combination. If we considerthe opinion of non-environmental managers as that of those representing the ‘lay men’, itmakes sense that the lay people place least importance for economic solutions or thosesolutions that are going to ‘cost’ to them in some form. Significant studies are available foradaptation in agriculture which is one of the climate vulnerable sectors. These studiesconsider farmers either as ‘dumb’ or ‘intelligent’ in the point of adaptation to climaterelated impacts and study how they adapt to it (Schneider et al. 2000). Comparing societieson the scale of adaptation readiness and adaptation capacities will be an interestingcontribution to the disaster risk reduction. Such a comparison is challenged by number oflimitations such as absence of baseline information, different disaster profiles andunderlying needs, and even differential developmental contexts.


4 Conclusion

In this article, we argued the need for a change in existing disaster risk reduction practicesand presented a scheme and discussed its limitations for mainstreaming climate changeconcerns in existing disaster risk reduction systems. We could see that there exist anopportunity to initiate actions for mainstreaming climate change related concerns in theexisting disaster risk reduction practices. We argued that such mainstreaming should beinitiated with capacity building of local disaster risk management personnel and policymakers such that they appreciate the linkage between climate change and disasters whileinculcating the culture of strategic thinking. Strategic thinking could further open up newavenues for further addressing the problem of climate change risk reduction. Similarly, theprocess of communicating uncertainty to policy makers gains importance in decisionmaking. Capacity building programs should incorporate suitable modules those will helpthe policy makers and disaster risk management personnel to gain skills in planning underuncertainty. Another important aspect to be considered while pushing the agenda ofmainstreaming is developing appropriate tools and techniques that help the local levelplayers to identify and appreciate the role of climate change in their own vicinity. This isonly possible through a study on past climate disasters/impacts across the country thatidentifies the ‘loci’ or ‘hotspots’ of climate change impacts where the impacts could beclearly discerned from the available past climate records. These results could then be builtinto simple case studies and time series of art diagrams showing, for example, the gradualimpacts of climate change on local flora and fauna or changing flood heights or frequenciesetc that can be widely distributed among the disaster risk management personnel and policymakers. These case studies should also bring out the characteristics of these regions thatmade them vulnerable to climate change impacts. This would not only facilitate playersactive in and near the ‘loci’ or ‘hotspots’ in designing climate-proof disaster risk reductionplanning, but also help others to understand vulnerabilities of their location. This would inturn help them to ‘qualitatively’ downscale the regional broad scenarios available. In orderthis to happen, there is a need to move away from the attitude of considering local levelstakeholders as ‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ who are continuously learning and evolving.We believe that the scheme presented in this paper helps in realizing learning and evolvinggroup of community that will be ready to absorb and address uncertainty in decisionmaking in local risk reduction.

Acknowledgements The work published in this paper was supported by the Japanese Society for Promotionof Science (JSPS) through Postdoctoral Fellowship and research grant to the primary author at KyotoUniversity. We acknowledge the stimulating discussions with Prof Ian Davis, Affiliate Professor, OxfordBooks University that helped us enrich the preliminary draft. We also acknowledge learning experience ofworking with diverse stakeholders including Oxfam-Vietnam, IFRC Regional Delegation in South Asia, andlocal governments in Japan and India that helped us in enriching our understanding in this subject.

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