Abstract
Abstract. Community-based disaster preparedness is an important component of disaster management. Knowledge of interventions that communities utilize in response to hazards is important to develop local-level capacity and increase community resilience. This paper systematically examines empirical information about local-level responses to hazards based on peer-reviewed, published case studies. We developed a data set based on 188 articles providing information from 318 communities from all regions of the world. We classified response examples to address four key questions: (i) what kinds of responses are used by communities all over the world? (ii) Do communities in different parts of the world use different kinds of responses? (iii) Are communities using hazard-specific responses? (iv) Are communities using a multi-hazard approach? We found that within an extensive literature on hazards, there is relatively little empirical information about community-based responses to hazards. Across the world, responses aiming at securing basic human needs are the most frequently reported kinds of responses. Although the notion of community-based disaster preparedness is gaining importance, very few examples of responses that draw on the social fabric of communities are reported. Specific regions of the world are lacking in their use of certain hazard responses classes. Although an all-hazard approach for disaster preparedness is increasingly recommended, there is a lack of multi-hazard response approaches on the local level.
Highlights
Natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes put many people at risk, especially in coastal regions
The growing body of literature on disaster risk reduction, community resilience and adaptive capacity attests to the increased focus on finding ways through which people can prepare for this, to reduce the impact of hazards and to increase the ability of local communities to cope with the consequences of hazardous events
As noted above, only a small proportion of reviewed case studies (11 % of 1671) provide empirical information on local responses to hazards, very few data are available across all regions but in particular for the African region
Summary
Natural disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes put many people at risk, especially in coastal regions. Between 1994 and 2013, on average 218 million people were affected annually through losing their homes or livelihoods due to natural disasters, and 1.35 million people died over this period (Creed, 2015). The intensity and frequency of hazardous events is increasing with climate change, leading to growing numbers of annual disasters all over the world (IPCC, 2014). The growing body of literature on disaster risk reduction, community resilience and adaptive capacity attests to the increased focus on finding ways through which people can prepare for this, to reduce the impact of hazards and to increase the ability of local communities to cope with the consequences of hazardous events. The 20 year review (1993–2013) of disaster impacts conducted by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CREED) comes to similar conclusions
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