Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience: Practices and Challenges in Asia Pacific

Abstract

The concept of disaster risk reduction has evolved over years. Back in 1990, when we had the first International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR: 1990–1999), it was proposed as an “international decade on hazard reduction”. Since then, two concepts have been changed significantly: we no longer reduce the hazard, rather, we reduce the risks or vulnerability. And, there is no “natural” disaster, we now call it a natural hazard, and the consequence is a disaster. Also, the “disaster reduction” concept has evolved to disaster “risk” reduction, and gradually to resilience building. We’ve also moved on from talking about a particular disaster, we now talk about systemic risks and cascading disasters. Disaster risk reduction issues are becoming increasingly complex with climate change adaptation as well as biological hazards like the global COVID-19 pandemic.This introductory chapter covers four parts which the book is divided into. Those are: disaster risk governance, education and capacity, science technology and disaster recovery. These are four major pillars of different types of interventions in the Asia Pacific region