Abstract
Helgeson, J. F., S. Dietz, and S. Hochrainer-Stigler. 2013. Vulnerability to weather disasters: the choice of coping strategies in rural Uganda. Ecology and Society 18(2): 2. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05390-180202
Highlights
Extreme weather events often have severe impacts on lives and livelihoods in the developing world, and climate change is predicted, with varying degrees of confidence, to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather in the future (IPCC 2007)
We used the results of a household survey in rural Uganda to ask, first, what coping strategies would tend to be employed in the event of a weather disaster, second, given that multiple strategies can be chosen, in what combinations would they tend to be employed, and, third, given that asset-liquidation strategies can be harmful for the future income prospects of households, what determines their uptake? Our survey is one of the largest of its kind, containing over 3000 observations garnered by local workers using smartphone technology
We used the results of a household survey in rural Uganda to inquire into the nature of coping strategies used after an extreme weather event and their drivers
Summary
Extreme weather events often have severe impacts on lives and livelihoods in the developing world, and climate change is predicted, with varying degrees of confidence, to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather in the future (IPCC 2007). Another reason for the limited choice set is the nature of the disaster, i.e., in many cases, the disaster affects the majority of individuals simultaneously, a covariate risk, and informal insurance structures, e.g., family and social networks, do not provide effective relief either This unfortunate combination of circumstances can mean that, in the event of a covariate natural hazard, the poorest households may resort to coping strategies tipping them toward chronic poverty, sometimes conceptualized as a poverty trap (Barrett et al 2006). We contribute to the literature on coping strategies by reporting relevant results from one of the largest surveys of household disaster-risk management in the developing world, implemented using novel smartphone technology with the help of a network of local community knowledge workers.
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