Integrated Disaster Risk Management Research Articles

Identifying constraints and limits to climate change adaptation in Austria under deep uncertainty

Although humanity has always been adapting to a changing environment, the accelerated rate of climate change in combination with continued socioeconomic development and the delay in climate action result in deep uncertainties, further challenging policy, and decision making. A main are of concern, triggered by the increasing frequency and intensity of climatic hazards are growing uncertainties regarding the effectiveness of prevailing adaptation strategies, as well as constraints and eventually limits to adaptation. The existing literature is largely conceptual and focusses on the Global South, where evidence for reaching adaptation limits already exists. In this study, we aim to uncover whether Austria, a Global North country, faces intolerable risks from climate change and experiences adaptation constraints that may trigger limits to adaptation. As there are still considerable uncertainties involved in quantifying potential adaptation limits, we use a social science approach to collect first empirical evidence on this crucial issue. We identify and discuss sources of concern based on semi-structured interviews (n = 26) with climate change adaptation and disaster risk management experts. Our results indicate that although Austria may currently not face physical constraints, which could lead to “hard” adaptation limits, it is nevertheless essential to upgrade existing adaptation strategies for more severe climatic events that may impose “soft” adaptation limits at the local and individual level. Many of these perceived soft adaptation limits are linked to constraints in imagination, awareness, and knowledge, but also to confining decision-making processes and the locked-in focus on technical adaptation measures, which cannot be scaled up indefinitely. To overcome these constraints and avoid adaptation limits, we suggest more inclusive stakeholder involvement in adaptive planning and the design of climate strategies by fostering bottom-up or participatory processes and integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation more strongly within polycentric risk governance approaches. Our insights can be seen as a precursory scoping study for the establishment of comprehensive decision making under deep uncertainty approaches in Austria and beyond, since at least many Global North countries share similar constraints and uncertainties regarding technological, economic, and political trends.

Integrated Disaster Risk Management in the Education Process in Schools

Research in educational disaster mitigation has developed and is widely carried out, especially in schools. This research explores good practices based on the experience of teachers in Indonesia regarding the possibility of integrating DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) education into the learning process in schools. This study used research and development (R and D) methods with the APPED model (preliminary analysis and research, design, production, evaluation and dissemination), which was carried out for two years. In particular, this paper reports the results of the first year’s research with research activities including: (i) analysis and preliminary research and (ii) design. In the initial analysis and research stages, the research team carried out several activities, including analysis of material coverage, learning outcomes, and learning activities through literature review and document analysis, combined with case studies and FGD (Focus Group Discussion) involving 87 teachers in Yogyakarta, Malang, and Ciamis. Furthermore, the results of the activities in the second stage, (Design), are in the form of an analysis of the needs of students in DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) education based on Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR). Studies reveal that DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) education has the potential to be integrated into educational activities in schools. Practically, the main components of DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) education include: coverage of materials, learning outcomes, and learning activities. The research results also show that the integrated interdisciplinary curriculum model has the potential to be adopted in the implementation of DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) education, through intra-curricular, extra-curricular and co-curricular learning activities. This finding has implications for the need for teacher involvement in the next research stage, where production, evaluation, and dissemination processes are carried out. Good practices that have been carried out by teachers have become one of the important instruments in implementing integrated disaster risk management with the educational process in schools . Further, important to consider the integration of science and indigenous knowledge (ISIK) in implementing DRR education in schools, through intra-curricular, extra-curricular and co-curricular. The disaster and mitigation knowledge were empirical, genuine, participatory and interactive, within the localities context. Schools can be good agents for dissemination of the ISIK perspective in disaster and mitigation studies. Although the relation between scientific and indigenous knowledge is proposed by the participants, but theoretically and practically needed follow-up studies, especially to reduce the level of vulnerability.

Fostering Social Entrepreneurial Resilience: A Pathway towards Integrated Disaster Risk Management

Social entrepreneurship (SE) has gained recognition as a key driver of the economy significantly contributing to innovation and inclusive growth. It is increasingly seen as a practical and effective solution to address a range of physical, social, economic and environmental challenges. Its role has also been critical in groundbreaking innovations toward sustainable development. Disaster risk management (DRM) planning is crucial for building resilience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as SEs are highly vulnerable to the impacts of disasters, particularly in absence of DRM planning. This study explores the impact of disasters on SE and argues for the need for integrating DRM approaches to enhance the resilience of SE in line with the priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Despite India's strong performance in terms of supportive business start-up ecosystems, vulnerability to natural disasters and poor preparedness pose significant challenges to its development efforts. There is a need for greater attention to be paid to DRM planning in the SE sector in order to build resilience and ensure the long-term sustainability of SE initiatives.

Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRM): Elements to Advance Its Study and Assessment

This study analyzed the international key literature on integrated disaster risk management (IDRM), considering it a dynamic sociocultural process subjected to the historical process of social formation, offering a closer look at the concept while exploring conceptual elements and ideas to advance IDRM in both national and international contexts. Methodologically, the study adopted a literature review strategy, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach, combined with qualitative content analysis. This article examines the history of IDRM, discusses current challenges for implementation, looks at some experiences, and proposes avenues for further research. Some findings point out the lack of an overarching IDRM approach, which is characterized by a rather disperse set of ideas and experiences concerning what IDRM is and how it should be operationalized, thereby revealing the need for a more comprehensive theory and methodologies to further advance it. Other findings highlight that IDRM encompasses different kinds and levels of “integrations” that go from internal (that is, disaster risk reduction and management domains) to external (that is, all societal processes such as sustainable development), including temporal and spatial integrations. Hence, we are talking about a multidimensional integration of disaster risk management. In this regard, the article proposes four dimensions for integration: sectoral, spatial/hierarchical, temporal, and externally with other cross-cutting societal challenges, especially climate change and sustainable development. These dimensions cover 29 ideas for indicators or “proto-indicators” to guide the discussion, exploration, and analysis of IDRM in specific contexts.

Seismically Risky Buildings - The Deadlock of Zoning Amnesty upon the Effective Integrated Disaster Risk Management

Integrated Disaster Management is a plan for various interventions for unfavorable situations that occur before/after disasters. To ensure the implementation of successful disaster management, management plans have to be implemented and supported by laws for permanent solutions. Türkiye, as one of those disaster prone countries, particularly for earthquakes, created various action plans and laws at different level. One of the most important example in this regard might be the zoning amnesty that is carried out on registration of unlicensed buildings to identify them for urban transformation. However, deficiencies have appeared in practice and governance were insufficient to eliminate the threats. The Aegean Sea Earthquake affected İzmir in 2020 has brought this predicament to light once again. This study mentions disaster management and mitigation plans in Türkiye generally, and focuses on the Izmir earthquake that occurred on October 30th, 2020. It highlights inconsistency of zoning amnesty with disaster resilience.

Assessing Structural and Non-structural Safety and Readiness of Healthcare Centers in Bojnord in Dealing with Functional, Non-structural and Structural Dimensions of Disasters in 1400

Introduction: Natural and man-made disasters will have harmful impacts. Given the important role of healthcare centers in time of crisis, they need to be regularly assessed in terms of structural and non-structural readiness.
 Methods: This was a descriptive and cross-sectional study conducted on 22 urban and rural healthcare centers in Bojnord, a city in North Khorasan province, Iran. The relevant forms and checklists were completed through interviews with doctors, experts, and direct observation regarding functional, structural and non-structural documentation. After collecting data and completing the desired forms and checklists, the information obtained in all the centers was generally compared and evaluated.
 Results: Based on the results obtained from comprehensive urban and rural health service centers of Bojnoord Health Center, the level of functional readiness is 52.56, the safety of structural elements is 60%, the safety of non-structural elements is 57.32%, and the total safety is 57.71%. The disaster safety index is also 6 out of 10.
 Conclusion: According to the current research, the readiness of healthcare centers for disasters is far from the desired level. This situation could be due to the lack of an integrated disaster risk management, insufficient budget and knowledge on this issue. In the field of disaster risk management, it is necessary to plan to increase the understanding of disaster risk at the level of officials and society.

Volume 12, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 12, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Addressing the interplay of the Sendai Framework with sustainable development goals in Latin America and the Caribbean: moving forward or going backwards?

PurposeThe 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) constitute an overarching global milestone for creating a better sustainable future worldwide. The risk component of the agenda under the SFDRR must be better embedded into the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and integrating disaster risk management policy with broader development objectives at national and subnational levels in many countries is still a work in progress. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the progress between the SDGs and the SFDRR in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and its complementary featuresDesign/methodology/approachComprehensive and contextualized analyses of the progress of SFDRR and SDGs related to the LAC region need to be fully addressed to examine synergies and trade-offs with the two global agendas. Based on empirical evidence from United Nations global reports, a literature review of DRR and DRM, as well as development planning evidence, this paper addresses the implications of building coherence between the SDGs and the SFDRR in the region.FindingsInterplay and connections of the two agendas are highlighted together with an analysis of coherence among indicators. Despite the richness of several indicators, the examined evidence suggests that derived from the current progress, indicators are unable to completely reflect the dynamics among disaster risk drivers for both the SFDRR and the SDGs in the region.Research limitations/implicationsData availability at UNIDSR as well as at the regional level can limit the scope of the research. When comparing and matching the agendas, results could be further improved upon new releases of data. SFDRR and SDGs have also ground for improvement and countries are doing well but still slow.Practical implicationsThe paper offers new insights and findings for decision/policy makers in Latina America and the Caribbean.Originality/valueThe paper offers an overall understanding of the progress and coherence among SFDRR and SDGs global frameworks and provides insights to identify the gaps and opportunities that need to be addressed to integrate disaster risk reduction into sustainable development planning at national and regional scales in LAC.

Editorial: Integrated disaster risk management: From earth sciences to policy making

Editorial: Integrated disaster risk management: From earth sciences to policy making

Volume 11, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 11, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 11, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 11, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Researching Integrated Disaster Risk Management from an Interpretive/Critical Perspective

This essay describes what an interpretive/critical perspective on integrated disaster risk management entails and highlights related research contributions in the field. These contributions offer researchers examples of interdisciplinary, international, multi-methodological, and cross-cultural research in an array of disaster contexts that reflect the philosophical and normative commitments of interpretive/critical scholarship. The essay describes the author’s experiences in applying an interpretive/critical perspective in researching the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, and it explores the value (and risks) that such a perspective holds for policy intervention, institutional practice, and one’s own professional development.

Volume 10, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 10, Issue 1 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 9, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 9, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 10, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

Volume 10, Issue 2 | Journal of Integrated Disaster Risk Management | IDRiM Journal

The role of risk perception outreach courses in the context of Disaster Risk Management: The example of São Paulo city, Brazil

Landslides and floods are common during the summer in urban regions of Brazil, like São Paulo city. In these urban hazard-prone areas, communities do not always have the financial resources available to build hazard mitigation infrastructures or invest in at-risk home removals. Therefore, investing in affordable measures, like educational activities and risk mapping, are crucial to reducing human and material losses. One important educational activity is natural hazard risk outreach courses as they educate the community about their risks and foster residents' involvement to monitor their risk locally. In this study, outreach courses offered by São Paulo during 2012 and 2013 are presented as a case study to analyze the role of these courses in the context of Disaster Risk Management. We concluded these courses were important to educate municipality technicians, but they failed to educate residents. Moreover, these courses were punctual actions as they were not integrated with other Disaster Risk Reductions measures. Municipality failed to advertise these courses to residents and offer them in a period, day, and location appropriate for residents to participate. But the municipality has many challenges in integrating Disaster Risk Management, such as lack of Civil Protection technicians in each district and political discontinuities. After 2013, the municipality's challenges in integrating Disaster Risk Management have not changed, but the target audience for the outreach courses have changed. They were offered to municipal teachers and volunteers.

The use of UAVs for landslide disaster risk research and disaster risk management: a literature review

On a global scale, from 2005 to 2019, there were 275 high-magnitude, low-frequency disasters that involved 14,172 fatalities and four million affected people. Similar patterns have taken place during longer periods of time in recent decades. This paper aims to analyse the contribution of the international landslide research community to disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management in reference to the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a literature review. The first section notes the relevance of disaster risk research contributions for the implementation of initiatives and strategies concerning disaster risk management. The second section highlights background information and current applications of drones in the field of hazards and risk. The methodology, which included a systematic peer review of journals in the ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS, was presented in the third section, where the results include analyses of the considered data. This study concludes that most current scholarly efforts remain rooted in hazards and post-disaster evaluation and response. Future landslide disaster risk research should be transdisciplinary in order to strengthen participation of the various relevant stakeholders in contributing to integrated disaster risk management at local, subnational, national, regional and global levels.

Knowledge mapping analysis of research progress and frontiers in integrated disaster risk management in a changing climate

Integrated disaster risk management in a changing climate is a key concern for disaster reduction and global sustainable development now and in the future. This study conducted descriptive statistical and bibliometric analysis of 488 articles on integrated disaster risk in a changing climate from 2008 to 2020 using Excel, CiteSpace, and Gephi. The research process of integrated disaster risk in a changing climate was divided into three periods, 2008–2010, 2011–2015, and 2016–2020, which is similar to the changing characteristic of the number of publications. Results showed that, first, although the number of papers was increasing exponentially, the number of publications in each period remained relatively small. Second, the main features of the cooperation network of authors across the world showed a small concentration of groups, large dispersion, and weak connections. Third, the literature focused on five key issues, including basic disaster theory research; the construction of databases; research on underlying concepts, relationships, determinants and influences of vulnerability, risk, adaptability and resilience; the construction of frameworks and models of integrated disaster risk; and impact analysis of integrated disaster risk assessment and governance in regard to the relationships and interactions among disasters, nature, society, and human behavior. Fourth, the priorities, foci, and frontiers of integrated disaster risk research were mainly reflected in five aspects, including disasters; climate change adaptation; climate change impacts; health, insurance, critical infrastructure, communities, and various frameworks; and research on key regions and countries.

Progressing the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk management in Vanuatu and beyond

The first framework to specifically integrate climate change adaption and disaster risk management was the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. Despite the intense interest in integration and a very large literature on the topic, this Framework and its implementation has largely escaped the attention of commentators. This paper focuses on the experience of Vanuatu as a start in addressing this gap in the literature. Vanuatu is one of the countries most at risk from natural hazards. We show how Vanuatu is progressing the ideals of integration in practice, in its policy and legislation, its institutional arrangements, and the resourcing it is allocating to integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. We conclude that, at the national and formal level, Vanuatu is progressing well in pragmatically implementing the ideals of integration and the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. It stands as a practical example for others.

Advances of International Collaboration on M9 Disaster Science: Scientific Session Report

The goal of the Scientific Session: “Advances of International Collaboration on M9 Disaster Science” at the 2nd World Bosai Forum (WBF) in Sendai in November 2019 was to share progress on research projects and findings related to an M9 mega-disaster event, building on outcomes from a March 2019 collaborative workshop on M9 disaster science between research partners from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS)/Tohoku University, University of Washington-Seattle (UW), and the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN). This paper reports on the presentations during the WBF Scientific Session, which shared updates and outputs of research collaborations from different disciplines, following the themes of risk-based planning, structural engineering, tsunami observation and early warning, and tsunami simulation and probabilistic tsunami risk assessment. This international and cross-disciplinary collaboration has led to the advancement of a number of specific research projects in different fields, as well as a robust network of researchers in the three countries. Based in coastal regions facing similar risks of massive earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, the United States, and Chile, it is hoped that ongoing and future collaboration within this network will continue to advance knowledge of disaster science and international disaster risk reduction.