reduction and planning cross disciplinary opportunities ...planning.org.nz › Folder?Action=View...
Transcript of reduction and planning cross disciplinary opportunities ...planning.org.nz › Folder?Action=View...
Risk reduction and planning ‐ cross‐disciplinary opportunities from natural hazards & climate change adaptation
The window that disasters present for risk reduction
Bruce C. GlavovicEQC Chair in Natural Hazards Planning
Associate Director Joint Centre for Disaster Research
NZPI Conference, Wellington
30 March 2011
Workshop questions
1. What are the barriers to reducing risk from known hazards and uncertain risks from climate change?
2. What are the opportunities to reduce risk from known and unknown hazards (including from climate change) and how might this be achieved?
1931 Napier‐Hawkes Bay earthquake 1942 Wairarapa earthquake4 September 2010
22 February 2011
Social memoryA window of opportunity
1. Global change, disaster risk & planning2. Bridging disaster risk reduction & climate change3. Recovery planning for Canterbury – Legacy?
“A disaster becomes unavoidable in the context of a historically produced pattern of ‘vulnerability’” (Oliver‐Smith & Hoffman, 2002, Why Anthropologists Should Study Disasters, in Catastrophe & Culture, p3)
“… preventing deaths and destruction from disasters pays, if done right …” (UN / World Bank, 2010, Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention)
1. Global change, disaster risk & planning La condition humaine
1. Global change, disaster risk & planning
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7322/images/468370a-i2.0.jpg
htt // id / / hi /t d i t l di tRockstrom et al 2009 Nature
Understanding hazards, risk & vulnerability [R = P x C]
Hazards•Shocks•Slow onset hazards
Root causes
Dynamic pressures
Unsafe conditions
DisasterRisk
Reduction
Social Vulnerability
(After Wisner et al., 2004)
2. Bridging disaster risk reduction & climate change: Context
Exposure & vulnerability to global change, esp. human‐ induced climate change, ↑ disaster risk & losses.
Short‐term, narrow interests swamp longer term community & public interests & ↑ disaster risk & losses.
Business as usual fails to reconcile these interests.
Current DRR & CCA practices don’t prepare communities.
DRR & CCA = parallel discourses.
Both help address barriers that undermine planned adaptation or cause maladaptive & unsustainable actions.
Need integrated assessment & application.
2. Bridging disaster risk reduction & climate change: Beyond Business as Usual
Transformational social change needed to adapt to global change & esp. climate extremes.
Build capacity to adapt to change in face of uncertainty, change & dynamic complexity & in anticipation of future risk, incl. known & unknown hazards.
Need multifaceted agenda of human development, env. sustainability, poverty reduction, CCA &DRR.
Recognise politics of DRR & CCA: Winners & losers! To avert future disasters, must address root causes of vulnerability, incl. structural inequalities that drive poverty & inequity.
2. Bridging disaster risk reduction & climate change: Imperatives for integration
Adopt all‐hazards approach, given known & unknown hazards, & mainstream DRR & CCA measures to reduce social vulnerability & improve quality of life & build sustainable livelihoods.
Innovative governance & leadership needed.
Need integrated approaches that enable social‐ecological systems to cope with, adapt to, & shape change, given multiple stressors & diverse & contending values &interests.
Use suite of measures that (i) ↓ social vulnerability & ↑ resilience at local level; & (ii) align measures at higher scales to enable local capacity building & action.
Tailor measures to particular opportunities & challenges in particular localities.
3. Recovery planning for Canterbury: Legacy?
“No single approach to bringing sustainable hazard mitigation into existence shows more promise at this time than increased use of sound and equitable land‐use management” (Mileti, 1999. Disasters by Design, p155‐156).
To what extent will recovery planning in Canterbury: Capitalise on local culture & knowledge? Engage local people in joint learning & public decision‐making?
Mobilise local capacity to rebuild?
Enable local communities to make choices that build safer, more sustainable communities?
Reshape future practices & institutions to reduce disaster risk?