Climate change, climate extremes and disaster risk reduction
D. Bhatt, R. K. Mall & T. Banerjee
Natural Hazards Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards ISSN 0921-030X Volume 78 Number 1 Nat Hazards (2015) 78:775-778 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1874-8
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Author's personal copy Nat Hazards (2015) 78:775–778 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1874-8 BOOK REVIEW
Climate change, climate extremes and disaster risk reduction Ste´phane Hallegatte: Natural disasters and climate change: an economic perspective. Springer International Publishing, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-08933-1, ISBN: 978-3-319-08932-4 D. Bhatt1 • R. K. Mall1 • T. Banerjee1
Received: 8 June 2015 / Accepted: 12 June 2015 / Published online: 30 June 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Academic and scientific interests in exploring association and implications of global climate change on natural disasters have recently experienced accelerated recognition despite having inherent uncertainties in disaster-related effects of climate change. Anthropogenic repercussions on global environment have been recognized as a significant contributor in accelerating climate change (Banerjee and Srivastava 2011; Mall et al. 2014). Change in state of climate is expected to modify frequency and intensity of climate extremes where few extremes may only be consequence of gradual accumulation of individual events, better being part of climate variability. While climate change by itself has serious consequences, the situation may even worsen by expected variations in climate extremes, thus warranting a paradigm shift in adaptation and disaster management (Mall et al. 2011, 2014). The extent of stress is although subject to validate; however, it has unanimously understood that projected change in climate will aggravate associated vulnerabilities by introducing supplementary stresses to population’s resilience. Therefore, integration of climate change adaptation (CCA) with disaster risk reduction (DRR) has progressively gained prominence in the global governance, which seems encouraging in retrofitting existing community disaster management structures. There are numerous documentary evidences interlinking climatic stress on natural hazards, especially in context of research articles, policy documents and edited books series virtually implying on every possible aspects from scientific, technical, social, health and policy guidance. However, there is essentially a need of integration of all such concepts and perspectives in a coordinated manner so that prospective readers may be benefitted. In this sense, we believe that efforts made by Hallegatte are appreciable which
& T. Banerjee
[email protected];
[email protected] R. K. Mall
[email protected] 1
Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
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become more relevant to readers as explanations were drawn in an economists’ perspective. Efforts should be appreciated for sustaining a balance between logical explanations of a scenario, providing adequate illustrations, exemplifying specific case studies while with highlighting explicit strategies for a decision-making processes. However, inclusions of specific case studies on cascading hazards may additionally substantiate author’s effort. Inclusion of boxes for initiating discussions, emphasizing critical sections of an explanation, technical insights, methodological illustrations and constructive conclusions appears impressive and informative. Natural Disasters and Climate Change potentially addresses diverse readers being academics and government officials but essentially relevant to those scholars wish to investigate economic consequences of a disaster. For the entire discussion, author wished to associate disaster consequences with developmental economics in a sense that whether development policies have explicit accountability for disaster risks or there is scope of negotiation between disaster risk reduction and economic development. Hallegatte wished to define the scope of the argument by identifying three principal aspects exemplifying long-term economic consequences of disaster, accountability of developmental projects for disaster risks and to associate climate change with the extent of disaster impact. The logical explanations seem to be composed of seven defined chapters explaining economic consequences of a disaster (chapter 1), conceptualizing resilience of an economy (2), natural disaster risks: trends and opportunities (3), influence of climate change on occurrence and extremity of natural disaster (4) and associated losses (5), reactive risk management and proactive approaches with cost–benefit analysis for risk management policy assessment through case studies (6) and decision making for disaster risk management in context of climate uncertainties (7). Hallegatte has most convincingly established the fact that a natural hazard only transformed into disaster by virtue of exposure of the population, and it is the population’s sensitivity, socioeconomy and relevant exposure, which ultimately decide the extent of economic resilience. Undoubtedly, author’s argument falls in line with ‘SREX’ report (IPCC 2012), however, with the added advantages of defining risk management as a concept of economic growth instrument. In the opening chapter, the economic aspects of a hazard set up a proper stage of discussion on cost–benefit analysis of natural hazards. Hallegatte’s discussions on capacity of GDP to be a proxy for welfare appear valid, while his argument on econometric analyses seems only applicable to count indirect losses. Overall, the chapter stands up as a repository of fundamentals in disaster economics while his emphasis on considering both direct (risk reduction actions) and indirect (economic resilience) impacts for designing risk management strategy appears promising. Hallegatte also wished to comment on the classical debate of natural disaster and developmental linkages and suggested an economic framework capable of analyzing trade-offs between disaster losses and the benefits of risktaking. The need to shift of risk management policies from negative to positive approach has been especially put forth to the readers’ notice. Such conclusion actually reflects the scope of harvesting benefits from developmental activities that could be taken up in at-risk areas by adopting good risk. Indeed, the chapter is an excellent overview of how risks must be managed through better decision-making process, but some illustrations on urban flood plains or coastlines would have made the chapter far more interesting. Taking the issue one step forward, we find a detailed methodology of assessing local impacts of climate change with some city-scale scenarios exhibiting theoretical implementation of appropriate steps to be adopted toward minimizing disaster losses. Multiple perspectives in terms of exposure, vulnerability, resilience and adaptation have been discussed with a perception that current level of disaster vulnerability may significantly be
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reduced with better risk assessment and analyses and implementation of risk management policies, even in case of climate uncertainties. Therefore, climate cost becomes a necessary evil that has to be paid through investment in policy formulations and adaptation strategies, where Hallegatte’s own concept of ‘no regrets option’ seems an appropriate cost-effective measure (Hallegatte 2009). In lieu of possible implementation of several risk management policies, there is prospect of policy trade-offs and synergies, which ultimately constitute the scope of implementing either/both reactive and proactive risk management system(s). Hallegatte has already documented the concept of ‘policy mix’ (Viguie´ and Hallegatte 2012) emphasizing implications of several policies simultaneously targeting direct (risk reduction) or indirect (economic resilience) disaster impacts in a synergistic way. We found that author’s concept justified as stand-alone adaptation (like CCA) and disaster mitigation policies (like DRR) should be replaced with more integrated risk management approach (integration of CCA and DRR) considering multiple policies involving number of institutions/ministries in a constructive way. Conceptually, DRR only addresses all disaster-related events, and therefore, it is always negative. On the other hand, CCA is only to address climate-related events, mostly viewed as long-term adaptation process (like reduction in green house gases) adjusted to both extreme events as well as incremental changes, which may not be necessarily always negative. However, such integration of CCA and DRR policies is extremely challenging as experienced in recently concluded study on integration of DRR and CCA in SAARC region (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) (UNISDR-SDMC 2014). Institutional framework on addressing CCA and DRR in SAARC region lacks coherence while sometime found multiple institutions are involved in a similar kind of projects. Exemplifying Bangladesh, Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) is responsible for coordinating climate change actions with several potential thematic areas notably including comprehensive disaster management and capacity building with institutional strengthening. Interestingly, disaster management has also come under purview of Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR) with a mandate of driving national risk reduction reform for a more comprehensive risk reduction. There is hardly any coherence between MoEF and MoDMR exists while considering and implementing climate- and disaster-related projects. Therefore, need of institutional linkages, platform for knowledge management, dedicated non-lapsable long-term funding, creation of regional response facilities seem prerequisites for the development of proper CCA and DRR plan in the region (UNISDR-SDMC 2014). Conclusively, we perceived a situation with possibilities of varying magnitude of impact from natural hazard, persistence of a risk factor with negative consequences on development and economic growth, an idea of economic development as a solution for natural risks, existence of population with diverse level of resilience, exposure and vulnerability, possible synergy in risk reduction and adaptation policies and above all a potential change in climatic condition with varying level of uncertainties. The situation therefore warrants an incremental, multi-dimensional and climate-sensitive decisionmaking system with a choice of a solution as hypothesized by Lempert and Collins (2007) as ‘robust decision making.’ We found the concept extremely adaptable having multiple dimensions of strategies for disaster risk management under varying climate uncertainties and possibility to include multiple metrics and decision analytic frameworks. Hence, climate uncertainties are required to be incorporated in everyday decision-making system, which will essentially provide us much anticipated time required for climate mitigation policies to be effective (Hallegatte 2009). We strongly felt that the Hallegatte’s effort has potential to be recommended to academics and government officials who wish to investigate economic consequences of a
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disaster and constitute future course of actions considering multiple uncertainties and climate scenarios. We found that the book consists of easy-to-understand theoretical discussions, logical explanations, clear language and impressive illustrations with a combination of vivid economic analysis. We believe that many institutions, academicians, decision makers and earth science scholars would find the book a worthwhile acquisition.
References Banerjee T, Srivastava RK (2011) Evaluation of environmental impacts of integrated industrial estatePantnagar through application of air and water quality indices. Environ Monit Assess 172(1–4):547–560 Hallegatte S (2009) Strategies to adapt to an uncertain climate change. Glob Environ Change 19(2009):240–247 IPCC (2012) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Field CB, Barros V, Stocker TF, Qin D, Dokken DJ, Ebi KL, Mastrandrea MD, Mach KJ, Plattner G-K, Allen SK, Tignor M, Midgley PM (eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Lempert RJ, Collins MT (2007) Managing the risk of uncertain thresholds responses: comparison of robust, optimum, and precautionary approaches. Risk Anal 27:1009–1026 Mall RK, Kumar R, Bhatla R (2011) Climate change and disaster in India. J South Asian Disaster Stud 4(1):27–76 Mall RK, Bhatt D, Sonkar G, Banerjee T (2014) Simulation modeling and climate change: issues and challenges. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21(19):11605–11608 UNISDR-SDMC (2014) Integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in SAARC region: implementation of the Thimphu Statement of Climate Change—a comprehensive study of policy, institutional landscape and disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in South Asia (disaster prevention, preparedness & management, linkages with CCA). United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Asia and Pacific, Thailand and SAARC Disaster Management Centre, New Delhi Viguie´ V, Hallegatte S (2012) Trade-offs and synergies in urban climate policies. Nat Clim Change 2(3):334–337. doi:10.1038/nclimate1434
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