This report reviews the latest science and evidence, and its role in disaster risk reduction (DRR). The report concludes that, despite increasing challenges ahead, it is possible to stabilise disaster impacts and save both lives and livelihoods given political leadership and concerted action by the wide range of stakeholders.
Drivers of future disaster risk
The project considers the main determinants of disaster risk to be the magnitude of the hazard, exposure and vulnerability. These determinants, and hence disaster risk, will be influenced in the future by a wide range of drivers: global environmental change, demographic change and the speed of urbanisation in developing countries. The first two drivers particularly stand out in the analysis because of their potentially large and negative effects on disaster risk, and the low associated uncertainty. The priority in dealing with the speed of urbanisation in developing countries is urban design and planning that both improves the quality of life for residents and makes expanding cities resilient to natural hazards.
Forecasting disaster risk
These risks may be best anticipated by:
- Improving the scientific understanding of hazards. Scientific advances in DRR have already helped to save many lives as improved forecasts of tropical cyclones have led to reductions in fatalities, and early warning systems have reduced flood damage.
- The emergence of probabilistic forecasts has changed the way in which forecasts of natural hazards are made and understood. Although probabilistic forecasts are not completely reliable due to the rarity of large samples of forecasts, the unreliability will be reduced over the next few decades through scientific advances. However, gaps in forecasting ability will remain, notably in predicting the timing and magnitude of earthquakes and disease outbreaks.
The scientific advances in anticipating natural hazards discussed above can only be exploited for disaster risk forecasting if exposure and vulnerability of people and assets are also assessed. Methods of measurement are needed that take into account local context and priorities.
Decision making and acting on risk information
Some of the practical actions that could best be taken to address disaster risk include the following options:
- Transferring the risk: remittance flows are expected to increase to US$467 billion by 2014, and can help to reduce the effects of disasters at both the macro and micro level. Much more use could be made of re-insurance to address disaster risk in developing countries, where neither formal nor informal risk management work well in isolation.
- Avoiding the risk: although there is no clear consensus on the effectiveness of migration as a risk avoidance strategy, multiple lines of evidence have however demonstrated that early warnings have improved preparedness for populations threatened by floods and storms (e.g. Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh).
- Reducing the risk: the demand for new infrastructure increases with the pressures of rapid urbanisation and population growth. Clear and legally established regulatory frameworks can help to incentivise private investors to invest in disaster-resilient infrastructure.
- Accepting the risk: this is the rational course if the costs of taking action outweigh the benefits. There is evidence that contingency planning for evacuation and shelter can be highly effective (e.g. in Bangladesh’s response to Cyclone Sidr).
Incentivising action
What is needed is a culture change: all decision makers, whether part of the government, businesses seeking to invest, aid and development funders or those in at-risk communities, need to consider the implications of their decisions for disaster risk. A virtuous cycle is needed in which:
- risk forecasts are routinely provided that take account of specific local vulnerabilities and priorities, include a wide range of possible impacts and have well-established and trustworthy records of reliability.
- decision-makers use these forecasts to take decisions that sensibly weigh up costs and benefits.
- the effectiveness of the resulting DRR actions are routinely evaluated and made available for others to learn from.
