1 Vulnerability, and Resilience
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Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, 1 Vulnerability, and Resilience Coordinating Lead Authors: Allan Lavell (Costa Rica), Michael Oppenheimer (USA) Lead Authors: Cherif Diop (Senegal), Jeremy Hess (USA), Robert Lempert (USA), Jianping Li (China), Robert Muir-Wood (UK), Soojeong Myeong (Republic of Korea) Review Editors: Susanne Moser (USA), Kuniyoshi Takeuchi (Japan) Contributing Authors: Omar-Dario Cardona (Colombia), Stephane Hallegatte (France), Maria Lemos (USA), Christopher Little (USA), Alexander Lotsch (USA), Elke Weber (USA) This chapter should be cited as: Lavell, A., M. Oppenheimer, C. Diop, J. Hess, R. Lempert, J. Li, R. Muir-Wood, and S. Myeong, 2012: Climate change: new dimensions in disaster risk, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience. In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, pp. 25-64. 25 Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, Vulnerability, and Resilience Chapter 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................27 1.1. Introduction................................................................................................................................29 1.1.1. Purpose and Scope of the Special Report .........................................................................................................................29 1.1.2. Key Concepts and Definitions ............................................................................................................................................30 1.1.2.1. Definitions Related to General Concepts............................................................................................................................................30 1.1.2.2. Concepts and Definitions Relating to Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation to Climate Change .............................................34 1.1.2.3. The Social Construction of Disaster Risk.............................................................................................................................................36 1.1.3. Framing the Relation between Adaptation to Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management.....................................37 1.1.4. Framing the Processes of Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation to Climate Change .............................................38 1.1.4.1. Exceptionality, Routine, and Everyday Life .........................................................................................................................................38 1.1.4.2. Territorial Scale, Disaster Risk, and Adaptation...................................................................................................................................39 1.2. Extreme Events, Extreme Impacts, and Disasters ......................................................................39 1.2.1. Distinguishing Extreme Events, Extreme Impacts, and Disasters ......................................................................................39 1.2.2. Extreme Events Defined in Physical Terms ........................................................................................................................40 1.2.2.1. Definitions of Extremes.......................................................................................................................................................................40 1.2.2.2. Extremes in a Changing Climate ........................................................................................................................................................40 1.2.2.3. The Diversity and Range of Extremes .................................................................................................................................................40 1.2.3. Extreme Impacts.................................................................................................................................................................41 1.2.3.1. Three Classes of Impacts ....................................................................................................................................................................41 1.2.3.2. Complex Nature of an Extreme ‘Event’...............................................................................................................................................42 1.2.3.3. Metrics to Quantify Social Impacts and the Management of Extremes..............................................................................................42 1.2.3.4. Traditional Adjustment to Extremes....................................................................................................................................................43 1.3. Disaster Management, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Risk Transfer ..........................................44 1.3.1. Climate Change Will Complicate Management of Some Disaster Risks ...........................................................................46 1.3.1.1. Challenge of Quantitative Estimates of Changing Risks.....................................................................................................................46 1.3.1.2. Processes that Influence Judgments about Changing Risks ...............................................................................................................46 1.3.2. Adaptation to Climate Change Contributes to Disaster Risk Management......................................................................47 1.3.3. Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation to Climate Change Share Many Concepts, Goals, and Processes................48 1.4. Coping and Adapting .................................................................................................................50 1.4.1. Definitions, Distinctions, and Relationships.......................................................................................................................51 1.4.1.1. Definitions and Distinctions................................................................................................................................................................51 1.4.1.2. Relationships between Coping, Coping Capacity, Adaptive Capacity, and the Coping Range............................................................51 1.4.2. Learning..............................................................................................................................................................................53 1.4.3. Learning to Overcome Adaptation Barriers .......................................................................................................................54 1.4.4. ‘No Regrets,’ Robust Adaptation, and Learning.................................................................................................................56 References .................................................................................................................................................56 26 Chapter 1 Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, Vulnerability, and Resilience Executive Summary Disaster signifies extreme impacts suffered when hazardous physical events interact with vulnerable social conditions to severely alter the normal functioning of a community or a society (high confidence). Social vulnerability and exposure are key determinants of disaster risk and help explain why non-extreme physical events and chronic hazards can also lead to extreme impacts and disasters, while some extreme events do not. Extreme impacts on human, ecological, or physical systems derive from individual extreme or non-extreme events, or a compounding of events or their impacts (for example, drought creating the conditions for wildfire, followed by heavy rain leading to landslides and soil erosion). [1.1.2.1, 1.1.2.3, 1.2.3.1, 1.3] Management strategies based on the reduction of everyday or chronic risk factors and on the reduction of risk associated with non-extreme events, as opposed to strategies based solely on the exceptional or extreme, provide a mechanism that facilitates the reduction of disaster risk and the preparation for and response to extremes and disasters (high confidence). Effective adaptation to climate change requires an understanding of the diverse ways in which social processes and development pathways shape disaster risk. Disaster risk is often causally related to ongoing, chronic, or persistent environmental, economic, or social risk factors. [1.1.2.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4.1, 1.3.2] Development practice, policy, and outcomes are critical to shaping disaster risk (high confidence). Disaster risk may be increased by shortcomings in development. Reductions in the rate of depletion of ecosystem services, improvements in urban land use and territorial organization processes, the strengthening of rural livelihoods, and general and specific advances in urban and rural governance advance the composite agenda of poverty reduction, disaster risk reduction, and adaptation to climate change. [1.1.2.1, 1.1.2.2, 1.1.3, 1.3.2, 1.3.3] Climate change will pose added challenges for the appropriate allocation of efforts to