Development of Disaster Resilient Coastal Communities to Enhance Economic Development and Social Welfare: Book of Abstracts

Coast at risk – the importance of risk knowledge Coastal communities all over the world are under severe pressure resulting from planned and unplanned development, population growth and human induced vulnerability, coastal hazards with increasing frequency and magnitude and impacts of global climate change. These unprecedented changes have increased the level of risk of such coastal communities from a wide range of coastal hazards arising from natural phenomena and human induced activities. In this respect the assessment and management of risk for coastal hazards plays a vital role for safety of human lives, conservation of ecosystems and protection of the built environment. It leads to the development of disaster resilient communities to enhance economic development and social welfare. Risk assessment is one of the fundamental first steps towards planning, improving and implementing effective disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. One has to know and identify risks if they are to be effectively reduced and contained. There is a need to develop simplified approaches to risk assessment to convince a wider stakeholder base that investing in risk assessments pay. Such approaches bring together so many members of civil society leading the efforts to make disaster risk reduction everyone’s business

Adapting the community sector for climate extremes

Abstract People experiencing poverty and inequality will be affected first and worst by the impacts of climate change to infrastructure and human settlements, including those caused by increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events and natural disasters. They have the least capacity to cope, to adapt, to move and to recover. Community service organisations (CSOs) play a critical role in supporting individuals, families and communities experiencing poverty and inequality to build resilience and respond to adverse changes in circumstances. As such, the services they provide comprise a critical component of social infrastructure in human settlements. However, very little is understood about CSOs own vulnerability to – or their role in managing and mitigating risks to their clients and the community from – climate change impacts to physical infrastructure. The Extreme Weather, Climate Change and the Community Sector – Risks and Adaptations project examined the relationship between physical and social infrastructure (in the form of CSO service provision). Specifically, the ways in which the climate-driven failure of CSO service delivery worsens risks to the individuals and communities they serve and, on the other hand, how preparedness may reduce vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather impacts to human settlements and infrastructure.The research comprised a comprehensive and critical scoping, examination and review of existing research findings and an audit, examination and judgment-based evaluation of the current vulnerabilities and capacities of CSOs under projected climate change scenarios. It employed three key methods of consultation and data collection. A literature review examined research conducted to date in Australia and comparative countries internationally on the vulnerability and climate change adaptation needs of CSOs. A program of 10 Community Sector Professional Climate Workshops consulted over 150 CSO representatives to develop a qualitative record of extreme event and climate change risks and corresponding adaptation strategies specific to CSOs. A national survey of CSOs, which resulted in the participation of approximately 500 organisations, produced a quantitative data set about the nature of CSO vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather impacts to infrastructure, whether and how CSOs are approaching the adaptation task and key barriers to adaptation.While the methods employed and the absence of empirical data sets quantifying CSO vulnerability to climate change impacts create limitations to the evidence-base produced, findings from the research suggest that CSOs are highly vulnerable and not well prepared to respond to climate change and extreme weather impacts to physical infrastructure and that this underlying organisational vulnerability worsens the vulnerability of people experiencing poverty and inequality to climate change. However, the project results indicate that if well adapted, CSOs have the willingness, specialist skills, assets and capacity to make a major contribution to the resilience and adaptive capacity of their clients and the community more broadly (sections of which will be plunged into adversity by extreme events). Despite this willingness, the evidence presented shows that few CSOs have undertaken significant action to prepare for climate change and worsening extreme weather events. Key barriers to adaptation identified through the research are inadequate financial resources, lack of institutionalised knowledge and skills for adaptation and the belief that climate change adaptation is beyond the scope of CSOs core business. On the other hand, key indicators of organisational resilience to climate change and extreme weather impacts include: level of knowledge about extreme weather risks, past experience of an extreme weather event and organisational size.Given its size, scope and the critical role the Australian community sector plays in building client and community resilience and in assisting communities to respond to and recover from the devastating impacts of extreme weather events and natural disasters, the research identifies serious gaps in both the policy frameworks and the research base required to ensure the sector’s resilience and adaptive capacity – gaps which appear to have already had serious consequences. To address these gaps, a series of recommendations has been prepared to enable the development and implementation of a comprehensive, sector-specific adaptation and preparedness program, which includes mechanisms to institutionalise knowledge and skills, streamlined tools appropriate to the needs and capacity of a diverse range of organisations and a benchmarking system to allow progress towards resilience and preparedness to be monitored. Future research priorities for adaptation in this sector have also been identified

Gender and Change in the Spotlight: Report on the 4th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries

Fishery changes, caused by modernization and mechanization, globalization and environmental disasters, shift the working spaces, continually destroy and create jobs and livelihoods, and bring greater overlaps in women's and men's roles in the household, factory and market place. This report puts the spotlight on key results and discussion presented at GAF4 (4th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries) from May 1-3, 2013 in Seoul, Korea. 28 oral presentations, one poster and four mini-workshops/panels were given. The report highlights four major threads of GAF4: (1) the gendered impacts of fishery sector change, (2) gender assets and roles, (3) challenges and tools to meet future needs, and (3) the road to mobilization to achieve gender equality in aquaculture and fisheries. Out of these threads, researchers and grass roots representatives will conclude that they need to suspend pre-conceived ideas about gender roles and relationships because many of these are in flux. Researchers need to develop further and make better use of rigorous qualitative social science research methods. Through their participatory nature and to ensure ethical approaches, such methods will bring researchers and grassroots participants closer, which is an essential step in mobilizing support for gender equality

Improving Student Internalization of Disaster Knowledge by Participating in Learning Package Development

In the subject of disaster education, it is crucial to establish a practical approach to give an impactful impression for the student so that it can increase self-awareness as well as for it to be applicable in daily life and memorized longer in each individual. This community services program titled "Development of Learning Packages by and for Students towards a Smart and Resilience Generations in dealing with Disaster." aims at developing creative and innovative disaster education learning packages that meet the needs and characteristics of students. This activity was carried out using a participatory method, through three (3) stages, namely: i) design phase, ii) production stage, and iii) evaluation phase. This activity adopts the experiential learning process, to assist the students in internalizing disaster knowledge in order for them to be able to apply the principles and develop the characters and competencies needed when disasters occur. The implementation of the program has resulted in the compilation of creative and innovative disaster education learning packages that meet the needs and characteristics of students, namely posters, poems, short stories, videos, and dances

Games for a new climate: experiencing the complexity of future risks

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Center Task Force Reports, a publication series that began publishing in 2009 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.This report is a product of the Pardee Center Task Force on Games for a New Climate, which met at Pardee House at Boston University in March 2012. The 12-member Task Force was convened on behalf of the Pardee Center by Visiting Research Fellow Pablo Suarez in collaboration with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre to “explore the potential of participatory, game-based processes for accelerating learning, fostering dialogue, and promoting action through real-world decisions affecting the longer-range future, with an emphasis on humanitarian and development work, particularly involving climate risk management.” Compiled and edited by Janot Mendler de Suarez, Pablo Suarez and Carina Bachofen, the report includes contributions from all of the Task Force members and provides a detailed exploration of the current and potential ways in which games can be used to help a variety of stakeholders – including subsistence farmers, humanitarian workers, scientists, policymakers, and donors – to both understand and experience the difficulty and risks involved related to decision-making in a complex and uncertain future. The dozen Task Force experts who contributed to the report represent academic institutions, humanitarian organization, other non-governmental organizations, and game design firms with backgrounds ranging from climate modeling and anthropology to community-level disaster management and national and global policymaking as well as game design.Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centr

Topic Guide: Education, Climate and Environment

This Topic Guide is part of an extensive series of publications commissioned by the UK Department for International Development. They are intended to support the professional development of DFID advisors by sharing solid evidence from research and practice. This guide sets out the existing knowledge around the links between education, climate and environment. In particular, it highlights the two-way relationship between these key areas, including: (i) the risks and opportunities posed by environmental and climatic factors on educational supply and demand at all levels (primary, secondary, tertiary) and modes (formal and informal); (ii) the role education and educational infrastructure can play in building the resilience of communities (particularly poor and vulnerable population groups) to climate and environmental change, and the potential opportunities provided by low carbon technology and environmentally-sensitive construction and design in that process. The document has six sections. Section 1 highlights the links between DFID’s Resilience Framework and education responses to climate and environmental change. Section 2 provides an overview of existing research on the impacts of climate and environmental change on education, in terms of both infrastructure (e.g. loss of or damage to school buildings or transportation networks) as well as learning and access (e.g. disruptions due to extreme weather events). Section 3 explores the existing research on the potential role of education in fostering sustainable development in the face of environmental and climate change. The Topic Guide then outlines the key areas which an educational response to climate and environmental change should take into account (Section 4) and how these can be integrated into short, medium and long-term education responses (Section 5). It concludes with a discussion of the key challenges and opportunities for education responses to climate and environmental change (Section 6). Case studies have been integrated throughout the text to show how key ideas and approaches are already being put into practice in education systems around the world

Emergency Services Workforce 2030: Changing landscape literature review

The Changing Landscape Literature Review collates a high-level evidence base around seven major themes in the changing landscape (i.e., the external environment) that fire, emergency service, and rural land management agencies operate in, and which will shape workforce planning and capability requirements over the next decade. It is an output of the Workforce 2030 project and is one of two literature reviews that summarise the research base underpinning a high-level integrative report of emerging workforce challenges and opportunities, Emergency Services Workforce 2030. Workforce 2030 aimed to highlight major trends and developments likely to impact the future workforces of emergency service organisations, and their potential implications. The starting point for the project was a question: What can research from outside the sphere of emergency management add to our knowledge of wider trends and developments likely to shape the future emergency services workforce, and their implications? The seven themes included in the Changing Landscape Literature Review are: 1) demographic changes, 2) changing nature of work, 3) changes in volunteering, 4) physical technology, 5) digital technology, 6) shifting expectations, and changing risk. A second, accompanying literature review, the Changing Work Literature Review, focuses on another nine themes related to emergency service organisation’s internal workforce management approaches and working environments