Global patterns of disaster and climate risk — an analysis of the consistency of leading index-based assessments and their results

Indices assessing country-level climate and disaster risk at the global scale have experienced a steep rise in popularity both in science and international climate policy. A number of widely cited products have been developed and published over the recent years, argued to contribute critical knowledge for prioritizing action and funding. However, it remains unclear how their results compare, and how consistent their findings are on country-level risk, exposure, vulnerability and lack of coping, as well as adaptive capacity. This paper analyses and compares the design, data, and results of four of the leading global climate and disaster risk indices: The World Risk Index, the INFORM Risk Index, ND-GAIN Index, and the Climate Risk Index. Our analysis clearly shows that there is considerable degree of cross-index variation regarding countries’ risk levels and comparative ranks. At the same time, there is above-average agreement for high-risk countries. In terms of risk sub-components, there is surprisingly little agreement in the results on hazard exposure, while strong inter-index correlations can be observed when ranking countries according to their socio-economic vulnerability and lack of coping as well as adaptive capacity. Vulnerability and capacity hotspots can hence be identified more robustly than risk and exposure hotspots. Our findings speak both to the potential as well as limitations of index-based approaches. They show that a solid understanding of index-based assessment tools, and their conceptual and methodological underpinnings, is necessary to navigate them properly and interpret as well as use their results in triangulation

The role of minimum supply and social vulnerability assessment for governing critical infrastructure failure: current gaps and future agenda

Increased attention has lately been given to the resilience of critical infrastructure in the context of natural hazards and disasters. The major focus therein is on the sensitivity of critical infrastructure technologies and their management contingencies. However, strikingly little attention has been given to assessing and mitigating social vulnerabilities towards the failure of critical infrastructure and to the development, design and implementation of minimum supply standards in situations of major infrastructure failure. Addressing this gap and contributing to a more integrative perspective on critical infrastructure resilience is the objective of this paper. It asks which role social vulnerability assessments and minimum supply considerations can, should and do-or do not-play for the management and governance of critical infrastructure failure. In its first part, the paper provides a structured review on achievements and remaining gaps in the management of critical infrastructure and the understanding of social vulnerabilities towards disaster-related infrastructure failures. Special attention is given to the current state of minimum supply concepts with a regional focus on policies in Germany and the EU. In its second part, the paper then responds to the identified gaps by developing a heuristic model on the linkages of critical infrastructure management, social vulnerability and minimum supply. This framework helps to inform a vision of a future research agenda, which is presented in the paper's third part. Overall, the analysis suggests that the assessment of socially differentiated vulnerabilities towards critical infrastructure failure needs to be undertaken more stringently to inform the scientifically and politically difficult debate about minimum supply standards and the shared responsibilities for securing them

Risk Management and Adaptation Transitions in New York City

Local risk managers in New York City were keenly aware that the city’s residents, businesses, and infrastructure were vulnerable to significant flooding events before Hurricane Sandy hit in October 2016. The storm and its aftermath have influenced the structure of the city’s approach to risk management and urban development in many ways. The objective of this manuscript is to characterize the current risk management regime in New York City, how it is changing, and how it might shift with the further onset of climate change. More specifically, the paper addresses three basic questions: 1. How does current risk management policy in New York City intersect with climate change adaptation and urban development?; 2. Is there sentiment that transition to a new risk management paradigm is needed?; and 3. If transition is necessary, how will it be enabled or blocked by the current actors, organizations and policy-making networks for adaptation and risk management in the city? In the analysis we focus on examining the relative importance of a suite of possible factors and drivers. Two sources of data are reviewed and integrated. These include results from a workshop with local risk managers, and as well as face-to-face extended interviews with risk manager stakeholders and practitioners. The results indicate that there is significant need for a transition to wider and more comprehensive transformative adaptation policy but the means and opportunities to do is limited

Transitions between risk management regimes in cities

Ongoing climate change is encouraging cities to reevaluate their risk management strategies. Urban communities increasingly are being forced to respond to climate shifts with actions that promote resistance, resilience, or even larger scale transformations. Our objective is to present a conceptual framework that facilitates examination of how the transition from one type of risk management strategy or regime to another takes place. The research framework is built around a set of assumptions regarding the process of transition between risk management regimes. The framework includes five basic conceptual elements: (1) risk management regimes, (2) development pathways, (3) activity spheres, (4) activity spaces, and (5) root, contextual, and proximate drivers. The interaction among these elements and the potential for transition between four different possible regime states including resistance, resilience, transformation, and collapse are presented. The framework facilitates and guides analysis on whether and how transition is emergent, constrained, or accelerated in specific contexts. A case study of post-Hurricane Sandy New York is used to illustrate the framework and its overall effectiveness

Emergence and Transition in London’s Climate Change Adaptation Pathways

Climate change adaptation coevolves with urban development trajectories presenting decision-makers with a choice of positioning adaptation to protect or revise development. This relational view of adaptation in the context of large cities opens questions on the ways in which city and other actors interact. This interaction may be as or more important than resource and information access for shaping the adaptive capacity and direction of such assemblages. Transitions between modes of adaptation are little understood and will likely combine autonomous and deliberate change both incremental and transformative. Using London as a case study, the paper identifies the contemporary adaptation regime to extreme events and its lines of movement. Interviews and a scenario workshop with resilience planners and emergency managers show the orientation of London’s adaptation is firmly positioned in a mode of resilience, protecting development through flexibility. Maintaining resilience to extremes under conditions of economic austerity is seen to result in the shifting of risk management burdens onto those at risk. Self-reliance is emerging as a mechanism for deepening the resilience mode of adaptation. At the same time, when considering potential risks for extreme events in 2035, most planners express a desire for more transformative adaptation that can tackle root causes in social conditions. A gap is revealed between the professional judgment of risk and resilience planning needs and likely trajectories constrained by national administrations and policy

Firms as drivers of integrative adaptive regional development in the context of environmental hazards in developing countries and emerging economies - A conceptual framework

Many industrial sites in developing countries and emerging economies face increasing exposure to environmental hazards, e.g. in coastal locations, while being situated within the territory of state authorities which lack in capacity to provide adaptation solutions. It is therefore relevant to ask, whether and how firms engage in adaptation, both individually and collectively, in order to reduce business disruptions, enhance their competitiveness and shape regional development. However, the literature has made little efforts to address these questions conceptually and empirically. The paper therefore develops a heuristic conceptual framework for deciphering the decision-making of firms exposed to environmental hazards and the role that they might play for shaping larger risk governance and eventually regional adaptation. In doing so, the paper builds on both an explorative empirical study in Jakarta and Semarang and the assessment of different literatures of relevance to the topic. The proposed framework argues that firms potentially fulfill a twofold role in shaping integrative adaptive regional development when exposed to environmental hazards. First, firms seek to enhance their own competitiveness through adjustments which are determined by their routines, risk behavior and the institutional setting. Second, firms act as stakeholders within broader collective adaptation. In conclusion, the framework suggests that firms' (in-)actions can shift the trajectories of regional development into different directions, along a gradient from collapse, resistance, resilience to transformation. The framework can be used to guide empirical analysis and inspire policy making and practice of integrated adaptation governance, especially in rapidly changing developing countries and emerging economies

Normative future visioning for city resilience and development

This paper argues for normative visioning as an underdeveloped component of adaptation planning. Multi-stakeholder and normative approaches to future visioning offer generative moments when creativity can meet the power to act required for critical, including transformative, adaptation. Including normative methods with community and city actors in adaptation planning allows for alternative narratives of development to arise as a basis for deeper conversation and potential action on the root causes of vulnerability and risk. A specific visioning approach is tested for four megacities – Istanbul, Kathmandu, Nairobi and Quito. Relations between current and future states of development and resilience are found to be both aligned (congruent or contingent) and in opposition (countervailing or constrained) shaping strategy for policy setting. These data are combined with additional work from London, Kolkata, New York and Lagos to pilot a City Resilience Challenge Index (CRCI), indicating to policy-makers whether and how cities are currently moving away from, rather than towards, envisioned trajectories of vulnerability reduction and adaptation. In the future, the CRCI might provide a global tool to track the progress of cities towards climate resilient development and, by doing so, to increase ambition and galvanize action