Multiple resilience dividends at the community level: a comparative study on disaster risk reduction interventions in different countries

The costs of disasters have been increasing in many parts of the world as a result of an increase in exposed and vulnerable assets as well as the effects of climate change. However, investments in disaster risk reduction (DRR)remain insufficient to manage these growing risks. To make investments in DRR more attractive and to shift investments from post-event response and recovery to pre-event resilience, there has been a push to account for the full range of benefits of those investments including economic, ecological and social ‘resilience dividends’. While the concept of ‘multiple resilience dividends’ is now frequently used to strengthen the DRR narrative, it has not yet been widely applied in practice when appraising DRR interventions. The paper analyses the knowledge gaps and challenges that arise from applying the ‘multiple resilience dividends’ in planning, implementation and evaluation of disaster risk reduction interventions on the community level. A newly developed framework is used to analyse empirical survey data on community level DRR interventions as well as five in-depth community case studies in Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, Afghanistan and the UK. The analysis reveals a disconnect between the available planning tools and the evidence on materialized multiple resilience dividends, which pose a key obstacle in successfully applying the concept on the community level. The paper concludes that a structured consideration of multiple dividends of resilience from the planning to the monitoring stage is important to secure local buy-in and to ensure that the full range of benefits can materialize

Climate and disaster resilience measurement: persistent gaps in multiple hazards, methods, and practicability

In response to increasing demands for information on disasters and extreme events by the policy, practice, and research communities, there has been a recent surge in approaches to the measurement of applied risk management and resilience. Nevertheless, very few of these approaches address systemic risks, particularly in multi-hazard environments, and thus do not holistically contribute to decision making in various contexts. This paper addresses this gap by means of a critical review and an assessment of approaches to climate and disaster resilience measurement with a particular focus on three issues: (1) the consideration of compounding socioeconomic and climatic risks in approaches to resilience measurement; (2) the methodological and technical aspects of resilience measurement; and (3) the application and practicability of resilience measurement across various contexts to reliably inform decision-making processes. Seventeen key resilience measurement approaches developed by researchers, government, and private and civil society organizations are selected and evaluated according to a set of assessment criteria. Based on this assessment, we conclude with three key findings. First, we find a lack of clear standards and validated approaches in the measurement methodologies, which can lead to inconsistencies and poor data comparability. Second, approaches to resilience measurement should further strive to combine both process- and outcome-based methodological perspectives to represent resilience in the most holistic and standardized manner possible. Third, in the context of multiple hazards, decision-making strategies should address multiple vulnerabilities. To conclude, we suggest that future developments in resilience measurement should allow for the analysis of interactions between multiple stressors across different scales and among systemic risks. Moreover, more rigorous process-based approaches to resilience measurement are still required that can incorporate outputs into decision making

Multiple resilience dividends at the community level: A comparative study of disaster risk reduction interventions in different countries

Climate-related disasters are increasing in many parts of the world, yet investment in disaster risk reduction (DRR) remains insufficient to manage these risks. This is despite growing recognition that DRR interventions can reduce potential impacts from disasters as well as deliver broader economic, ecological, and social co-benefits. Focusing on the net benefits of DRR, beyond avoiding losses and damages, is considered as an important strategy to strengthen the case for DRR as part of a sustainable development by academics and international organizations alike. However, there is very limited evidence of on-the-ground accounting of these “multiple resilience dividends” by those who act to reduce disaster risk at the local level. Using an innovative analytical approach, we investigate the knowledge gaps and challenges associated with considering multiple resilience dividends in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of DRR interventions at the community level for the example of flood risk. We use a newly developed framework to analyze empirical survey data on community-level DRR interventions as well as five in-depth case studies from Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom. The analysis reveals a disconnect between available planning tools and the evidence of materialized multiple resilience dividends, which is a key obstacle to successfully apply the concept at the community level. Structured consideration of multiple resilience dividends from the planning to the monitoring and evaluation stages is required to secure local buy-in and to ensure that these dividends materialize as intended

Closing the ‘operationalisation gap’: Insights from systemic risk research to inform transformational adaptation and risk management

Recent research has shown that adverse risks associated with climate and global change are becoming increasingly systemic with mounting interdependencies that will likely lead to cascading impacts. These impacts are projected to become so intolerable that standard risk management approaches alone will no longer be sufficient. Calls to consider transformational approaches to risk management and adaptation to facilitate a change towards more resilient futures are growing steadily louder. There is, however, a clear gap in terms of translating ambitions for transformational change into interventions and measures that can be directly applied in practice. To bridge this gap and help move forward with operationalising transformation in this context, we suggest harnessing ideas and insights from systemic risk research. Understanding systemic risk usually requires a careful examination of a system's components, leading to a better appreciation of how they and their interactions within a system contribute to systemic risks. Restructuring the connectivity of system elements based on this information represents a transformational change of the system and can lead to a reduction in systemic risk. From this perspective, systemic risk research and transformative risk management are closely connected disciplines, as methodological insights from the field of systemic risk research can benefit the objective of shifting climate risk management interventions towards transformative approaches that facilitate a radical and fundamental change towards more resilient futures. The pluralistic views of decision-makers regarding system boundaries and responsibilities can, however, result in forced transformation. An applied systems view can avoid this and guide deliberate transformation coupled with iterative approaches that are able to track the status of such changes and steer developments in the desired direction

Closing the ‘operationalisation gap’: Insights from systemic risk research to inform transformational adaptation and risk management

Recent research has shown that adverse risks associated with climate and global change are becoming increasingly systemic with mounting interdependencies that will likely lead to cascading impacts. These impacts are projected to become so intolerable that standard risk management approaches alone will no longer be sufficient. Calls to consider transformational approaches to risk management and adaptation to facilitate a change towards more resilient futures are growing steadily louder. There is, however, a clear gap in terms of translating ambitions for transformational change into interventions and measures that can be directly applied in practice. To bridge this gap and help move forward with operationalising transformation in this context, we suggest harnessing ideas and insights from systemic risk research. Understanding systemic risk usually requires a careful examination of a system's components, leading to a better appreciation of how they and their interactions within a system contribute to systemic risks. Restructuring the connectivity of system elements based on this information represents a transformational change of the system and can lead to a reduction in systemic risk. From this perspective, systemic risk research and transformative risk management are closely connected disciplines, as methodological insights from the field of systemic risk research can benefit the objective of shifting climate risk management interventions towards transformative approaches that facilitate a radical and fundamental change towards more resilient futures. The pluralistic views of decision-makers regarding system boundaries and responsibilities can, however, result in forced transformation. An applied systems view can avoid this and guide deliberate transformation coupled with iterative approaches that are able to track the status of such changes and steer developments in the desired direction

Determinants of inter-specific variation in basal metabolic rate

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the rate of metabolism of a resting, postabsorptive, non-reproductive, adult bird or mammal, measured during the inactive circadian phase at a thermoneutral temperature. BMR is one of the most widely measured physiological traits, and data are available for over 1,200 species. With data available for such a wide range of species, BMR is a benchmark measurement in ecological and evolutionary physiology, and is often used as a reference against which other levels of metabolism are compared. Implicit in such comparisons is the assumption that BMR is invariant for a given species and that it therefore represents a stable point of comparison. However, BMR shows substantial variation between individuals, populations and species. Investigation of the ultimate (evolutionary) explanations for these differences remains an active area of inquiry, and explanation of size-related trends remains a contentious area. Whereas explanations for the scaling of BMR are generally mechanistic and claim ties to the first principles of chemistry and physics, investigations of mass-independent variation typically take an evolutionary perspective and have demonstrated that BMR is ultimately linked with a range of extrinsic variables including diet, habitat temperature, and net primary productivity. Here we review explanations for size-related and mass-independent variation in the BMR of animals, and suggest ways that the various explanations can be evaluated and integrated