2nd Consultation Report. Bouncing Forward Sustainably: Pathways to a post-COVID World. Governance for Sustainability

COVID-19 has once again brought the role of governments, and their ability to cooperate and coordinate their actions into the spotlight. It has however also highlighted significant gaps in various areas including the science policy interface; the ability of institutional mechanisms to deal with crises; in the preparedness of global and national science communities and government systems; and in access to reliable, verifiable data to inform decision making. The consultative meetings around this topic draw on lessons learned and experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic to identify effective policy tools and mechanisms that would also give due credence to issues of poverty alleviation, justice, inequalities, and the environment. The goal is to suggest pathways for more robustand responsive governance systems for an uncertain future. This report gives a summary over the discussions in the second consultative meeting that took place online, on July 27, 2020

Approach for national scale earthquake risk assessment: Case study from Nepal

The paper presents the approach for earthquake hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk assessment for Nepal. The approach amalgamates various scientific streams, which are structured and integrated on GIS platform. The exposure, vulnerability and risk assessment are carried out for primary sectors including population, housing, education, hospital, industry, power and roadways. The risk assessment is carried out in two ways targeting emergency management agencies. One aspect of risk assessment represents expected number of sector units falling in specific grade of damage and the second aspect covers expected loss and impact on GDP due to large magnitude earthquake (i.e., Bihar-Nepal Earthquake 1934). The earthquake risk for the size of the 1934 event may mean losses exceeding 15 billion USD, can lead to large fiscal and economic impacts. Based on these findings the paper recommends DRR interventions at the national scale to tackle gaps in risk reduction, risk financing and risk governance

Catalogue and Toolbox of Risk Assessment and Management Tools

The ENHANCE project is concerned with analysing and working towards improved public-private partnerships for managing risks from natural hazards. An important issue for such partnerships is the methods, tools and processes available for assessing risk and risk management options. Risk analysis has long provided useful input to decision-making. At the same time, the field of risk analysis is in motion and an enhanced framing of risk analysis and risk management is being embraced following an iterative cycle organized around notions of learning, innovation and transformation. This broadened vision on risk analysis is a key issue for the ENHANCE project as well, which takes many and different perspectives on analysing, understanding, communicating and managing risk. This report lays out the status quo at the outset of the project regarding risk analytical tools, methods and data that are currently used by project partners in ENHANCE. The task overall develops a catalogue of existing risk assessment and management tools and methods to describe the concepts of iterative risk management and further sets up a toolbox, containing individual models and tools to be used by the case studies in their analyses. While work in the cases study, including methodological development, is in process, we find that ENHANCE partners and cases employ a multitude of models, tools and data ranging from impact analysis, different risk modelling techniques to various decision-support methods. A number of tools that encapsulate these methods are also available with the consortium. We suggest the tools and methods in use can be useful starting points for working towards a broader vision of iterative risk management. While the work so far, and this deliverable, have focussed on populating the technical stages of the risk analytical cycle (visually identified as the inner circle), we suggest in the next phase of ENHANCE, additional efforts should be dispensed to better understand adaptive management aspects associated with using these methods and tools, such as learning, innovation and transformation, which we exhibit visually in an outer circle. This report proceeds as follows: We start with laying out key elements of risk analysis and management in section 2, which also describes the new framing organized around the iterative risk-management concept. Methods for assessing risk and evaluating risk management are discussed in section 3. Then we consider methods, models and datasets that are in use in the ENHANCE case studies at the moment (section 4), before section 5 concludes. Finally and importantly, the annex lists more information on cases studies, for which detailed information was received from the project partners

Diagnosing Disaster Resilience of Communities as Complex Socioecological Systems

Global environmental change, growing anthropogenic influence, and increasing globalization of society have made it clear that disaster vulnerability and resilience of communities cannot be understood without knowledge of the broader social-ecological system in which they are embedded. Inspired by iterative multiscale analysis employed by the Resilience Alliance, the related Social-Ecological Systems Framework initially designed by Elinor Ostrom, and the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, we developed a multi-tier framework for conceptualizing communities as multiscale social-ecological systems. We use the framework to diagnose and analyze community resilience to disasters, as a form of disturbance to social-ecological systems, with feedbacks from the local to the global scale. We highlight the cross-scale influences and feedback on communities that exist from lower (e.g., household) to higher (e.g., regional, national) scales. The framework is then applied to real-world community resilience assessment in Nepal and China, to illustrate how key components of socio-ecological systems, including natural hazards, natural and man-made environment, and community capacities can be delineated and analyzed

Prospects of Semiconductor Terahertz Pulse Sources

Extremely high pump-to-terahertz (THz) conversion efficiencies up to 0.7% were demonstrated in recent experiments with ZnTe THz pulse sources. Such high efficiencies could be achieved by pumping at an infrared wavelength sufficiently long to suppress both two- and three-photon absorption and the associated free-carrier absorption at THz frequencies. Here, high-field high-energy THz pulse generation by optical rectification in semiconductor nonlinear materials is investigated by numerical simulations. Basic design aspects of infrared-pumped semiconductor THz sources are discussed. Optimal pumping and phase-matching conditions are given. Multicycle THz pulse generation for particle acceleration is discussed

System Analysis in International Development: From Concept to Application in Flood Prone Communities

Disasters pose a growing threat to sustainable development. Disaster risk management efforts have largely failed to arrest key drivers of uncontrolled urbanization and proliferation of assets in high risk areas. Systems analysis provides a unique interpretation of this failure, and a new pathway for remedy. Increasing “buzz” around the concept of disaster “resilience” (fundamentally a systems concept) has opened the door for the application of systems analysis in the complex arena of the social-ecological foundations of risk and development; yet it has been vaguely conceptualized, not offering a concrete approach to operationalization. We propose a conceptualization of disaster resilience built on system thinking. This conceptualization is centered on wellbeing (healthy system functioning) and explicitly draws attention to system interactions over the long term. We then present a systems analysis conceptual framework for exploring the real-world interconnections between disasters and development. Finally we outline how this framework has been applied with stakeholders in Peru, and present key lessons pertinent for researchers applying systems thinking in complex, socio-ecological governance settings

The co-production of scientific advice and decision making under uncertainty: Lessons from the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Italy

On 22 October 2012 seven members of the Italian Major Risk Commission were found guilty of 29 persons manslaughter and of 4 injuries in relation with the earthquake that hit L'Aquila, a town in Central Italy, in the year 2009. The members were verdict to six years in prison for violating their obligations to adequately analyse seismic risk and to provide clear, correct and complete information, which might have saved many people's life. The case has not been concluded jet and so far the debate focused on the scientific, legal and communicative aspects of the verdict, while the institutional ones, including the co-production of scientific advice and decision making, received less attention. We argue that the presence of deep epistemic uncertainty coupled with responsibility overlaps of scientists-turned-decision-makers, is fundamental to understanding the event and the legal aftermath. Another relevant institutional aspect is the concern of the national and local authorities that the population would over-react to anything other than a reassuring message. We discuss the consequences of this framing of the emergency management problem in terms of public control rather than public safety. As risk science continues to grapple with the challenge of communicating uncertain information to decision-makers and citizens, it becomes more important to understand the co-production processes that shape how scientific advice is used for decisions on the ground

If Numbers Can Speak, Who Listens? Creating Engagement and Learning for Effective Uptake of DRR Investment in Developing Countries

Introduction: With a renewed emphasis on evidence-based risk sensitive investment promoted under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, technical demands for analytical tools such as probabilistic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) will likely increase in the foreseeable future. This begs a number of pragmatic questions such as whether or not sophisticated quantitative appraisal tools are effective in raising policy awareness and what alternatives are available. Method: This article briefly reviews current practices of analytical tools such as probabilistic cost-benefit analysis and identifies issues associated with its applications in small scale community based DRR interventions. Results: The article illustrate that while best scientific knowledge should inform policy and practice in principle, it should not create an unrealistic expectation that the state-of-the art methods must be used in all cases, especially for small scale DRR interventions in developing countries, where data and resource limitations and uncertainty are high, and complex interaction and feedback may exist between DRR investment, community response and longer-term development outcome. Discussion: Alternative and more participatory approaches for DRR appraisals are suggested which includes participatory serious games that are increasingly being used to raise awareness and identify pragmatic strategies for change that are needed to bring about successful uptake of DRR investment and implementation of DRR mainstreaming

From event analysis to global lessons: disaster forensics for building resilience

With unprecedented growth in disaster risk, there is an urgent need for enhanced learning about and understanding disasters, particularly in relation to the trends in the drivers of increasing risk. Building on the disaster forensics field, we introduce the Post Event Review Capability (PERC) methodology for systematically and holistically analyzing disaster events, and identifying actionable recommendations. PERC responds to a need for learning about the successes and failures in disaster risk management and resilience, and uncovers the underlying drivers of increasing risk. We draw generalizable insights identified from seven applications of the methodology to date, where we find that across the globe policy makers and practitioners in disaster risk management face strikingly similar challenges despite variations in context, indicating encouraging potential for mutual learning. These lessons highlight the importance of integrated risk reduction strategies. We invite others to utilize the freely available PERC approach and contribute to building a repository of learnings on disaster risk management and resilience. This discussion paper is under review for the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS)