Insecure Security: Emergency Water Supply and Minimum Standards in Countries with a High Supply Reliability

Drinking water supply is at the core of both, humanitarian action in times of crisis, as well as national policies for regular and emergency supply. In countries with a continuous water supply, the population mostly relies ingenuously on the permanent availability of tap water due to high supply standards. In case of a disruption in the drinking water infrastructure, minimum supply standards become important for emergency management during disasters. However, wider recognition of this issue is still lacking, particularly in countries facing comparably fewer disruptions. Several international agencies provide guideline values for minimum water provision standards in case of a disaster. Acknowledging that these minimum standards were developed for humanitarian assistance, it remains to be analyzed whether these standards apply to disaster management in countries with high supply standards. Based on a comprehensive literature review of scientific publications and humanitarian guidelines, as well as policies from selected countries, current processes, contents, and shortcomings of emergency water supply planning are assessed. To close the identified gaps, this paper flags potential improvements for emergency water supply planning and identifies future fields of research

Kooperation im Risiko- und Krisenmanagement: Aspekte der Resilienz und Mindestversorgung

Naturereignisse, Cyber-Angriffe, technisches oder menschliches Versagen können zu Ausfällen einer oder mehrerer Kritischer Infrastrukturen führen. Welche Folgen hat das für die Gesellschaft und wie kann die Bevölkerung vor möglichen Ausfällen geschützt werden? Diese Frage treibt Städte und Gemeinden um. Gemeinsam entwickeln unterschiedliche Akteure aus Forschung und Praxis Strategien, damit aus einem Notfall keine Katastrophe wird

A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change

Assessing global progress on human adaptation to climate change is an urgent priority. Although the literature on adaptation to climate change is rapidly expanding, little is known about the actual extent of implementation. We systematically screened >48,000 articles using machine learning methods and a global network of 126 researchers. Our synthesis of the resulting 1,682 articles presents a systematic and comprehensive global stocktake of implemented human adaptation to climate change. Documented adaptations were largely fragmented, local and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes. We identify eight priorities for global adaptation research: assess the effectiveness of adaptation responses, enhance the understanding of limits to adaptation, enable individuals and civil society to adapt, include missing places, scholars and scholarship, understand private sector responses, improve methods for synthesizing different forms of evidence, assess the adaptation at different temperature thresholds, and improve the inclusion of timescale and the dynamics of responses