Social vulnerability and disaster risk reduction needs: perspectives of women

Abstract

Integration of disaster risk reduction needs and experiences of different groups in the community with the built environment is significant to achieve disaster resilience. It facilitates identifying the nature of disaster vulnerabilities within a particular community leading to achieve disaster risk reduction more effectively. Women‘s needs and experiences are prominent in this context since women have been identified as a highly vulnerable group to disasters. Women‘s higher disaster vulnerability is typically determined by their social roles and responsibilities. Their responsibilities over production and reproduction frequently expose them to different conditions in disasters with varying vulnerabilities. This paper is based on a doctoral research that aims to investigate how women‘s knowledge, experiences and needs and concerns in relation to disaster risk reduction can be identified and integrated with disaster risk reduction in the built environment. A comprehensive literature review has been carried out in order to explore various aspects of social vulnerability, disaster implications on women, women‘s needs in disaster risk reduction and the means of needs capturing and integration. Participatory methods such as public consultations are suggested as the most effective ways of capturing disaster risk reduction needs of community women in literature whilst the significant role of construction process and people involved in it is highlighted for integrating the needs with the built environment