Climate Change and Local Level Disaster Risk Reduction Planning ...

Suggested Citation: Prabhakar, S.V.R.K., A. Srinivasan, and R. Shaw. 2009. Climate change
and local level disaster risk reduction planning: need, opportunities and challenges. Mitigation and
Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 14:7-33.
Abstract
Climate Change and Local Level Disaster Risk
Reduction Planning: Need, Opportunities and
Challenges
S.V.R.K. Prabhakar, Ancha Srinivasan, and Rajib Shaw
The field of climate change is full of uncertainties that are limiting strategic disaster risk reduction
planning. In this paper, however, we argued that there is lot to do before we get our hands on
reliable estimates of future climate change impacts. It includes bringing together different
stakeholders in a framework suggested in this paper, developing case studies that reflect long-
term local impacts of climate change, capacity building of local stakeholders that enables them to
take decisions under uncertainty etc. We proposed a simple scheme that brings together climate,
disaster and policy community together to start a dialogue in a run-up to understanding wider
aspects of long-term risk reduction at local level. Strategic thinking, which has only been
restricted to national and regional planning to date, needs to be inculcated in local level disaster
risk reduction and policy personnel as well. There is a need to move from the attitude of
considering local level players as ‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ for which developing a network
of self learning and evolving organizations are required at the local level.
Key Words: Local disaster risk reduction planning; climate change; strategic planning;
uncertainty; climate task group

Abbreviations:
AWWA American Water Works Association
CRED Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters
CTG Climate task group
GHG Greenhouse GasesSrinivasan Ancha; Rajib Shaw; and Ian Davis
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
UK CIP United Kingdom Climate Impacts Program
UNDP APF United Nations Development Program Adaptation Policy Framework
The linkage between development and disasters is well known (Wisner et al 2004; Otero and
Marti 1995; Stenchion, 1997; Pelling, 2003; McEntire, 2004; UNDP, 2004). Climate change has
brought another dimension to the development (Denton et al, 2002; McCarthy et al, 2001;
Michael, 2003; Richards, 2003). The Brundtland Report identified Climate Change as one of the
three problems bearing on our survival way back in 1987 (World Commission on Environment
and Development, 1987). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has indicated
that climate change will interact at all scales and sectors including disaster risk (page 70,
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007b). The IPCC also reported an increase in
global atmospheric temperature by 0.74 OC in the past 100 years with associated changes in
precipitation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007a). There are evidences for
longer droughts in tropics and subtropics, increasing frequency of heavy rainfall events on most
land areas and for increasing intensity of tropical cyclones in North Atlantic. These changes are
expected to have multi-fold impacts in the form of floods and droughts in various parts of the
world. The extreme events can be devastating for the developing countries which have less
capacity to adapt (Mendelsohn and Dinar, 1999; Ravindranath and Sathaye, 2002; Winkler, 2005;
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007a). This establishes an undeniable unholy
alliance between climate change, disasters, and development. This calls for better understanding
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the impacts of climate change in terms of disasters and what it means to disaster risk
management professionals and policy makers.
Mitigation and adaptation approaches were devised to address the problem of climate change
(McCarthy et al, 2001). While mitigation aims at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation
aims at reducing current and future impacts of climate change. Adaptation has gained much
importance due to the fact that the already caused damage to the global environment would
continue to show impacts long time into the future, irrespective of the mitigation practices taken
up and implemented at present (Smithers and Smit, 1997). Adaptation enhances the capacity of
people and governments to reduce climate change impacts (Tompkins and Adger, 2003).
However, there have also been cautions for not investing heavily in adaptation as such
investments may lead to mal-adaptations and unsustainable development (Kates, 2000; Adger et
al, 2003). In the context of climate change, disaster risk management is considered as an
adaptation option (Smit and Pilifosova, 2001; Vulnerability and Adaptation Resource Group,
2006). Disaster risk management has also been seen as a way to sustainable development (Boulle
et al, 1997; Smit and Pilifosova, 2001; Yodmani, 2001). The linkage between climate change and
disaster risk reduction was subject of intensive formal and informal debates at the World
Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) (Vulnerability and Adaptation Resource Group,
2006). In addition, the ‘Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and
Communities to Disasters’ identified climate change as one of the threats posing the world future
and identified disaster risk management planning as one of the key points of entry to tackle the
climate change threats (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2005). In
the words of the Framework:
“Promote the integration of risk reduction associated with existing climate variability
and future climate change into strategies for the reduction of disaster risk and
adaptation to climate change, which would include the clear identification of climate
related disaster risks, the design of specific risk reduction measures and an improved
and routine use of climate risk information by planners, engineers and other decision-
makers.”
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Hence, in this paper, bearing in mind the disaster risk management as an adaptation issue, we
looked at the problems in the existing disaster risk management planning, presented a simple
scheme that we believe would make a beginning in mainstreaming climate change concerns in
disaster risk reduction, and discussed possible limitations for realizing the scheme to the full
satisfaction. We first argued that there is a need for different approach in disaster risk
management due to new dimension brought by climate change and problems with the existing
disaster risk management planning. Subsequently, we proposed a scheme for incorporating
climate change concerns in disaster risk management planning and factors to be considered for
such mainstreaming.
1. Need for a different approach in disaster risk
management now
Disaster risk management refers to the systematic management of administrative decisions,
organization, operational skills and abilities to implement policies, strategies and coping capacities
of the society or individuals to lessen the impacts of natural and related environmental and
technological hazards (United Nations Development Program, 2004). Disaster risk management
planning involves understanding hazards, vulnerabilities and potential losses and developing
appropriate preparedness and mitigation strategies to mitigate such losses. Disaster risk
management encompasses complete realm of disaster related activities. Disaster management is
not a new subject for many nations. While some nations have been responding to disasters since
time immemorial some others were integrating disaster risk management concerns in various
developmental programs with varied degree of success. Developed nations have been relatively
successful on this front due to their access to better technological and financial resources than
the developing and underdeveloped nations. There is a need to re-look at the existing disaster risk
reduction approaches due to new risks brought by climate change and due to problems in the
existing risk management approaches. In this section, we elaborated these two aspects.
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1.1. Climate change has brought new risks
One of the important reasons that could be put forward is that climate change has potential to
bring considerable change in the hazard profile and its interaction with the dynamic vulnerability
and risk profiles of countries. It includes change in the kind of disaster that a region is vulnerable
to (e.g. from no disasters in the past to more disaster events), change in type of hazards (e.g. from
more floods to more droughts) or change in hazard intensities and magnitudes. The debate on
impacts of climate change vis-à-vis disasters conclusively establish the possibility of rise of
extreme weather events resulting in disasters due to increased energy within climate system.
There are numerous examples stating disaster related impacts such as typhoons and hurricanes
(Walsh, 2004; Emanual, 2005; Trenberth, 2005; Landeas et al, 2006); floods (Ely et al, 1993;
Whetton et al, 1993; Loukas and Ouick, 1999; Schreider et al, 2000; Milly et al, 2002); droughts
(Le Houerou, 1996; Qian and Zhu, 2001; King, 2004; Wood et al, 2004); sea level rise (Titus et al,
1991; Permetta, 1992; Gornitz, 1995) and health hazards (Haines et al, 2000; Patz et al, 2000;
Reiter, 2001; Kovats and Haines, 2005) due to climate change. It shows that the hydro-met
disasters are mostly influenced due to their close linkage with the hydrological cycle which is
consecutively closely linked with global atmospheric circulations and heat balance dynamics
(Allen and Ingram, 2002; Helmer and Hilhorst, 2006). Many of these impacts may not be
uniform across spatial and temporal scales (McCarthy et al, 2001).
There is a clear evidence for growing trend of disasters undermining the disaster management
capacities of countries. The data available from the Center for Research on Epidemiology of
Disasters reveals a staggering increase in number of hydro-met disasters during the period of
1900 to 2006 (CRED, 2007), though it was not clear if it was mainly due to increase in hydro-met
events or due to more human systems coming under the way of the same number of hydro-met
events. During this period, the number of registered hydro-met disasters had risen from single
digit number to nearly 343 per year with corresponding increase in the number of people affected.
Though the number of lives lost does not follow the similar trend, the economic losses out of
these disasters had risen to nearly USD 16,338 millions per year with a peak in 2004 (Figure 1).
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According to Munich Re, the frequency of hydro-meteorological disasters has increased between
1960 and 2005 (MunichRe, 2007). There was apprehension that the impacts felt till-to-date are
not yet severe and that the consequences are likely to be incremental and cumulative (Burton et al,
2002). Examining some of the highly disaster prone countries gives an indication of changes
happening in their disaster profiles (Figure 2) (CRED, 2007). For example, among other disasters,
the number of drought events had raised during recent times in Vietnam. Similar rise could be
seen in the number of extreme temperature events in India. There was a steep increase in number
of floods in both the countries.
Surprises in terms of extreme events have become common during recent years. The year 2004
proved to be most devastating for Japan as 10 intense typhoons landed in the same year, while
the earlier record used to be landing of 6 typhoons in 1990 and 1993, surprising many
(Government of Ehime Prefecture, 2005; Yatsuka, 2006). Climate change was attributed to this
behavior (Japan Meteorological Agency, 2004). The year 2004 also saw many other natural
disasters including drought like conditions in the Indian subcontinent, devastating floods in
South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan; typhoon in Philippines and a
series of hurricanes in Florida reflecting impacts of changing climate (Asian Economic News,
2005). The hurricane Katrina and Rita which occurred in August and September 2005
respectively further raise the debate on their linkage with the global climate change (Kuger, 2005;
Anthes et al, 2006), though there are no enough evidences to establish the link as a fact. In the
case of hurricane Katrina, the risk being known couldn’t make much difference in terms of how
quickly the local residents and governments could react and reduce the impacts (Travis, 2005).
This shows how human designed physical and social protection systems could fail when a
catastrophic event have to occur (Bohannon and Enserink, 2005).
While attributing all the above changes only to climate change is a much debated issue, it is safe
enough to conclude that the disaster profile of countries is changing for sure. This affirms the
need for the disaster management and developmental world to address the growing threats in its
planning as they could undermine the development of nations and communities. It is not only
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Figure 1
Figure 2

about more emphasis on disaster risk management but also about how differently it should be
done than before.
1.2. Problems with the existing disaster risk management
planning
Considerable amount of efforts have gone into understanding disaster risks; thanks to the major
disasters those struck the humanity from time to time acting as reminders (Alexander, 1997;
McGranahan et al, 2001; Pelling, 2003; Wisner et al, 2004). One of the major approaches of
disaster risk reduction is through pragmatic disaster risk management planning (Salter, 1997;
Christoplos et al, 2001). The disaster risk management plans are developed by identifying local
hazards, risks, vulnerabilities, and capacities leading to planned interventions by the governments,
corporations and communities to reduce disaster vulnerabilities and risks while enhancing the
capacities. The present day disaster risk management planning largely aim at reducing the current
disaster risks, i.e. those risks emanating out of current hazards and vulnerabilities. Often, these
risk assessments heavily rely on the historical data of hazards at a given location (Ferrier and
Haque, 2003; Dilley, 2005). However, the future is not always the repetition of the past
(Quarantelli, 1996). Moreover, the assessments from historical data often fail to look into the
future vulnerabilities and risks and hence cannot incorporate them in terms of added strength in
the plan. Many times, the hazard assessments fail to consider the changing frequencies and
magnitudes of disasters in their fine details. We are also limited by our understanding on what
proportion of our current vulnerabilities and risks are contributed by the climate change though a
broad conclusion is possible that the risks assessed at a given point of time are results of
interaction between past climate change impacts and vulnerabilities. It should be noted that the
current and future risks are equally important for the risk management professionals as they aim
at the welfare of the society from the angle of risks and sustainability. Thomalla and her
colleagues tried to compare the contexts of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation
and emphasized that the disaster risk management community focus more on the current risks
while the climate change experts look more into the future risks (Thomalla et al, 2006).
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Vulnerabilities to natural hazards will continue to increase unless these two communities come
together. It is important that these two communities talk to each other and arrive at a functional
plan of disaster risk reduction that reasonably considers the future risks as well.
One of the important questions to be asked is what makes a disaster risk management plan to
work even in a climate change scenario or what is termed as abrupt climate change (Alley et al,
2003). It has been agreed that the current responses to disasters will no longer be sufficient in a
changed climate (Sperling and Szekely, 2005). Adaptation to current climate variability has also
been suggested as an additional way to approach adaptation to long-term climate change (Burton,
1997). Further, it was suggested to identify ‘win-win’ or ‘no regrets’ measures that addresses the
current vulnerabilities (Schipper and Pelling, 2001). The possible best win-win measures could be
to tighten the disaster risk management systems by identifying loopholes and improving upon
them while continuously be in touch with developments in risk projection methodologies.
Climate change can bring two important dimensions to the risk. The Figure 3 shows the
interaction of hazard (circle A) and vulnerability (circle B) domains. Intersect of both, shown as
C, represents the proportion of current risks dealt by the current disaster risk management
planning. The figure highlights that the current disaster risk management planning does not cover
entire vulnerabilities at any given point of time due to limitations with the current risk
assessments. While this is the static representation of the hazard, risk and vulnerabilities; the
Figure 4 shows the progression of risk over the time and successive disaster management
planning and revisions as bars. The figure depicts that the vulnerabilities are dynamic, applicable
universally, and ever increasing (McEntire, 2001) in some parts of the world as it depends on the
effectiveness of human interventions as a response. As vulnerabilities may grow continuously in
some locations, either in linear or exponential manner as there are no clear assessments available
on risk progression in the available literature, as a result of climate change and many other
dynamic pressures, a disaster management plan prepared based on a risk assessment done at X1
point of time remains static during X1-X2 while disaster risks could continue to grow. This is
because of the fact that the vulnerabilities are difficult to assess and assessments don’t consider
the growing risks in future (Lewis, 1999; Cardona, 2004). This indicates that the Plan 2 (P2) will
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soon be negligent of the growing vulnerabilities and risks till it is revised into Plan 3 (P3) and so
on (shaded area in Figure 4). Regular revision of hazard and vulnerabilities are advised due to the
dynamic nature of the risk (Dilley, 2006). Some have suggested a regular review of once in a year
while others have suggested to revise the plan after a major disaster (Kuban and MacKenzie-
Carey, 2001; Government of India, 2005; Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2005). However,
regular revision of disaster management plans is far from reality in many countries as hazard and
vulnerability assessments are done when funds are available through a project and any revision is
not possible after the termination of the project. It was reported that many revisions were done
only after a major disaster has struck (Pacific Disaster Center, 2005a). This argument is supported
by suggestions made by the post-disaster assessment committees (Pacific Disaster Center, 2005b;
Government of Hyogo Prefecture, 2006). Part of the problems seems to rest with the financial
and other resources needed to undertake such regular revisions as well as lack of strict
enforcement of guidelines in place (Bender, 1991).
For a sustainable risk reduction, disaster risk management planning should deal with current and
future risks. As for a plan’s effectiveness in dealing with current risks, the plan could be judged
against a set of basic principles governing disaster risk management planning such as hazard, risk
and vulnerability assessment, better coordination, preparedness and response measures as these
basic principles are sound in considering current risks (Quarantelli, 1988; Quarantelli, 1997a;
Quarantelli, 1997b). As for assessing the robustness of a plan towards future risks, since knowing
future risks involves uncertainty, we suggest that the plan may be assessed for its redundancy. It
is well known that the redundancy could strengthen a disaster management plan against
unforeseen risks such as those caused by the climate change. Let us look at the redundancy
characteristic a little deeper. The redundancy in a disaster management plan is shown in the form
of shaded area in Figure 5. The redundancy indicates that the disaster management plans are
prepared and implemented with more strength than required to deal with the perceived and
assessed risks at a given point of time. If we introduce redundancy in Plan 2 (P2), which is the
shaded area in Figure 5, the plan’s validity in terms of dealing with the growing risks could be
enhanced for a longer duration. The hypothesis is that the redundancy can enhance the plan’s
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Figure 3
Figure 4

obustness in dealing with climate change related uncertainties especially the extreme events as
climate change was suggested to influence the tails of weather distributions if a significant shift in
the means is to be expected (Burton, 1997).
The amount of redundancy a disaster risk management plan could incorporate depends on
various factors such as the rate at which risks are assumed to grow and availability of financial,
human and technological resources since incorporation of redundancy means additional demand
for these resources. A close observation of global and regional projections of climate change may
help in deciding the redundancy one may want to incorporate at the local level though such
incorporations are solely qualitative decisions and pose the risk of being questioned for the
decisions taken at a later point of time. Such decisions may be widely supported when the
disaster risk management planning addresses some critical sectors. Redundancy can bring lots of
benefits to the plan and disaster risk managers. Added redundancy means lesser frequent
revisions and updating of the plans, more reliability, and effectiveness leading to sustainable risk
reduction. However, one need to be cautious in overweighing this option in policy decisions as a
balanced approach was called for (Kates, 2000). In the next section, we provided a simple scheme
that facilitates decisions like these in the context of climate change.
2. A scheme for incorporating climate change
concerns in disaster risk management
planning
One of the best ways to mainstream climate change concerns in disaster risk management
planning is to understand current and future possible impacts and address them in developmental
and risk reduction planning. For this, one need to look at a range of climate scenarios generated
and overlay them with future socio-economic scenarios to obtain future risks (Jones and Mearns,
2005). However, there are limitations such as lack of availability of dependable high-resolution
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Figure 5

climate change scenarios and unaddressed uncertainties even in best available scenarios and
projections (Burton, 1999; Jones, 2000). Hence, there is a need to look for alternative means of
addressing uncertain climate risks. One of the ways suggested was to identify no-regret or win-
win options as these options would hold good over a range of climate change scenarios in
reducing the vulnerabilities (Smit et al, 1996; Klien and Maciver, 1999; Wheaton and Maciver,
1999; Lomborg, 2007). Some authors have suggested better preparedness as important (Bruce et
al, 1999; Smit and Pilifosova, 2001; Helmer, 2006). Also, questions often arise on how different
and how better the preparedness should be from the preparedness which has been advised by
many disaster management professionals (Paton et al, 2003). In addition to these challenges, the
media coverage on climate change has been on rise though in a cyclical fashion (McComas, 1999;
Fortner et al, 2000; Shanahan, 2000). As a result, public interest and perception of climate change
has been influenced including raising anxieties on extreme events (Trumbo, 1999; Leiserowitz,
2005). Hence, it would be in the interest of disaster risk managers to know implications of
climate change for their region in general and on how they can deal with such impacts in
particular so as to either alley such extreme fears of climate change impacts or to design for a
better preparedness.
The ‘UNDP Adaptation Policy Frameworks (APF) for Climate Change’ and ‘UK Climate
Impacts Program Climate adaptation: Risk, uncertainty and Decision-making Framework’
provide ample ground for adaptation policy makers for taking adaptation decisions (Willows and
Connell, 2003; Lim and Spanger-Siegfried, 2005). These frameworks could be used in disaster
risk management planning as well. However, we could not find suitable example to cite a disaster
risk management planning process that drew from these advancements. While the UNDP APF is
considered as more elaborate and complex process aimed at policy makers and project
formulators, the UK CIP decision framework is simpler and covers broadly the uncertainty that
one may face while taking decisions related to those sectors which are impacted by climate
change. We presented the comparison of both the frameworks in Table 1. However, both
frameworks cannot be used by the local level disaster risk management personnel and policy
makers who often do not have access to information as well as tools necessary to implement
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Table 1

such elaborate frameworks. This calls for a simpler framework, which could go as a subset of
these sophisticated frameworks, for local level disaster managers and policy making personnel. In
this section, we provided a simple framework for mainstreaming climate change concerns in local
level disaster risk management process.
We propose that, for any mainstreaming to happen, it is important for the local disaster risk
managers and other stakeholders to understand what national and regional climate change
assessments mean for the scales at which these personnel operate. Because these personnel work
at local scale (city, group of villages etc) and often lack the perspective of climate and long-term
implications of climate change, it is essential that a local Climate Task Group (CTG) is
established. The CTG should consist of personnel from disaster risk management, climate and
atmospheric and policy making domains (O’Brien et al, 2006). Such a group is necessary as the
disaster management personnel alone cannot obtain and infer the often challenging climate
information available from global and regional climate change studies and reports. However, the
required personnel may not always be available at the administrative scale under consideration
(e.g. small and medium cities and institutions). Under those circumstances, cross-scale
collaboration becomes necessary. There may be similar groups existing for monitoring drought
or flood conditions, similar to the Drought Monitoring Center established in Karnataka State of
India or Flood Management Boards in Vietnam which are provided with capacities to assess and
monitor local drought and flood situations (Imamura and To, 1997; Samra, 2004). These Centers
and Boards could form a good beginning as they have capacities such as data processing that are
relevant for the operation of CTG. In addition to its role in disaster risk reduction planning, the
CTG can also play a vital role in integrating disaster and climate risk reduction aspects in
developmental planning as well. For example, the representative of CTG could be a member in
local level development committees similar to the District Development Committees and Village
Watershed Committees established in India. Such integration would enable free flow of
information.
The next step is to identify the region’s vulnerabilities and how climate change may influence
those vulnerabilities (Thomalla et al, 2006). This brings the crucial need for identification of
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climate change impacts in a region which are currently available at global and regional scales.
Often, such assessments are not reliable for taking concrete decisions those will have local long-
term financial and social implications. Hence, a structured but simple decision making scheme is
required to support the local level decision making process. A simple scheme has been presented
in Figure 6. Please note that the scheme can only direct one to qualitatively assess the possible
climate change impacts and it is beyond its jurisdiction to quantify impacts.
The regional climate change impacts and projections may be obtained from agencies such as
Project Management Cells established by national governments, usually under the aegis of
Ministry of Environment, which are assigned with the responsibility of producing National
Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA, for Least Developed Countries) or National
Communications submitted to UNFCCC (both Annex I and Non-Annex I parties) depending on
the country under question. These reports state the existing knowledge on climate change
impacts and the mitigation and adaptation programs implemented by the governments to deal
with the climate change. Digging down from these national and regional reports, one could also
obtain information from specific reports interfacing scientific and policy realms produced by the
national and regional institutions. This all may seem to be an up-hill task for a local level disaster
risk manager as availability of such information is scanty and daunting. However, it will be easy
for the CTG as it has a group of experts who have better understanding on the subject.
Once national and regional projections are obtained, a one- or two-day brainstorming session
may be useful to list all those impacts the location under question may experience. While
identifying these specific impacts, careful consideration may be given to the specific
circumstances or characteristics the location may have. These special circumstances could include
strengths such as vicinity to perennial water sources, soil types those could reduce the drought
impacts, better natural drainage that could avoid inundation of water for long duration etc and
vulnerabilities such as deeper water tables, poor drainage conditions, lack of irrigation facilities
etc. By such consideration, one will be able to discern whether or not observed and projected
impacts stay valid to the region in question in entirety or in part. This is also the stage where
questions related to how a particular impact translates into disaster risk management. For this,
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Figure 6
Figure 7

identification of what is called ‘coupling points’ is necessary. The Figure 7 depicts various stages
involved in disaster risk management and ‘coupling points’ where climate change may have
influence. It can be seen that almost all stages of disaster risk management cycle could be targeted
to mainstream the climate change concerns.
The discussants could ask certain questions in order to identify the above coupling points. The
Table 2 presents various questions one could ask while identifying the coupling points. These
questions enable various functionaries to identify climate change as a factor while planning for
interventions. Once local impacts are identified and all the stakeholders agree upon them, it is
time to classify them according to short-term and long-term impacts and identify appropriate risk
reduction measures. Consultation process could also include identification of resources required
such as capacity building needed to handle the new interventions, finances required and its source
and threats due to the decisions made under uncertainty. It is important for the so drafted
strategy to explicitly acknowledge the uncertainty with which the decisions were made.
3. Factors to be considered for mainstreaming
In this section, we discussed various factors to be considered for achieving satisfactory realization
of the above presented scheme. We divided the factors into uncertainty in climate change risk,
capacity limitations, perception and awareness limitations, and economic limitations.
3.1. Uncertainty in climate change risk
One of the important limitations in implementing the above suggested scheme is uncertainty in
projected climate impacts itself. Global Circulation Models (GCMs) are considered to be too
course resolution and hence are not sufficient for decision making for adaptation (Prudhomme et
al, 2003). Hence, employment of techniques such as regional circulation models has come into
vogue. However, there are limitations with downscaling too (Wilby, 2002). One of the major
bottlenecks limiting decision making based on these techniques is the unaddressed uncertainty of
climate change (Tol, 2003; Webster et al, 2003; Forest et al, 2004; Lempert et al, 2004; Trenberth,
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Table 2

2005). Predictions are uncertain because of unknown future concentrations of greenhouse gases
and other anthropogenic and natural forcing agents (e.g. injections of stratospheric aerosol from
explosive volcanic eruptions), because of natural (unforced) climate variations and because our
models which we use to make predictions are imperfect (Collins et al, 2006). Heal and Kristrom
(2002) provided a comprehensive review of sources of uncertainty in climate change. Questions
were also raised on the amount of certainty required in climate change projections to justify
investments in adaptation measures and whether such certainty can be delivered (Dessai and
Hulme, 2007). Various techniques have been identified to quantify the uncertainty and
probabilistic climate scenarios were tried with certain degree of success (Katz, 2002; Hulme et al,
2002). Employing probabilistic climate scenarios too found to misrepresent uncertainty (Hall,
2007). Hence, two separate groups suggesting ‘wait and watch’ and ‘precautionary principles’
have emerged (Baker, 2005). According to Baker (2005), finding a mid-way between these groups
gained importance as one can expect to resolve much of the uncertainty in the next 100 years.
Other alternative approaches suggested include better characterizing the uncertainty while
communicating with policy makers and adapting appropriate means of communicating
uncertainty to policy makers, which include consideration for the mismatch between the rigid
framework of probability and peoples’ intuitive use of language (Lempert et al, 2004; Patt and
Dessai, 2005). While addressing the issue of disaster risk management in a changed climate,
Comfort (2005) suggested building networks of organizations committed to a process of
continual inquiry, informed action, and adaptive learning as a more flexible and robust strategy
than the standard practice of establishing greater control over possible threats through
administrative structures.
3.2. Capacity limitations
The uncertain nature of climate change has lead to greater need for capacity enhancement. In the
context of the climate change, capacity considerations include adaptive capacity to increasing
threats of climate change. This refers to potential and capacity to improve to a higher state in
order to face the impacts of climate change (Brooks and Adger, 2004). Efforts have been made
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to explain the concept of adaptation and adaptive capacity (Burton et al, 2002). In general, the
improvement in adaptive capacity refers to either increment in financial resources, reduction in
poverty, provision of diversified income sources, better governance, social and political capital
and even equitable flow of resources etc (Smithers and Smit, 1997; Yohe and Tol, 2001).
Capacity building has been the integral part of various disaster risk management programs
worldwide (Alexander, 1997; Benson et al, 2001; Rocha and Christoplos, 2001). The usual topics
covered in such programs are disaster risk management planning, rescue and evacuation planning,
relief planning, emergency communication, fire fighting, conducting risk and vulnerability
assessments, hazard and vulnerability mapping, disaster risk mitigation systems etc. Some times,
these programs also include the role of different stakeholders and achieving coordination among
them in disaster risk reduction (Lynne et al, 1997; Seth and Jain, 2002). Involvement of
communities in disaster risk management and planning has been considered a necessity owing to
the capacities and knowledge that the communities possess those could be of use in effective
disaster risk reduction (Yodmani, 2001; Pearce, 2003; Allen, 2006). There is a need to enhance
the existing capacities in order to deal with the future disasters and increasing uncertainty
(Coutney et al, 1997; Shook, 1997). Experiences have suggested that the existing capacities are
not sufficient even to deal with the current level of disasters and that the disaster intensities
would only increase in future (Burton et al, 2002; McEntire et al, 2002; Sperling and Szekely,
2005). Consideration of future vulnerabilities is important in order to design effective capacity
building programs as the current and future vulnerabilities differ in the context of climate change
(Brooks, 2003).
Capacities are of different kinds and different stakeholders need to asses their capacities in order
to deal with the climate change related risks (Adgers et al, 2005). In the context of climate change
and disaster management, capacities refer to institutional, technological, economic and social
capacities to plan and implement programs of change that could reduce the vulnerabilities and
increase the capacities of communities. Capacity needs could include simple aspects such as
mutual understanding on the terminology used by climate change and disaster risk management
personnel. Often, it required to make a clear distinction for the meaning of the word ‘mitigation’
16

used in climate change and disaster management communities to avoid miscommunication and
misconceptions (Newton et al, 2005). Similar confusion on the word ‘mitigation’ was reported
among the Canadian policy makers (Newton, 1997). Hence, appropriate education is required to
facilitate an effective communication among the climate change and disaster risk reduction
communities. Standardization of terminology at a global scale should also solve this problem to a
certain extent. This necessitates mapping different capacities required at the local level in order to
deal with the threats from the changing climate. Table 3 provides a list of capacities suggested in
the literature for an effective climate risk reduction.
3.3. Perception and awareness limitations
Perception can be viewed as a process of transforming inputs (e.g. flood warning) to out put (e.g.
public mitigation response) (Burn, 1999). People who perceive that they are vulnerable are more
likely to respond to warnings and undertake protective measures (Michael and Fasil, 2001). Thus,
understanding how people will perceive the risks communicated to them will influence how
effective a risk management measure will be. Creation of appropriate perception was found to be
important for devising and implementing suitable policy interventions. The importance of risk
perception in shaping people’s behavior and disaster management planning is affirmed in several
studies. For instance, Slovic (1987) emphasized the role of risk perception by indicating that the
public relies on risk perception to evaluate hazard situation. Some studies tried to emphasize the
importance of risk perception both in design and operationalization of flood management (e.g.,
Michael and Fasil, 2001). Similarly, Weber identified public perception and expectations of
climate change as important preconditions for technological and economic adaptation to climate
change (Weber, 1997).
There are few studies on perception of communities and policy makers about climate change and
about actions to mitigate the same. The studies on perception of global climate change conducted
in the Swedish town of Umeå (Lofstedt, 1991) and United States of America (Leiserowitz, 2006)
revealed the belief of the residents about temperatures becoming warmer. However, very few
interviewees perceived link between global climate change and the energy use (Lofstedt, 1991) or
17
Table 3

their perceptions were influenced by the psychological and socio-cultural factors (Leiserowitz,
2006; Stedman, 2004). The Swedish survey also revealed confusion among the respondents
between climate change and ozone layer depletion. Such lack of perceptions could lead to failure
in any policy response that involves residents. For example, any restriction on energy
consumption on grounds of climate change could have lead to lack of support. However,
Gossling (2002) argued that the increased education on environment and better perceptions may
not always lead to better environmental preservation. He reasoned that the personal
environmental behaviour of environmental tourists may be characterized by increased resource
consumption and preferences (Gossling, 2002).
Environmental managers of public and private sector organizations play an important role in
directing business and organizational decisions in directing resources to environmental
preservation. It is important that these managers not only able to see the environment as a
problem needing common action but also willing to direct organizational efforts in effective
tackling of these problems (Hill et al, 2006). In this context, the environmental managers are
found to be more aware about the global environmental problems than non-environmental
managers. The decisions of environmental managers in dealing with environmental problems
seems to be influenced by how seriously they view the threat and how appealing or attractive the
potential response strategy appears which could lead to four kinds of actions such as meaningful
action, precautionary action, symbolic action and no action.
The nature of climate change is such that it is invisible to many as an entity as it can only be
identified through some ‘proxy’ indicators such as ‘change in temperatures’ and ‘change in rainfall
intensities’ or ‘increasing extreme events’. Often the degree of change could have important
bearing on how perceptions are formed. For example, the change in a given geographical location
may be perceived insignificant in short run but such changes may have compounding impacts
which are significant in the long run. This very nature of climate change makes it difficult to
create uniform perception across all communities. In a study conducted by the authors
(Unpublished), it was revealed that the old members of community are more likely to perceive
changes than young members. The difficulty to form appropriate perception of climate change
18

may also be due to lack of uniformity in the impacts across geographical and time scales. Added
to this is the unpredictable nature of the climate change. The unpredictability of climate has lead
to lack of trust among respondents to forecasts leading to poor response in many situations. Such
a poor response to weather forecasts has been cited in literature (Patt, 2001; Patt and Gwata,
2002). Patt and Gwata (2002), while examining the constraints in effective seasonal climate
forecast applications, identified six constraints limiting the usefulness of climate forecasts. They
are credibility, legitimacy, scale, cognitive capacity, procedural and institutional barriers, and
available choices. According to them, these problems arise due to making forecasts in
probabilistic sense rather than deterministic, when forecasts help only a group of stakeholders
benefited in a preferential manner, inability to downscale the forecasts that would also enhance
the accuracy of the forecast, dissemination of forecast information in a format that is not well
understood by many due to use of highly technical jargon, when standard operating procedures
stand in the way of using the new information which makes it too delayed such that the end users
find it useless, and finally the choices that ultimate stakeholders make are enormous which may
not always be supported by such forecasts. We believe that the climate change information
should avoid all these constraints in order to be effective in decision making.
A study by Oxfam-Vietnam and Kyoto University revealed that the communities have difficulty
to express what climate constitutes and that it is difficult for them to explain the concept of
climate as different from weather phenomenon which has been used for planning agricultural
operations on daily basis (Oxfam-Vietnam, 2007). It appears that communities didn’t have a
suitable word in their local languages that readily represents climate or its change. However, the
respondents were able to identify changes in climate as more attributed to changes in weather
parameters such as temperatures and rainfall over the period that they could remember. They
attributed such changes to reduction in forest cover than any thing else. The respondents
believed that the actions of ‘other communities’ at ‘other location’ were more responsible for
changes and they couldn’t identify any bad management practice within their community which
might have contributed to the global problem. These findings are in line with the findings
elsewhere that the communities are aware about changes in climate but are flawed in terms of
19

why (causes) such a change is happening (McDaniels et al, 1996; Kempton, 1997). The
explanation could be lack of knowledge regarding the link between causes and consequences, the
cumulative nature of the causes, trading off risks and benefits, and/or causes involve familiar
technologies (Hill and Thompson, 2006). We believe that it may be difficult for communities to
consider climate as a factor in the local level risk mitigation planning due to the time scales
involved and need for addressing the immediate concerns such as education, health and
livelihoods. Appropriate education and awareness schemes may bring needed change in
community perceptions. This change could also be brought by participatory methodologies.
Globally, participatory planning in development has become a major strategy in affecting
sustainable development. This has roots from the need for bottom-up approaches when the top-
down approaches failed to achieve the goals of policies and plans. One of the limitations of top-
down policy making approaches is no or poor consideration of priorities of people who are
affected by the same policies. Hence, a gradual shift could be seen from top down to bottom-up
approaches leading to a holistic approach (Dessai et al, 2004). With climate change impacts
increasingly becoming evident globally, the participatory planning process gains even more
importance for implementing disaster risk management programs as community participation
was called for shaping perceptions and for an effective climate risk reduction (Yamin et al, 2005;
Chen et al, 2006; O’Brien et al, 2006; Khan and Rahman, 2007). However, it has been cautioned
that such participatory methodologies may put excessive pressure on communities by trying to
address such issues which have less jurisdiction with communities (Allen, 2006). Hence,
empowering local communities was suggested such that the decisions taken at their level are
implemented to the fullest satisfaction and effectiveness in the context of climate change.
3.4. Economic limitations
In the Article 3, Para 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCC) it is stated that the “…lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason
for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate
change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost (United
20

Nations, 1992).” Though this statement sounds more appropriate for climate change mitigation,
it equally holds good for adaptation as well. Cost-effectiveness has been considered as one of the
important tools by policy makers for making investment decisions (Detsky, 1996). Investments in
climate adaptation too fall in the similar category since we understood that climate change has
economic implications as well (Toll et al, 2000).
From the perspective of economists, climate change is sometimes viewed as new and untested
hypothesis (Howarth and Hall, 2001). Economists showed interest on economics of global
climate change and its impacts with major thrust on estimates of costs and benefits of GHG
emissions and its abatements. Application of welfare economics, as a rule rather than exception,
and employing complex models that integrate climate and economies have been used in these
assessments (Nodhuas, 1994). Though, there has been tremendous improvement in the way
economists approach the problem of climate change adaptation especially in the light of Stern
Review (Fankhauser, 2006; Stern, 2006; Callaway and Hellmuth, 2006; Milne, 2006), the
economic assessments are still in nascent phase in assessing the climate change implications for
disaster risk management. It is now possible to arrive at broad calculations on economic
implications of climate change adaptation in terms of % of GDP. The crux of the problem seems
to lie in understanding the uncertainty of future impacts on human and natural systems, which
form the basis for investments on the adaptation programs. Hence, it was suggested to take into
consideration the win-win options as they tend to be valid under broad range of circumstances
and hence have low cost of bad decision (Fankhauser, 2006).
Though the Kyoto Protocol is heavily based on mitigation approach, globally it has been
accepted that the adaptation also need to be considered along with the mitigation and policy
makers do understand and agree that the adaptation efforts would affect the mitigation targets
(Kane and Shogren, 2000). Kane and Shogren (2000) also argued that the society can select any
combination of risk avoidance systems among mitigation and adaptation and such decisions
affects the level of risks and the costs of risk reduction. Cost-effectiveness has been found to be
crucial factor in climate change. They further stated that the risk reduction efforts of people are
21

affected by the economic circumstances and hence the economic circumstances must be taken
into consideration while making risk reduction recommendations.
Establishing climate change-proof disaster risk management mechanism is a form of anticipatory
adaptation mechanism. It is logical for governments to have such investments as they may have
to pay heavy price if further delayed or are done after the impacts were felt. Policy considerations
for anticipatory adaptation are yet to be seen in many countries. Very few available examples in
this area are the recommendations of the Public Advisory Forum of the American Water Works
Association (AWWA) which called all the water management professionals for review of design
assumptions, practices and contingency planning (Public Advisory Forum, 1997). Some of these
recommendations include both structural and non-structural measures. Economic implications of
anticipatory adaptation in disaster risk management are a major deterrent to adaptation itself for
many developing and underdeveloped countries. Haddad and Merrit (2001) described that the
least cost approaches may not work in deciding suitable climate change adaptation mechanisms
as yet times the outputs of public negotiations may not consider cost implications; for example,
when it comes to deciding between the priorities of a water storage structure for flood control
and reliable water supply. Hill and Thompson (2006) reported difference of opinion between
environmental managers and non-environmental managers about the need to integrate
environmental and economic goals in a “win-win” combination. If we consider the opinion of
non-environmental managers as that of those representing the ‘lay men’, it makes sense that the
lay people place least importance for economic solutions or those solutions that are going to
‘cost’ to them in some form. Significant studies are available for adaptation in agriculture which is
one of the climate vulnerable sectors. These studies consider farmers either as ‘dumb’ or
‘intelligent’ in the point of adaptation to climate related impacts and study how they adapt to it
(Schneider et al, 2000). Comparing societies on the scale of adaptation readiness and adaptation
capacities will be an interesting contribution to the disaster risk reduction. Such a comparison is
challenged by number of limitations such as absence of baseline information, different disaster
profiles and underlying needs, and even differential developmental contexts.
22

4. Conclusion
In this article, we argued the need for a change in existing disaster risk reduction practices and
presented a scheme and discussed its limitations for mainstreaming climate change concerns in
existing disaster risk reduction systems. We could see that there exist an opportunity to initiate
actions for mainstreaming climate change related concerns in the existing disaster risk reduction
practices. We argued that such mainstreaming should be initiated with capacity building of local
disaster risk management personnel and policy makers such that they appreciate the linkage
between climate change and disasters while inculcating the culture of strategic thinking. Strategic
thinking could further open up new avenues for further addressing the problem of climate
change risk reduction. Similarly, the process of communicating uncertainty to policy makers gains
importance in decision making. Capacity building programs should incorporate suitable modules
those will help the policy makers and disaster risk management personnel to gain skills in
planning under uncertainty. Another important aspect to be considered while pushing the agenda
of mainstreaming is developing appropriate tools and techniques that help the local level players
to identify and appreciate the role of climate change in their own vicinity. This is only possible
through a study on past climate disasters/impacts across the country that identifies the ‘loci’ or
‘hotspots’ of climate change impacts where the impacts could be clearly discerned from the
available past climate records. These results could then be built into simple case studies and time
series of art diagrams showing, for example, the gradual impacts of climate change on local flora
and fauna or changing flood heights or frequencies etc that can be widely distributed among the
disaster risk management personnel and policy makers. These case studies should also bring out
the characteristics of these regions that made them vulnerable to climate change impacts. This
would not only facilitate players active in and near the ‘loci’ or ‘hotspots’ in designing climate-
proof disaster risk reduction planning, but also help others to understand vulnerabilities of their
location. This would in turn help them to ‘qualitatively’ downscale the regional broad scenarios
available. In order this to happen, there is a need to move away from the attitude of considering
local level stakeholders as ‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ who are continuously learning and
23

evolving. We believe that the scheme presented in this paper helps in realizing learning and
evolving group of community that will be ready to absorb and address uncertainty in decision
making in local risk reduction.
Acknowledgements
The work published in this paper was supported by the Japanese Society for Promotion of
Science (JSPS) through Postdoctoral Fellowship and research grant to the primary author at
Kyoto University. We acknowledge the stimulating discussions with Prof Ian Davis, Affiliate
Professor, Oxford Books University that helped us enrich the preliminary draft. We also
acknowledge learning experience of working with diverse stakeholders including Oxfam-Vietnam,
IFRC Regional Delegation in South Asia, and local governments in Japan and India that helped
us in enriching our understanding in this subject.
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Figure legends
Figure 1 Number of natural disasters and the economic losses since 1900 (CRED, 2007)
Figure 2 Five-year moving averages of number of hydro-met disasters in a) Vietnam and b) India
(CRED, 2007)
Figure 3 Domain of different disaster management plans considering the current and future
climate change risks
Figure 4 Growing risks and the process of continuous disaster risk management planning. Shaded
areas denote uncovered risks
Figure 5 Shaded areas showing redundancy built in consecutive disaster risk management plans
Figure 6 Flow-diagram of steps to be followed by the Climate Task Group to mainstream climate
change considerations in developmental and risk reduction plans and policies
Figure 7 Disaster management cycle (Tearfund, 1999) and climate change coupling points that
give an insight on what should be considered while planning for risk reduction
41

Tables
Table 1 Comparison of UNDP APF and UKCIP climate adaptation frameworks
S
No
Element of
comparison
UNDP Adaptation Policy Framework UKCIP Climate Adaptation Framework
1 Objective To guide studies, projects, planning and policy exercises (collectively called
projects) towards identification of appropriate adaptation strategies, policies
and measures and integration of same into local, sector specific and national
developmental planning
2 Target audience Primarily designed for technical analysts, climate project coordinators and
developers and climate change policy makers
To take account of the risk and uncertainty associated with climate
variability and change; and to identify and appraise measures to mitigate the
impact or exploit the opportunities presented by future climate change i.e.
to identify good adaptation options
Particularly relevant to decision makers and their advisors who work in
climate sensitive sectors, who manage the climate related consequences and
whose decisions are vulnerable to climate risks
3 Number of stages 5 main components and 2 crosscutting processes 8 stages grouped into four
4 Complexity The assessment heavily relies upon available data on various climate
parameters and developmental indicators
While depends on model outcomes and scenarios, it gives due emphasis on
other kinds of techniques such as checklists, consultation processes,
pedigree analysis etc

5 Methods and tools A mix of quantitative analytical and qualitative tools is used. Uses model
outputs in assessing the future climate risks
6 Practicality Practical though complex process requiring thorough understanding of
7 Dealing with
uncertainty
various concepts, methods and tools
Deals with uncertainty while assessing the future risks and using the same in
APF
8 Flexibility Provides sufficient flexibility by providing options such as hazard-based
approach, vulnerability-based approach, adaptive-capacity approach, and
policy-based approach
43
Uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods and tools. It lists various
tools to be used at every decision making step listed in the methodology
Practical approach with more focus on decision making process. Still far
from reach of the local level personnel
The process is designed in such a way that the uncertainty is discussed and
dealt with at all most all the stages of decision making process
The process is more a risk based approach and provides sufficient flexibility
in decision making process
9 Levels covered Covers both local level and national levels in the decision making process Covers both local level and national levels in the decision making process
10 Intended outcomes Policy development, integrated assessments, and project formulations. Provide answers to questions such as what kind of adaptation decisions can
be taken and when in a changing climate with due emphasis on uncertainty.
11 Advised user level For advanced users and professionals. For those with elaborate understanding of principles underlying climate
vulnerability and risk assessments

Table 2 Questions to be asked while integrating climate change concerns into disaster risk
management
S
No
Stage in Disaster
Management Cycle
Questions to be asked
1 Disaster Event Is this disaster a regular feature in that location?
Is there a shift in disaster profile of the region?
Has there been a shift in the intensity and magnitude of the
disaster?
Was there any change in the nature of impacts that reflected a
change in local vulnerabilities?
Has there been any change in the impacts?
Were the vulnerabilities and risks changed from previous
disaster events of similar intensity and magnitude?
2 Relief phase Is the previously planned relief preparedness sufficient?
3 Rehabilitation and
reconstruction
What are the gaps in capacities at this phase?
Does the rehabilitation and reconstruction requirements are
growing continuously?
What is the rate of such increments?
How such rehabilitation investments could be met in future?
What are gaps in capacities at this phase?
Does the increased needs correspond to the risks?
4 Mitigation What are the climate vulnerabilities of the region?
What mitigation measures worked and what measures didn’t
work in the light of increasing intensities of disasters?
Are the mitigation measures increasingly becoming
inadequate?

S
No
Stage in Disaster
Management Cycle
Questions to be asked
Is there any need for enhancing design standards to face future
threats?
What are gaps in capacities at this phase?
5 Preparedness Was the existing level of preparedness sufficient?
What elements of preparedness failed to respond to the
unexpected events?
Table 3: Capacities required by various stakeholders for mainstreaming climate change concerns
in disaster risk management
S No Stakeholders Capacity needs
1 Communities Human capital (Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002)
2 Government and Non-
governmental disaster
management personnel
Social capital of societies (Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002;
Adger et al, 2003)
Underlying health of the communities under question to
deal with the climate change threats (Adger, 1999)
Knowledge on climate change and its implications for the
disaster profile of their region (Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002;
Adger et al 2005)
Enhanced response capacity (Kelly and Adger, 2000;
Tompkins and Adger, 2003)
Functional social networks (Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002;
Tompkins and Adger, 2003)
Empowerment and enfranchisement (Ribot, 1995)
Consideration of uncertainty in planning (Handmer et al,
1999; Barnett, 2001; Willows and Connell, 2003)
45
Flexibility and innovation in the institutions (Kelly and

3 Research and
educational institutions
Adger, 2000; Adger et al, 2003)
Policies and regulations (Adger et al 2005)
Strengthening early warning systems (Klein, 2002)
Spatial planning (Nichollas, 1995)
Finances (Kandlikar and Sagar, 1999)
Analytical skills to identify climate change impacts and
related disaster dynamics (Kandlikar and Sagar, 1999)
Respond to the developmental pressures and resource crises
(Downing et al, 1997)
Risk spreading instruments (Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002)
Governance (Denton et al, 2002)
Resources (manpower and funds) (Kandlikar and Sagar,
1999)
Proactive participation in relevant policy research (Kandlikar
and Sagar, 1999; Yohe and Schlesinger, 2002)
Integrating with the local disaster management community
(Alast, 2006)
46

Figure 1
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Figure 2a
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Figure 2b
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Figure 4
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Figure 5
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Figure 6
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