Urban Disasters and Resilience in Asia


Book Description

Urban Disasters and Resilience in Asia presents the latest information on the intensity and frequency of disasters. Specifically, the fact that, in urban areas, more than 50% of the world's population is living on just 2% of the land surface, with most of these cities located in Asia and developing countries that have high vulnerability and intensification. The book offers an in-depth and multidisciplinary approach to reducing the impact of disasters by examining specific evidence from events in these areas that can be used to develop best practices and increase urban resilience worldwide. As urban resilience is largely a function of resilient and resourceful citizens, building cities which are more resilient internally and externally can lead to more productive economic returns. In an era of rapid urbanization and increasing disaster risks and vulnerabilities in Asian cities, Urban Disasters and Resilience in Asia is an invaluable tool for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners working in both public and private sectors. - Explores a broad range of aspects of disaster and urban resiliency, including environmental, economic, architectural, and engineering factors - Bridges the gap between urban resilience and rural areas and community building - Provides evidence-based data that can lead to improved disaster resiliency in urban Asia - Focuses on Asian cities, some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, where disasters are particularly devastating




Resilient Policies in Asian Cities


Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive framework and indicators that can be used to assess a city’s degree of resilience. Based on surveys using bottom-up assessment tools, it proposes the concept, framework and indicators of a resilient policy model (including some participatory approaches). It also presents case studies of this and similar tools applied to Japanese and Asian cities, the highlights including information not previously available in English. Today, the term “resilience” is prevalent in the context of sustainable societies. The IPCC AR5 published in 2014 again stressed the impact of climate change on natural disasters, while in March 2015 at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, the United Nations International Strategy of Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) published the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction Action 2015-2030 , which serves as a guideline for local governments. Offering transdisciplinary perspectives from fields such as policy science, urban planning, environmental science, social psychology, management development and geography, this book discusses the lessons learned from Asian case studies, explaining the challenges and the effectiveness of the tools, and offering transdisciplinary insights for policymakers.




Building Urban Resilience


Book Description

This handbook is a resource for enhancing disaster resilience in urban areas. It summarizes the guiding principles, tools, and practices in key economic sectors that can facilitate incorporation of resilience concepts into decisions about infrastructure investments and urban management that are integral to reducing disaster and climate risks.




Climate and Disaster Resilience in Cities


Book Description

Whilst it is impossible to make resistant urban growth, resilience is becoming more widely accepted and urban systems must be resilient enough to cope with the climate related hazards. This book highlights the issues of resilience through regional, national, city and community-based studies.




Disaster Resilience in Asia


Book Description

The Asia and Pacific region has seen tremendous economic and social progress since the 1960s. Yet, the region remains vulnerable to disaster risk that threatens its hard-won gains. Over the years, developing Asia has endured a growing number of disasters triggered by natural hazards. As a result, numerous lives, livelihoods, and communities have been damaged or lost. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is testament to the debilitating effects of such a disaster on people, businesses, and economies. Indeed, in 2020, developing Asia suffered its first economic contraction in 6 decades. Now more than ever, the region must find ways to reduce its vulnerability to hazards and build economic resilience.




Disaster Resilience and Sustainability


Book Description

Disasters undermine societal well-being, causing loss of lives and damage to social and economic infrastructures. Disaster resilience is central to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, especially in regions where extreme inequality combines with the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Disaster risk reduction and resilience requires participation of wide array of stakeholders ranging from academicians to policy makers to disaster managers. Disaster Resilient Cities: Adaptation for Sustainable Development offers evidence-based, problem-solving techniques from social, natural, engineering and other disciplinary perspectives. It connects data, research, conceptual work with practical cases on disaster risk management, capturing the multi-sectoral aspects of disaster resilience, adaptation strategy and sustainability. The book links disaster risk management with sustainable development under a common umbrella, showing that effective disaster resilience strategies and practices lead to achieving broader sustainable development goals. - Provides foundational knowledge on integrated disaster risk reduction and management to show how resilience and its associated concept such as adaptive and transformative strategies can foster sustainable development - Brings together disaster risk reduction and resilience scientists, policy-makers and practitioners from different disciplines - Case studies on disaster risk management from natural science, social science, engineering and other relevant disciplinary perspectives




Disaster Relief in the Asia Pacific


Book Description

A UN report recently found that the Asia Pacific is the world’s most disaster-prone region. Indeed, considering that the region accounts for more than half of the total number of disasters in the world, building capacity and resilience to mitigate the devastating impact of disasters is a pressing task for local actors. This book takes a regional, multidisciplinary and multi-actor approach to improve understandings of how various actors respond to natural and human-induced disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. It examines the ideas and activities of four different categories of agents: civil society; military and state institutions; local cultural knowledge and the media; and economic initiatives, and these themes are approached from various academic disciplines, ranging from anthropology and cultural studies to economics, human geography and political science. The contributors draw their findings from a variety of countries in the region, including China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar and Samoa, and importantly, focus on the interconnection between vulnerability and resilience. In turn, the book highlights how the nature and magnitude of disasters are influenced by social conditions, and aims to contribute to policies that prioritize development opportunities to enhance resilience. Further, it explores the complicated and multifaceted role of agency in building resilience, and presents a comparative framework for analysis and key findings from the Asia-Pacific region. The focus of this book on recent and ongoing disasters makes it a topical and timely contribution to the growing field of disaster management, and as such it will appeal to students and scholars of environmental studies, development studies and Asian politics.




Climate Resilient Cities


Book Description

'Climate Resilient Cities: A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters' provides city administrators with exactly what they need to know about the complex and compelling challenges of climate change. The book helps local governments create training, capacity building, and capital investment programs for building sustainable, resilient communities. A step-by-step self-assessment challenges policymakers to think about the resources needed to combat natural disasters through an innovative hot spot risk and vulnerability identifi cation tool. This primer is unique from other resources in its treatment of climate change using a dual-track approach that integrates both mitigation (lowering contributions to greenhouse gases) and adaptation (preparing for impacts of climate change) with disaster risk management. The book is relevant both to cities that are just beginning to think about climate change as well as those that already have well established policies, institutions, and strategies in place. By providing a range of city-level examples of sound practices around the world, the book demonstrates that there are many practical actions that cities can take to build resilience to climate change and natural disasters.




Disaster Resilience in South Asia


Book Description

This book considers the challenges of building disaster resilience in South Asia – a region that frequently experiences some of the most severe and devastating impacts of disasters. Despite significant work to assist affected communities, many smaller South Asian countries remain particularly vulnerable in terms of fostering disaster resilience. Drawing on examples from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the book offers rich insights and narratives on disaster resilience policy and practice. It considers the possibilities for advancing community resilience and capacity building through an exploration of different aspects of governance and policy. Given the diversity of these countries and recent disasters, a variety of perspectives are considered: institutional and policy frameworks, risk management governance, recovery operations, building codes, and policy and media discourse. The book offers a collective understanding of practice, which can offer global lessons to a world increasingly beset by disasters and with uncertain environmental futures. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars, practitioners and students in the fields of disaster risk reduction and management, climate change adaptation, public policy and sustainable development.




Disaster Resilience


Book Description

Events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Japanese earthquakes and tsunamis in 2011 have provided unfortunate reminders of the susceptibility of many communities to devastating losses from natural hazards. These events provided graphic illustrations of how extreme hazard events adversely impact on people, affect communities and disrupt the community and societal mechanisms that serve to organize and sustain community capacities and functions. However, there is much that communities can do to mitigate their risk and manage disaster consequences. The construct that epitomizes how this is done is resilience. The contents of this volume provide valuable insights into how societal resilience can be developed and sustained. This considerably expanded new edition presents major topics of: Coexisting with Natural Hazards; Urban Resilience in Asia; Lifelines and Urban Resilience; Business Continuity in Disaster; Hazard Mitigation in Communities; Hazard Readiness and Resilience; Child Citizenship in Disaster Risk; Old Age and Resilience; Gender and Disaster Resilience; Impact of High Functionality on Resilience; Art and Resilience; Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Coping with Hazards; Religious Practices and Resilience; Living in Harmony with our Environment; Critical Incidence Response; Governance; Heat Wave Resilience; Wildfire Disaster Resilience; and Progress and Challenges to Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. This exceptional book brings together contributions from international experts in core areas and includes chapters that provide and overarching framework within which the need for interrelationships between levels to be developed is discussed. The book will be an outstanding resource for those researching or teaching courses in emergency management, disaster management, community development, environmental planning and urban development. In addition, it will serve law enforcement and emergency agencies, welfare agencies, and professionals in applied psychology.