Urban Poverty in the Wake of Environmental Disaster


Book Description

This book investigates the best strategies for poverty alleviation in post-disaster urban environments, and the conditions necessary for the success and scaling up of these strategies. Using the case study of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in the Philippines, the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall, the book aims to draw out policy recommendations relevant for other middle- and lower-income countries facing similar urban environmental challenges. Humans are increasingly living in densely populated and highly vulnerable areas, often coastal. This increased density of human settlements leads to increased material damage and high death tolls, and this vulnerability is often exacerbated by climate change. This book focuses on urban population risk, vulnerability to disasters, resilience to environmental shocks, and adaptation in relation to paths in and out of poverty. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including primary survey data from victims and those charged with overseeing the relief effort in the Philippines, Urban Poverty in the Wake of Environmental Disaster has significant implications for disaster risk reduction as it relates to the urban poor and is highly recommended for scholars and practitioners of development studies, environment studies, and disaster relief and risk reduction.




Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor


Book Description

The urban poor living in slums are at particularly high risk from the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. This study analyzes key issues affecting their vulnerability, with evidence from a number of cities in the developing world.




Shock Waves


Book Description

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.







At Risk


Book Description

The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.




Climate Change and Cities


Book Description

Climate Change and Cities bridges science-to-action for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities around the world.




The Interplay between Urban Development, Vulnerability, and Risk Management


Book Description

Natural disasters are increasingly affecting the world, taking lives unexpectedly and leaving many others injured and homeless. Moreover, disasters disrupt local, national and even global economies, instantly changing the direction of development. In the first half of 2011 alone, 108 natural disasters occurred, killing over 23 thousand people, affecting nearly 44 million others and causing more than 253 billion US dollars of economic damages (CRED 2011,1). Large urban settlements have become increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters. The concentration of substandard infrastructure and housing, material assets, and inherent socio-economic inequalities increase vulnerability to disasters in large urban areas, especially in developing countries. The size, number, functions, and geographical distribution of large- and megacities create a special concern for disaster risk. Good urban management practices can be a powerful catalyst for reducing losses from natural disasters, while simultaneously helping to develop a sustainable environment. Yet, the existing situation indicates that sustainable planning and risk management measures are not taken into consideration or may not be put into practice for a variety of financial, political, and social reasons. This book argues that, on one hand, socio-economic disparities resulting from unsustainable urban development can increase vulnerability to natural hazards, and on the other hand, when paired with natural hazards this increased vulnerability can negatively affect urban areas, resulting in further inequality. This book will showcase this argument with theoretical reviews and quantitative analyses on the interplay between sustainable development and disaster vulnerability as well as an in-depth case study of the role of urban planning and risk management practices in creating the socio-economic and spatial vulnerabilities and predicted earthquake risk in the megacity of Istanbul.




Aspirations and the role of social protection: Evidence from a natural disaster in rural Pakistan


Book Description

Citizens’ aspirations for the future are politically important; they are linked to welfare and whether citizens engage in forward-looking political and economic behavior. How do natural disasters affect aspirations, and can governments’ social protection policies successfully mitigate any damaging effects? If natural disasters threaten aspirations, there is strong policy interest in understanding these threats and what government can do to protect aspirations. This article uses Pakistan’s 2010 floods to identify the effects of a natural disaster on citizens’ aspirations. Aspirations were significantly reduced—especially among the poorest and most vulnerable. However, by exploiting exogenous variation in access to targeted government social protection, the authors show that social protection following natural disasters can significantly reduce their negative aspirational effects. This offers a new understanding of government social protection. It not only raises social welfare in the short term by restoring livelihoods and replacing damaged assets; it also has an enduring effect by raising citizens’ aspirations for the future. The authors show not only that the aspirations of citizens matter for citizens’ behaviors, but also that government policies can effectively protect and increase those aspirations. This implies that the value and efficacy of government disaster relief programs are underestimated when aspirations are not taken into account.




Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation


Book Description

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.




Reducing Poverty, Protecting Livelihoods, and Building Assets in a Changing Climate


Book Description

Climate change is the defining development challenge of our time. More than a global environmental issue, climate change and variability threaten to reverse recent progress in poverty reduction and economic growth. Both now and over the long run, climate change and variability threatens human and social development by restricting the fulfillment of human potential and by disempowering people and communities in reducing their livelihoods options. Communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences from climate change and variability. Precipitation has increased in the southeastern part of South America, and now often comes in the form of sudden deluges, leading to flooding and soil erosion that endanger people s lives and livelihoods. Southwestern parts of South America and western Central America are seeing a decrease in precipitation and an increase in droughts. Increasing heat and drought in Northeast Brazil threaten the livelihoods of already-marginal smallholders, and may turn parts of the eastern Amazon rainforest into savannah. The Andean inter-tropical glaciers are shrinking and expected to disappear altogether within the next 20-40 years, with significant consequences for water availability. These environmental changes will impact local livelihoods in unprecedented ways. Poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration are and will be measurably affected by climate change. Using an innovative research methodology, this study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions. Many already poor regions are becoming poorer; traditional livelihoods are being challenged in unprecedented ways; water scarcity is increasing, particularly in poor arid areas; human health is deteriorating; and climate-induced migration is already taking place and may increase. Successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. This volume offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.