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European Environment Agency (2020) The European environment: State and outlook 2020, Knowledge for transition to a sustainable Europe (SOER 2020). European Environment Agency.

Abstract:

In 2020, Europe faces environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency. Although EU environment and climate policies have delivered substantial benefits over recent decades, Europe faces persistent problems in areas such as biodiversity loss, resource use, climate change impacts and environmental risks to health and well-being. Global megatrends such as demographic change are intensifying many environmental challenges, while rapid technological change brings new risks and uncertainties.

Recognising these challenges, the EU has committed to a range of long-term sustainability goals with the overall aim of ‘living well, within the limits of our planet’. Achieving these goals will not be possible without a rapid and fundamental shift in the character and ambition of Europe’s responses.

Europe needs to find ways to transform the key societal systems that drive environment and climate pressures and health impacts — rethinking not just technologies and production processes but also consumption patterns and ways of living. This will require immediate and concerted action, engaging diverse policy areas and actors across society in enabling systemic change.

Webpage: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/soer-2020

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Post-Hurricane Supply Chain Resilience: Observations from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25490.

Abstract:

Resilient supply chains are crucial to maintaining the consistent delivery of goods and services to the American people. The modern economy has made supply chains more interconnected than ever, while also expanding both their range and fragility. In the third quarter of 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria revealed some significant vulnerabilities in the national and regional supply chains of Texas, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The broad impacts and quick succession of these three hurricanes also shed light on the effectiveness of the nation's disaster logistics efforts during response through recovery.

Drawing on lessons learned during the 2017 hurricanes, this report explores future strategies to improve supply chain management in disaster situations. This report makes recommendations to strengthen the roles of continuity planning, partnerships between civic leaders with small businesses, and infrastructure investment to ensure that essential supply chains will remain operational in the next major disaster. Focusing on the supply chains food, fuel, water, pharmaceutical, and medical supplies, the recommendations of this report will assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as state and local officials, private sector decision makers, civic leaders, and others who can help ensure that supply chains remain robust and resilient in the face of natural disasters.

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Ager, A., Baillie Smith, M., Barbelet, V., Carpenter, S., Carter, W., Cartwright, A., .. & Halff, K. (2015). World disasters report: focus on local actors, the key to humanitarian effectiveness.

Abstract:

Local actors are often the most effective in conducting humanitarian operations. However, despite their critical role, they struggle to attract the funding and support they need. The 2015 World Disasters Report – launched by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) – examines the complexities and challenges local actors face in scaling-up and sustaining their humanitarian response.

Although widely recognized, the effectiveness of local or national humanitarian organizations is not reflected in humanitarian financing or coordination structures. The Report found, for example, that just 1.6 per cent of funding for humanitarian assistance is channeled directly to national and local NGOs.  It presents the case for a shift towards the “localization” of aid and a more equal partnerships between international and local actors.

Chapter 1 presents the variations in interpretation of who are local actors and what it means to work with them. It will also highlight the dilemmas and some of the consequences of current practices.  Chapter 2 is a summary of a global study and presents a clear message that investment in capacity development pays off in the long term in cases where it is driven by a real local need, where local actors are active in programme design and where cultural values are mixed with creative methods, rather than merely fulfilling donor requirements or facilitating delivery. Chapter 3 points out that the current profile of local actors in normative frameworks for disaster risk management is growing progressively stronger at both the international and the national levels, but the access of local actors to key decision-making forums has not yet caught up.

What the international community has been funding and where such funding has gone is the focus of Chapter 4. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on how both international and local actors had to adapt to such changes. Chapter 7 brings in an aspect that cuts across all crises, whether conflict or disasters resulting from natural hazards – technology in the hands of the population and used in either organic or organized ways by local actors is redefining the way crises are managed and dealt with. The chapter poses a central question: to what extent would technology contribute to changing the relationship between international and local actors or put local actors in the lead, thus altering any balance of power?

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Ye, M., & Aldrich, D. P. (2020). How Natural Hazards Impact the Social Environment for Vulnerable Groups: An Empirical Investigation in Japan. Available at SSRN.

Abstract:

Much research has demonstrated that vulnerable people fare more poorly than non-vulnerable ones in disasters and crises across a variety of outcomes – including mental and physical health, disaster aid received, re-housing processes, and overall satisfaction with recovery. But little is known about how natural disasters change the social and political environment for those vulnerable groups. Some have argued that natural disasters raise the consciousness of civil society and decision makers so that conditions improve for vulnerable groups, while others believe that disasters have little or even negative impact on their status in society. This paper uses a new panel dataset across 17 years (1999 through 2015) of Japan’s 47 prefectures to investigate how disasters impact discrimination rates for vulnerable groups, including women, the elderly, foreigners, and those with disabilities. Controlling for demographic and social factors we find that disasters actually reduce discrimination against certain vulnerable groups – especially women and the elderly – while having no measurable impact on discrimination against other groups – foreigners and the disabled. These results bring with them important policy recommendations for local residents, disaster managers, and decision makers.

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Kahn, M. E., Mohaddes, K., Ng, R. N., Pesaran, M. H., Raissi, M., & Yang, J. C. (2019). Long-term macroeconomic effects of climate change: A cross-country analysis (No. w26167). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Abstract:

This study treats the long-term impact of climate change on economic activity across countries, using a stochastic growth model where labor productivity is affected by country-specific climate variables—defined as deviations of temperature and precipitation from their historical norms. Using a panel data set of 174 countries over the years 1960 to 2014, it was found that per-capita real output growth is adversely affected by persistent changes in the temperature above or below its historical norm, but it did not obtain any statistically significant effect for changes in precipitation. This counterfactual analysis suggests that a persistent increase in average global temperature by 0.04°C per year, in the absence of mitigation policies, reduces world real GDP per capita by more than 7 percent by 2100. On the other hand, abiding by the Paris Agreement, thereby limiting the temperature increase to 0.01°C per annum, reduces the loss substantially to about 1 percent. These effects vary significantly across countries depending on the pace of temperature increases and variability of climate conditions. This study also provides supplementary evidence using data on a sample of 48 U.S. states between 1963 and 2016, and show that climate change has a long-lasting adverse impact on real output in various states and economic sectors, and on labor productivity and employment.

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“The World Climate and Security Report 2020.” Product of the Expert Group of the International Military Council on Climate and Security. Authors: Steve Brock (CCS), Bastien Alex (IRIS), Oliver-Leighton Barrett (CCS), Francesco Femia (CCS), Shiloh Fetzek (CCS), Sherri Goodman (CCS), Deborah Loomis (CCS), Tom Middendorp (Clingendael), Michel Rademaker (HCSS), Louise van Schaik (Clingendael), Julia Tasse (IRIS), Caitlin Werrell (CCS). Edited by Francesco Femia & Caitlin Werrell. Published by the Center for Climate and Security, an institute of the Council on Strategic Risks. Feb 2020.

Abstract:

The inaugural World Climate and Security Report 2020 from the Expert Group of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) provides global and regional assessments of the security risks of a changing climate, as well as opportunities for addressing them. It is the first report of its kind and is intended to inform future climate and security policy and analysis. The last chapter offers a comprehensive set of conclusions and recommendations for a path forward towards global security cooperation on climate change. This includes the overarching recommendation that national, regional, and international security institutions and militaries around the world acknowledge climate security risks and advance climate resilience, especially water and food security and their associated effects on stability, conflict and displacement, in their primary mission sets or lines of effort.

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Kubisch, S., Guth, J., Keller, S., Bull, M. T., Keller, L., & Braun, A. C. (2020). The contribution of tsunami evacuation analysis to evacuation planning in Chile: Applying a multi-perspective research design. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 101462.

Abstract:

Research on evacuation behavior in natural disasters provides a valuable contribution in the development of effective short- and long-term strategies in disaster risk management (DRM). Many studies address evacuation simulation utilizing mathematical modeling approaches or GIS-based simulation. In this contribution, we perform a detailed analysis of an entire evacuation process from the decision to evacuate right up to the arrival at a safe zone. We apply a progressive research design in the community of Talcahuano, Chile by means of linking a social science approach, deploying standardized questionnaires for the tsunami affected population, and a GIS-based simulation. The questionnaire analyzes evacuation behavior in both an event-based historical scenario and a hypothetical future scenario. Results reveal three critical issues: evacuation time, distance to the evacuation zone, and method of transportation. In particular, the excessive use of cars has resulted in congestion of street sections in past evacuations, and will most probably also pose a problem in a future evacuation event. As evacuation by foot is generally recommended by DRM, the results are extended by a GIS-based modeling simulating evacuation by foot. Combining the findings of both approaches allows for added value, providing more comprehensive insights into evacuation planning. Future research may take advantage of this multi-perspective research design, and integrate social science findings in a more detailed manner. Making use of invaluable local knowledge and past experience of the affected population in evacuation planning is likely to help decrease the magnitude of a disaster, and, ultimately, save lives.

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Caceres, R. M., Boano, C., & Abrassart, T. (2019). Urban Planning and Natural Hazard Governance. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science.

Abstract:

The establishment of effective linkages between institutional urban planning and disaster risk strategies remains a challenge for formal governance structures. For governments at all administrative scales, disaster resilience planning has required systemic capacities that rely on structures of governance, humanitarian frameworks, and budgetary capacities. However, with growing urbanization trends, humanitarian responses and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) frameworks have had to adapt their operations in contexts with high population density, complex infrastructure systems, informal dynamics, and a broader range of actors. Urban areas concentrate an array of different groups with the capability of contributing to urban responses and strategies to cope with disaster effects, including community groups, government agencies, international organizations and humanitarian practitioners. In addition, cities have running planning structures that support their administration and spatial organization, with instruments that supply constant information about population characteristics, infrastructure capacity and potential weaknesses. Processes and data ascribed to urban planning can provide vital knowledge to natural hazard governance frameworks, from technical resources to conceptual approaches towards spatial analysis. Authorities managing risk could improve their strategic objectives if they could access and integrate urban planning information. Furthermore, a collaborative hazard governance can provide equity to multiple urban actors that are usually left out of institutional DRM, including nongovernmental organizations, academia, and community groups. Traditional top-down models can operate in parallel with horizontal arrangements, giving voice to groups with limited access to political platforms but who are knowledgeable on urban space and social codes. Their still limited recognition is evidence that there is still a disconnect between the intentions of global frameworks for inclusive governance, and the co-production of an urban planning designed for inclusive resilience.

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WMO (World Meteorologycal Organization) (2020). WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019.

Abstract:

Concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, continue to rise. The year 2019 ended with a global average temperature of 1.1 °C above estimated pre-industrial averages, second only to the record set in 2016. Without the role of El Niño in the warming increase observed in 2016, 2019 would have been a record year.

Temperature is one indicator of the ongoing climate change. Also, sea levels are rising at an increasing pace, through greater warming of the oceans, on the surface and in the depths, and through the enhanced melting of Greenland’s ice and of glaciers, exposing coastal areas and islands to a greater risk of flooding and the submersion of low-lying areas.

Furthermore, in 2019, heatwaves, combined with long periods of drought, were linked to wildfires of unprecedented size. This was the case in Australia, where millions of hectares were set ablaze, and in Siberia and other Arctic regions hit by wildfires of record intensity.

Besides these powerful phenomena, there has been weather-related damage, such as the effects of multi-annual droughts on the internal and cross-border migration of populations, greater exposure of the world population to health hazards due to heat and pollution, and the reduction of economic growth, especially in developing economies, due to rising temperatures and weather extremes.

The results of this report demonstrate that climate change is already very visible in various ways. More ambitious climate mitigation efforts are needed to keep the warming below 2 °C by the end of the century.

Webpage: https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10211

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Das S., Alexander J., Ishiwatari M., Komino T., Shaw R. (2020): “Lessons from Hagibis: Learning to Cope with Intensifying Disasters in the Age of New Normal”, CWS Japan, 24 pages, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract:

Typhoon Hagibis (meaning “speed” in Tagalog; also known as Reiwa 1 East Japan Typhoon or Japan Typhoon Number 19 of 2019) caused widespread destruction in Japan in October 2019. It was the strongest typhoon to strike mainland Japan in decades, and one of the largest typhoons ever recorded in terms of its diameter. It was also the costliest Pacific typhoon recorded in history, causing a total of 15 billion US dollars in financial damage. This report summarizes the key lessons from this typhoon with a hope that they will help other countries prepare for similar disasters, which may become more frequent with the changing climate.

Webpage: https://www.preventionweb.net/files/70765_70765hagibisreport.pdf