Risk, Transformation and Adaptation: Ideas for Reframing Approaches to Disaster Risk Reduction

Douglas Paton and Petra Buergelt
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Douglas Paton: College of Health and Human Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT 0810, Australia
Petra Buergelt: Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, 11 Kirinari St, Bruce, ACT 2617, Australia

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 14, 1-19

Abstract: Recognition of projected increases in exposure to large-scale hazard events over the coming decades has identified a need to develop how disaster risk reduction and recovery are conceptualized and enacted. This paper discusses some strategies for pursing this goal in both disaster recovery and preparedness settings. The approaches discussed include understanding how communities learn from their hazardous experiences and transform these lessons into beliefs, relationships and capabilities that build future adaptive capacity. The paper draws on examples of transformative learning that illustrate how people can make fundamental shifts in how they think about, prepare for and respond to environmental challenge and change. Regarding transformation in pre-event settings, the paper first discusses why the addition of transformative strategies to disaster risk reduction programs is required. These include a need for rethinking socio-environmental relationships, increasing risk acceptance in the context of evolving hazardscapes, and countering beliefs regarding not preparing. The paper then offers strategies for motivating transformation and consolidating the outcomes of transformation in pre-event disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies. A preliminary model that could inform the development of research questions on the development of transformative outcomes and their consolidation in enduring adaptive processes is presented.

Keywords: transformation; adaptive capacity; risk; learning; scenario planning; disaster risk reduction; disaster recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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