SDG Final Decade of Action: Resilient Pathways to Build Back Better from High-Impact Low-Probability (HILP) Events

Felix Kwabena Donkor (), Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis, Sotirios Argyroudis (), Hassan Aboelkhair, Juan Antonio Ballesteros Canovas, Ahmad Bashir, Ginbert Permejo Cuaton, Samo Diatta, Maral Habibi, Daniel Hölbling, Lance Manuel, Maria Pregnolato, Rodrigo Rudge Ramos Ribeiro, Athanasios Sfetsos, Naeem Shahzad and Christiane Werner
Additional contact information
Felix Kwabena Donkor: College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES), University of South Africa (UNISA), Johannesburg 1709, South Africa
Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Sotirios Argyroudis: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brunel University London, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK
Hassan Aboelkhair: Department of Geography and Geographical Information Systems, Faculty of Arts, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Gharbia, Egypt
Juan Antonio Ballesteros Canovas: Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Spanish Research Council (CSIC), 28006 Madrid, Spain
Ahmad Bashir: Department of Geology, Nawakadal School, Srinagar 190002, India
Ginbert Permejo Cuaton: Division of Environment and Sustainability, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China
Samo Diatta: Laboratory of Ocean, Environment and Climate Science, Department of Physics, Assane SECK University of Ziguinchor, Ziguinchor 27000, Senegal
Maral Habibi: Department of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
Daniel Hölbling: Department of Geoinformatics—Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Lance Manuel: Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Maria Pregnolato: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Rodrigo Rudge Ramos Ribeiro: Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), São Paulo 01310-000, Brazil
Athanasios Sfetsos: National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, 15341 Agia Paraskevi, Greece
Naeem Shahzad: Department Water Resources & Engineering, National University of Sciences & Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Christiane Werner: Ecosystem Physiology, University Freiburg, 79110 Freiburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-14

Abstract: The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a blueprint for global peace and prosperity, while conserving natural ecosystems and resources for the planet. However, factors such as climate-induced weather extremes and other High-Impact Low-Probability (HILP) events on their own can devastate lives and livelihoods. When a pandemic affects us, as COVID-19 has, any concurrent hazards interacting with it highlight additional challenges to disaster and emergency management worldwide. Such amplified effects contribute to greater societal and environmental risks, with cross-cutting impacts and exposing inequities. Hence, understanding how a pandemic affects the management of concurrent hazards and HILP is vital in disaster risk reduction practice. This study reviews the contemporary literature and utilizes data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) to unpack how multiple extreme events have interacted with the coronavirus pandemic and affected the progress in achieving the SDGs. This study is especially urgent, given the multidimensional societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic amidst climate change. Results indicate that mainstreaming risk management into development planning can mitigate the adverse effects of disasters. Successes in addressing compound risks have helped us understand the value of new technologies, such as the use of drones and robots to limit human exposure. Enhancing data collection efforts to enable inclusive sentinel systems can improve surveillance and effective response to future risk challenges. Stay-at-home policies put in place during the pandemic for virus containment have highlighted the need to holistically consider the built environment and socio-economic exigencies when addressing the pandemic’s physical and mental health impacts, and could also aid in the context of increasing climate-induced extreme events. As we have seen, such policies, services, and technologies, along with good nutrition, can significantly help safeguard health and well-being in pandemic times, especially when simultaneously faced with ubiquitous climate-induced extreme events. In the final decade of SDG actions, these measures may help in efforts to “Leave No One Behind”, enhance human–environment relations, and propel society to embrace sustainable policies and lifestyles that facilitate building back better in a post-pandemic world. Concerted actions that directly target the compounding effects of different interacting hazards should be a critical priority of the Sendai Framework by 2030.

Keywords: climate extremes; sustainable development goals; disaster risk reduction; COVID-19; resilience; HILP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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