Why predict climate hazards if we need to understand impacts? Putting humans back into the drought equation

M. Enenkel (), M. E. Brown, J. V. Vogt, J. L. McCarty, A. Reid Bell, D. Guha-Sapir, W. Dorigo, K. Vasilaky, M. Svoboda, R. Bonifacio, M. Anderson, C. Funk, D. Osgood, C. Hain and P. Vinck
Additional contact information
M. Enenkel: Harvard University
M. E. Brown: University of Maryland
J. V. Vogt: European Commission, Joint Research Center
J. L. McCarty: Miami University
A. Reid Bell: New York University
D. Guha-Sapir: Université Catholique de Louvain
W. Dorigo: Vienna University of Technology
K. Vasilaky: California Polytechnic University
M. Svoboda: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
R. Bonifacio: United Nations World Food Programme
M. Anderson: Agricultural Research Service
C. Funk: U.S. Geological Survey Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science and the University of Santa Barbara, Climate Hazards Center
D. Osgood: Columbia University
C. Hain: Earth Science Branch
P. Vinck: Harvard University

Climatic Change, 2020, vol. 162, issue 3, No 11, 1176 pages

Abstract: Abstract Virtually all climate monitoring and forecasting efforts concentrate on hazards rather than on impacts, while the latter are a priority for planning emergency activities and for the evaluation of mitigation strategies. Effective disaster risk management strategies need to consider the prevailing “human terrain” to predict who is at risk and how communities will be affected. There has been little effort to align the spatiotemporal granularity of socioeconomic assessments with the granularity of weather or climate monitoring. The lack of a high-resolution socioeconomic baseline leaves methodical approaches like machine learning virtually untapped for pattern recognition of extreme climate impacts on livelihood conditions. While the request for “better” socioeconomic data is not new, we highlight the need to collect and analyze environmental and socioeconomic data together and discuss novel strategies for coordinated data collection via mobile technologies from a drought risk management perspective. A better temporal, spatial, and contextual understanding of socioeconomic impacts of extreme climate conditions will help to establish complex causal pathways and quantitative proof about climate-attributable livelihood impacts. Such considerations are particularly important in the context of the latest big data-driven initiatives, such as the World Bank’s Famine Action Mechanism (FAM).

Keywords: Drought; Impact assessment; Disaster resilience; Decision-support; Mobile technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02878-0

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