The Interplay between Urban Development, Vulnerability, and Risk Management

The Interplay between Urban Development, Vulnerability, and Risk Management
Author: Ebru A. Gencer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2013-06-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3642294707

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.

Urban Disaster Resilience and Security

Urban Disaster Resilience and Security
Author: Alexander Fekete
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2017-12-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319686062

This edited book investigates the interrelations of disaster impacts, resilience and security in an urban context. Urban as a term captures megacities, cities, and generally, human settlements, that are characterised by concentration of quantifiable and non-quantifiable subjects, objects and value attributions to them. The scope is to narrow down resilience from an all-encompassing concept to applied ways of scientifically attempting to ‚measure’ this type of disaster related resilience. 28 chapters in this book reflect opportunities and doubts of the disaster risk science community regarding this ‚measurability’. Therefore, examples utilising both quantitative and qualitative approaches are juxtaposed. This book concentrates on features that are distinct characteristics of resilience, how they can be measured and in what sense they are different to vulnerability and risk parameters. Case studies in 11 countries either use a hypothetical pre-event estimation of resilience or are addressing a ‘revealed resilience’ evident and documented after an event. Such information can be helpful to identify benchmarks or margins of impact magnitudes and related recovery times, volumes and qualities of affected populations and infrastructure.

Climate Change and Cities

Climate Change and Cities
Author: Cynthia Rosenzweig
Publisher:
Total Pages: 855
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1316603334

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

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience
Author: Michael K Lindell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2019-07-30
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317501071

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience emphasizes the intersection of urban planning and hazard mitigation as critical for community resilience, considering the interaction of social, environmental, and physical systems with disasters. The Handbook introduces and discusses the phases of disaster – mitigation, preparedness/response, and recovery – as well as each of the federal, state, and local players that address these phases from a planning and policy perspective. Part I provides an overview of hazard vulnerability that begins with an explanation of what it means to be vulnerable to hazards, especially for socially vulnerable population segments. Part II discusses the politics of hazard mitigation; the failures of smart growth placed in hazardous areas; the wide range of land development policies and their associated risk; the connection between hazards and climate adaptation; and the role of structural and non-structural mitigation in planning for disasters. Part III covers emergency preparedness and response planning, the unmet needs people experience and community service planning; evacuation planning; and increasing community capacity and emergency response in developing countries. Part IV addresses recovery from and adaption to disasters, with topics such as the National Disaster Recovery Framework, long-term housing recovery; population displacement; business recovery; and designs in disasters. Finally, Part V demonstrates how disaster research is interpreted in practice – how to incorporate mitigation into the comprehensive planning process; how states respond to recovery; how cities undertake recovery planning; and how to effectively engage the whole community in disaster planning. The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience offers the most authoritative and comprehensive coverage of cutting-edge research at the intersection of urban planning and disasters from a U.S. perspective. This book serves as an invaluable guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students, future professionals, and practitioners interested in urban planning, sustainability, development response planning, emergency planning, recovery planning, hazard mitigation planning, land use planning, housing and community development as well as urban sociology, sociology of the community, public administration, homeland security, climate change, and related fields.

Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation

Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation
Author: Christine Wamsler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1134614950

Worldwide, disasters and climate change pose a serious risk to sustainable urban development, resulting in escalating human and economic costs. Consequently, city authorities and other urban actors face the challenge of integrating risk reduction and adaptation strategies into their work. However, related knowledge and expertise are still scarce and fragmented. Cities, Disaster Risk and Adaptation explores ways in which resilient cities can be ‘built’ and sustainable urban transformations achieved. The book provides a comprehensive understanding of urban risk reduction and adaptation planning, exploring key theoretical concepts and analysing the complex interrelations between cities, disasters and climate change. Furthermore, it provides an overview of current risk reduction and adaptation approaches taken by both city authorities and city dwellers from diverse contexts in low, middle and high income nations. Finally, the book offers a planning framework for reducing and adapting to risk in urban areas by expanding on pre-existing positive actions and addressing current shortfalls in theory and practice. The importance of a distributed urban governance system, in which institutions’ and citizens’ adaptive capacities can support and complement each other, is highlighted. This book takes a holistic approach; it integrates perspectives and practice from risk reduction and climate change adaptation based on a specific urban viewpoint. The text is richly supplemented with boxed case studies written by renowned academics and practitioners in the field and ‘test yourself’ scenarios that integrate theory into practice. Each chapter contains learning objectives, end of chapter questions, suggested further reading and web resources, as well as a wealth of tables and figures. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of geography, urban studies and planning, architecture, environmental studies, international development, sociology and sustainability studies.

The Vulnerability of Cities

The Vulnerability of Cities
Author: Mark Pelling
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1136551476

When disaster strikes in cities the effects can be catastrophic compared to other environments. But what factors actually determine the vulnerability or resilience of cities? The Vulnerability of Cities fills a vital gap in disaster studies by examining the too-often overlooked impact of disasters on cities, the conditions leading to high losses from urban disasters and why some households and communities withstand disaster more effectively than others. Mark Pelling takes a fresh look at the literature on disasters and urbanization in light of recent catastrophes. He presents three detailed studies of cities in the global South, drawn from countries with contrasting political and developmental contexts: Bridgetown, Barbados - a liberal democracy; Georgetown, Guyana - a post socialist-state; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic - an authoritarian state in democratic transition. This book demonstrates that strengthening local capacity - through appropriate housing, disaster-preparedness, infrastructure and livelihoods - is crucial to improving civic resilience to disasters. Equally important are strong partnerships between local community-based organizations, external non-governmental and governmental organizations, public and private sectors and between city and national government. The author highlights and discusses these best practices for handling urban disasters. With rapid urbanization across the globe, this book is a must-read for professionals, policy-makers, students and researchers in disaster management, urban development and planning, transport planning, architecture, social studies and earth sciences.

Handbook of Flood Risk Management in Developing Countries

Handbook of Flood Risk Management in Developing Countries
Author: Victor Oladokun
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1000847764

This new handbook brings together various views and experiences of the impacts of flooding and its management in Africa, Asia and Latin America by drawing from traditional and modern approaches adopted by communities, homeowners, academics, project managers, institutions and policy makers. Key stakeholders provide insights and perspectives on flood hazards, flood impacts, flood control and adaptation strategies across these regions. The inclusion of policy makers, emergency responders, leaders of key organizations and managers of flood defence projects makes this volume a unique addition to the flood management literature. The chapters are organized to reveal various impacts and challenges associated with the management of flooding, including response and recovery. The chapter contributions bring together the different impacts of flooding and propose various mitigation approaches. They describe procedures for managing flooding and reducing the impacts from the perspectives of policy makers, environmental planners and restorers of flood-affected communities. Also, the book considers some of the related aspects including land use, waste management, drainage systems, security challenges, urban planning and development and their contributions to flooding. The book's primary target is experienced researchers and practitioners in flood risk management. It would also serve as a key text for postgraduate students studying related programmes. Inhabitants of flood prone communities in such developing countries will also find the text an important resource for guidance and understanding. This multi-disciplinary book represents a valuable contribution for a wide range of professionals (e.g. in engineering, built environment, health, retail, etc) who are interested in flood control and management and/or faced with flood-related challenges in the course of their work.

Urban Resilience for Risk and Adaptation Governance

Urban Resilience for Risk and Adaptation Governance
Author: Grazia Brunetta
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018-08-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319769448

This book brings together a series of theory and practice essays on risk management and adaptation in urban contexts within a resilient and multidimensional perspective. The book proposes a transversal approach with regard to the role of spatial planning in promoting and fostering risk management as well as institutions’ challenges for governing risk, particularly in relation to new forms of multi-level governance that may include stakeholders and citizen engagement. The different contributions focus on approaches, policies, and practices able to contrast risks in urban systems generating social inclusion, equity and participation through bottom-up governance forms and co-evolution principles. Case studies focus on lessons learned, as well as the potential and means for their replication and upscaling, also through capacity building and knowledge transfer. Among many other topics, the book explores difficulties encountered in, and creative solutions found, community and local experiences and capacities, organizational processes and integrative institutional, technical approaches to risk issue in cities.

Climate Change and Cities

Climate Change and Cities
Author: Cynthia Rosenzweig
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 855
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1316942325

The Urban Climate Change Research Network's Second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Cities (ARC3.2) is the second in a series of global, science-based reports to examine climate risk, adaptation, and mitigation efforts in cities. The book explicitly seeks to explore the implications of changing climatic conditions on critical urban physical and social infrastructure sectors and intersectoral concerns. The primary purpose of ARC3.2 is to inform the development and implementation of effective urban climate change policies, leveraging ongoing and planned investments for populations in cities of developing, emerging, and developed countries. This volume, like its predecessor, will be invaluable for a range of audiences involved with climate change and cities: mayors, city officials and policymakers; urban planners; policymakers charged with developing climate change mitigation and adaptation programs; and a broad spectrum of researchers and advanced students in the environmental sciences.

Cities, Nature and Development

Cities, Nature and Development
Author: Sarah Dooling
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2016-05-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317165969

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this book illustrates how and why cities are comprised by a mosaic of vulnerable human and ecological communities. Case studies ranging across various international settings reveal how 'urban vulnerabilities' is an effective metaphor and analytic lens for advancing political ecological theories on the relationships between cities, nature and development. Contributions expand upon conceptions of vulnerability as a static condition and instead present vulnerability as a phenomenon that is produced through complex and contentious planning histories, and which may, in turn, be politicized, exploited and-in some instances-contested. Expanding upon snapshot vulnerability assessments, this volume articulates vulnerability as a process that is marked by the accumulation of risk over time and the transference of risk across space and populations. Moving beyond notions of vulnerability as a singular, case studies demonstrate that social and ecological vulnerabilities are deeply integrated and, as such, are irreducible to one or the other. This volume also highlights how the production of vulnerabilities is frequently achieved through integrated and mutually reinforcing economic development and environmentally driven agendas. This collection thus suggests that vulnerability-and also forms of resilience-are implicated in efforts to plan for and manage sustainable cities. This book provides timely and provocative perspectives on a wide range of urban issues including: park management, gentrification, suburban expansion, sustainability planning, local organic food systems, hazards management, climate change activism and north-south flows of urban environmental externalities. Collectively, these works reveal the complexities of urban vulnerabilities-related to scalar interactions, accumulation and transfer of risk, politicization and governance, and capacity for resistance-and in doing so, provide readers with coherent, robust and well-theorized analysis of the politics and production of urban vulnerabilities.