Alexander Fekete

Spatial disaster vulnerability and risk assessments: challenges in their quality and acceptance

The main purpose of this paper is to document the challenges within spatial risk and vulnerability assessments in order to instigate an open discussion about opportunities for improvements in approaches to disaster risk. This descriptive paper identifies challenges to quality and acceptance and is based on a case study of a social vulnerability index of river floods in Germany. The findings suggest the existence of a vast range of challenges, most of which are typical for many spatial vulnerability assessments. Some of these challenges are obvious while others, such as the stigmatisation of ‘the vulnerable’ in vulnerability maps, are probably less often the subject of debate in the context of quantitative assessments. The discussion of challenges regarding data, methodology, concept and evaluation of vulnerability assessment may help similar interdisciplinary projects in identifying potential gaps and possibilities for improvement. Moreover, the acceptance of the outcomes of spatial risk assessments by the public will benefit from their critical and open-minded documentation.

Benefits and challenges of resilience and vulnerability for disaster risk management

This article addresses resilience and vulnerability as two prominent concepts within disaster risk science. The authors provide an overview of current uses and benefits of and challenges to resilience and vulnerability concepts for disaster risk management (DRM). The article summarizes the evolution of these concepts and of attempts to define them precisely, and addresses the potential benefits of conceptual vagueness. The usage and conception of resilience and vulnerability within a selection of strategies and legislations in DRM are compared. Complementing this analysis of disaster risk research and management practice, a survey identifies some of the benefits of and challenges to the concepts of resilience and vulnerability as seen by a peer-community. Synthesizing the three approaches, we conclude that a certain conceptual and methodological “haze” prevails, which hampers the transfer of information and findings within disaster risk science, from science to practice, and vice versa. But this vagueness offers opportunities for communication between disaster risk science, policy, and practice. Overall, evaluations of the resilience and vulnerability concepts are lacking, which demands the development of criteria to identify and assess the challenges to and benefits of resilience and vulnerability for DRM.

Risk management goals and identification of critical infrastructures

Strategic goals help streamlining risk management efforts, and criticality assessments of infrastructures benefit from such goals. This paper offers an introduction into recent German civil protection activities on this topic at national level. It offers a transferable concept on how to identify, document and justify priorities regarding critical infrastructure services. Based on human values it enables to prioritise critical and urgent areas for risk management, in this case in the field of infrastructures. Critical values and key services are identified and then prioritised using time as a criterion. Finally, infrastructure elements are identified and prioritised with a given research unit.

Loss and Damage as an Alternative to Resilience and Vulnerability? Preliminary Reflections on an Emerging Climate Change Adaptation Discourse

One relatively novel way of assessing the characteristics and limitations of resilience and vulnerability (R&V) is undertaken in this article by investigating a growing alternative paradigm—loss and damage (L&D) policy. The idea of L&D as an emerging policy may be surprising to many in the disaster risk management community, and so we first outline the origins of this trend, and then explore the potential benefits and pitfalls of adopting it. This short article represents our preliminary opinions and observations regarding this reintroduction of a long-established concept. We also present results from a very brief peer-group survey on some of the first immediate reactions towards L&D policy. At this early stage, this article cannot offer a full-fledged analysis, but our reflections may serve as a starting point to encourage further discussion.

Introduction to ‘Urban Disaster Resilience and Security—Addressing Risks in Societies’

Resilience as a term carries an emphasis on temporal development after an event. It also stresses the phase of rebounding after an impact. There is still a lack of disaster resilience operationalization or measurement, which impairs the credibility of the multi-facetted resilience concept, for both science and decision-making. On the other hand, measurability and bouncing back conceptualisations are criticised on multiple grounds; myopia on the range of holistic abilities commonly associated with resilience and neglect of context better to be captured with qualitative approaches. Addressing risks in societies prompts investigating all aspects of resilience conceptualisation and attempts at assessing it—and it is the ambition of this book to highlight examples and at the same time critically reflecting about their reach and limitations. Security and resilience are both terms used for framing a whole field of research and policy. Overlaps are hardly researched, however and the edited chapters will address certain recent aspects that will help to identify features for a common understanding and framework of risk, security and resilience. Urban areas are used here as a common denominator of human values and assets, exposed to different types of external and internal threats to security, which stimulate different types of resilience.

Spatial exposure aspects contributing to vulnerability and resilience assessments of urban critical infrastructure in a flood and blackout context

Blackouts aggravate the situation during an extreme river-flood event by affecting residents and visitors of an urban area. But also rescue services, fire brigades and basic urban infrastructure such as hospitals have to operate under suboptimal conditions. This paper aims to demonstrate how affected people, critical infrastructure, such as electricity, roads and civil protection infrastructure are intertwined during a flood event, and how this can be analysed in a spatially explicit way. The city of Cologne (Germany) is used as a case study since it is river-flood prone and thousands of people had been affected in the floods in 1993 and 1995. Components of vulnerability and resilience assessments are selected with a focus of analysing exposure to floods, and five steps of analysis are demonstrated using a geographic information system. Data derived by airborne and spaceborne earth observation to capture flood extent and demographic data are combined with place-based information about location and distance of objects. The results illustrate that even fire brigade stations, hospitals and refugee shelters are within the flood scenario area. Methodologically, the paper shows how criticality of infrastructure can be analysed and how static vulnerability assessments can be improved by adding routing calculations. Fire brigades can use this information to improve planning on how to access hospitals and shelters under flooded road conditions.

From Application to Evaluation: Addressing the Usefulness of Resilience and Vulnerability

What are the benefits of the resilience and vulnerability concepts for disaster risk management? This question goes beyond the previous stage of enquiring what exactly both terms and concepts mean, how they can be measured or applied. We aim to demonstrate the potential of applied resilience and vulnerability research for disaster risk management (DRM), while addressing accompanying challenges. This special issue grew out of the idea to generate an overview on the state-of-the-art of resilience and vulnerability studies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In the past years we have experienced a huge demand from our students as well as academic and professional colleagues for an overview of studies of and experiences with resilience or vulnerability within a specific hazard, country, methodological or other context. Based on this we developed the idea to compile and structure the existing state-ofthe-art within what we termed an ‘‘Atlas of Vulnerability and Resilience Research,’’ aiming at promoting different types of knowledge, knowledge transfer between academic disciplines and between science, policy, and practice, and underlining the role of education, learning, and communication. In order to prepare such a compendium we started to spread the idea and build up a network. As a first milestone, in November 2012 we were invited by the German disaster network (KatNet—Katastrophennetzwerk) to jointly conduct a symposium on the introductory question. Around 100 participants from social and natural science disciplines and practitioners from the private sector, civil protection, and emergency relief organizations came together. Some of the key outcomes of that symposium are documented here for an international audience, thanks to the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. The authors of this special issue cover different concepts, methods, and experiences. They offer a look into recent concepts and applied studies in various disciplines. In addition to six research articles, two short essays offer provocative and alternative views on individual aspects of benefits and challenges that characterize resilience and vulnerability research and application. Within this special issue it is not possible to adequately answer the introductory question, neither can the selected articles represent even the core range of disciplines, fields, concepts, methods, countries, or research contexts of resilience and vulnerability in DRM. Rather, the articles highlight some important issues, and share a discussion of the potential benefits and challenges of vulnerability and resilience for DRM as well as common themes: the appreciation of different types of knowledge, knowledge transfer, education, learning, and communication. The article with our co-author Sylvia Kruse focuses on how the concepts of resilience and vulnerability are used in science, policy, and practice. We aim to identify and systemize some benefits and challenges and address the need to use criteria of how the benefits of both concepts for DRM can be evaluated. The article provides a background for the reasons to compile such a special issue, and discusses the roles of resilience and vulnerability in science and their usage in different European and UN policy fields. A survey of the KatNet symposium participants reflects some opinions on the benefits and challenges of the concepts of resilience and vulnerability. A. Fekete (&) Risk and Crisis Management Section, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, 50679 Cologne, Germany e-mail: alexander.fekete@fh-koeln.de

Urban Disaster Resilience and Security

Resilience as a term carries an emphasis on temporal development after an event. It also stresses the phase of rebounding after an impact. There is still a lack of disaster resilience operationalization or measurement, which impairs the credibility of the multi-facetted resilience concept, for both science and decision-making. On the other hand, measurability and bouncing back conceptualisations are criticised on multiple grounds; myopia on the range of holistic abilities commonly associated with resilience and neglect of context better to be captured with qualitative approaches. Addressing risks in societies prompts investigating all aspects of resilience conceptualisation and attempts at assessing it —and it is the ambition of this book to highlight examples and at the same time critically reflecting about their reach and limitations. Security and resilience are both terms used for framing a whole field of research and policy. Overlaps are hardly researched, however and the edited chapters will address certain recent aspects that will help to identify features for a common understanding and framework of risk, security and resilience. Urban areas are used here as a common denominator of human values and assets, exposed to different types of external and internal threats to security, which stimulate different types of resilience.

How “Sustainable” are Post-disaster Measures? Lessons to Be Learned a Decade After the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean

This article addresses the sustainability implications of post-disaster measures in the context of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami by presenting an analysis of the current situations and changes in some of the affected regions. Sustainability implications of measures are captured by investigating the persistence of the social and economic living conditions in relation to post-disaster measures, and the alignment of the measures with basic environmental aspects. Based on major concepts relevant in disaster science and sustainability research, the study explored sustainability aspects of post-disaster measures implemented after the 2004 tsunami, by conducting selected interviews among the participants of the 2015 international seminar “11 Years after the Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004” and a broader online survey. Information was sought about (1) the current state of vulnerability of the local population in the regions affected; (2) the main lessons that have been identified to improve project design and management of recovery and vulnerability reduction; and (3) project sustainability implications with respect to the state of today’s vulnerability. Based on the analysis of the information on these three priority areas, selected tasks for future disaster risk management are identified, such as more integrative planning and improved coordination with international organizations and local people.

Extreme Events, Critical Infrastructures, Human Vulnerability and Strategic Planning: Emerging Research Issues

The importance of critical infrastructures and strategic planning in the context of extreme events, climate change and urbanization has been underscored recently in international policy frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (UNISDR (United Nations/International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction) 2015), and the new Paris climate agreement (UNFCCC (United Nations — Framework Convention on Climate Change) 2015) as well as the New Urban Agenda (UN-HABITAT 2016). This paper outlines key research challenges in addressing the nexus between extreme weather events, critical infrastructure resilience, human vulnerability and strategic planning. Using a structured expert dialogue approach (particularly based on a roundtable discussion funded by the German National Science Foundation (DFG)), the paper outlines emerging research issues in the context of extreme events, critical infrastructures, human vulnerability and strategic planning, providing perspectives for inter- and transdisciplinary research on this important nexus. The main contribution of the paper is a compilation of identified research gaps and needs from an interdisciplinary perspective including the lack of integration across subjects and mismatches between different concepts and schools of thought.