Nicola Ranger

Catastrophe risk models for evaluating disaster risk reduction investments in developing countries.

Major natural disasters in recent years have had high human and economic costs, and triggered record high postdisaster relief from governments and international donors. Given the current economic situation worldwide, selecting the most effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures is critical. This is especially the case for low- and middle-income countries, which have suffered disproportionally more economic and human losses from disasters. This article discusses a methodology that makes use of advanced probabilistic catastrophe models to estimate benefits of DRR measures. We apply such newly developed models to generate estimates for hurricane risk on residential structures on the island of St. Lucia, and earthquake risk on residential structures in Istanbul, Turkey, as two illustrative case studies. The costs and economic benefits for selected risk reduction measures are estimated taking account of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. We conclude by emphasizing the advantages and challenges of catastrophe model-based cost-benefit analyses for DRR in developing countries.

Accounting for a changing and uncertain climate in planning and policymaking today: lessons for developing countries

Climate change is increasingly altering the pattern of climate-related risks. Developing countries and in particular least developed countries will be among the most severely impacted by climate change. These risks can seem remote in comparison with more immediate threats and needs, but if climate change is not considered upfront in existing planning and policymaking processes today, decision makers risk locking-in future impacts that may prove irreversible or much more costly and difficult to rectify than is necessary. The challenge for planners and policymakers, explored in this paper, is that future climate conditions are deeply uncertain. Decision methods are available to tackle these problems; however, these tend to be data- and resource-intensive and therefore, difficult to routinely apply. Further, a gap in currently available guidance is the explicit link to the adaptation needs of a developing country. We discuss the implications of this development context for the priorities for adaptation and the relative allocation of efforts in adaptation. This paper focuses on the identification of adaptation options and strategies that are robust to the deep uncertainties in future climate risk, culminating in a framework of six building blocks. It takes the perspective of exploring how decisions today might be adjusted to account for uncertain and changing long-term climate risks. We suggest a core principle is to focus on promoting climate-resilient development and increasing long-term adaptive capacity while, crucially, avoiding inflexible decisions that could lock-in future climate risk or foreclose adaptation options.

Safeguarding development aid against climate change: evaluating progress and identifying best practice

Official development assistance currently totals around US

Adaptation in Coastal Systems

130 billion per year, an order of magnitude greater than international climate finance. To safeguard development progress and secure the long-term effectiveness of these investments, projects must be designed to be resilient to climate change. This article reviews 250 projects for three countries from two development organisations and finds that between 2% and 30% of these may require action now to “future-proof” investments and policies. Both organisations show improvements in the recognition of climate change in projects, but many projects are still not future-proof.

A global ranking of port cities with high exposure to climate extremes

The vulnerability of coastal regions to adverse climatic and environmental drivers is well understood and has been demonstrated by several recent events, such as Hurricane Katrina, the oil spill along the U.S. Gulf Coast, and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Trends including climate change, degradation of coastal ecosystems, population growth, and aging infrastructure are likely to increase vulnerabilities in the future. While there may be broad acceptance for including limited climate change-related options within current planning methodologies, new types of tools, policies, and decision-making approaches may be required that move beyond the mainstream processes to reduce risks while addressing the complex nature of these social/biological/physical systems. In particular, adaptation demands a fundamentally different decision regime than the current, historically focused methods. The objective of this chapter is to provide an introduction and conceptual overview to the section on adaptation to climate change within coastal systems. As a result of coastal group discussions in the 2010 NATO-Iceland meeting, we highlight four main points concerning adaptation to climate change in coastal areas: 1. Coasts have a set of layered vulnerabilities that contribute to current and future risks. 2. People matter in the adaptation process and should be included at multiple stages in the decision process. 3. Governance also plays a fundamental role in the adaptation process. 4. There are challenges to decision making in adaptation, but there are also a range of powerful concepts, tools, and case studies available to aid decision makers.