Identifying Emerging Issues in Disaster Risk Reduction, Migration, Climate Change and Sustainable Development

This chapter introduces disaster risk reduction (DRR) with an emphasis on the socio-economic sources of human exposure and vulnerability to environmental hazards, the institutional nature of responses, and why DRR is, or should be, aligned with precautionary, prudential, and preventive fields. Internationally, such views have been promoted through the 2005 UN Hyogo Framework for Action and updated in the 2015 Sendai Framework (SFDRR). However, the future of these initiatives turns on whether various emerging contradictions can be resolved. First, as is widely reported, environmental disaster numbers and losses continue to grow—despite several decades of concerted international action and large increases in disaster-related funding and institutions. Second, if DRR has support in the international arena, other approaches receive much larger shares of funding, official promotion, and media coverage. In North America and some other jurisdictions, Homeland Security has integrated disaster management into broad national security complexes, and subordinates it to agencies focused on counter-terrorism and concerns ranging from trafficking to border security. Expanded environmental and social surveillance are involved. Emergency suspensions of civil rights and safety laws are common and a boost to militarized crisis response, which is already predominant in most countries. These form the basis of the so-called Security-Industrial Complex (SIC). It is associated with the aggressive treatment of threats or “securitization”. A politics of crisis places disaster risk within broad, centrally controlled, state and transnational priorities. The consequences were evident in New Orleans after Hurricane “Katrina”, in Haiti since 2010, and in Fukushima, Japan, among others. The SIC reinstates a threat-based or agent-specific “physicalist” view of disasters, and a civil defense or “state-of-war” approach, aimed at damage control. It serves to boost disaster opportunism. By contrast, DRR requires a non-aggressive, open, and conciliatory approach focused on those most at risk. As a result, the disasters community and plans to revise or replace the Hyogo Framework for Action by 2015 face an up-hill struggle. The need to reinforce and extend risk-reducing and humanitarian principles is stressed. Similar, “securitized” dilemmas link DRR with climate change, global migration, and sustainability issues.

The Dakar area, situated in the tropical, semiarid climate of the Sahel zone, has been subject to important urban development during the last 40 years due to migration from rural areas in the 1970s, following several droughts and population growth. This has led to an increase of water consumption and the related risks for man and ecosystems: pollution of aquifers (eutrophication, salt, pesticides), changes in agricultural production (increased salt content, endangering soil fertility), and frequent floods in the lowlands occupied by informal settlements. During the last 10 years various geochemical studies, including chemical analyses of soils and water, as well as isotopic and microbiological methods have allowed to obtain a detailed picture of the physical and chemical processes occurring in the local aquifers and soils, as a result of anthropogenic influences. Collaboration with town planners, local NGOs, and governmental agencies has allowed for an overall view of the origin and impacts of the ongoing complex processes and related risks. In view of the upcoming scarcity of water and rapidly progressing urbanization, continuing this interdisciplinary approach will hopefully allow for risk reduction and more sustainable development of the area.

This chapter uses the term “dike risk” to demonstrate the interrelations between sustainable development, disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and migration. The relevance of “dike risk” is investigated in the French legal and institutional context and identifies how risk is transformed by dike construction. This issue is illustrated through several case studies. To analyze the above issues, this chapter is based on a conceptual framework: “the Farmer’s curve” and the concept of resilience, consistent with social-ecological systems (SES) thinking. This understanding assists us in analyzing the issues at stake and how we can gain from having a more integrated and systemic approach toward DRR and environmental related policies.

Megacities in the developing world face strong disaster risk, especially when they are situated in low-lying coastal locations and present high social and economic inequalities. In this sense, they are typically interesting case studies on disaster risk reduction (DRR). The Jakarta and Mumbai metropolitan areas are both highly prone to hazards related to water—whether it is flooding, a lack of drinking water, or issues around water pollution. Poor communities from slum areas are particularly vulnerable to such disasters, especially because they have a limited means of protection. At first sight and from an outsider’s view, they tend to adopt hazardous behaviors when faced with these threats. They are perceived to put themselves at risk and worsen the situation because of inappropriate practices. Through a geo-ethnographical and social approach, this chapter aims to better understand these practices by tracking the root causes and underpinning factors of vulnerability in slums in Jakarta and Mumbai through the testing of assumptions from two conceptual frameworks of research about disaster risk. The results emphasize the everyday dimension of these disasters, which are embedded within long processes of marginalization toward resource access. Migration from rural provinces to these cities can thus be identified as a root cause of vulnerability since migrants are deprived of many rights to access the resources needed to sustain their basic needs (for example, social support, a functioning water network). Within an international context, the results then highlight structural management problems and inadequate attention to risk reduction strategies in the political process around land-use planning. Finally, the chapter discusses some key ways forward for implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 and the new Sendai Framework for DRR (SFDRR) 2015–2030, with particular reference to the integration of DRR into large-scale development projects and the necessity to involve local communities in this process of de-marginalization.

Despite scientific and technological advances, current early warning systems (EWSs) cannot be seen as a promising answer for disaster prevention, given that they cannot be seen as an articulated system, but as a component of the capacity-building process needed to achieve disaster risk reduction (DRR) and management (DRM). According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, disaster risk reduction (DRR) describes the policy objective of anticipating future disaster risk, reducing existing exposure, vulnerability or hazard and strengthening resilience. Disaster risk management (DRM) describes the actions that aim to achieve this objective including prospective risk management, such as better planning, designed to avoid the construction of new risks; corrective risk management, designed to address pre-existing risks; and compensatory risk management, such as insurance that shares and spreads risks. This chapter proposes that EWS must be articulated. Early warning articulated systems (EWASs) can be defined as a coordinated structure integrated by the sound processes and sustained practices of ongoing partnerships between communities, scientists, authorities, decision makers, stake holders and every actor involved in the construction of risk. This is characterised by a responsible commitment to achieving and guaranteeing DRR and DRM in space and time. It should be based on disaster risk-integrated science within a legal and ethical framework on which multi-directional and permanent risk communication plays a central role in the construction of a culture of a risk conscious society. It is not exclusively intended to serve as a coordinated system of response, but most importantly is directed towards the comprehension of disaster risk by incorporating the understanding of root causes of disasters, risk perception and the different dimensions of vulnerability, resilience and adaptation. It also must be structured as a capacity-building progression that allows people to recognise the social construction of disaster risk and its potential consequences in order to consider likely disaster scenarios, risk management procedures, realistic measures and response strategies and actions, targeting preparedness, both individually and collectively, especially before critical times. Failure to integrate legally enforced frameworks and ethical codes into EWASs will increase the incoherence in government policies and practices.

This chapter explores the application of disaster risk reduction (DRR) principles and operating mechanisms to migration in contexts of instability. DRR includes addressing change in risk, well-being, and security including through adaptation and resilience building. Within the overall sphere of DRR, principles of prevention, mitigation, and post-event response and four operating mechanisms of DRR are considered. These are early warning and risk management, reactions to risk, improved communication, and the use of appropriate response standards. Disaster prevention or mitigation for those who move, host, or stay behind involves adaptive migration, community-based risk reduction, and rights-based approaches to name some. The application of DRR to migration in contexts of instability highlights the importance of engaging localized strategies and sustainable development outcomes for migrants. While DRR principles and operating mechanisms may analytically frame perspectives on migration, there are ongoing theoretical and applied challenges in this relationship.

Migration is becoming a common multidimensional phenomenon in Nepal. Nepal is becoming an increasingly heavy remittance-based economy, mainly from labor migration. Furthermore, in the past few years, migrant returnees are becoming a model for Nepali people as they are not only engaged in the diversification of livelihoods options, but also promote local level development as an effective means of enhancing resilience and sustainability. This phenomenon is, however, also causing some negative consequences. Migration, in the past, has often been seen either from a humanitarian perspective (problem and crisis focused) or unidirectionally (from poor countries to rich countries). However, in this chapter, we examine migration from a mobility and development perspective. Our conceptual framework uses the mobility lens to analyze migration issues with a specific focus on the development agenda of Nepal. We argue that migration and sustainable development debate have links with mobility. The concept of mobility also includes corporate movement, infrastructure enabling mobility, capitalist spatial restructuring, tourism, and travel. These all have direct and indirect relations with development, disasters, and climate change issues. This chapter therefore concludes that migration is multidimensional and a proper understanding of the relationship between sustainable development and migration requires further in-depth examination of these dimensions with special focus on linking migration-development discourse with mobility perspectives.

This chapter highlights the central importance of addressing land issues in shelter and other reconstruction activities in post-disaster settings from both the very onset of disaster response as well as beyond its immediate time frame. In doing so, it draws from an analysis of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) “Overcoming Land Tenure Barriers” (OLTB) project implemented in the aftermath of the 2010 Port-Au-Prince earthquake in Haiti. The extremely complex land issues in post-earthquake Haiti included the widespread lack of formal registration of land titles and the earthquake-induced loss of much of the existing land documentation. Three technical tools proved particularly effective in addressing land-related barriers for reconstruction and recovery and achieving increased overall tenure security in the aftermath of the 2010 Port-Au-Prince earthquake: (a) data-gathering and mapping of areas affected by the earthquake and needing reconstruction efforts; (b) creation of the Shelter Program Legal Team; and (c) adherence to the Due Diligence Guidelines from the Global Shelter Cluster. In presenting and analyzing these tools as applied under the OLTB project, the chapter aims is to draw out concrete suggestions for a disaster response which is highly attuned and responsive to frequently very complex land and property right issues in post-disaster settings.

This study examines the impacts of migration on land management in a mountain area of Nepal, complemented by insights from a smaller case study in Bolivia. Migration to cities and abroad increasingly leaves behind fragmented families and the elderly. Livelihoods as well as the management of land are affected by a changing labor force, traditional knowledge, remittances, and other consequences of migration. In this study, we explore how these issues affect land and its management, and what measures and strategies are being taken by the people left behind. Mapping methodology from the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) was used to assess land management practices in a subwatershed in Western Nepal. In combination with other research methods, the mapping enabled a better understanding of the impacts of migration on land degradation and conservation. Preliminary findings reveal negative as well as positive impacts. The main degradation problem found was the growth of invasive alien plant species, while overall vegetation and forest cover had increased, and some types of degradation, such as soil erosion or landslides, were even reduced. A feminization of agriculture has also been observed in the Nepali case study, in contrast to the Bolivian case which revealed that whole families were migrating, with mostly men temporarily returning to manage the land. The findings of this study suggest that a more differentiated and context-specific view is required when looking at the impact of migration on land management.

Migration has always been part of human existence, supporting and inhibiting sustainable development while leading to both cooperation and conflict. Given that one possible consequence from the responses to contemporary climate change, or lack thereof, is migration, that also applies for climate change. To understand the complex interplay amongst climate change, conflict, and migration, many frameworks and models exist for analysis within sustainable development.

One framework which has not been explored extensively for climate change and migration is ‘disaster diplomacy’, how disaster-related activities do and not influence conflict and peace. This chapter is conceptual, exploring a disaster diplomacy perspective for climate change and migration. It provides reflections rather than results, further helping to indicate the importance of diplomacy for those involved in disaster-related activities.

After describing the disaster diplomacy framework and applying it to climate change diplomacy, this chapter reflects on why so few disaster-related activities, including those linked to climate change, support long-term peace and conflict resolution efforts. The implications for climate change related migration are described, suggesting that those forced to move due to climate change cannot expect much external support. Yet pessimism is not fully justified because many prospects exist for the situation to change, especially if those with power choose to do so.

Ultimately, the key is having the choice to migrate or not and having the resources to successfully carry out that choice so that sustainable development is pursued, which includes dealing with any present conflicts and preventing others. Rather than climate change diplomacy or disaster diplomacy, this chapter suggests seeking ‘migration diplomacy’ so that neither the migrants nor the hosts nor those left behind experience conflict due to the migration, but instead support the decisions which people make and gain positive outcomes from it.

Nepal experiences a wide range of climatic variations from sub-tropical to alpine as the elevation increases from ~70 m above sea level (m.a.s.l) in the south to 8848 m.a.s.l. within a short aerial distance of about 200 km. Previous studies of weather variability, mainly temperature and precipitation over the past decade in Nepal, indicate that there is consistent increase in maximum temperatures and intensity of monsoonal rainfall. The implications of climate change are now visible when considering the availability of water and energy, agricultural products, natural resources, human health, biodiversity and the increased frequency of extreme events in terms of floods and landslides, extended droughts, and heat/cold waves.

A case study was carried out in three districts which cover most of the ecological regions (Mountain, Hill, and Terai) of Nepal. The study revealed that weak economic conditions, poor governance, low technological capacities, high levels of out-migration, and low levels of climate change awareness are common at the local level. The cumulative effects of climate change have been observed in the livelihoods of vulnerable communities and ecosystems, while mainstreaming climate change adaptation into local development planning is not well practiced to date.

Migration from the Bolivian Altiplano to the Amazonian lowlands poses a number of challenges related to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Alto Beni, located in the Bolivian Yungas at the interface between two altitudinal zones, is a critical area in this respect. Unsustainable land use practices are leading to soil erosion, shallow landslides, as well as forest and biodiversity loss. Settlers from the Altiplano see themselves confronted with an ecosystem that does not support the agricultural systems they were once used to. Soil degradation and government incentives have promoted migration further into the rainforest, creating pressure on local indigenous groups and biodiversity. The best-suited land use system for the fragile soils and ecosystems in Alto Beni is diversified agroforestry, which is often combined with a cash crop such as cocoa or coffee. Many farmers practising such a system have organic certification and achieve a premium price for their cash crops. However, cocoa farmers in Alto Beni face many challenges. Prolonged droughts, heavy rains, floods, increased heat, and plant diseases are mentioned most by cocoa farmers. In this study we compile results from a research project on the resilience of organic and nonorganic cocoa farms to external risk factors and discuss them in the context of climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and migration. Cocoa farmers who belong to a cooperative and had organic certification achieved higher resilience indicators than others, because they tended to cultivate cocoa in diversified agroforestry systems. Cooperatives fostered agroforestry through capacity-building, knowledge exchange, extension services, and awareness-raising. They also provided social insurances and enhanced mutual support among their members. Challenges within established cooperatives such as lack of technical support to farmers and knowledge exchange within and between organizations can hamper resilience building. Finally, the inclusion of new farmers into cocoa cooperatives seems critical to reducing outmigration and the reproduction of non-sustainable practices in other fragile areas. Multiple challenges remain to be addressed, however, including the enhancement of solidarity economy networks and their extension sectors other than export crops.

Political rhetoric from small islands in the South Pacific is loudly proclaiming a disaster in the making through sea-level rise. Appealing as the rhetoric may be, it masks very complex processes, such as poor governance leading to unsustainable land use and environmental degradation. It thus interferes with more long term planning strategies which aim to avoid the creation of disasters from sea-level rise. There are nevertheless very good reasons for this rhetoric, including a lack of understanding of underlying complex processes and a lack of proactive governance. More deeply, this lack of understanding can be linked to underlining presumptions driving modernization and globalization, including views about risk, identity, and land tenure. This chapter attempts to frame and unpack the complex issue of climate change, disasters, and “environmental migration” to create greater awareness in order to address these multiple problems and enable strategic planning. Based on empirical work from communities at-risk from slow-onset sea-level rise hazards in Kiribati and Tuvalu, a synthesis of scientific and traditional perspectives is combined to develop a conceptual model, which indicates how cultural traditions can contribute to enabling migrants to successfully adapt to their new social-ecological environment. A case study of successful adaptations by migrant communities in Fiji is used to illustrate the principles.

The chapters selected in this volume present a range of issues and geographical areas focusing on a number of sub-topics related to disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and inter-linkages with migration and sustainable development. The premise of this book is to seek greater conceptual clarity and present case studies about how DRR strategies are affected by migration patterns and vice versa, rather than the commonly used notion of climate change as a main driver of migration, while exploring linkages to sustainable development. We consider how migration is linked to DRR from several different angles: the question of migration and risk transfers: rural to urban areas, or from mountainous places to low-lying areas. The intention of the book/the intention of the editors is to provide a nuanced and more comprehensive perspective on the complex inter-linkages between migration, disasters, and climate change than the one we are often fed by the media and its scaremongering tactics announcing overwhelming masses of climate refugees. Now it is time that this scientific debate be incorporated in the public agenda in order for policy makers at the global and local levels to provide adequate guidance, protection, and an enabling environment for producing the positive outcomes that migration can procure while ensuring maximum human security against disaster and climate risks whether for people in their places of origin or new places of settlement.