Date Time
Natural hazard events and national risk reduction measures unconnected
The results indicate that no link between countries’ exposure to natural disasters and their propensity to take DRR measures appears to exist. Buildings demolished by an earthquake in Chile.
Photograph: Matton
Countries where massive natural hazard events occur frequently are not more likely than others to make changes to reduce risks from future disasters. This is shown in an interdisciplinary Uppsala University study now published in Nature Communications.
Natural hazard events, such as storms, floods, and wildfires, entail huge and growing costs all over the world, but they can also be occasions for countries to implement risk-reducing changes. There is no research consensus on whether natural hazard events lead to policy modifications or, instead, contribute to stability and preservation of existing solutions. Knowledge in this area to date has been based on individual case studies, and global
January 20, 2021
Dr Rose-Ann Smith
By Dr Rose-Ann Smith
I want to start by stating that I am a Vincentian living in Jamaica and I hold a PhD in Geography. I lecture at the University of the West Indies in several courses, including Disaster Risk Management. I am also a consultant that has contributed to or led several projects in the area of Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation. I was the lead consultant for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), charged with applying the Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Tool in several Caribbean islands. As much as I do not normally feel it necessary to publicise my credentials, I see this as a necessary preface to content of this article so that what follows will not be viewed as a political tactic but rather a perspective grounded in years of research and experience in a relevant field.
ASEAN achieves a milestone towards regional disaster risk reduction
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The year 2020 was a difficult year for Southeast Asia which, in addition to dealing with the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, faced several disasters caused by extreme weather events, most notably in the Philippines and Vietnam, two Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Highlighting the urgent need to strengthen regional cooperation against disaster risks, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in his address to the 37th ASEAN Summit on 12 November, called on ASEAN Member States to enhance “cooperation on disaster risk reduction management to reinforce our capacities, both at the national and regional levels.”
Calendar year 2020 was an extreme and abnormal year, in so many ways. The global coronavirus pandemic altered people’s lives around the world, as did extreme weather and climate events. Let’s review the year’s top 10 such events.
1. Hottest Year on Record?
The official rankings will not be released until January 14, but according to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 is likely to tie with 2016 for the hottest year on record, making the last seven years the seven hottest on record.
Remarkably, the record warmth of 2020 occurred during a minimum in the solar cycle and in a year in which a moderate La Niña event formed. Surface cooling of the tropical Pacific during La Niña events typically causes a slight global cool-down, as does the minimum of the solar cycle, making it difficult to set all-time heat records. The record heat of 2020 in these circumstances is a demonstration of how powerful human causes of global warming have become.