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Heavy rainfall and flooding hit central Europe in July 2021 - with the Ahr Valley in Rhineland-Palatinate attaining sad notoriety. More than 130 people died there, and more than 9,000 buildings were damaged or even destroyed [1]. As part of the BMBF-funded KAHR project, we conducted a comprehensive household survey in the county of Ahrweiler in the aftermath of the flood disaster, in which 516 affected persons participated. One focus of this survey was on prevention and precautionary measures.It is striking that the majority of respondents rated all prevention fields as (very) important, from private building precautions, technical and natural flood protection and planning precautions to early warning and precautions by the insurance industry. In an earlier survey by Weißer et al. on preparedness for heavy rain events, the pattern was much more mixed [2]. It is also interesting to note that in our study private building precautions are ranked lowest (mean value), whereas in the study by Weißer et al. they are considered most important. Various aspects play an important role when deciding to implement precautionary measures. Respondents rated existence/availability of information on the effectiveness of the measure (mv = 4.99) as most important, followed by existence/availability of counseling and assistance services (mv = 4.85). Low financial expenditure (mv = 4.46) and acceptance of the measure in the household (mv = 4.43) are also considered very important by many. Slightly less important, on the other hand, appear the feasibility of the measure without external help (mv = 3.97), the low time expenditure (mv = 3.92), the acceptance in the community (mv = 3.83) and the joint implementation with other neighbors (mv = 3.31) - nevertheless, almost 30%, e.g., perceive the latter reason as (very) important in the decision for or against a precautionary measure. Neither age nor gender nor household income have a major influence on the rating of importance. Only household income has a weak effect on the reason of joint implementation with other neighbors (the lower the income, the more important the reason), as does gender on the reasons of feasibility without external help, availability of information on effectiveness, and availability of counseling and assistance services (these aspects tend to be more important for female respondents).Furthermore, 71.2% of respondents disagree (at all) with the statement that flood prevention is primarily a task of private households. Yet, according to the German Water Resources Act, sec. 5 para. 2, every person who may be affected by floods is obliged to take flood precautions within their means.The findings from such a survey can help to strengthen resilience building in the reconstruction after such a devastating disaster as well as likewise in the pre-disaster phase. References1. Die Landesregierung Rheinland-Pfalz. Ein Jahr Wiederaufbau in Rheinland-Pfalz nach der Naturkatastrophe vom 14./15. Juli 2021, Mainz, 2022. Available online: https://wiederaufbau.rlp.de/fileadmin/wiederaufbau/2022/07-Juli/Ein-Jahr-Wiederaufbau-in-RLP.pdf (accessed on 6 December 2022).2. Weißer, B.V.; Jamshed, A.; Birkmann, J.; McMillan, J.M. Building Resilience After Climate-Related Extreme Events: Lessons Learned from Extreme Precipitation in Schwäbisch Gmünd. J. of Extr. Even. 2020, 07, 2050010, doi:10.1142/S2345737620500104.

In 2019, record-setting temperatures in Europe adversely affected human health and wellbeing (WMO 2020) and cities - thus, people in urban areas suffered particularly under heat stress. However, not only heat stress but also the differential vulnerability of people exposed is key when defining adaptation priorities. Up to now, local data on vulnerability and particularly adaptive capacities is rather rare. Various aspects of human vulnerability to heat and capacities to adapt to heat stress in urban areas still have to be explored and assessed, for example in terms of the adaptation at home, during work or while commuting to work. The paper presents new findings of a household survey on how and where different groups experience heat stress and how they assess their susceptibility and capacities to cope and adapt. The findings are based on a survey conducted in the medium-sized city of Ludwigsburg, Germany. Findings show significant linkages and correlations between socio-economic factors and heat vulnerability and capacities to respond. The analysis gives special emphasis to relationships between willingness to implement adaptive measures to reduce heat stress risks and risk perception and adaptive capacities. Particularly, the analysis of future adaptation options and the ability and willingness of different households to implement these provides new insights on the differential capacities to adapt and the need for tailor-made transformation programs., Projekt DEAL, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

More than 130 lives were lost in the 2021 heavy precipitation and flood event in the Ahr Valley, Germany, where large parts of the valley were destroyed. Afterwards, public funding of about 15 billion Euros has been made available for reconstruction. However, with people and settlements being in highly exposed zones, the core question that is not sufficiently addressed is whether affected people want to rebuild in the same place, or rather opt to move out. The paper explores this question and assesses motivations and reasons for moving or staying in the Ahr Valley. For this purpose, a household survey was conducted focusing on 516 flood-affected households. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that the ownership of the house or flat significantly influenced the decision of whether to stay or to leave. In addition, an attachment to the place and the belief that such extreme events occur very rarely influenced the decision to stay and rebuild. Age, gender and household income barely influenced the decision to stay or to move to a new place. Interestingly, results demonstrated that many respondents view settlement retreat and the relocation of critical infrastructures as important options to reduce risk, however, many still rebuild in the same place. These insights enable local policy and practice to better address the needs of the population in terms of whether to stay or move after such an extreme disaster.

The impact of climate change and related hazards such as floods, heatwaves, and sea level rise on human lives, cities, and their hinterlands depends not only on the nature of the hazard, but also on urban development, adaptation, and other socioeconomic processes that determine vulnerability and exposure. Spatial planning can reduce climate risk not just by influencing the exposure, but also by addressing social vulnerability. This requires that relevant information is available to planners and that plans are implemented and coordinated between sectors. This article is based on a research project in Thailand, particularly on the results of multi-sectoral workshops in the case study region of the Andaman Coast in southern Thailand, and draws upon climate risk, spatial planning, and systems thinking discourses. The article formulates recommendations for planning in the context of Thailand that are relevant for other rapidly growing and urbanizing regions. Among other conclusions, it suggests that systems thinking approaches and cross-sectoral strategies are ways to grasp the interdependencies between and within climate risk and spatial development challenges., Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Enhancing the resilience of cities and implementing risk-informed sustainable development are defined as key within the Global Agenda 2030, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2015a), the Sendai Framework (UN 2015b), the Paris Agreement (UN 2015c) and UN Habitat III (UN Habitat 2016, UN 2017). Up to now, various risk assessments at national, sub-national and local level in the context of climate change consider climatic changes in the future and their impacts on specific hazards, such as heat stress, droughts or forest fires. However, implementing risk-informed decision making also requires the consideration of scenarios of exposure and vulnerability. Various risk assessments in the context of climate change examine changes in climatic conditions and respective hazards e.g. for the year 2030, 2050 and 2100, but juxtapose this information with data on vulnerability referring to the present. This is a major mismatch, since not only climatic conditions are changing in the future, but also socio-economic and demographic conditions of people within cities or regions. Consequently, scenarios of climatic changes have to be complemented with scenarios regarding the potential status and development of human vulnerability. The necessity to consider scenarios of human vulnerability for risk-informed decision-making can be illustrated in terms of heat stress risks in cities. Heat stress related risks are not solely a result of local temperature extremes, but also determined by the present and future exposure and vulnerability patterns of people that are affected by the urban heat island effects due to climatic changes and changes in the urban fabric. Hence, risk as the product of the interaction between hazard, exposure and vulnerability is largely socially constructed. Considering changes in future population and particularly changes in the vulnerability of people is quite essential in order to provide an appropriate information base for risk-informed urban planning and emergency management. Against this background, the paper presents selected scenario approaches and illustrates preliminary findings on how such vulnerability scenarios can look like for specific indicators and how they can inform decision making, particularly in the context of urban planning. Based on the BMBF funded research project ZURES (future-oriented vulnerability and risk assessment as a tool to support urban resilience), the paper focuses on medium-sized cities in Germany - particularly the city of Ludwigsburg - that have to deal with population growth requiring the development of new urban areas, while at the same time these cities are also highly exposed to heat stress already due to urbanization and climate change.

Climate change impacts and their consequences are determined not only by the intensity and frequency of different climatic hazards but also by the vulnerability of the system, society or community exposed. While general agreement exists about the importance of assessing vulnerability to understand climate risks, there is still a tendency to neglect global and regional vulnerability patterns because they are hard to quantify, despite their value in informing adaptation, disaster risk and development policies. Several approaches to quantifying global vulnerability exist. These differ in terms of the indicators they use and how they classify countries or regions into vulnerability classes. The paper presents the structure of selected approaches and explores two indices in depth. The aim of this paper is to assess the level of agreement between selected international indicator-based assessments of vulnerability, at the level of climate regions. Results suggest that the two major global vulnerability assessments analysed largely agree on the location of the most and least vulnerable regions when these assessments are aggregated to a regional scale using the IPCC’s climate regions. The paper then discusses the robustness of the information derived and its usefulness for adaptation, disaster risk and development policies. Measuring progress towards reducing vulnerability to climate change and hazards is key for various agencies and actors in order to be able to develop informed policies and strategies for managing climate risks and to promote enabling conditions for achieving the SDGs and building resilience., Projekt DEAL

Purpose The extreme flood event of 2010 in Pakistan led to extensive internal displacement of rural communities, resulting in initiatives to resettle the displaced population in model villages (MVs). The MV concept is quite new in the context of post-disaster resettlement and its role in building community resilience and well-being has not been explored. This study aims to assess the role of MVs in building the resilience of relocated communities, particularly looking at the differences between those developed by governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Design/methodology/approach Four MVs, two developed by government and two by NGOs, were selected as case studies in the severely flood-affected province of Punjab, Pakistan. A sample of 145 households from the four MVs was collected using a structured questionnaire to measure improvements in social, economic, physical and environmental domains and to form a final resilience index. Supplementary tools including expert interviews and personal observations were also used. Findings The analysis suggests that NGOs are more successful in improving the overall situation of relocated households than government. Core factors that increase the resilience of communities resettled by NGOs are provision of livelihood opportunities, livelihood skill development based on local market demand, training on maintenance and operation of different facilities of the MV and provision of extensive education opportunities, especially for women. Practical implications The results of this study can guide policymakers and development planners to overcome existing deficiencies by including the private sector and considerations of socioeconomic development whenever resettling communities. Originality/value In resilience discourse, resettlement of communities has been extensively debated based on qualitative arguments. This paper demonstrates an approach to quantify community resilience in a post-disaster resettlement context.

Climate change is a severe global threat. Research on climate change and vulnerability to natural hazards has made significant progress over the last decades. Most of the research has been devoted to improving the quality of climate information and hazard data, including exposure to specific phenomena, such as flooding or sea-level rise. Less attention has been given to the assessment of vulnerability and embedded social, economic and historical conditions that foster vulnerability of societies. A number of global vulnerability assessments based on indicators have been developed over the past years. Yet an essential question remains how to validate those assessments at the global scale. This paper examines different options to validate global vulnerability assessments in terms of their internal and external validity, focusing on two global vulnerability indicator systems used in the WorldRiskIndex and the INFORM index. The paper reviews these global index systems as best practices and at the same time presents new analysis and global results that show linkages between the level of vulnerability and disaster outcomes. Both the review and new analysis support each other and help to communicate the validity and the uncertainty of vulnerability assessments. Next to statistical validation methods, we discuss the importance of the appropriate link between indicators, data and the indicandum. We found that mortality per hazard event from floods, drought and storms is 15 times higher for countries ranked as highly vulnerable compared to those classified as low vulnerable. These findings highlight the different starting points of countries in their move towards climate resilient development. Priority should be given not just to those regions that are likely to face more severe climate hazards in the future but also to those confronted with high vulnerability already.

Extreme flood events can lead to dramatic changes in societal processes, disrupt rural-urban linkages and affect rural vulnerabilities. Changes in rural-urban linkages due to extreme flooding have been theoretically discussed with limited empirical evidence. Therefore, this study investigates the impacts of a flood event on linkages between rural and urban areas of Pakistan. This study also examines socioeconomic and spatial factors that can influence changes in rural-urban linkages. Three case studies were selected from the Punjab province of Pakistan, and a total of 325 samples were collected through household surveys. Descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression and correlation analysis were conducted to analyse the data. The findings show that flooding has severely affected rural communities directly and indirectly. This paper details the many different ways in which floods can change rural linkages with cities-i.e., the flow of people, information, finance, goods and services between rural and urban areas. The results also reveal that the age of household head, education, income and farming occupation are influential factors that affect how rural-urban linkages change. Most importantly, the research highlights that extreme flooding can both increase and decrease the dependence of rural communities on cities in different ways. This indicates that linkages between rural and urban areas need to be strengthened in order to reduce flood-related vulnerabilities. This study paves the way for regional planners and disaster managers to establish synergies for developing integrated flood risk management and development strategies.

Rural areas are highly vulnerable to floods due to limited social, economic, and physical resources. Understanding rural vulnerability is vital for developing effective disaster risk reduction strategies. Even though rural areas and cities are intrinsically linked, rural vulnerability was assessed without considering its relation to cities. Numerous theoretical frameworks on systemizing and assessing vulnerability were developed with varying level of scope and depth in terms of scale, dimensions, and components. Nevertheless, these frameworks did not explicitly mention the impact of flood or other hazards on the linkages between spatial units i.e., rural and urban. This study aims to understand and conceptualize the rural vulnerability with respect to the dynamics of rural–urban linkages in the case of flood events. To do so, current literature on rural–urban linkages, vulnerability, as well as factors that influence them were critically reviewed. Taking into account the main elements of rural–urban linkages (flow of people, information, finances, goods and services), components of vulnerability (exposure, susceptibility, and capacity), and factors (social, economic, institutional, infrastructural, spatial, and environmental), a unified framework is proposed. The framework underscores that the role of rural–urban linkages is essential to fully understand rural flood vulnerability. Moreover, the framework highlights the role of spatial factors—city size and proximity to the city—as crucial to comprehend rural vulnerability. This framework can be used as a tool for understanding multifaceted rural vulnerability for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction considering spatial development perspective. In this context, empirical investigations can be made to validate the proposed framework and policies can be introduced accordingly. Overall, the proposed framework can help recognize concepts and links of vulnerability, rural–urban dependencies, and rural development dynamics.

The resilience measurement focuses on urban shocks and stresses, which are excluded from current spatial resilience assessments. As a result, existing literature suggests that research in secondary cities of the global south is needed to understand better spatial resilience in the face of multivariate, intersecting, and uncertain challenges. This study aims to determine the factors affecting the spatial resilience of Ethiopia's secondary cities to urban uncertainties using household perceptions of Kombolcha city. The study collected empirical data through questionnaires and key informant interviews, and then analyzed those using SPSS and the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Accordingly, seventeen environmental and physical urban problems affecting the spatial resilience of the country's secondary cities were identified. Deforestation, surface flooding, landslides, poor solid waste management, and inadequate drainage facilities were perceived as top priority urban problems in Kombolcha city with the respective values of 19.73%, 13.02%, 12.70%, 7.59%, and 6.82% of the four hundred sampled households. However, water scarcity and wind-related shocks, scoring 1.48% and 1.89%, respectively, were the least recurring urban problems. The city's spatial resilience is further limited by unsustainable material and resource consumption, a lack of infrastructure, poor transportation system conditions, poor implementation of response measures: lack of appropriate planning, and non-long-lasting biophysical measures. The household perception also showed that the urban uncertainties are severe in the city, with a 49.48% response rate. The findings also revealed a relationship and commonalities amongst the problems exacerbated by land-use zoning changes and the thriving informal settlements. The study implied that improving secondary cities' coping, adaptation, and governance systems are critical for mitigating the perceived urban problems and making cities spatially resilient. Thus, the study's spatial planning implications are that local governments in secondary cities commit to localizing international initiatives, strictly establishing and enforcing local resource utilization strategies, and improving living conditions in their cities., Household perceptions; Spatial resilience; Urban problems; Hazard recurrence; Secondary cities.

Reducing vulnerability is essential for adaptation to climate change. Compared to approaches that examine vulnerability to a specific hazard, our analysis offers an alternative perspective that conceptualizes vulnerability to climate change as a phenomenon that is independent of any specific type of hazard but relevant to multiple hazards. Vulnerability is thus a product of structural inequality and systemic in nature. Based on two established index systems, we perform global analyses of specific phenomena—such as poverty, access to basic infrastructure services and forced migration—that influence and determine vulnerability. Our statistical and spatial analyses reveal an emerging pattern of climate vulnerability within regional clusters and shows that vulnerability is a transboundary issue, crossing political, sectorial and geographical borders and impacting shared resources. The spatial statistical hotspot analysis of vulnerability underscores that hotspots, for example of high vulnerability, state fragility, low biodiversity protection or forced migration, emerge in multi-country clusters. This aspect has often been overlooked, most attention to-date having been given to the positioning of individual countries within vulnerability rankings. In hotspots such as in the Sahel, East and Central Africa, as well as in Southern Asia and Central America, vulnerability is interwoven with high levels of state fragility, making adaptation solutions more complex. The recognition of the regional clusters and the transboundary nature of vulnerability calls for new research and action on how to strengthen transboundary approaches for vulnerability reduction, potentially enhancing prospects for successful adaptation.

The measurement of community disaster resilience through the development of a comprehensive set of composite indicators is becoming increasingly commonplace. Despite this growing trend, there is neither an agreement upon a standard procedure nor a comprehensive assessment of existing measurement frameworks in the relevant literature. To tackle these challenges, this study (1) proposes an overarching eight-step procedure for composite indicator building and (2) develops a meta-level assessment framework to allow for a systematic review of existing disaster resilience measurement frameworks in application of composite indicator building. This meta-level framework was established on the basis of the proposed eight-step composite indicator building procedure and qualified with the introduction of 19 dimensions and 36 metrics for quality assessment. In order to select relevant disaster resilience measures for this analysis, the study applied a systematic survey to collect measures based on four inclusion criteria: community-based, multifaceted, quantitative, and operationalized. Accordingly, 17 resilience measurement frameworks were chosen for further analysis in this review. The results of the quality assessment demonstrated that, from the theoretical perspective, resilience assessments originate from either the socio-ecological or engineering fields and can be classified into two main types of resilience indices and tools. This differs from results of the methodological perspective, which indicate that resilience measures can be characterized as deductive or similar to hierarchical and inductive assessments.

The overarching nature of building resilience across disciplines and its inherent positive mutual understanding due to the association with the immune system also amongst the non-scientific community, makes it an attractive and increasing popular concept which everybody seems able to grasp its necessity. Hence, there is an exponential increase, even limited down to the key words “urban resilience”, in scientific literature over the last decade. Moreover the concept is also taken up by the New Urban Agenda Habitat III, the SDG goals and the IPCC. Hand in hand with this development the definitions and attempts of operationalization are innumerable. Conjoined, there is a lack of validation of resilience measures, including spatio-temporal aspects but also of the single component of it. Moreover, traditional data sources like census or governmental data miss out on certain important facets making empirical validation impossible and lack the spatio-temporal resolution necessary to cover the characteristics of resilience. Hence, this experimental study explores and develops new spatial indicators through machine learning methods applied to OpenStreetMap data to replicate conventional core indicators. In order to cover all spatial attributes indicators for points, lines and areas are deduced and investigated with supervised and unsupervised algorithms.

The climate resilience of nations is imperative for a sustainable future. The way that nations respond to climate change needs to adapt from a reactive and backward-focused disaster management approach, to become more proactive and to anticipate what is yet to come. Two key challenges restrict climate resilience. First, the social aspects are relevant to resilience, yet many such aspects are not adequately reflected by available statistics. Second, validating indicators of climate resilience is demanding in terms of data availability and methodology. To overcome these challenges, we develop an Empirical Evidence Resilience Index (EERI) based on the Emergency Event Data Base (EM-DAT) to measure resilience. However, just the measurement of resilience does not provide the explanation necessary to determine planning strategies. Therefore, to understand resilience better, we also use statistics from OpenStreetMap (OSM) to predict the EERI and deduce explanatory elements. This step is achieved with a random forest method. We call the resulting prediction of resilience (EERI) from OSM data the Open Resilience Index (ORI). The used explanatory elements from OSM not only cover the physical characteristics of infrastructures, but also include country-level socio-economic information. The results show the relevance of social cohesion (identity & mobility; religion); human development (leisure & recreation, social fabric); economy (economic status; material supply); sustainable infrastructure (available infrastructure; spatial development); and nature conservation for resilience.

Managed retreat has become a recommended adaptation strategy for hazard-prone coastal cities. The study aimed to improve considerations for the contextual factors that influence the success of managed retreat and resettlement projects in Metro Manila. Data were collected through a mixed-method approach consisting of a screening of relevant literature, a qualitative case analysis of resettlement projects, and a workshop series with Philippine stakeholders. It turned out that the resettlement of informal settlers is a central element of urban development. Though in-city resettlement is preferred, the majority of existing and planned projects are developed in off-city locations. The findings present a nuanced view of different retreat approaches. Not all in-city resettlements are successful, and the unpopular off-city projects have a potentially important role for urban and regional development. A strategic planning thread to develop concepts for qualitative off-city settlements that counteract uncontrolled urban sprawl with monofunctional residential areas for urban poor people was deduced. The other thread asks for pathways for inner-city development with innovative, vertical, in-city projects. A final observation was that climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are worsening the situation in informal settlements, thus strengthening the argument for the planned decentralization of Metro Manila&rsquo, s congested urban areas.

In response to the adverse effects of natural hazards and climate change threats on cultural heritage, a methodology of risk assessment and management was developed and applied to five pilot sites: the Historical Centre of Rethymno in Greece, the Mellor Heritage Project in the United Kingdom, the Roman Ruins of Tróia in Portugal, the Baths of Diocletian in Italy, and the Ancient City of Ephesus in Turkey. According to the methodology, a practical and easy-to-use tool was implemented to help the end-users in managing the impacts of natural hazards and climate change on their cultural heritage sites. The tool comprises three major phases: Site Hazard Assessment, Risk Assessment, and Risk Management Strategies. It assists site managers and experts to identify sudden- and slow-onset natural hazards and climate change threats and to assess their corresponding risks to different areas of the pilot sites. The tool is linked to a web-GIS service, which is capable of providing hazard and risk information and maps for each pilot site. The module Risk Management Strategies enables the user to define risk treatment strategies and associated measures in response to each hazard. Overall, the tool facilitates a shared understanding of the risk data and maps among the multiple stakeholders engaged in the protection of cultural heritage sites to enable a more effective decision-making process.

Vulnerability to environmental hazards has widely been assessed in disaster risk science and climate change literature by integrating socio-economic and geographical features of a community or a place. However, the role of spatial proximity to cities – an important geographical feature – in influencing household vulnerability has not been scrutinized. This paper assesses how distance to cities affects the vulnerability of rural farming communities against flood hazard. This paper proposes a Vulnerability-Proximity Nexus (VPN) framework and operationalises it in the context of Pakistan. A household survey was conducted to collect primary data from three flood-affected sub-districts of Punjab province. A total of 325 samples were collected, out of which 164 samples were from villages located near to the cities and 161 were far from the cities. Vulnerability indices were developed through holistic (exposure, susceptibility, and capacity) and livelihood (human, social, financial, physical, and natural) perspective of vulnerability. Mann-Whitney U and Pearson’s correlation tests were performed to analyse linkages between distance and vulnerability. Results confirmed that the distance to the cities influences the vulnerability of surrounding farming communities. A significant and positive correlation between distance to city and rural livelihood vulnerability was found. Rural farming communities living close to the cities were less vulnerable, mainly due to better transfer of services and facilities from cities, which has also made rural communities more educated, informed, financially strong, and connected with easier access to public and private institutions. This study highlights the importance of regional and rural development discourse for vulnerability and can help disaster managers and planners to establish synergies for designing effective disaster risk reduction policies and strategies.

Research on the dynamics of vulnerability has to-date either focused on a regional or national scale or assessed the influence of city size on the vulnerability of the city itself. Little attention has been paid to how city size influences the vulnerability of surrounding rural areas—this has been investigated in this study. A conceptual framework—City Size and Rural Vulnerability (SCARV)—is proposed and operationalised in the context of Pakistan. A household survey was conducted to collect 325 samples from the flood-affected rural population surrounding three different sized cities in Punjab Province, Pakistan. Indicators of vulnerability were identified and an index-based approach was used to get the composite values of the three components of vulnerability—namely, exposure, susceptibility and capacity. The composite values were then classified to identify the level of vulnerability of each household. Statistical tests were performed to investigate the differences in vulnerability between the study areas. The results indicate that rural populations surrounding smaller cities are less exposed but more vulnerable compared to rural communities surrounding larger cities. This is largely because rural populations adjoining large cities have better capacities to deal with flood hazards. This points to a need to focus on increasing the coping capacity of small and medium-sized cities and their rural surroundings. Moreover, the research highlights the importance of rural-urban linkages in the hazard vulnerability discourse. These results can help disaster managers, regional and rural development planners, and practitioners to develop relevant flood risk reduction strategies which considers spatial and regional development aspects of hazard vulnerability.

The IPCC Special Report on Managing Risk of Extreme Events to Advance Climate Adaptation (SREX report; IPCC 2012) as well as the contribution of working group II to the IPCC fifth assessment report (IPCC 2014a, b; hereafter, WGII AR5) have been important milestones marking the confluence of the fields of climate adaptation and risk managment. Both reports underscore the importance of taking a risk perspective in order to assess the different dimensions of threats linked to climate change. In addition, the enhanced linkages between disaster risk management and climate change adaptation also demonstrate that climate change is contributing to increasing climate extremes and significantly exacerbating adverse impacts. At the same time, the SREX report and the WGII AR5 point out that many non-climatic factors are fundamentally shaping the vulnerability of societies exposed to climate change related hazards; some of these issues deserve additional attention and scholarly debate. This special issue reflects on core issues as well as gaps and open questions identified in both reports, such as: (i) how to define and differentiate extreme events and extreme impacts, (ii) what is the role of vulnerability for assessments of climate-related risks, (iii) how do different types of urbanization influence risks in the context of climate change, and (iv) how to develop scenarios for vulnerability and risk in order to complement existing climate change scenarios. In addition the role of risk financing instruments generally, and micro-insurance in particular as tools for complementing risk reduction and adaptation as part of comprehensive risk management is explored.

With over 220,000 fatalities, the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was one of the deadliest natural hazard events ever, and represents a landmark in disaster risk reduction governance in several ways. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami led to a better understanding of the likelihood of tsunami occurrence and potential tsunami inundation. For example, the Hyogo Framework Agreement was a direct result of this event. Since December 2004, Indonesia, Samoa, Chile and Japan were hit by altogether six destructive tsunamis in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. This article looks into the progress (or lack thereof) made in tsunami risk reduction at the local level during the past ten years, with focus on the densely populated coastal regions of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The experience from other countries, as well as the progress made in the state of the art for assessment of tsunami hazard, vulnerability, exposure and risk are also summarized. In addition, extensive new warning systems enabling a rapid assessment of the potential coastal impact of a tsunami have been developed and implemented. However, the experience from the tsunami events in October 2010 in Indonesia and March 2011 in Japan clearly demonstrated that the tsunami risk mitigation measures implemented to date are far from adequate. The article also examines the progress in assessing and factoring in vulnerability aspects in tsunami risk reduction, highlighted through two case studies in Padang (Indonesia) and Galle (Sri Lanka). In this regard, societal awareness and behavioural response to tsunamis are addressed. Recommendations about how the improved knowledge about tsunami hazard, vulnerability and exposure assessment gained over the past decade could be better implemented into tsunami risk reduction measures are provided at the end of the article.

The paper explores new challenges for adaptive urban and spatial governance in highly dynamic environments. It examines whether or not we have to rethink existing planning systems and tools in the context of climate change, natural hazards and societal transformation, focusing particularly on emerging economies in Asia. Key pressures for urban governance and planning in these countries are explored. Against this background requirements for a more adaptive and strategic planning approach are discussed by examining the discourses about climate change adaptation – including adaptive urban governance – and strategic planning. Compared to earlier papers on urban governance in the context of climate change, this paper aims particularly to provide an entry point for the discussion of the adjustment and modification of specific planning systems and tools. Two case studies are used for a concrete exploration of the gaps and challenges of adaptive urban governance on the ground, considering particularly formal regulative planning tools. The findings from the case study analysis show opportunities but also constraints of existing planning tools to strengthen adaptive urban governance. At the same time, a number of gaps have been found between currently debated planning tools for adaptation and the requirements emerging from adaptive and strategic planning theory. Recommendations to further strengthen adaptive urban governance and strategic planning are derived.

Vulnerability and capacity assessment of hazard-prone communities is integral to the development of efficient disaster risk reduction strategies. Both concepts are known to be inter-linked and inter-dependent in disaster risk science as well as climate change adaptation literature. However, a holistic relationship between these two concepts is rarely studied which this research aims to assess by conducting an empirical study in Pakistan in the context of rural flooding. A total of 120 samples are collected using household survey from four rural communities in two different districts. Indicators are chosen through rigorous literature review and categorized into human, social, economic, physical and natural assets. A total of 24 and 19 indicators for vulnerability and capacity respectively are used to develop the resultant index. Results show that the two analyzed districts have a similar pattern of vulnerabilities; however, in both districts, capacities differ with respect to different livelihood categories. A significant negative correlation is observed in the study area which confirms the relationship theorized in literature between vulnerability and capacity. The methodology adopted in this study can also be replicated to pragmatically validate the relationship between both of these concepts for future extreme climatic events and disasters.

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social-environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013.

Early Warning Systems (EWS) are key elements of risk reduction and adaptation strategies to extreme events. Until now, most EWS have focused mainly on hazard detection and the immediate warning and evacuation processes with an effort of saving lives in the context of an extreme event; however, in the light of climate change and migration more attention must also be paid to the question of how EWS can improve livelihood security. On the one hand, migration patterns, urbanization and population growth are important factors that will modify and in most cases increase exposure, and in some cases increase vulnerability. On the other hand, migration in the context of extreme events and sea level rise might also be an important adaptation strategy. The paper deals with the concept of people-centred early warning and examines how aspects of the so-called Last Mile can be better taken into account. In this regard, the framework conditions and the governance context of early warning are discussed and analysed. Strategies on how to enhance EWS are outlined, particularly regarding the nexus between migration, urbanization, daily mobility and early warning. Up to now, most EWS do not sufficiently consider migration and daily mobility patterns within the information or warning chain. Therefore, the paper examines the importance of migration, urbanization and daily mobility patterns for effective early warning. On the basis of this discussion, the paper identifies new challenges for early warning in the context of climate change and deals with the potential constraints of integrative EWS. Finally, the paper derives conclusions and recommendations on not only how to better account for migration in EWS, but also how to improve the consideration of early warning in migration and adaptation strategies.

The paper deals with the development of a general as well as integrative and holistic framework to systematize and assess vulnerability, risk and adaptation. The framework is a thinking tool meant as a heuristic that outlines key factors and different dimensions that need to be addressed when assessing vulnerability in the context of natural hazards and climate change. The approach underlines that the key factors of such a common framework are related to the exposure of a society or system to a hazard or stressor, the susceptibility of the system or community exposed, and its resilience and adaptive capacity. Additionally, it underlines the necessity to consider key factors and multiple thematic dimensions when assessing vulnerability in the context of natural and socio-natural hazards. In this regard, it shows key linkages between the different concepts used within the disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA) research. Further, it helps to illustrate the strong relationships between different concepts used in DRM and CCA. The framework is also a tool for communicating complexity and stresses the need for societal change in order to reduce risk and to promote adaptation. With regard to this, the policy relevance of the framework and first results of its application are outlined. Overall, the framework presented enhances the discussion on how to frame and link vulnerability, disaster risk, risk management and adaptation concepts.

The reasons for concern framework communicates scientific understanding about risks in relation to varying levels of climate change. The framework, now a cornerstone of the IPCC assessments, aggregates global risks into five categories as a function of global mean temperature change. We review the framework's conceptual basis and the risk judgments made in the most recent IPCC report, confirming those judgments in most cases in the light of more recent literature and identifying their limitations. We point to extensions of the framework that offer complementary climate change metrics to global mean temperature change and better account for possible changes in social and ecological system vulnerability. Further research should systematically evaluate risks under alternative scenarios of future climatic and societal conditions.

In the Paris Agreement, it is stated that country’s vulnerability to climate change is a key factor to decide where and how to allocate adaptation funds. However, the distribution of available funds continues to be a controversial point of discussion. To inform this discussion, we look at how policy makers could be differentiating regions for financing countries adaptation needs. We synthesize the results of global vulnerability assessments and conclude that in spite of some agreement between global vulnerability distribution and current funding allocation based on income groups, climate vulnerability remains a nuanced and problematic concept. In a search for increased transparency to inform adaptation financing, we analyze the new risk approach brought forward in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. A main advantage of this new formulation is a clearer distinction between physical hazards and vulnerability, where vulnerability is solely driven by societal factors. Notwithstanding, the risk approach comes with some shortfalls, not least in terms of scale mismatches. This confirms that more efforts could be devoted in exploring appropriate scales (from both climatological and societal perspectives) and methodologies for embedding the vulnerability approach in a risk framework. However, a prev- alent disconnect between science and policy on issues of adaptation financing has so far impeded the shift from earlier formulation of vulnerability to a risk concept in the policy arena. The IPCC has a pivotal role to play in filling this gap by leading a country-level assessment that can serve as a basis for prioritizing adaptation financing.

Smaller settlements are growing faster than megacities — and they need more protection from extreme events, write Joern Birkmann and colleagues.

© 2016 selection and editorial matter, Sheridan Bartlett and David Satterthwaite. All rights reserved. Cities on a Finite Planet: Transformative responses to climate change shows how cities can combine high quality living conditions, resilience to climate change, disaster risk reduction and contributions to mitigation/low carbon development. It also covers the current and potential contribution of cities to avoiding dangerous climate change and is the first book with an in-depth coverage of how cities and their governments, citizens and civil society organizations can combine these different agendas, based on careful city-level analyses. The foundation for the book is detailed city case studies on Bangalore, Bangkok, Dar es Salaam, Durban, London, Manizales, Mexico City, New York and Rosario. Each of these was led by authors who contributed to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment and are thus acknowledged as among the world's top specialists in this field. This book highlights where there is innovation and progress in cities and how this was achieved. Also where there is little progress and no action and where there is no capacity to act. It also assesses the extent to which cities can address the Sustainable Development Goals within commitments to also dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this, it highlights how much progress on these different agendas depends on local governments and their capacities to work with their low-income populations.

This paper deals with coping and adaptation processes to natural hazards and (potential) climate change impacts. Selected response measures to natural hazards are critically reviewed with respect to the actual and potential consequences that these measures might imply for additional adaptation needs and changes within social-ecological systems. In this context, the author introduces the concept of first- and second-order adaptation processes in order to underline the cascade process that adaptation implies, the potentials for failure, and the limits of adaptation. Important aspects of first- and second-order adaptation processes as well as the issue of the limits of adaptation are illustrated based on observations and empirical work conducted in Vietnam. In its final part, the paper discusses the findings in light of selected theoretical approaches that might help to understand how stabilization and destabilization processes are influenced or even triggered by adaptation measures.

Extreme events in nature and society are getting more and more important in our society. Hereby, it is not only important to address the ‘‘extremes’’ in terms of very large magnitude or intensity of a given natural process such as flood, heat wave, earthquake or landslide—it is also most important to consider the ‘‘extremes’’ in terms of societal impacts and societal consequences of natural hazards and creeping changes—including the degree of societal preparedness and response capacity to those impacts. Thus, it is indeed a major challenge to address the extremes in their completeness—and to summarize the different perspectives and approaches, but also to determine the major challenges when dealing with extreme events and its different facets. This general topic has been addressed by three major events in 2007: a session within the biannual German Geographers Conferences, the meeting of the German Working Group of Natural Hazards and Risks and the international Expert Working Group on Measuring Vulnerability to Natural Hazards. The Geography Conference organized under the umbrella of the German Association of Geography (DGfG) was carried out in Bayreuth, Germany with the arching conference topic ‘‘Handling Risks—disasters, destabilization, security’’. In this conference, Carsten Felgentreff and Thomas Glade were invited to organize a session on ‘‘Natural disasters and disaster prevention’’. Numerous invited experts in the field of natural disasters from natural and social science perspectives presented their view and experience on this topic. The session aimed to link vulnerability assessments with disaster prevention, thus to link social perception, communication and decision processes to hazard and disaster research based on natural science approaches. Hereby, it was envisaged to demonstrate the potential for disaster prevention. Specific addressed questions included: How can the change of

Statistical data shows that the increase in disasters due to natural hazards over the past 20 years has, for the most part, been caused by meteorological and hydrological events. This increase has been largely assigned to climate change [Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), 2010, http://www.emdat.be/Database/Trends/trends.html], that is, with climate-related hazards being major triggers for the majority of disasters. Consequently, there is obvious concern about how a changing climate will exacerbate the situation in the future (McBean and Ajibade in Curr Opin Environ Sustain 1:179–186, 2009). However, the attribution of a single hazard event or specific losses to climate change is still difficult, if not impossible, due to the complexity of factors that generate disaster losses. Disaster risk is a product of the interaction of the hazard (event) and the vulnerability conditions of the society or elements exposed. As a result, the need for a systematic linkage between disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) to advance sustainable development, and finally human security is being discussed within the ongoing climate change negotiations as well as within the disaster risk community, for example, in the framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on ‘Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation’. However, crucial differences between DRR and CCA exist that have widely limited or hampered their integration in practice. A review of existing literature on the topic and current national and local adaptation strategies, as well as 38 expert interviews conducted between April and May 2009, have led the authors to hypothesise that most of these differences and challenges can be categorised with respect to different spatial and temporal scales, the knowledge base, and norm systems. This paper examines the reasons for the practical barriers when linking CCA and DRR according to these three aspects. Finally, we outline recommendations and measures that need to be adopted in order to overcome existing barriers. In addition, quality criteria are formulated that should be applied in order to constantly monitor and evaluate adaptation strategies designed to simultaneously meet DRR requirements and vice versa.

Societies and ecosystems worldwide are increasingly subjected to hazards of natural and anthropogenic origins. Increasing the resilience and reducing the vulnerability of social–ecological systems (SES) so that they can withstand these shocks is crucial. External shocks (e.g. cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods) can induce an SES to move from one regime to another (or one stability domain to another), the latter typically being unfavourable. This can be through the disruption of ecosystems and the services they provide to society and/or through disruption of the social and economic structure and networks of the SES. Important characteristics of SES are the thresholds (boundaries) separating stability domains, but these are very difficult to evaluate because of the complex nature of SES. We use the example of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami impact on groundwater resources and the coastal communities relying on them in Sri Lanka, to illustrate that a practical approach for SES threshold characterisation could be through description of the dependency of social groups with respect to essential ecosystem services and through an understanding of the state of the ecosystems providing these services. However, this is not sufficient and changes of adaptive capacities of different social groups, access to the environmental services and the interventions undertaken by different actors also need to be considered. Furthermore, the question of when (time and phase) and why (stimuli) SES might shift into another state should be reviewed more critically. The implication is that multiple thresholds within the sub-components of the SES have to be assessed.

The aim of this paper is to introduce scale as a basic tool for improving the conceptual structure of vulnerability assessments. The terminology useful for vulnerability assessments and the current use of scale issues in theoretical vulnerability frameworks will be discussed briefly. Two case studies working on sub-national and on local level will demonstrate problems as well as benefits resulting from scale implications. Both assessments analyse vulnerability in context to river floods in Germany. In order to develop a spatial comparison and to integrate topics like environment and society, vulnerability assessments need to be aware of scale implications. The main point is that a scale debate on a broader spectrum than just in technical spatial terms is missing in vulnerability and risk conceptualisations so far. Vulnerability assessments and scale are highly intertwined, not only in technical application but also in conceptualisation, which needs more scientific development.

Disaster associated with natural hazards can lead to important changes—positive or negative—in socio-ecological systems. When disasters occur, much attention is given to the direct disaster impacts as well as relief and recovery operations. Although this focus is important, it is noteworthy that there has been little research on the characteristics and progress of change induced by disasters. Change, as distinct from impacts, encompasses formal and informal responses to disaster events and their direct and indirect impacts. While smaller disasters do not often lead to significant changes in societies and organizational structures, major disasters have the potential to change dominant ways of thinking and acting. Against this background, the article presents an analytical framework for distinguishing change from disaster impacts. Drawing from research in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, formal and informal changes after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 are examined and discussed against the background of the conceptual framework. The changes examined range from the commencement of the peace process in Aceh, Indonesia, to organizational and legal reforms in Sri Lanka. The article concludes that change-making processes after disasters need to be understood more in depth in order to derive important strategic policy and methodological lessons learned for the future, particularly in view of the increasing complexity and uncertainty in decision making due to climate change.

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.

This paper presents the important findings of a study undertaken in two selected tsunami-affected coastal cities in Sri Lanka (Batticaloa and Galle) to measure the revealed and emergent vulnerability of coastal communities. International risk studies have failed to demonstrate the high vulnerability of coastal communities to tsunami in Sri Lanka. Therefore, indirect assessment tools to measure pre-event vulnerability have to be complemented by assessment tools that analyse revealed and emergent vulnerability in looking at the aftermath and impact patterns of a real scenario, as well as in examining the dynamics of disaster recovery in which different vulnerabilities can be identified. The paper first presents a conceptual framework for capturing vulnerability within a process-oriented approach linked to sustainable development. Next, it highlights selected indicators and methods to measure revealed and emergent vulnerability at the local level using the examples of Batticaloa and Galle. Finally, it discusses the usefulness and application of vulnerability indicators within the framework of reconstruction.

This paper outlines selected approaches to measuring risk and vulnerability to hazards of natural origin using indicators and indices. It discusses their applicability, usefulness and policy implic...

Vulnerability defined as the predisposition to be negatively affected, often decide whether hazards and extreme natural events can lead to disasters or severe suffering or not. The WorldRiskIndex (WRI) is an approach to assess exposure, vulnerability and risk patterns at the global scale and it is based on national scale resolution data. The new results of the WRI 2017 and the analysis of the development trends of vulnerability between 2012 to 2017 show that risk of natural hazards and climate change is particularly high in Oceania, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean as well as Central America. Also, the impacts of extreme weather events, such as Taifun Haiyan in 2013 that hit the Philippines and Vietnam revealed that vulnerable communities suffer most. The event caused more than 6,000 fatalities. However, also sea level rise as considered in the WRI can be seen as an extreme event even though it is a rather creeping process in many world regions. The analysis of the development of vulnerability, namely the examination of susceptibility, coping capacity and adaptive capacities between 2012 and 2017 reveals interesting differences. While at the global or international level, we can observe a reduction in vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change, there are significant differences at the regional scale. While the vulnerability in Asia is showing also a reduction in susceptibility and an increasing capacity to cope and to adapt, the world region Oceania shows a different trend. In Oceania, we found that some countries showed an increasing vulnerability and that the overall world region is characterized by a constant and even slightly increasing vulnerability level, in contrast to other world regions which mainly show significant improvements. Also, the high persistence of vulnerability in various countries in Africa — that show progress but often too little — suggests that it is likely that these countries might not be able to effectively reduce risks solely on their own. Adaptation policies and risk reduction strategies need to address these differential development trends of vulnerability at regional scale in order to provide a context for effective risk reduction at national and local levels. The results can also inform the Global Stock take for adaptation policies.

Vulnerability and response capacities of disaster-affected communities might change due to extreme events and response measures taken thereafter. This has also been acknowledged there are only very few empirical studies on how spatio-temporal changes in vulnerability and response capacities at community level occur and how they affect risk management and development. Against this background, the paper investigates changes in vulnerability and response capacities of flood-affected rural communities in Pakistan. A major flood hit Pakistan in 2010 that had also a global repercussion in international media; however, also in 2014 various rural areas were hit by an extreme flood event. In order to examine specific vulnerability and response capacities of rural communities, the authors focus on two flood-affected districts (Muzaffargarh and Jhang) in rural areas that were hit by major flood events in 2010 and 2014. Based on a qualitative and participatory research approach, a weighted matrix index was developed to assess changes in vulnerability and response capacities of community’s livelihood assets i.e., human, natural, physical, financial and social. Results revealed that variations observed in vulnerability and response capacities were not only due to the flood itself but also due to the response measures taken thereafter. Changes in vulnerability across time and space of rural households affected by the extreme floods underscore, for example, that the role of immovable and movable assets is quite important and that governmental institutions had only a limited influence in terms of factors that allowed households to reduce vulnerability. Overall, the paper shows empirically that dynamics of vulnerability are characterized by distinctive features of space, flood events, socio-economic and physical situations over the period of time.