Consideration of compound drivers and impacts in the disaster risk reduction cycle

Bart J J M van den Hurk; Christopher J White; Alexandre M Ramos; Philip J Ward; Olivia Martius; Indiana Olbert; Kathryn Roscoe; Henrique M D Goulart; Jakob Zscheischler

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106030

Consideration of compound drivers and impacts in the disaster risk reduction cycle

iScience. 2023 Jan 25;26(3):106030. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106030. eCollection 2023 Mar 17.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands.
² Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
³ University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.
⁴ Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
⁵ Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.
⁶ Institute of Geography and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern.
⁷ National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
⁸ Department of Computational Hydrosystems, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany.

Abstract

Consideration of compound drivers and impacts are often missing from applications within the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) cycle, leading to poorer understanding of risk and benefits of actions. The need to include compound considerations is known, but lack of guidance is prohibiting practitioners from including these considerations. This article makes a step toward practitioner guidance by providing examples where consideration of compound drivers, hazards, and impacts may affect different application domains within disaster risk management. We discern five DRR categories and provide illustrative examples of studies that highlight the role of "compound thinking" in early warning, emergency response, infrastructure management, long-term planning, and capacity building. We conclude with a number of common elements that may contribute to the development of practical guidelines to develop appropriate applications for risk management.

Keywords: Decision science; Earth sciences; Social sciences.

Publication types

Review