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DISASTERS AND ECOSYSTEMS:


RESILIENCE IN A CHANGING CLIMATE
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"Welcome! This is the sixth unit of our course: Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate.

In this session, we give a brief overview of resilience and transformation. We will also explore whether
“resilience” offers a positive input to the international discourse in the field of disaster risk reduction and
climate change adaptation and if so, what is the link between resilience, disaster risk reduction and
ecosystem-based approaches?

This session will focus on two main questions:

1. Why has resilience to disasters and adaptation become such a popular term?

2. What is the future outlook for Eco-DRR?

So, why is resilience to disasters and adaptation such a popular term?


The original meaning of resilience, which comes from Latin, is to “jump or bounce back”.

The term resilience originated in engineering sciences in the 19th century. It was later popularized by
ecological sciences and child psychology before becoming popular in literature on climate change and
disaster management.

Despite its use in various fields, the definition of resilience often includes the ability of a system or physical
body to bounce back to a “normal state” after a disturbance. But it also includes the human ability to adapt
and learn.

Resilience is at the heart of a debate about how to best encourage governments, civil society and the private
sector to invest in disaster risk reduction and adaptation measures. It has also become a way to merge the
activities of humanitarian and development agencies.

Certainly the attractiveness of resilience lies in its more positive focus on local capacities than the negative
connotation attributed to the term “vulnerability”. Resilience is also considered a more achievable
development goal.

Yet, despite its increased popularity in international discourse there is limited theoretical understanding and
multiple, often contradictory, definitions of resilience. Due to the complexity of the concept, a main challenge
is determining which indicators should be used, and how to measure them in order to inform disaster risk
reduction policies.

Thus resilience has become the new goal of many international and national development policies, with little
guidance or benchmarks that describe what resilience is, how to increase it, or when resilience has been
achieved.

There are many examples of highly resilient populations around the world, most already live in harsh
environments, they are usually highly adaptive and often subject to small and large shocks.

Let’s take an example from Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan. People have lived in the valleys of these high
mountains for centuries and have developed strategies for coping with extreme winters and flash floods
during springtime. If we follow the most common definition of resilience, we can say that such populations are
highly resilient.
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But these people continue to live in a place at high risk from hazards, with everyday economic and health
challenges. As a result, their high capacity to rebounce to the normal state does not necessarily mean lower
risks.

This is the main criticism of resilience to disasters.


This way of considering resilience, sometimes called “passive resilience”, does not automatically suffice to
reduce underlying risk factors, or vulnerabilities.

Underlying risk factors cannot be improved through emergency measures but rather long-term development
interventions.
However, there is a movement to see resilience in light of “bouncing forward”. This definition takes into
consideration “positive transformations” of a community, or system to a better state.

So what type of measures would increase the resilience for our case study example from Afghanistan?
Let’s take the “bouncing back” approach. After a flash flood, measures that allow the community to bounce
back to its normal state, might include reconstructing houses, restoring the water supply and perhaps
strengthening gabion walls to reduce the next flood. However, these people are barely better off than before
the flood and are likely to be hit again.

A transformative approach to resilience, or bouncing forward would go much further. It must for instance also
include healthy ecosystems and communities managing them properly. Therefore the resilience concept for
disaster risk reduction must be a holistic one, considering societies and their living environment.

As a conclusion, resilience as “returning to a normal state” or passive resilience may be a useful concept to
describe a more efficient recovery process after a crisis. But it will not necessarily improve a population’s
everyday risks, well-being, sustainability or reduce vulnerability.
Transformative resilience or “bouncing forward” however, can be used to address underlying risks.

Proponents of resilience argue that this type of resilience can provide a common platform for addressing
disaster risk reduction, adaptation and poverty reduction. It also provides a stronger entry point for critical
long-term but neglected aspects of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation such as ecosystem-
based approaches.

We now conclude the “leadership track” with our final question: What is the future outlook of Eco-DRR?

Overall, the future outlook of Eco-DRR and EbA should be considered positive as judged by the many
opportunities they provide, as well as the attention given to these measures in international agreements and
policy documents.

However Eco-DRR and EbA have a far road ahead toward being mainstreamed in governmental policies and
actions on disaster risk reduction and adaptation.
Addressing the underlying risk factors is one of the main priorities for action within the Hyogo Framework for
Action and one of the biggest challenges of governments. Eco-DRR and EbA address these underlying
factors.

In order to make disaster risk reduction and adaptation efforts more effective on the long run, sustainable
development needs to remain the leading overall goal into which resilience, Eco-DRR and EbA can
contribute.

We thank you for joining this MOOC leadership track and hope you had as much fun as we did!

The leadership track provided a summary overview of main concepts and issues related to Eco-DRR and
EbA. However, we have so much more to tell you about this fascinating topic and invite you to join us for a
more thorough and skill-building journey in the expert track.
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