Disasters, Adaptation & Development

More than 700 major natural catastrophic events occur each year, and direct economic losses have increased 14-fold since the 1950s. While most of the economic losses are in the developed world, disasters impose the largest burden on developing countries, where estimates show the number of human victims and economic losses as a percent of GDP are far greater.

Despite these serious impacts disasters have frequently been perceived as “acts of God” and are often overlooked in policy planning. Recognizing that after-the-fact approaches for dealing with disasters are unsustainable in the long run, the policy paradigm has recently been shifting towards a more comprehensive approach that emphasizes ex-ante measures taken before a disaster happens.

IIASA's RPV program occupies an internationally recognized niche in carrying out applied, interdisciplinary research for the purpose of reducing the vulnerability of developing and transition countries to the economic impacts of extreme events. Specifically, RPV is developing tools for the management of financial and economic disaster risk. Methodologically, this includes sophisticated stochastic simulation, optimization methods and economic modeling as well as developing decision-support tools including user interfaces for stakeholder processes. Furthermore, with growing interest on the part of the climate-change community in innovative ideas for helping disaster-prone, developing countries adapt to climate change, this research is proving useful in identifying vulnerable countries, projecting risks into a future with climatic and socio-economic change, and suggesting novel instruments for pre-disaster support. RPV is in the unique position to continue this line of research in close collaboration with policy makers in developing, transition and developed countries.

The group is currently working on the following projects:

Poverty Traps

To escape from poverty traps that are caused by natural disasters, low-income households need assistance from public and private partnerships that are informed by risk analysis and based on local needs.  More

Climate Change and Agricultural Productivity (ISAC)

High-frequency, high-resolution imaging from new satellites is providing detailed agricultural information that will allow scientists to better monitor the impacts of drought and climate change on crops and model future agricultural productivity under different climate change scenarios. More

Life Cycle Impacts of Goods, Services, Activities (LC-IMPACT)

The LC-IMPACT project is developing methods to assess the environmental life cycle impact of a vast number of goods, services and activities. The assessments examine the environmental costs of such things as erosion caused by land use and threats from toxic substances used in production processes. More

CATSIM

A modeling approach to improve financial disaster risk management More

Creating Policy Tools for Climate Change Adaptation (MEDIATION)

MEDIATION uses case studies to provide European policymakers with   scientific information and technical tools to develop improved climate change adaptation policies More

Accelerating Cuts in Greenhouse Gases (RESPONSES)

RESPONSES is a project to develop strategies that will enable European Union countries to accelerate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and better adapt to environmental, social, and economic disruptions caused by climate change. More

Improving Landslide Risk Responses (SafeLand)

SafeLand is a response to the growing risk of landslides in mountainous regions of Europe due to climate change-related increases in overall rainfall, concentrated rains over short periods, more extreme weather, and increased snowmelts in Alpine regions. More

Linking Disasters for Risk Reduction (MATRIX)

Natural disasters are typically treated as individual incidents, but scientists are developing methods to link events such as earthquakes and landslides to enable policy makers to take more effective risk reduction measures. More

Last edited: 23 February 2012