IIASA at the UK Alliance for Disaster Reduction (UKADR) 2024 Conference

Social Mechanisms of Community Resilience Building: Insights From the Zurich Alliance for Resilience to Climate Hazards

Wednesday, June 26th 2024. Session C --Warning, Resilience and Finance

Presenting author: Romain Clercq-Roques, International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA)

Abstract: Climate disasters have dramatic impacts on health and individuals and collective assets each year, and their impacts are expected to increase due to climate change and growing exposure of vulnerable communities. Disasters are especially damaging to low-income communities, notably by reversing development gains. Community resilience to climate disasters depends not only on tangible factors, such as physical protective measures and economic assets, but also on social factors, notably on communities’ ability to learn and self-organize. The Zurich Alliance for Resilience to Climate Hazards has spent the last 11 years fostering collaboration with communities and across sectors to assess and build community resilience. Community surveys and interviews of Alliance members provide new insights into social mechanisms impacting resilience. Two strategies have been key to its success. First, closely involving communities in participatory assessments and interventions helped develop community self-organization capacity by improving learning, empowering local champions, and mobilizing internal resources. Second, the Alliance has acted as a bridging organization, helping communities develop relations with external actors and mobilize external resources. Additionally, the alliance has fostered joint learning and experimentation across its member organizations. This approach can create co-benefits by improving resilience and further unlocking development potential in affected communities.

Exploring the Power of Participation for Trust in (Disaster) Science

Wednesday, June 26th 2024. Session A-- Inclusion and Politics

Presenting author: Teresa Deubelli-Hwang,  International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Further authors: Jung Hee Hyun
Abstract: Public engagement in scientific processes, facilitated by citizen science and participatory decision-making tools, holds promise for incorporating diverse viewpoints and fostering consensus for resilience in the face of disasters. However, the impact of such engagement on trust in science, crucial for evidence-based decision-making during disasters, remains poorly understood. The Tools for Raising and Understanding Trust in systems science through citizen engagement (TRUST) project aims to address this gap. We are developing a taxonomy of participation-driven approaches, grounded in the participatory science cube, to categorize methods used in participation-driven disaster science initiatives systematically. Our methodology involves creating a questionnaire to gauge participants’ post-engagement attitudes toward science, exploring perceptions of normative, epistemological, and structural aspects of public engagement, as well as dimensions of epistemic trustworthiness: expertise, benevolence, and integrity. While not exhaustive, our approach provides an initial assessment of the trust-building potential of participation-driven science. During our presentation, we highlight our project's taxonomy and questionnaire, inviting feedback and suggestions for refining the taxonomy and its practical applications.

Empirically Driven Monitoring Framework for Capturing Systems Change in Community-level, Disaster Resilience-building interventions

Thursday, June 27th 2024. Session C-- Warning, Resilience and Finance

Presenting author(s): Jung-Hee Hyun, IIASA (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis)

Abstract: The Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) framework and tool was developed with the aim to measure community level resilience to flooding in a reliable, empirically verified and useful way. Since its inception in 2013, the framework and tool has been implemented in more than 296 flood-prone communities across the world and has been used as an evaluation metric to measure progress and helps to identify the possible areas for intervention. This study uses an inventory of 168 interventions implemented in the Flood Resilience Alliance communities to assess whether the FRMC was indeed informative in selecting and evaluating resilience-building interventions. We first conduct an analysis of whether and how interventions correspond to community needs and aims. Second, we empirically assess FRMC’s applicability to monitor and evaluate the impact of interventions. Our initial results show that systems change, resilience-building requires a portfolio of interventions rather than individual resilience outcomes. To avoid creating an incentive to choose interventions that automatically display an increase in resilience, which is driven by outcome-based evaluation metrics in the short term, a framework on measuring resilience-building resulting from this study, aims to capture systematic, long-term resilience building.