Disaster Research Center
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The Disaster Research Center (DRC) is the first social science research center in the world devoted to the study of disasters. Founded in 1963 at the Ohio State University, the Center is now part of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware and faculty members from the School of Public Policy and Administration, the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Civil Engineering direct Disaster Research Center projects.
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Browsing Disaster Research Center by Subject "adaptation"
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Item Climate change adaptation to extreme heat: a global systematic review of implemented action(Oxford Open Climate Change, 2021-06-01) Turek-Hankins, Lynée L.; Coughlan de Perez, Erin; Scarpa, Giulia; Ruiz-Diaz, Raquel; Schwerdtle, Patricia Nayna; Joe, Elphin Tom; Galappaththi, Eranga K.; French, Emma M.; Austin, Stephanie E.; Singh, Chandni; Siña, Mariella; Siders, A. R.; van Aalst, Maarten K.; Templeman, Sienna; Nunbogu, Abraham M.; Berrang-Ford, Lea; Agrawal, Tanvi; the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative team; Mach, Katharine J.Extreme heat events impact people and ecosystems across the globe, and they are becoming more frequent and intense in a warming climate. Responses to heat span sectors and geographic boundaries. Prior research has documented technologies or options that can be deployed to manage extreme heat and examples of how individuals, communities, governments and other stakeholder groups are adapting to heat. However, a comprehensive understanding of the current state of implemented heat adaptations—where, why, how and to what extent they are occurring—has not been established. Here, we combine data from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative with a heat-specific systematic review to analyze the global extent and diversity of documented heat adaptation actions (n = 301 peer-reviewed articles). Data from 98 countries suggest that documented heat adaptations fundamentally differ by geographic region and national income. In high-income, developed countries, heat is overwhelmingly treated as a health issue, particularly in urban areas. However, in low- and middle-income, developing countries, heat adaptations focus on agricultural and livelihood-based impacts, primarily considering heat as a compound hazard with drought and other hydrological hazards. 63% of the heat-adaptation articles feature individuals or communities autonomously adapting, highlighting how responses to date have largely consisted of coping strategies. The current global status of responses to intensifying extreme heat, largely autonomous and incremental yet widespread, establishes a foundation for informed decision-making as heat impacts around the world continue to increase.Item The Comparative Study of Disaster: A Social Organizational Approach(Disaster Research Center, 1975) Dynes, Russell R.Item Introduction: Managed retreat and environmental justice in a changing climate(Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2021-05-15) Siders, A. R.; Ajibade, IdowuIn response to global climate change, managed retreat has emerged as a controversial adaptation strategy. The purposeful movement of people and communities away from hazardous places raises numerous social and environmental justice concerns that will become even more pressing as retreat occurs more frequently and at larger scales. This special issue contributes to an emerging body of literature on managed retreat by providing a range of perspectives and approaches to considering justice in managed retreat. The assembled papers represent diverse voices (including perspectives from individuals whose communities are currently relocating or considering relocation), disciplines (including oral histories, legal analyses, and cultural heritage considerations), and lenses through which to consider the justice implications of managed retreat. They describe completed, in-progress, and foiled relocations. They suggest opportunities for improvement through improved evaluations and broader collaborations. While each presents a unique lens, key themes emerge around the need for transparent and equitable policies, self-determination of communities, holistic metrics for assessing individual and community well-being, the importance of culture both as something to be protected and an asset to be leveraged, and the need to address historical and systemic injustices that contribute to vulnerability and exposure to risk.Item Promoting Spatial Coordination in Flood Buyouts in the United States: Four Strategies and Four Challenges from the Economics of Land Preservation Literature(Natural Hazards Review, 2023-02-01) Dineva, Polina K.; McGranaghan, Christina; Messer, Kent D.; Palm-Forster, Leah H.; Paul, Laura A.; Siders, A. R.Managed retreat in the form of voluntary flood-buyout programs provides homeowners with an alternative to repairing and rebuilding residences that have sustained severe flood damage. Buyout programs are most economically efficient when groups of neighboring properties are acquired because they can then create unfragmented flood control areas and reduce the cost of providing local services. However, buyout programs in the United States often fail to acquire such efficient, unfragmented spaces, for various reasons, including long administrative timelines, the way in which buyout offers are made, desires for community cohesion, and attachments to place. Buyout programs have relied primarily on posted price mechanisms involving offers that are accepted or rejected by homeowners with little or no negotiation. In this paper, we describe four alternative strategies that have been used successfully in land-preservation agricultural–environmental contexts to increase acceptance rates and decrease fragmentation: agglomeration bonuses, reverse auctions, target constraints, and hybrid approaches. We discuss challenges that may arise during their implementation in the buyout context—transaction costs, equity and distributional impacts, unintended consequences, and social pressure—and recommend further research into the efficiency and equity of applying these strategies to residential buyout programs with the explicit goal of promoting spatial coordination.