Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction

The term “ecosystem-based adaptation” (EbA) refers to the use of natural systems as a way to buffer the worst impacts of climate change, maintain the resilience of natural ecosystems, their ecosystem services and the species that support them, and help people and communities adapt to changing conditions. Ecosystem-based adaptation is an important and often-overlooked complement to other modes of adaptation. Ecosystem-based adaptation also refers to conservation actions that protect people from the impacts of climate change.

The combination climate change and market forces bring uncertainty and risk to many communities across the world – especially those who rely heavily on the availability of local resources and infrastructure. When disaster strikes, a stable, empowered community will respond with resilience and recover quickly. For this reason, disaster risk reduction (DRR) programs are now essential priorities of sustainable development. An understanding of linkages between environment and disasters are especially necessary to integrate disaster risk reduction into development planning as degraded environments can exacerbate disasters and disasters can aggravate environmental degradation.

Increasing frequency and intensity of disasters in India, has highlighted the gravity of the problem and prompted greater emphasis on pre-disaster preparedness and mitigation as an integral part of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). This entails a shift in focus away from conventional fire-fighting approach to disaster management towards community-based risk reduction and preparedness and management that helps and capacitates communities to prevent, mitigate and cope with disasters effectively. For this, it is crucial that the community play the leading role in every part of the process: identifying hazards and potential disasters, formulating a plan to mitigate risk, communicating this information with other concerned parties, and both creating and implementing its disaster-management plan when disaster does strike.

What will you gain from the programme?

• Creating linkages to various other components of the projects and existing government approaches.
• Be familiar with the possible strategies which help in communities to prevent, adapt and mitigate to disaster and risks, community participation and strengthening and sustainability at village level.
• Information gained on capacity building strategies for the village level communities and helping them understand the DRR and possible adaptation strategies.

Course content

• Ecosystem and biodiversity in relation to CCA and DRR
• Understanding risk to reduce the risk
• Disaster of slow onset and sudden onset
• Linking communities with government for DRR
• Identifying and mapping vulnerable groups in the village.
• Hazard/hotspot mapping of villages
• Community based disaster management (CBDM)
• Integrating DRR into culture
• Tools of CBDM.
• WOTR’s experience in implementing the CCA and DRR