Consideration of compound drivers and impacts in the disaster risk reduction cycle
Bart J.J.M. van den Hurk,
Christopher J. White,
Alexandre M. Ramos,
Philip J. Ward,
Olivia Martius,
Indiana Olbert,
Kathryn Roscoe,
Henrique M.D. Goulart,
Jakob Zscheischler
Affiliations
Bart J.J.M. van den Hurk
Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands; Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Corresponding author
Christopher J. White
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Alexandre M. Ramos
Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany; Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Philip J. Ward
Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Olivia Martius
Institute of Geography and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern
Indiana Olbert
National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Kathryn Roscoe
Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands
Henrique M.D. Goulart
Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands
Jakob Zscheischler
Department of Computational Hydrosystems, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany
Summary: Consideration of compound drivers and impacts are often missing from applications within the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) cycle, leading to poorer understanding of risk and benefits of actions. The need to include compound considerations is known, but lack of guidance is prohibiting practitioners from including these considerations. This article makes a step toward practitioner guidance by providing examples where consideration of compound drivers, hazards, and impacts may affect different application domains within disaster risk management. We discern five DRR categories and provide illustrative examples of studies that highlight the role of “compound thinking” in early warning, emergency response, infrastructure management, long-term planning, and capacity building. We conclude with a number of common elements that may contribute to the development of practical guidelines to develop appropriate applications for risk management.
