Carmen Schlosser:

In an attempt to return to your inquiry -

Disaster reduction and adaptation to climate change

In as much as, as a member of the "disaster community", some aspects of
adaptation to climate change have been part of my remit (for one), the
formation of a link between disaster reduction and adaptation to climate
change has already begun - or, to put it another way, there is already some
semblance of history to the subject field. The IPPC's first report was
published in 1990. In 1988, I made what was one of the first field missions
to examine some of the  consequences for Tuvalu at that time and
contributed to the Small States Conference on Sea Level Rise at Male,
Maldive Islands (the genesis of the Association of Small Island States
[AOSIS]). Project findings were the basis for my Ambio article (see
references below).

Adaptations on the ground will be to a higher incidence of disasters and
"extreme weather events" rather than to climate change itself. As climate
change affects a number of "disaster agents" and their impacts (eg: coastal
and riverine flooding, storms and cyclones, landslides, and droughts),
adaptations will be numerous, wide ranging and not necessarily applied as
direct and concious responses to climate change. For an isolated example,
although sea flooding at Male (in the late 1980s) appeared to have been a
"new" or rare experience, sea flooding on Funafuti, Tuvalu, had been, and
no doubt still is, a regular and frequent experience due to seasonal high
tides rising through a porous atoll substructure (coral sediment).
Adaptations to "normal" flooding augured well as adaptations to abnormal or
extreme flooding from sea level rise resulting from climate change and were
widely being applied through a wide range of activities in housing,
agriculture, potable water supply and environmental health.

The implications of sea level rise for atoll island states is a microcosmic
aspect of climate change, but I believe it to be portentous as well as a
cause of exacerbated disaster experience for some, in aggregate not
insignificant, populations. In the answer to the question "adaptations
where, to what and by whom", island states surely have their place ?

As I am sure you will be aware, since that time (at least) there has been
much scientific (not to mention political) controversy about the effects,
and even about the existence, of climate change. What is now happening is
that there is the commencement of a "backlash" from some scientists
(geomorphologists) about how atolls will respond to rising sea levels and
may not simply "sink into the ocean" - which would be a strong incentive in
those contexts to the implementation of adaptations (see Kench & Cowell in
Tiempo below; and, with a strong "islands" bias, there are references to
climate change in "Development in Disaster-prone Places" also included with
references that follow).

In case adaptations to climate change are not restricted in the ISDR
project to those in less-developed countries, I have included a reference
to building for global warming in the United Kingdom, to which I could add
more to do with adaptations to flooding.


References

Kench, Paul & Cowell, Peter (2002) Erosion of low-lying reef islands Tiempo
46 December University of East Anglia, Norwich
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/

Lewis, James:

(1988)  Sea level rise: Tonga, Tuvalu, (Kiribati). Report of a rapid field
reconnaissance mission. November. Commonwealth Expert group on Climate
Change and Sea Level Rise. Datum International.

(1989)  Sea Level Rise - some implications for Tuvalu
Ambio 18/8 pp458-459
        Appropriate Technology 16/2 pp26-28 September
        The Environmetalist 9/4 pp269-275

(1990) The Vulnerability of Small Island States to Sea Level Rise: The Need
for Holistic Strategies
Disasters 14/3 pp241-248 Blackwell

(1990) Report: Small States Conference on Sea Level Rise (Male, Maldives 1989)
Disasters 14/3 pp77-78
Environmentalist 10/2 pp141-142

(1993) Building for Global Warming: Design for climate change
Architects' Journal 197/24 pp54-55 16 June

(1999)  Development in Disaster-prone Places: Studies of Vulnerability IT
Publications. London.
(pp20-22)                       http://www.oneworld.org/itdg/publications.html




I hope you will find these points of view relevant to the ISDR project; I
would be pleased to respond to comments and queries.

With Best Wishes

James










At 21:13 30/01/03 +0100, you wrote:
>      list,              How could the two communities be brought closer
>together? I would welcome any reading suggestions and debate  on this
>issue.  Many thanks Carmen

Carmen Schlosser Consultant ISDR   ABYLIS
>BP 18
>74550  PERRIGNIER
>FRANCE
>Tel: 0033 (0) 4 50 72 47 74
>Fax: 0033 (0) 4 50 72 47  73
>Mobile: 0033 (0) 6 07 09 79 26
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James Lewis

Architect RIBA
Visiting Fellow in Development Studies
University of Bath
Consultant in natural hazards and human settlements
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