Usable Concepts for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

Michael H. Glantz

32 concepts + 5

1. The ‘Rs’ of DRR.
2. Satisfice.
3. Foreseeability.
4. Re-function.
5.  “Social Inventions.”
6. Improvisation.
7. Improvisatory.
8. Lessons identified ≠ Lessons Learned.
9. Creeping environmental problems (CEPs).
10. Drought follows the plow (DFP).
11. Re-educate.
12. Resilient Adaptation.
13. Grain storage improvements.
14. Climate Change Risk Disclosure (CCRD).
15. CCR(+B)D development.
16. Late Warning Systems.
17. Sunsetting DRR assistance programs.
18. Reversed Triage: Help the bottom group first.
19. Hotspots; flashpoints (hotspots pyramid).
20.  “The 3 ‘O’s.”
21. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Bank.
22. Forecasting By Analogy (FBA) and the search for “lessons.”
23. Mitigating the impacts of CCA (climate change adaptation).
24. Assigning a “Project Scribe.”
25. “end-to-end-to-end” (E2E2E) forecast system.
26. DRR RANN (Research Applied to National Needs).
27. “Ordinary knowledge” as a usable concept.
28. Working with a changing climate, not against it.
29. “Partnership vs. Ownership (of projects that seek to bridge DRR and CCA).”
30. Climate Proofing.
31. Risk takers, ris- averse personalities, and risk makers.
32. “Forecast Hesitancy.”
33. “Usable Science.”
34. Deltas of the world Unite.”
35. “drrr”: disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction.
36. “Case-scenario” approach to DRR.
37. “Mainstreaming ENSO” (El Niño Southern Oscillation)

Usable Concepts for DRR

We consider the following concepts to be useful and of interest for identifying and using the so-called “lessons learned” from OFDA’s Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programs, projects, and other activities:

1. The ‘Rs’ of DRR  

Notable in a review of disaster literature are the many concepts used in disaster risk reduction or, more broadly, in disaster risk management that begin with the letter “R”: reduce risk, request, respond, relief, restore, re-position, review, re-think, rehabilitate, reconstruct, resources, responders, resilience, re-declare, repatriate, re-kindle, reuse, re-visioning, and more. The frequency of the use of disaster-related “R” words is not really an accident. In a way, that many activities begin with the prefix “re” should be expected, since in the past, when disasters were considered little more than ‘acts of god’ events occurred, and societies dealt with them almost exclusively in terms of “response and recovery.” The problem is that even though the socio-political causes of disaster are well know, these two R-word actions continue to dominate planning and response throughout the emergency management and humanitarian communities. Furthermore, even today many government ministries have divided jurisdictions that limit what one agency can do to prepare for and respond to the consequences of disaster. With what has been referred to as “mission creep” in terms of the expansion of these ministries’ roles into areas of prevention and preparedness, such jurisdictional lines have, however, increasingly blurred. Like this, traditional approaches to disaster risk reduction (DRR) have more and more often taken on preventative activities to prepare for recurrent disasters. Today, much more emphasis and attention is paid to and many more resources are allocated for preparedness and prevention-oriented Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) program.

2. Satisfice

To satisfice is to “decide on and pursue a course of action satisfying the minimum requirements to achieve a goal;” “optimization requires processes that are more complex than those needed to merely satisfice.” <www.thefreedictionary.com>

The word satisfice was given its current meaning by Herbert Simon (1956). To optimize: we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision, and our memories are weak and unreliable. A more realistic approach to rationality takes into account these limitations: This is called bounded rationality.” <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing>

Satisfice is in fact a novel combination of two concepts ‘satisfy’ and ‘suffice’ that also has ethical as well as economic implications. “Satisficers,” those who are satisfied to meet minimal requirements to achieve their goals through their actions, are usually viewed in opposition to ‘maximizers,’ who seek the best result possible from their actions toward their goals. Perhaps the notion of ‘satisfice’ has a useful role to play in disaster preparedness, response & recovery, such as in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) & Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) activities.

3. Foreseeability

The notion of foreseeability is used in the theory of law to express a qualitative expression of probability in order to determine accountability or fault when someone has been injured or killed (or when property has been damaged). This expression clearly applies to disasters as well, which means that foreseeability is uniquely relevant for dealing with the potential hazards of climate variability, extremes, and change. By its application, that is, we can foresee which adaptation measures should be implemented and when.

The following description of foreseeability, taken from a Law dictionary (Gifis 1991), illustrates the point:

• “FORESEEABLE RISK, i.e., risks whose consequences a person of ordinary prudence would reasonably expect might occur…
• In tort law… a party’s actions may be deemed negligent only where the injurious consequences of those actions were foreseeable.”
• For example, “established by proof that the actor or person of reasonable intelligence and prudence, should reasonably have anticipated danger to others created by his or her negligent act.”
• “Foreseeability encompasses not only that which the defendant foresaw, but that which the defendant ought to have foreseen.”

While the data and time series necessary to determine the statistical probability for the occurrence of a hazard may not be known or available, awareness of the possibility of recurrence of that hazard (or likelihood of a disaster) based on the timing, frequency, and magnitude of past occurrences, and on the known level of societal awareness and preparedness, is possible. Hence, in known, at-risk locations around the world the need to prepare remains ever-present, and now more than ever under conditions of a warming of the global climate regime and the yet-to-be-determined regional and local changes in hydro-meteorological event variability and extremes that is all but certain to accompany this warming.

That there are likely to be adverse consequences from people’s vulnerability to the hazard of climate and its changes on various time scales is reasonable to expect, especially if steps are not taken to reduce that vulnerability. Do, for instance,  those with the power to act beforehand have a legal, if not moral or political, responsibility for the resulting climate impacts? The case study by Holloway (2000) of the impending drought in southern Africa from 1991–1993 is instructive here. The famine consequences of the drought were foreseeable and those with the power to act took heed and led a massive food import and distribution effort, which is credited with averting catastrophe.

A similar level of foreseeability was not, however, acted upon in mid-2002 when officials in Zimbabwe were warned about the strong possibility of an El Niño-related drought and the potential for subsequent food shortages (Glantz and Cullen 2003). After years of politically-instituted changes in land ownership and land use, linked to the dictatorial and corrupt governance of President Robert Mugabe, food production after a shock like an El Niño-related drought was expected to decline across the country. Yet, Mugabe continued to break up the large productive farms (owned by Europeans) into smaller subsistence plots given to his political supporters. Once a forecast for the onset of El Niño was made in 2002, which was accompanied by the prediction of potential drought across southern Africa, a person of ordinary prudence would have foreseen the strong possibility of severe food shortages in Zimbabwe as well as in other countries across the region that depend on Zimbabwe’s “bread basket” for food imports. Despite this foreseeability, Mugabe and his government did little to avert the crisis (Howard-Hassmann 2010). By October 2003, 50 percent of Zimbabwe’s population was unable to meet its food needs, a shortages that continued for several years, especially since Mugabe continued to interfere with farming, food distribution and humanitarian aid. The leaders in power in Zimbabwe chose not to avert the foreseeable and preventable disaster. This was clearly a case of political “ignore-ance” at the highest levels of government. We know what the impacts of climate variability and extremes are and what those of climate change could be. They are foreseeable, yet all too often needed action is not taken. As with the Zimbabwe case, “ignore-ance” is clear (Glantz and Kelman 2013).

4. Re-function

Much as global to local climate regimes vary and change at all time scales, so, too, do societies. Societies must, therefore, re-visit what they at one time—such as in the present—may have considered “best practices” because it is highly likely that new and different ‘best practices’ will be needed for the new, different and emerging circumstances that those societies face.

Given contemporary concerns about climate change and its likelihood of increasing the number as well as the frequency and intensity of extreme climate-, water- and weather-related events, humanitarian aid agencies have to re-function, that is, re-think not only how they provide emergency assistance or approach DRR programs but also what tools they keep, discard or add to their disaster avoidance “toolbox.” This is especially true considering the likelihood that national budgets for humanitarian aid agencies will be increasingly limited even as the need for such aid increases as the impacts of climate change become more and more apparent in the coming years and decades. DFID, for instance, now uses the rule of “value for money” as one hurdle in a set of criteria for providing assistance; it no longer feigns altruism in its humanitarian DRR-related aid distributions, that is, but requires that such distributions have some demonstrable value. Such a rule might be appropriate for the preparedness and prevention aspects of DRR and perhaps for longer-term development programs but are quite inappropriate for providing emergency assistance to disaster-affected populations.  Nevertheless, “value for money” will likely continue to be a key metric of foreign assistance in the future of numerous global north governments.

Evidently, a third of the way through the second decade of the 21^st century, the concept of “resilience” has surpassed and overshadowed previous development buzzwords such as “adaption,” “vulnerability” and even “sustainable development “ to  become the primary development goal for many humanitarian assistance programs (including USAID).

5. “Social Inventions”

There are notions, concepts and even words alone that can change the way people do things. The outcomes of many “business as usual scenarios” have forced us to rethink how society interacts with its environments, from local to global levels. Technological inventions change human behavior towards the environment as well as the way people view their regional and local hydro-meteorological hazards. But concepts and even slogans on placards at popular demonstrations are also known to inform and change the behavior of populations. Grassroots-level notions can energize and enhance DRR education and training activities. While we might know this at some level in the back of our minds, social inventions, that is, ideas that have a major impact on what we do, are as, and often more important and influential than, the technologies that we develop. In this way, social inventions can lead to new technologies, and new technologies can generate new social inventions. In retrospect, one could effectively argue that social inventions have had as much influence on the course of history as have several of our technological inventions.

6. Improvisation 

By definition, “first responders” are representatives of the formal structures of governance who are the first from outside a disaster-affected area to come to the aid of those in that area. When a disaster occurs, these men and women arrive first to assist victims and contend with and manage responses to remaining hazards. First responders include the police, firefighters, search-and-rescue teams, the national guard, emergency medical providers, the Red Cross and the like. They are often courageous and most always laudable for their skill and actions in situations of extreme duress.

The reality, however, is that the “victims” of disaster events are the true first responders, even as the violence and shock of such events unfold around them, which is why we propose that those individuals should be represented not as victims but as “Zero-Order Responders” (ZORs).  We propose this shift in framing to acknowledge the fact that individuals swept up (sometimes literally) in a disaster zone do not and have never just sat on their hands waiting for help from the formal structures of government or of civil society to arrive, which is the implication of their being dismissed in being labeled as “victims”. Even though they are forced into survival mode, individuals take action, often courageously and always to the best of their after-event abilities, to help themselves, their families, their friends and their neighbors to overcome the devastation that might otherwise overwhelm them, not letting down until the so-called first responders arrive to relieve them and deliver them even further out of harm’s way.

The point is that in such situations, “Zero-Order Responders” (ZORs) are forced to improvise in order to survive, remaining out of harm’s way for hours or days—sometimes even weeks—after a disaster event. Importantly, such innovative thinking can be taught, as the following quotation about what has come to be known as the MacGyver Effect, after the inventive character of the 1980s action drama, suggests:  “Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.)” The MacGyver Effect is often referenced in terms of crisis survival, as the website for educational website Evoke notes:

“In a world where we’re running out of water to drink and fuel for our cars, inventors are being forced to be resourceful to solve these problems – not just the several big issues, but multitudes of smaller ones.”

This sounds like an American TV show called MacGyver “from the 1980s featuring a detective called Angus MacGyver (they usually just call him Mac). In each episode, he uses ordinary, everyday items to build things that he needs – for instance, he combines a hairpin and wine to make a magnifying glass, and a muffler, some gas, a steering wheel and some seat cushion stuffing to build a mortar shell.

Just like MacGyver, in our modern world, we need to be resourceful. It could be as small and simple as recycling water that we use, or it could be as big as a new type of desalination plant to turn salt water into drinkable water.

From the people who are researching and inventing new kinds of biofuel, right down to the person making toy cars from scrap metal in Kenyan slums, show us that anyone, anywhere, can be innovative and resourceful.” <www.urgentevoke.com>.

The point is that improvisation can be taught to at risk communities on how to prepare for and improve the possibility to survive the aftermath of a hydro-meteorological disasters. In truth, these communities already do improvise as ZORs in times of crisis, but their responses could be enhanced even more with more awareness and preparedness.

7. Improvisatory

The concept of an “improvisatory” is analogous to a laboratory or collaboratory. It is a place where improvisation stories can be collected and catalogued based on interviews and observations. This can be done via electronic media and social networks.  It can also be a place where people are taught by enacting in-situ innovative, hydro-meteorological disaster-related scenarios.

8. Lessons Identified ≠ Lessons Learned

There is a need to distinguish between “lesson learned,” “lesson identified” and  “lesson drawn” from an experience. If a lesson has only been identified (a recommendation, for example) but that recommendation has not been tested, acted upon or evaluated, it should not be considered a lesson learned. This is a serious issue with serious and usually negative implications. It is why similar disasters in the same location can yield the very same lessons time after time, with nothing ever really being learned because those identified lessons remained unlearned. A more accurate phrase would be that a lesson has been drawn (identified) from an experience rather than that a lesson has been learned from that situation.

9. Creeping environmental problems (CEPs)

Quick-onset hazards receive most of the attention of governments, media and aid organizations, while slow-onset, incremental but cumulative hazards tend to be put on the proverbial backburner, seldom demanding the immediate response called forth in times of abrupt crisis. Such slow-onset, creeping environmental changes do, however, eventually swell into crisis.

Just about every human interaction with the environment verges on a CEP state, including deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, CO2 emissions, water quality issues, etc. In many locations around the world, these CEPs are reaching the brink when hazards become disasters.

The point is that rates of change are as important as types and directions of change, particularly because societies tend to respond more quickly and comprehensively to quick-onset changes than to slow-onset ones. Yet those slowly developing changes can and often do as much and many times more damage over the long term than the former. Importantly, however, the creeping evolution of such hazards into disaster states is often preventable, since there is time to act as the consequences of CEPs manifest and become identifiable when monitored effectively. Glantz (1994a, 1994b) refers to “creeping environmental changes,” “creeping environmental problems,” and “creeping environmental phenomena” (CEPs). CEPs as small, incremental but cumulative changes to environmental conditions which, over time, amount to create major problems, are often seen as a crisis (or disaster) only once an undefined threshold has unwittingly been crossed (see also Glantz 1999).

10. Drought follows the plow (DFP)

As populations increase or shift for a variety of natural, demographic, socio-economic, or conflict reasons, people tend to move onto marginal land, as the best agricultural or pastureland in a given area is most likely occupied. The ‘margin’ typically refers to poor soil quality or low rainfall in an area. It can also refer to the more culturally motivated desire of settlers to pursue their old livelihoods in new locations where soil or rainfall conditions are marginal, especially in comparison to the location from which they migrated. As such, people on the margins tend to cope with lower yields, more crops failures, less vegetation on rangelands, etc. Nature is usually blamed but in this way people tend to put themselves, whether wittingly or not, into hydro-meteorological harm’s way.  In other words, “Nature pleads not-guilty” (Garcia, 1981)—and drought follows the plow.

11. Re-educate

Once is not enough. Approaches must be devised to continuously educate at-risk populations about hazards they are likely to face and about DRR practices that might help them prepare for and mitigate hazard impacts.

12. Resilient Adaptation

Borrowed from the field of social psychology, this concept represents a flexible decision-making approach to an uncertain future.  It can be applied to coping with climate-related changes to regional and local hazards as well as to the potential for disaster. This is NOT a simple merging of the two climate change concepts of ‘adaptation’ and ‘resilience’ but represents a flexible approach to societal and individual adjustments to the potential but still uncertain impacts of climate change. When monitoring adaptive practices, for example, the concept of resilient adaptation would become, by analogy, the traffic signal of adaptive responses to climate change impacts, alerting society to “slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop” (Trusse 2003). A cautious but necessary program to adjust to the changing climate is not just a social desire; it is a necessity. The truth is that climate characteristics are changing in ever more surprising ways with extremes resulting from the drivers of such changes likely to become more frequent, more intense and more spatially random in the near and distant future. It is very important, however, to keep in mind that societies are also changing. As Trusse wrote in her book on the importance of punctuation marks in language, “Every language expert … has accepted that it’s a mistake to attempt to ‘embalm the language’. Of course, it must change and adapt”. The same sentiment must be applied by analogy to societal attempts at adaptation (more correctly, adjustment) to an uncertain changing climate throughout the rest of the 21^st century.  Hence, there is a need for flexibility in adaptation to climate change and its impacts on variability and extremes. Pursuing the concept of Resilient Adaptation in response to the uncertainties to come in the years ahead certainly merit consideration by humanitarian and development assistance agencies.

13. Grain storage improvements

Considerable attention is focused on increasing agricultural production in developing areas. Increasingly marginal areas are increasingly being exploited for food production purposes, even though those areas are considered marginal for rainfed agricultural activities in the first place. Grains are being modified to provide higher yields and genetically modified industrial foods are on the increase. Satellites are monitoring grain production from space throughout the growing season to provide estimates of trade and humanitarian assistance needs, and so forth. Despite all of these techniques trying to increase agricultural outputs, it has widely been acknowledged that in various locations around the globe a significant portion of annual harvests are lost in storage to pests, mildew and rodents. By simple logic, a focus on improving storage facilities in rural areas of developing regions would immediately and greatly improve food availability in the household as well as in the marketplace.

14. Climate Change Risk Disclosure (CCRD)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA presently has a voluntary program calling on corporations to be transparent about their CO₂ emissions. Conceivably, at some time in the not-too-distant future, the SEC will begin to mandate that corporations account for their greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide) for the purpose of providing potential investors environmental ratings for publically traded companies according to their “risk to climate change” factor. That risk is presently defined narrowly in terms of carbon emissions, and risks would include the carbon accounting for the operations of the company as well as for its individually produced products. It would also include the risks of foreseeable climate change-related impacts of the various assets of the company. In its broadest definition, CCRD would require even greater accountability, taking into account other relevant factors that might put a corporation at-risk to changes in high-impact climate, water or weather impacts, whether climate change-related or not.  For example, while Toyota, a car manufacturer headquartered in Japan, was not directly affected by the 2011 flooding, some of its production plants in Thailand were adversely affected Yang, J. (2011).

A CCRD would provide both a qualitative as well as a quantitative way of identifying and explicit stating first- and second order risks a society might face from hydro-meteorological hazards. Thus, a CCRD would potentially be of value to communities and governments because it provides a useful way for individuals and communities to identify risks in urban and rural settings as well as for early warning of potential hazards and disasters. It would be useful for DRR as well as for CCA.

15. CCR(+B)D development

This is nearly the same as CCRD except that it includes a search for the potential benefits of a changing climate that might be taken into account and made explicit. For longer-term strategic development purposes a systematic assessment of climate change risks AND BENEFITS disclosed to donors, their partners and their funding recipients might enhance the sustainability of humanitarian and development responses.

16. Late Warning Systems

This idea of a late warning system separate from an early warning system is based on observations as well as the belief that most people do not respond to early warnings but only respond as the seriousness of subsequent warnings increase. A need exists for considering late warning systems because those who wait to be sure that they must respond to an impending, forecasted disaster usually require different information, perhaps in different formats, than information that is typically provided by a succession of early warnings.

In a recent UNISDR newsletter, there was yet another comment about the recipients of early warnings of hydro-meteorological hazards, in this instance drought:

“The 2010/2011 drought, which affected the Horn of Africa, was not unexpected. Indications of the drought conditions were received as early as September 2010. The question posed over and over again is: Why was there no early action following the early warning? There are many conflicting professional opinions circling around answering this question.” (May 2012 Issue, p.1; emphasis added).

Certain segments of any population will tend more towards being “risk takers”—or even “risk makers”—than other segments and delay taking action even when reliable information is in hand. Such individuals put off taking action on information about threats for many psychological, social, cultural, economic and political reasons, including because they tend not believe the information, because they hope that the threats will not play out or will not be as severe as predicted or because they have a false sense of security or personal capacity to cope with impending threats. EWSs are in general not designed to take into account such very human foibles that cause delayed responses to early warnings.

Time and time again, when those individuals charged with monitoring hazards and issuing warnings realize that people are not heeding early warnings, they tend to focus singularly on refining the existing warning system or message. They do so by various and typical means: making the messages clearer or shorter, delivering it through a range of media types and perhaps in different languages and dialects, giving even earlier warnings, etc. What is missing and needed in this is a more honest and pragmatic recognition of the fact that that segment of “risk takers” will not move so readily as would be expected by a reductionist, prototypical model of humans under hypothetical threat, even when a real threat becomes imminent. These people are not so eager to move or willing to deviate from their daily routines or leave their possessions behind.

In response to this social reality, with the pragmatic goal of reducing casualties that occur in a disaster event in mind, the concept of late warning systems (LWS) requires serious consideration.

The possibilities for an LWS may well be presaged in actions that have been taken many times in communities immediately before floods, bush and forest fires, or hurricanes sweep through. In such “eleventh hour” moments, police can often be seen going door to door to try to convince individuals who fall into that all-too-human “risk-taker” segment of the soon-to-be affected population to err on the side of caution and evacuate. But this is not the only way the concept of an LWS could be operationalized. In fact, successful LWSs would require a range of different ways to evoke desired responses from those who tend to linger in the face of foreseeable disaster. Like this, the differences between early warning systems and late warning systems merit exploration. In the end, the question that really needs to be asked is—what are the implications if late warnings turn out to be more effective than early warnings in more efficiently ushering people out of harm’s way?

17. Sunsetting DRR assistance programs

Sunsetting a program or project refers to bringing it to an end by ending future funding support after a certain date.  Doing so is not without adverse consequences, however. This concept encourages thinking that is concerned with the future but that is also keenly aware of the present in terms of disaster-related risk reduction programs. This is an important way of thinking especially given that budgets may foreseeably be flat-lined for at least the near- to mid-term, even as global requests for disaster assistance are expected to increase as global warming intensifies both hydro-meteorological extremes and uncertainties.

18. Reverse Triaging: Helping the bottom group first  

Triage was introduced by French doctors on the bloody fields of WWI when a shortage of medical supplies and personnel prompted leaders there to call for triaging, or dividing the battlefield wounded into three groups: those with wounds not considered life threatening, those with serious wounds but who had a good chance of surviving if quickly attended to by doctors or nurses, and those who had been gravely wounded and despite considerable medical attention would not be expected to survive.

For disaster-related emergency response, a reversal of this selective response should seriously be considered. What reverse triaging suggests is that the worst disaster-affected individuals and groups should be attended to first. Given the medical, operational and response technologies and techniques that have been developed (primarily still for military use) over the last few decades, this possibility is becoming more and more realistic. With such tools, emergency humanitarian planners will be increasing able to provide real hope to those poor and marginalized disaster victims whose lives would likely have simply been written off in the last century.

19. Hotspots and flashpoints (hotspots pyramid)

 “Hot spots” can be defined as relatively localized areas that are at an elevated risk to climate-, water- and weather-related environmental and societal changes. Such areas can be qualitatively or quantitatively determined.

For example, one of the truly global aspects of climate change is sea level rise. All island nations as well as low-lying coastal areas are at high risk to this aspect of climate change. The difference in comparison to other predicted changes like shifts in rainfall patterns or changes in seasonal characteristics is that sea level rise yields only losers. Few favorable options are available to individuals or governments, whether local or national, to adapt to this impact of climate change. In truth, only costly—economically, politically, socially and culturally—measure can be taken, such as general population retreat from low-lying coastal areas and re-enforcement of coastal barriers to attempt to restrain both the sea and its surges.

Another foreseeable change to expect in mid-latitude regions around the globe is the emergence of tropical vector-borne diseases. Mosquitoes, for example, do not respect political borders and can easily spread poleward from the equator into regions where the various parasites they carry had never before been present or had been previously eradicated. In this way, diseases that are now viewed as problems of the “tropics” or of developing countries will increasingly become problems for industrialized, developed countries as atmospheric temperatures continue steadily to rise.

A pyramid of changes in the environment—and especially in hazard-prone areas— highlights the need for and possibility of earlier intervention than may previously have been recognized. The following diagram represents an admittedly idealized continuum of change.

Description of the Hotspots Pyramid. Environmental changes brought about by human activities, particularly those associated with agriculture, can gradually lead to land transformation (e.g. from forest to various farming systems, from swamp to drained areas or from dry areas to irrigated rice production systems). Such changes are usually neutral and, to some extent, reversible. This means that, if the land is abandoned again, it will spontaneously revert to a system similar to the original natural system. At the next level (land transformation) the land (and related resources) is transformed by human activities for a purpose: for reasons of shelter, food, energy, safety, etc. Too much land transformation can lead to environmental changes that move progressively toward irreversible degradation of the environment. When severe transformation and extreme degradation continues (becoming areas of concern, AOCs), such change becomes increasingly visible to more than local people. If such creeping changes continue unabated, AOCs become “hotspots” that demand attention and intervention from political leaders. Flashpoints represent the level where future degradation becomes irreversible change, but resources can still be protected and restored, though only with the input of considerable human effort and financial resources. It represents the proverbial 11th hour or last chance to take action. Firepoint is the level of degradation from which there is no practical way to return to earlier conditions. Firepoint land is typically abandoned as unusable.

In such a scenario, if response is mobilized when an ‘Area of Concern’ has been recognized, which is the stage before the emergence of a disaster ‘hotspot’, then fewer resources will be needed in order to respond adequately to that situation than if the area of concern had not been addressed until it actually became a ‘hotspot’.

20. “The 3 ‘O’s”

The 3 ‘O’s” represent a way to measure response activities in a research or applications organization. The 3 ‘O’s” are Outreach, Outputs, and Outcomes that result from an activity. Outreach encompasses discussions, lectures, social networking, mentoring, training and educating, and the like, and it can be said that just about everyone in an organization engages in outreach, either in person or electronically. Outputs are activities or “things” that can be counted, such as the number of training workshops held, the number of papers published, the number and plans of action developed and modified or the number of people assisted. Organizations tend to like outputs because they can easily be counted and are often viewed as signs of the success of an activity. Outcomes are what are left in place once the “outsiders”—in this case, emergency responders or development workers—leave at the end of the response, recovery or reconstruction phase after a disaster.

Outcomes are the most desired of these three objectives, but they are also the most difficult to verify, especially in the short term. Many organizations tend to confuse outreach and outputs with outcomes. The problem is that organizations often favor short-term objectives over longer-term ones, and outcomes may not be visible in the short-term. The tendency for organizations is to focus on outputs (e.g., workshops, reports, conference papers presented, etc) as a measure of success because they are easier to quantify and are visible in the short term. But OUTPUTS are not OUTCOMES! Only patience and the passage of time can validate potentially positive outcomes of a pilot project or other development activity. The problem is that most government agencies or especially donors do not have or devote the time or the patience to wait for the real outcomes of an activity to emerge; instead, they tend to count the proverbial “beans” of outputs as an inappropriate surrogate to those hard-won successes.

21. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Bank

This idea for a DRR Bank was proposed by a Bangladeshi student named Raiyan who was a participant at the first International Graduate Conference on Climate Change and People, which was heldin Kathmandu, Nepal in November 2010.  It was specifically for advanced undergraduate and graduate students from Greater South Asia. As a grassroots bottom-up idea based on the concept of the Grameen Bank, it merits serious discussion.

22. Forecasting by Analogy (FBA) and the search for “lessons”

The concept of “forecasting by analogy” (FBA) comes from engineering. It has, however, long been adapted for use in climate, water and weather impacts studies based on the view that, unless societies change their behavior in response to a forecast of a hydro-meteorological or geo-hazard, they are likely to again suffer from similar or worse consequences than those that occurred during a previous hazard episode of the same type.  The reason is that—barring changes in behavior—the “business as usual” approach will likely prevail. Not only is it necessary, however, but it is imperative to “draw lessons” about what worked and didn’t work, what, that is, was learned, from previous societal experiences in order to better prepare for and cope with the impacts of future hydro-meteorological hazards, to generate forecasts about them, and to respond more efficiently to both those future forecasts and the subsequent events. In other words, looking back is as important as looking ahead. To do so requires a “hindcasting” exercise that examines societal reactions to a recent forecast as well as the real impacts that resulted from the hazard that was characterized by that forecast. As Glantz (1988:4) has written:

“Forecasting the future by analogy can be a fruitful approach to improve our understanding of how well society is prepared to cope with the presently unknown regional characteristics of a potential climate change some decades in the future. However, we must not expect analogues to tell us what that future will be…. Analogues can, however, help us to identify societal strengths and weaknesses in coping with extreme meteorological events so that we can reinforce the strengths and reduce the weaknesses.”

23. Mitigating the impacts of CCA (climate change adaptation) 

Adaptation is an on-going process, not just a one-time adjustment to an anticipated but still uncertain future. It is also an all-encompassing concept, which means that any discussion of adaptation must include an answer to the question, “adaptation to what?”. Adapting to a faltering economy, for example, may be successful, but doing so may prompt adverse conditions in other sectors of society. Likewise, those discussing adaptation should distinguish between adaptation actions that are focused on the short-, mid- and long-term. What might work in the short term may not be sustainable in the face of a changing climate, for instance; indeed, it may even exacerbate long-term climate changes. Similarly, adaptation for the long term may not receive interest or attention because it is focused on proposed or anticipated but uncertain impacts too far away from the present to merit concern.

Another consideration to take into account is that each adaptation activity will foreseeably generate its own set of downstream impacts. Therefore, whenever tactical or strategic adaptation activities are proposed in response to climate change, climate variability or hydro-meteorological extremes, cascading impacts (i.e., secondary, tertiary, etc.) must be identified and responses to them must be proposed and prepared as well.

24. Assigning a “Project Scribe”

Several approaches to seeking lessons can be identified in a DRR or CCA activity and can be applied to similar activities in the future. One problem with identifying lessons relates to how, when and where those lessons should be noted. Some have suggested that some significant lessons that have been learned while a project is still being carried out could be identified by convening a mid-course project workshop. Others suggest that such lessons could be identified only after the project has ended. Both of these approaches have merit, but both can also be legitimately critiqued. For example, the latter approach can (and often does) lead to situations in which people have some difficulty remembering all of the lessons that had been identified over the course of the project, especially if it was a multi-year project or if people involved in one phase have since moved on to other, unrelated projects. Another question asks, how far after a project ends should the search for lessons that have been learned be undertaken? The truth is that even the most vivid memories fade with time, even in the short term.

One suggestion to counter this persistent problem is to assign a scribe or record keeper who is tasked with regularly recording (i.e., daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) lessons that have been identified by project participants. Such lessons can be sought from individuals or during occasional group meetings, through observations or interviews or focus groups. Near the end of the project, the lessons identified can be reviewed as being useful or not, with the possibly useful ones being passed on to agencies and donors for their consideration in generating future projects.

25. “end-to-end-to-end” (E2E) forecast system

The model of an “end-to-end” (E2E) forecast system is prominent in hydro-meteorological communities. In it, a forecast of climate, water or weather conditions in the near term is generated and disseminated to prospective users in various socio-economic sectors, including bureaucrats in government ministries. The model is explicitly linear: a forecast is generated from very esoteric climatological and meteorological quantitative data and then passed down (note the metaphor, which assumes that those generators of such data are above) to users, who are then expected to take actions that is somehow guided by that forecast. The E2E model became well-established in the early 1990s when attempts were being made to emphasize the importance to societies of hydro-meteorological forecasts. What has not, however, been made explicit in the model, even today when better understanding has become available, is the value of the feedback “the users” can provide to corroborate or fine-tune the accuracy of the generated forecasts. This is especially true as the wide range of users who have often vastly different, though sometimes overlapping, needs from the forecasting community is increasing acknowledged as in no way resembling the homogenized “user” that was originally modeled as being the final end of that “end-to-end” linear reduction.

To be sure, much of the criticism coming from communities about forecasts and early warnings is that those possibly useful tools often do not meet the needs of the communities they are meant for. In this way, forecasters continue even now to provide information that the forecasts think the users want or need, which is a significant problem. Adding a third “end” to the “end-to-end” model unequivocally resolves this particular problem, with feedback from civil society being not only legitimized as possible but also increasingly expected by those responsible for hazard- and disaster-related forecasts and warnings to better their models. Doing so, notably, corresponds to the general turn of science over the last several decades from being “for the sake of science” to be being more pragmatically carried out “with people for the sake of the people.”

26. DRR RANN

In the mid-1970s, the US NSF developed a program called RANN, or Research Applied to National Needs. During its brief existence, it provided a focus of research attention and funding for the nation. Why it was ended is not clear; the notion of such a program focused on national needs is, however, a useful one for capacity building and for building the resilience of developing societies in the face of climate change. In a century of likely increases in greenhouse gas emissions, more hazards that generate more disasters are increasingly likely. In response, many humanitarian assistance agencies may become overwhelmed with requests for assistance, some significant portion of which will likely be left unmet. Because outsiders cannot truly know a region at risk to hydro-meteorological hazards—or especially the people who live there—each at-risk developing country—better, each region within each country—should develop a “Disaster Risk Reduction Research Applied to National Needs” (DRR RANN) Program to educate, train and prepare those who are foreseeably at risk of hydro-meteorological disasters—those whom we call “zero-order responders” (ZORs) and first responders—for the next nine (likely increasingly turbulent and uncertain) decades of the 21^st century.

27. “Ordinary knowledge” as a concept

Like everyone else in the world, policymakers are drawn from civil society and are likely to rely on their own ordinary knowledge. Similarly, agricultural researchers have a responsibility to listen to the public and its views as reliable input based on ordinary knowledge for decisions about food security. But scientists have a further responsibility—to make clear the results of their research, correct misinterpretations of environmental cues and foster proper use of scientific indicators in ways that reinforce or calibrate “ordinary” knowledge (Lindblom and Cohen 1979).

Regrettably, communication between scientists and the public has been inadequate for a very long time. As H.G. Wells (1904) wrote, “many of those scientific people understand the meaning of their own papers quite well. It is simply a defect of expression that raises the obstacle between us.” Today, given the relatively rapid changes underway in the climate system, ordinary knowledge will need to be supplemented by scientific knowledge in ways that laypeople understand if they are to adapt well to the changes that are coming—and that are already here. Fortunately, innovations like wireless communication technologies are constantly being developed and becoming economically feasible for large sections of society. These technologies must be more effectively exploited to enhance, for example, communications between climate scientists, policymakers and farmers/herders. Doing so will facilitate the development of a social discourse that surpasses the top-down strategies of the past in favor of more equitable possibilities for action and understanding that can emerge only when voices from all stakeholders are heard. Increased communications will also enable meaningful lateral interactions between, for instance, illiterate successful farmers and herders who through greater access to such communication possibilities are empowered to mentor and teach other illiterate farmers and herders who are for whatever reason less successful.

28. Working with a changing climate, not against it

The phrase “climate change” raises eyebrows and interest now as never before. The word “change” is responsible for this reaction. Most people, institutions and governments fear change that they do not control, a psychology which should be remembered in discussions about climate change.

In the mid twentieth century, Eric Hoffer, an American migratory worker and self-taught social philosopher, wrote a book entitled The Ordeal of Change in which he discussed how people fear even the smallest changes to their routines or ways of life (Hoffer 1963). He wrote about the fear he faced as a migrant worker in California during a period of severe, multi-year droughts in the United States. He had finished picking peas on one farm and was about to move to pick string beans on a different farm, but he was afraid that he would not be up to the task of picking string beans. In Hoffer’s own words “Even the change from peas to string beans had in it elements of fear.” Most people today might not see this shift in work as an insurmountable change, but it was to him. In this time of changing global climates, fear is mounting in civil society and among its representatives, fear of a new kind of unprecedented change that will have more serious implications for societies and their citizens than any one individual’s fears of change could have. How will members of society feel when their lives are forced to change, individually and collectively, because of a warming climate?

Change can take place in many ways: it can be abrupt and step-like, or it can be a long, drawn-out affair. Abrupt change can clearly lead to crisis for a society. Some scientific reports warn of abrupt climate changes occurring in relatively short time periods (on a scale of decades), if one or another tipping point in the global climate regime is reached. Unfortunately, scientists and decision makers do not have adequate local to national information that is reliable and detailed enough about the possible impacts of such changes in order to take immediate actions to minimize potential damage.

For slow-onset changes, on the other hand, different problems arise. First of all, they are preventable and reversible up to a specific level of degradation that can be month or years or even decades in the future. Second, that incremental changes could eventually lead to major environmental changes, if not full-blown crises that demand concentrated attention and require a large amount of funds to address, seems difficult for policymakers to accept. Third, and most importantly, governments do not have a good track record of dealing with creeping, incremental but cumulative changes in the environment, at least not until those changes have reached costly stages of environmental crisis. Rates of change in greenhouse gas emissions, in local temperature and precipitation, in ecosystem functioning, and in demographics are extremely important to monitor in order to identify impacts and response strategies to such changes in a timely way.

The point is that climate-related change will not directly affect all people in a given region or country at the same time or in the same way. In the near future, policymakers will have to convey this idea to local people and their leaders, but first researchers from various fields will have to determine effective ways to convey this understanding to policy.

29. “Partnership in vs. Ownership of (projects that seek to bridge DRR and CCA)”

Partnership in and ownership of projects that seek to bridge DRR and CCA do not necessarily lead to similar results, yet definitions of these concepts tend to be quite similar, as noted in a quick survey of sources. This suggests that the term “partnership” is actually not being used in accordance with its definition. In standard usage, the concept of partnership denotes “a cooperative relationship between people or groups who agree to share responsibility for achieving some specific goal.” Different arrangements can be agreed to in forming a partnership, and some partnerships are more equitable than others. Partners, that is, are not necessarily equal. Having more power, influence, or money, for example, one partner can dominate the other. In such a case, the subordinated partner in many ways must follow the wishes of the dominant partner.

Definitions of ownership tend to be brief and to the point: “The act, state, or right of possessing something (e.g., the ownership of land)”

own·er·ship [oh-ner-ship]

1. the state or fact of being an owner.

2. legal right of possession; proprietorship.

In a book about foreign assistance entitled The Samaritan’s Dilemma, ownership is defined in the following way:

“Ownership of an asset refers to participation in the provision, production, consumption, and decision making related to its continued use. In the field, these attributes are often dispersed among the donor, the consultant, and the formal owner or recipient. The actual beneficiaries, who have an enormous stake in the outcome of the project, however, are often excluded from the prerogatives and privileges of ownership. Poorly defined and improperly vested ownership can hamper success and sustainability of an aid project” (171).

Elsewhere in the book, the authors identify four dimensions of ownership:

“1) Enunciating demand (for the project)

2) Making a tangible contribution

3) Obtaining benefits

4) Sharing responsibility for long-term continuation or non-continuation of a project “(p. 16).

The point is that having ownership of an activity is different than being partner in an activity. The difference relates to possession and responsibility. Once a partnership in a specific activity ends, neither party is obligated to continue to work with the other party on that activity. In this case, we are talking about projects or programs related to disaster risk reduction (DRR) and/or climate change adaptation (CCA). Related to this is that the goal of the partnership may itself be time constrained (2 or 3 years is common), which means that whether the objective has been reached to the satisfaction of the partners or not, the project ends. A partnership can be time limited without any commitment to continuance by either partner.

The problem with partnerships is that it does not require a strong commitment, which means that once a project comes to an end motivation to continue pursuing its goals, especially if doing so would require a partner to use its own funds, might be limited. This might be so even if other partners (and funders) had expectations that the pilot project would continue even after funding ended. Another problem is that donors sometimes come to realize that there is a lack of commitment on the part of a partner, even though the donor might be very committed to the activity’s goals (DRR, CCA and both). At the end of the project, the donor might then choose to “re-partner,” that is, to seek a new partner.

The objectives of ownership differ from those of partnership because taking ownership to address a longer-term issue requires a commitment to the project that does not hold for mere partnerships. Ownership suggests that each actor must be committed to use its own resources to continue the activity until it succeeds. It means that the recipient of the donor’s funding really did place a high priority on the activity as being of benefit to the stakeholders affected by it.

30. Climate Proofing

The idea of “climate proofing” appears every now and then in the climate change literature. It is a nice, feel-good concept that proposes that science and engineering can devise ways to protect societies from the vagaries of the climate system. It is a nice goal, but is also really a stretch, a goal known to be difficult to reach but usually considered worth the effort and risk of not attaining it. While specialists use the phrase, knowing its limitations, civil society may not recognize those limitations and think that such proofing would by 100 % effective, like a raincoat that is 100% waterproof. No one goes to a store to buy a raincoat and asks an attendant if they have a raincoat that is 70% waterproof! The use of the phrase “climate proofing” is misleading to the public, providing a false sense of security to those who take the expression literally.

It is difficult to envision that society could be completely protected from climate variability, change and extremes.

Over the years, various governments have proposed programs and technologies designed to weatherproof, or climate-proof, their countries or the vulnerable regions within them. The objectives of such programs can be interpreted in either of two ways (Glantz 2006): (1) To insulate human activities from the influence of climate and weather conditions, most likely extremes of precipitation (rain or snow) and temperature. (2) To reduce the exposure of weather- and climate-sensitive activities to climate-related hazards. Objective (1) is quite idealistic and can be misleading to the public because such a goal is all but unattainable. To date, no society has been able to fully insulate its people and activities from climate- and weather-related anomalies. Yet a phrase such as “climate proofing” suggests that there are programs in place that can now, and if not now in the near future, achieve such an objective. Objective (2) is much more realistic, in that it suggests that climate-proofing is a process and not just an end state and that, while the objective may be unattainable, effective operational steps towards achieving an increasingly protected society is attainable. This objective is most likely the one that governments have in mind when they propose such “proofing” activities either for society as a whole, for specific climate-sensitive social and economic sectors, or for known vulnerable regions. Both objectives are designed to minimize, if not eliminate, the chance of surprises and to mitigate, if not prevent, the unwanted consequences of anomalous weather or climate. For example, the history of successful agriculture in the Canadian Prairie Provinces has been punctuated by drought episodes. The Prairie Provinces suffered as much as the U.S. Midwest during the Dust Bowl days in the 1930s (but of course they receive no attention in U.S. history books). In the 1970s, following the recurrence of severe drought in the Prairies, the government launched a program to “drought-proof” the prairies. Drought-proofing measures included changes in land-use practices such as leaving stubble and crop residue in the ground after harvest. This was done to retain snow and to protect the topsoil from being eroded by winds. Expectations for successfully drought-proofing this region, however, were soon undermined by nature, as droughts and crop losses continued to reappear in the region. Today, Canadians in the region are more specific in their activities by, for example, calling for specific drought-proofing actions to protect farm water supplies. Despite the confusion that surrounds the concept of drought-proofing, it is still being proposed by U.N. agencies as well as by various national governments. Two recent examples come to mind, Australia and India. During the 2002 drought in New South Wales, the government pursued a drought-proofing strategy, calling on farmers to review the way that they manage their land and water resources for drought. Drought-proofing in this situation meant mitigating the potentially adverse impacts of very dry conditions by devising ways to keep moisture in the soil by resorting to no-till practices and by upgrading irrigation facilities (see, for example, www.abc.net.au/nws/stories/s604472.htm). The U.N. development program has partnered with Britain, Australia, and development agencies in creating drought-proofing activities in India on an experimental basis (e.g., Orissa and Rajastan). The plan of these activities is to encourage the use of technologies for the purpose of rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharging in order to make water supplies in rural areas more reliable and available than they are at present, especially when there are conditions of meteorological drought (www.undp.org.in/news/press/press207.htm). But not everyone has bought into the notion of climate-proofing. For example, Indian policy analyst Devinder Sharma has argued that drought proofing measures should not be imported from other countries but should be home-grown). In September 2002 he suggested the following: “It comes as a rude shock. The American agriculture that we studied in the universities and appreciated has crumbled with one year of severe drought. It is well known that Indian agriculture falters because of its complete dependence on monsoons. But with the kind of industrialization that took place in the United States, and with the amount of investments made, we were told that US agriculture is not dependent upon rains. Now, though, the drought-proofing that we heard so much about appears to be a big farce.” <www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/uslessons.htm> While labeling a program as climate-proofing or weatherproofing represents the hopes of the climate and weather forecast communities, it is a poor way to capture the attention of the public. First of all, the notion can be interpreted to mean that such a goal is attainable, especially with the availability of new forecasting tools and techniques and improved understandings of the workings of the climate system. Second, it raises false hopes that are only to be dashed by the next surprising climate or weather anomaly. Perhaps a better way to introduce the concept of “proofing” is to talk about it in terms of working “towards climate proofing.” This presents the idea of proofing as a goal towards which to strive, without an assurance that it can eventually be reached but that progress towards the goal can be made.

31. Risk taking, risk aversion … and risk making

Risk taking and risk aversion are prominent concepts in finance and psychology. “Risk-taking refers to the tendency to engage in behaviors that have the potential to be harmful or dangerous but that provide the opportunity for some kind of outcome that can be perceived as positive. <http://ptsd.about.com/od/glossary/g/risktaking.htm>

Note that although the second part of the definition may be valid for gambling, for example, it is not an effective option when it comes to deciding whether or when to respond to an early warning about an impending hydro-meteorological hazard or disaster.

Risk aversion is defined as “a manifestation of people’s general preference for certainty over uncertainty, and for minimizing the magnitude of the worst possible outcomes to which they are exposed.” <financecareers.about.com/od/rz/g/Risk_Aversion.htm> Another term for this tendency is “risk avoidance.” This concept directly relates to the effective response to hydro-meteorological early warnings about a hazard or a possible disaster.

The ways that people deal with risk can fall into yet another category, however, that of “risk making.” Risk making refers to situations wherein decisions that are made by group A have potentially adverse consequences for group B but not for group A. Risk makers bring ideas, projects and programs to benefit other regions, if all goes well. But if such a project ends up having adverse consequences, such as when people re-settled in an area of high risk are exposed to a deadly and destructive flooding event, the planners merely go back to the proverbial (sustainable development) drawing board, while those who were adversely affected are forced to live with the negative impacts of the risk makers’ failed project.

Humanitarian and emergency assistance planners must be sure to consider with every project that they avoid becoming risk makers for the communities they seek to help. Risk-making decisions relate to situations in which decision makers mean to help people and communities through humanitarian aid and development, but their activities actually create new and different risks. This is similar to the notion of “mitigating the impacts of adaptation to climate change,” which illustrates the reality that adaptation measures in response to climate change will have their own ripple effects on society, some positive and some negative.

32. The notion of “hesitancy,” from epidemiological studies, may help to isolate the wide range of disparate reasons that hydromet forecasts are not used by all in a community faced by a common climate, water or weather hazard. Even with what might be considered as a perfect forecast, not all groups in a society might trust it. Why?

32 (+5) Concepts Reference List (as of 5-20-2013_lw)

Al-Mansur, R., 2010.  International Graduate Conference on Climate Change and People.  Kathmandu, Nepal, November.

García, R.V., 1981, J. Smagorinsky, and Michael Ellman. Nature Pleads Not Guilty. Oxford: Pergamon.

Gibson, C.C., K. Andersson, E. Ostrom, S. Shivakumar, 2009.  The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid.  Oxford UP.

Gifis, S.H., 1991.  Law Dictionary. New York: Barron’s.

Glantz, M.H., Cullen, H. 2003. Zimbabwe’s Food Crisis.  Environment, 45, 1, 9-11.

Glantz, M.H., I. Kelman, 2013.  In Ashbundu, S. and Z. Zommers, 2013.  “Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change.”  Springer publication.

Glantz, M.H., 1994.  Drought Follows the Plow: Cultivating Marginal Areas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Glantz, M.H. 1994b.  Creeping Environment Problems and Societal Responses to Them.  Proceedings of Workshop held 7-9 February 1994 in Boulder, Colorado.  Boulder, CO: National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Glantz, M.H., 1999.  Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Glantz, M.H. 1988. Societal Responses to Regional Climate Change. p. 4.

Glantz, M.H. 2006.  Weather- and Climate-Proofing: dreaming the impossible dream.  Fragilecologies.com.

Hoffer, E., 2006.  The Ordeal of Change. Titusville, NJ: Hopewell Publications. 

Holloway, Ailsa. 2000. Drought emergency, Yes; drought disaster, no: Southern Africa 1991-93. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 14(1): 254-76.

Howard-Hassmann, R.E., 2010.  Can Globalization Promote Human Rights? University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP.

Lindblom, C.E., and D.K. Cohen, 1979.  Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving. New Haven: Yale UP.

Simon, H.A., 1956.  “Rational choice and the structure of the environment.”  Psychological Review, Vol. 63 No. 2, 129-138. 

Truss, L., 2003.  Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. London: Profile.

UNISDR Newsletter, 2012.  Evidence.  Issue 08, May 2012, p. 1.

Yang, J., 2011.  “Worst Thai Floods in 50 years hits Apple, Toyota Supply Chain.”

Wells, H.G., 1904.  The Country of the Blind.  The Strand Magazine.

Websites

www.abc.net.au/nws/stories/s604472.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

http://financecareers.about.com/od/rz/g/Risk_Aversion.htm

www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/uslessons.htm

http://ptsd.about.com/od/glossary/g/risktaking.htm

www.thefreedictionary.com

www.undp.org.in/news/press/press207.html

www.urgentevoke.com