GCRF Resilience to Coupled Human-Natural Multi-hazards Network

The Network will focus on the need and ability to evaluate and increase the resilience to natural-human hazards of increasingly vulnerable populations in the hyper-expanding margins of cities, specifically in Vietnam and more generally in SE Asia.

The focus is aimed at the GCRF challenge "resilience to environmental shocks and change", and directly supports key SDG targets within SDG 11 (Sustainable Communities and Cities) and the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The Network will tackle specific targets 11.5 and 11.B, which respectively address the need to significantly reduce the loss of lives and livelihoods caused by disasters while protecting vulnerable populations, and substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and to develop and implement holistic disaster risk management at all levels. Similar challenges arise in SDG 13.1 (climate change and its impacts).

The environment within which coupled natural-human hazards occur and the people and institutions that are impacted by hazardous events comprise a complex physical and social system characterized by interactions across a range of time and spatial scales. Understanding how to increase the system resilience to adverse events means bringing all vested groups to the same table at the same time. This strategy allows Network members to both inform be informed about each other's perspectives, methodologies, and language, to understand and reveal assumptions and to generate a common articulation of a resilience plan or framework.

We will do this by developing a Network constituency that includes: researchers, decision and policy makers, managers (land-use, disaster, etc.), planners (city, rural, etc.), community leaders (particularly minority and historically under-represented communities), developers (private sector), investment banks, re/insurance, small and medium business enterprises (SMEs), and DRR specialists. And within "researchers", we include the fields of complex systems, environmental historical analysis, cultural policy, socio-economic processes, behavioural sciences, psycho-visual arts, ecosystem services, environmental physical science, etc. This marriage of disciplines allows us to cross cultural contexts in both the vulnerable population and in the institutions that have responsibility for the management of natural hazards and - significantly - institutions responsible for ostensibly non-hazard issues (e.g. energy, industrial development, etc.). The long time-scales to be examined combined with the broad range of stakeholders will enable us to examine the role of culture and policy and trade-offs evident in the need for economic development.

The Network will add value to existing knowledge largely through the integration of researchers and stakeholders and through the atypically broad church of research disciplines to be engaged, which we demonstrate in the initial and committed membership.

We will deliver our objectives through three workshops (and related activities). The first will provide a forensic examination of selected disasters that will serve as the context of the second critical workshop that allows Network members to effectively teach other members about their perspectives, methodologies, language and assumptions. A third workshop will present a synthesis (a road-map that articulates a common resilience approach or plan) to high-level decision makers from relevant cities in SE Asia.

This proposal intends to deliver impact from the outset, principally by bringing decision-makers and disaster managers to the same table as a broad church of science and non-science researchers. The host institution (Vietnam Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources, VIGMR) is home to the Center for Geohazards Research and is under contract with the Hanoi Peoples Committee (a high-level governance organisation in Hanoi) to mitigate and minimize risks that could become catastrophic for Hanoi. The Co-Director's institution (British Geological Survey) is working closely with various SE Asia countries (and other countries in the global south) on hazard-related issues, in each case closely allied with government research departments, In addition, initial and committed members of the proposed Network come from both academia and government stakeholder communities, and results therefore will have a short pipeline to decision-makers. We intend to engage Network members from similar groups in related SE Asian (mega)cities.

Impact will be generated continuously through the Network activities, which are primarily three coupled workshops, starting with a forensic examination of selected disasters (and examined under relatively long, decadal and longer) time-scales, this to develop the role of culture and policy in the impact of hazard events. That workshop will inform the core activity, which is a novel "teach each other" workshop, provided BY and FOR the broad range of Network members. This strategy allows Network members to both inform be informed about each other's perspectives, methodologies, and language, to understand and reveal assumptions and to generate a common articulation of a resilience plan or framework. A final synthesis workshop will present a co-designed road-map to high-level decision-makers and disaster managers from relevant SE Asian cities.