Available online at www.sciencedirect.
com
Integrating disaster risk reduction towards sustainable
development
Gordon A McBean
Our planet is under stress from the impacts of hazards, like
earthquakes, floods and storms. These have major impacts on
vulnerable, generally less-developed societies and make
achieving sustainable development exceedingly difficult. A
relatively new international research program, Integrated
Research on Disaster Risk is now underway towards meeting
its legacy of an enhanced capacity around the world to address
hazards and make informed decisions on actions to reduce
their impacts leading to societies shifting their focus from
response-recovery towards prevention-mitigation, building
resilience and reducing risks, learning from experience and
avoiding past mistakes.
Address
Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario, London,
ON, N6A 5C2, Canada
Corresponding author: McBean, Gordon A (gmcbean@uwo.ca)
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2012, 4:122127
This review comes from the Open issue
Edited by Rik Leemans
Received 5 August 2011; Accepted 6 January 2012
Available online 30th January 2012
1877-3435/$ see front matter
# 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
DOI 10.1016/j.cosust.2012.01.002
Introduction
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake released its
horrific forces and triggered a massive 23.5 m high tsu-
nami that swamping coastal dikes and cities and propa-
gated across the Pacific [1]. The direct impacts of these
coupled forces on Japanese people and their infrastruc-
ture were immense and will be long lasting. The impacts
of this complex event are still being fully assessed but
initial numbers are about 28,000 deaths and US$ 210
billion in economic affects which is about 5% of Japans
annual GDP [2].
In 2010, the Haitian earthquake of lesser magnitude
caused over 220 000 fatalities with about 40% of Haitians
being affected [3]. For an already impoverished society,
the earthquake was especially destructive with the costs
of US$ 8.0 billion, surpassing the countrys GDP. In the
summer of the same year, extreme temperatures in Rus-
sia, coupled with floods and wildfires, led to a total of
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2012, 4:122127
55 800 deaths. Floods in Pakistan contributed more than
2000 deaths and economic costs about 6% of GDP.
Planet Earth is under stress and the impacts of natural
hazards are a major part of that stress. This was the theme
of the 1993 book of Burton et al. [4], entitled The
Environment as Hazard. The environment is required
for human life but it also can take away lives. There are
challenges in development of the integrated, comprehen-
sive strategies and actions to reduce the risks with special
consideration of climate change and development
[5,6,7,8,9].
Sustainable development, disaster risk
reduction and the international agenda
Although almost all countries have been impacted by
disasters [10], the average number of deaths per disaster
is 23 in highly developed countries and number increases
dramatically to over 1000 deaths per disaster in less
developed countries [11]. While the absolute dollar costs
of disasters in highly-developed countries are large, the
damage as a percentage of GDP is much larger in devel-
oping countries [12]. Sustainable development needs to
include decisions where to invest or not and how to alter
societies exposure to the risk and occurrence of natural
hazards [13,14]. The sense of future generations means
seeing the future which will be a complex forward looking
approach [15,16,17]. Thus, integrated, multi-disciplin-
ary, science-based predictions of the future are essential.
In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development
[18] report drew connections between international de-
velopment and natural hazards: An integrated, multi-
hazard, inclusive approach to address vulnerability, risk assess-
ment and disaster management, including prevention, mitiga-
tion, preparedness, response and recovery, is an essential element
of a safer world in the twenty-first century [18]. The United
Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
(ISDR) [19] convened the 2005 World Conference on
Disaster Reduction which led to the Hyogo Framework
for Action (HFA) [20] which noted that Disasters have a
tremendous detrimental impact on efforts at all levels to era-
dicate global poverty; the impact of disasters remains a signifi-
cant challenge to sustainable development and stressed the
intrinsic relationship between disaster reduction, sustainable
development and poverty eradication. The linkages between
disaster management and risk reduction with sustainable
development were again stressed. The HFA identified
priorities which lay the basis for societal actions but there
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 Integrating disaster risk reduction towards sustainable development McBean 123
is a need for an integrated scientific basis upon which to
build the responses.
Integrated Research on Disaster Risk
Program
In early 2005, the International Council for Science
(ICSU) [21] created a Scoping Group and later that year
an ICSU Planning Group on Natural and Human-induced
Environmental Hazards and Disasters. The Planning
Groups assessment was that despite all the existing or
already planned activities on natural hazards, an integrated
research program on disaster risk reduction, sustained for a
decade or more and integrated across the hazards, disciplines
and geographical regions, is an imperative. The value-added
nature of such a program would rest with the close coupling of
the natural, socio-economic, health and engineering sciences.
[22,23]. In 2008, the International Council for Science,
together with the International Social Sciences Council
[24] and the United Nations International Strategy of
Disaster Reduction [19] created the new Integrated
Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Program: Addressing
the challenge of natural and human-induced environmen-
tal hazards [25,26].
The IRDR will focus on all hazards (geophysical, oceano-
graphic and hydro-meteorological events). The effects of
human activities on creating or enhancing hazards are
included. Technical disasters would only be considered
where instances were triggered by natural events (such as
the recent Japanese earthquake).
The IRDR is to take an international, multidisciplinary
(natural, health, engineering and social sciences, in-
cluding socio-economic analysis) approach and its objec-
tives are shown in Table 1.
Note that in Objective 1, the issues of hazards, vulner-
ability and risk are cross linked. The forecasts of the
hazards are the focus of, for example, the World Climate
Table 1
Objectives of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR)
Program.
1. Characterization of hazards, vulnerability and risk
1.1 Identifying hazards and vulnerabilities leading to risks
1.2 Forecasting hazards and assessing risks
1.3 Dynamic modeling of risk
2. Effective decision making in complex and changing risk contexts
2.1. Identifying relevant decision-making systems and their
interactions
2.2 Understanding decision making in the context of environmental
hazards
2.3 Improving the quality of decision-making practice
3. Reducing risk and curbing losses through knowledge-based
actions
3.1 Vulnerability assessments
3.2 Effective approaches to risk reduction
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Research Program [27] for climate extremes while the
IRDR will bring the focus to the dynamic modeling of
risk, including the hazards but also the exposure and
societal vulnerability, including issues of poverty and
disease. The sense of sustainable development, ability
of future generations to meet their own needs must include the
dynamic modeling of risk: how do the choices made now
affect the risks of future generations and their ability, or
even possibility, of meeting their own needs.
The societal issues of these individual and collective
choices and how decisions are made are the focus of
the second objective. How are these decisions made
and how can that process be influenced in ways that
address more of the future than responding to the past
or just today [28,29,30]. The 2011 Global Assessment
Report on Disaster Risk Reduction [18] noted that
Weather-related mortality risk remains highly concentrated
in countries with low GDP and weak governance. Govern-
ments must address complex issues and the challenge for
IRDR is to contribute towards more effective decision
making processes.
The aim of the third IRDR Objective is to connect
research with reality; how can the lessons identified
through the research studies actually provide the basis
for disaster risk reduction in the real world.
The IRDR International Program Office has been estab-
lished at the Center for Earth Observation and Digital
Earth [31] of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing,
with the strong support of the Chinese Academy of
Science and Technology.
Enhancing capacity
Recognizing the importance of building capacity across
the globe to address these issues [32] and consistent with
the IRDR approach of building partnerships with existing
appropriate programs, rather than going independently
(Figure 1), an agreement has been reached with the
Global Change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Train-
ing (START) [33] to be the IRDR partner for capacity
enhancement. START, which has focused on global
environmental change science and building regional
research networks, has expanded its mandate into full
consideration of environmental and related stresses in-
cluding hazards and disasters.
Building research partnerships
When the Science Committee for IRDR Program was
established, it recognized that there already existed a
number of important programs designed to undertake
research on particular aspects of natural hazards, or on the
management and mitigation of disasters. These programs
were approached with the intent of working with, com-
plementing and building on these programs. In some
cases, active partners are being developed. Partnerships
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2012, 4:122127
124 Open issue
Figure 1
WMO- World Weather
Research Program
Storms, floods
IUGG
ENHANS
CODATA
ICSU Regional
Programs
ICoE
National
Projects
A schematic of the structure of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Program showing its partners (around the top and sides) and its projects and
activities (below).
with the ICSU Regional Offices for Asia and the Pacific,
Africa and Latin America [34] were also established.
Further, within the ICSU family, partnerships have been
made with the International Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics (IUGG) [35] to co-sponsor the Extreme
Natural Hazards and Societal Implications (EHANS)
project. Since data and information are crucial to the
IRDR, a partnership agreement with the ICSU Commit-
tee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) [36]
enables the effective exchange of information on projects
on data and information.
The Earth System Science Partnership of the World
Climate Research Program (WCRP) [27], the Inter-
national Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) [37]
and the International Human Dimensions Program
(IHDP) [38] was established for the integrated study of
the Earth System, the ways that it is changing, and the
implications for global and regional sustainability.
Although all the synergies and potential partnerships
are yet to be established, the IRDR has now agreements
with the: Climate Extremes project of the WCRP; Land
Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) [39] of
IGBP and IHDP; and Integrated Risk Governance (IRG)
of IHDP.
Since weather-related events are major contributors to
disastrous events, an agreement has been reached in
general with the World Meteorological Organizations
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2012, 4:122127
Socio- ICSU-WMO-
Economic IOC/UNESCO - World
Research Climate Research Program
Activities Climate extremes
START - Capacity
IRDR Building Partners
Integrated Risk Governance
Land-Ocean Interactions in
Coastal Zone
FORIN
RIA
Disaster Assessment
Disaster Loss Data
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
World Weather Research Program [40] and specifically
their Socio-Economic Research Activities.
Disaster loss data information
There are several centers in the world that compile
analyses and publish information on disaster losses and
their published numbers do not always agree [41]. When
human, monetary, or environmental losses occur as a result
of a disaster, extensive loss data are collected and stored,
but the thoroughness and accuracy of the data varies from
country to country and even among local entities. This
results in gaps, inconsistent overlaps, and biases that ulti-
mately affect the quality of research conducted and policies
made based on the data. The Data Working Group [42] has
identified needs for: education of users regarding data
biases and issues of social loss data; definition of a loss
and creation of a methodology for assessing it; comparable
and accessible human disaster loss data to support research
and policy; and increased downscaling of loss data to sub-
national geographies for policy makers.
Forensic investigations of disasters
A new set of international disaster case studies under the
title Forensic Investigations of Disasters or FORIN
[43,44] is now underway. The goal behind the case
studies is to probe more deeply into the complex and
underlying causes of growing disaster losses than previous
research has. This long-term effort requires new institu-
tional arrangements and broader interdisciplinary teams.
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 Integrating disaster risk reduction towards sustainable development McBean 125
The purpose of the FORINs is to probe further into
complex and underlying causes of growing disaster loss
and identify the fundamental cause of disasters. It is
important to trace out and assign causal explanation of
losses and to examine the intervening conditions that
increased or reduce losses. This is being done through a
series of case studies using a common template and
methodology.
Risk interpretation and action
The focus of the Risk Interpretation and Action project
[45] is on the question of how people both decision-
makers and ordinary citizens make decisions, individu-
ally and collectively, in the face of risk. There are a
number of unanswered questions that involve diverse
fields, including:
 How can risk reduction policies and practices be
generalized across hazards or to combinations of
hazards, as well as across cultures?
 How much emphasis should be placed on risk
forecasting versus communication?
 Why and when do local citizens evaluations of risks
diverge from scientific forecasts?
 How do peoples decisions, perhaps due to social norms
and perceived or actual constraints on their freedom of
choice, diverge from their evaluations of such risks?
 Within policy and planning, what priority is given to
protection and restoration of existing infrastructure,
rather than redesign for greater resilience or preven-
tion?
Assessment of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk
(AIRDR)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) has completed a Special Report on Managing
the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance
Climate Change Adaptation which was presented to
governments in November 2011 [46]. It is proposed that
the Assessment of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk
(AIRDR) [47] undertake the first systematic and critical
global assessment of research on all disaster risks, in-
cluding those not connected to climate change. The goals
of AIRDR are to provide a baseline of the current state of
the science in integrated research on disaster risk to
measure effectiveness of multiple program, use it to
identify and support longer-term science agenda for
the research community and funding entities, and to
provide scientific evidentiary basis in support of policy
and practice.
Building international centers
The IRDR Scientific Committee decided to set up a
limited number of International Centers of Excellence
(ICoE) to provide regional foci for the IRDR and help
attain the programs overall objectives. Each ICoE
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research program will embody an integrated approach to
disaster risk reduction that is initiated from, and centered
on, a selected scientific perspective. ICSU on behalf of the
co-sponsors of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk
Program and Academy of Sciences located in Taipei [48]
have established a Center to serve as an international
platform for conducting disaster risk reduction research, using
an integrated multi-disciplinary approach from the perspective of
both of the natural and social sciences. An International
Advisory Board has been established to provide advice
and oversight and report to the IRDR Science Committee.
Other such centers will be established.
Building on national projects
The IRDR is encouraging the creation of National and
Regional Committees to support and supplement IRDRs
research initiatives, and help to establish or further
develop crucial links between national disaster risk
reduction programs and activities within an international
framework. Several have now been formed.
An example is the Canadian-funded Coastal Cities at Risk
(CCaR): Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Cli-
mate Change in Coastal Megacities, a 5-year multi-dis-
ciplinary project focusing on the large cities in the coastal
zone and river deltas (Vancouver, Bangkok, Manila and
Lagos). The overall objective of the Coastal Cities at Risk
(CCaR) Program is to develop the knowledge base and
enhance the capacity of mega-cities to successfully adapt
to and when necessary cope with risks posed by the
effects of climate change, including sea level rise, in
the context of urban growth and development
[49,50,51,52].
Conclusions
The Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Program has
been established with cross-cutting multi-disciplinary
objectives. Its initial projects are now underway. The
IRDR legacy will be an enhanced capacity around the
world to address hazards and make informed decisions on
actions to reduce their impacts. It will work towards
having societies shift their focus from response-recovery
towards prevention-mitigation while building resilience
and reducing risks. It is important that societies learn from
experience and avoid past mistakes and IRDR can play a
role in this shift.
The IRDR is a scientific research program. To fully
address the issues of disaster risk reduction across the
globe will necessitate confronting other problems within
societies. These include some of the root causes of social
vulnerability, such as corruption [53].
There are challenges in bringing together the leading
scientific experts from around the world and across
the disciplines. The first IRDR Scientific Conference
(Beijing, 2011) [54] was a very promising start. The
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2012, 4:122127
126 Open issue
International Council for Science (ICSU) and the Inter-
national Social Science Council (ISSC), with the Bel-
mont Forum, a high-level group of major funders of
global environmental change research, UNEP, UNU
and UNESCO, and with WMO as observer, are jointly
establishing a new 10-year initiative: Future Earth
Research for Global Sustainability [55]. The Program
aims to deliver knowledge to enable societies to meet
their sustainable development goals in the coming
decades. The IRDR will be coordinated fully with this
initiative.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the valuable discussions and inputs from all
members of the Scoping, Planning and Science Committees and the IRDR
International Program Office. The support of the IRDR co-sponsors, ICSU,
ISSC and UN ISDR, is acknowledged for providing the support to make
this program a reality.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest published within the period of review have
been highlighted as:
 of special interest
 of outstanding interest
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 Challenge: Recommendations and Quality Criteria for Linking
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 Integrating disaster risk reduction towards sustainable development McBean 127
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