Understanding and Managing Risk Associated with Natural Hazards: A Comprehensive Scientific Approach for Latin America and the Caribbean
The focus of the research should be the social and human dimension of ecosystem services and the conservation of biodiversity, as well as the process of climate change adaptation and mitigation. The trend of the rising number of disasters over the last five decades is likely to continue under future climate change scenarios. The science plan conceptualizes disasters as social conditions. Based on the notion of the “social construction” of risk, it acknowledges that society, in its interaction with the physical world, constructs disaster risk by transforming physical events into hazards through social processes. Disaster risk reduction should include practices that allow the reduction of existing risk (corrective management), and control over the creation of new risk in the future (prospective management).
This complexity requires that research should ideally be based on interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches. Equally important is the use of participatory methods, which consider stakeholder roles to promote the transition between research and action. Furthermore, a better understanding between the scientific and government policy communities, as well as between the scientific and civil society should be promoted. Capacity building throughout the disciplines should be based on a holistic perspective.
The research objectives are:
- Identify significant natural hazard processes and patterns;
- Understand the factors and processes that contribute to the social construction of risks and to the ways in which risk is socially, territorially, and temporally distributed;
- Identify ways to evaluate, measure, or gauge risks objectively, and the way risks are socially analyzed;
- Understand decision making processes and the real enactment or rejection of risk reduction and control, disaster preparedness, response and recovery actions.
