Food Security in Complex Emergencies: Enhancing Food System Resilience

This paper explores linkages between food security and crisis in different contexts, outlining the policy and institutional conditions needed to manage food security during a crisis and to rebuild the resilience of food systems in periods of relative peace. The paper reviews experiences over the past decade of countries in protracted crisis and draws lessons for national and international policy. It assesses the different alternatives on offer in fragile countries to address, for example, the disruption of institutional mechanisms and the decreasing level of support offered by international donors with respect to longer-term expectations. It proposes a Twin Track Approach to enhance food security resilience through specific policies for protracted crises that link immediate hunger relief interventions with a long-term strategy for sustainable growth. Finally, the article analyses policy options and the implications for both short- and longer-term responses vis-à-vis the three dimensions of food security: availability; access; and stability.     

面向工业污染源排放的城市大气环境系统韧性评价及其时空演化

关中城市群是西部地区两大城市群之一。在该区域内有较多重污染企业。为探索关中城市群各市大气环境系统的韧性水平,将韧性理念应用于城市大气环境系统,并以工业污染源排放为视角,建立基于风险矩阵理论 (RMA) 与PSR的韧性评价模型,利用基于博弈论的组合赋权法确定PSR权重,并采用Sobol方法对模型进行敏感性分析,实现对关中城市群2018—2020年城市大气环境系统韧性时序演化及空间分布的实证分析。结果表明：非甲烷总烃、甲醇、氟化物及硫化氢属于敏感参数,其中甲醇为高敏感参数;从时间维度看,2019年关中城市群各城市大气环境系统韧性水平普遍高于2018年和2020年;从空间维度看,关中城市群各城市大气环境系统韧性水平呈现出“非均衡不稳定性”,3年中仅有西安、渭南及平凉3市达到高度韧性水平,中低韧性区域占绝大部分。提出相应的区域大气污染控制策略,如加强城市间的经验交流和分工协作、发挥西安的辐射带动作用、实施韧性区分类管理等。本研究可为关中城市群城市大气环境系统韧性建设提供参考。     

Study on Assessing Economic Vulnerability of Small Island Regions

The main purpose of this study is to assess economic vulnerability of small island development regions as part of their sustainability constraints. By combining economic and environmental time series data, we assessed a composite index of economic vulnerability which is constructed from three exogenous variables, namely economic exposure, economic remoteness, and economic impact of environmental and natural disasters. We used the Amami Islands, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan as the case studies for this paper.The results indicated that using a gross island products based valuation index, Kikaijima is the most vulnerable island in the Amami Islands with a composite economic vulnerability index (CEVI) value of 0.678, while by using a per capita based index, Okinoerabujima is considered the most vulnerable island with a CEVI value of 0.680. From the results we also revealed that smaller islands have relative higher vulnerability than the bigger one, which also confirms some previous country-level vulnerability studies.However, it is matter of fact that some islands that have relatively high vulnerability also have good economic performance as shown by their per capita income. In this regard, it can be argued that the success of these small islands could have been achieved in spite of and not because of their inherent vulnerability conditions as an indicator of sustainability constraint. Regarding these findings, we also examined a comparison between vulnerability results and the preliminary concept of an island's resilience in order to capture another perspective on sustainability assessment in a small island region.     

Optimizing the biodiversity gain from agri-environment schemes

How best to optimize the biodiversity gain from agri-environment schemes (AES) has recently been identified as a key policy-relevant question. Here, the effects of two features of lowland agricultural landscapes on the abundance and diversity of larger moths are contrasted. Although both features bring about positive effects, hedgerow trees have a larger impact than 6 m wide grassy field margins. Whilst AES payments are given to create and maintain grass margins, no financial reward is currently offered for the retention of hedgerow trees. Furthermore, it was only in areas where the amount of land under AES was experimentally increased, by targeting farmers, that the presence of hedgerow trees resulted in a substantially higher abundance (+60%) and diversity (+38%) of moths. Thus, by using larger moths as bio-indicators of landscape-scale quality, it is demonstrated that improvements to the cost-effectiveness of AES could be achieved, firstly, by providing more appropriate financial rewards to farmers for different landscape features, and secondly, through landscape-scale targeting of farmers to encourage participation in AES.     

Mitigation of the Impact of Tropical Cyclones in Northern Australia through Community Capacity Enhancement

Community mitigation of hazard impact requires hazard knowledge and preparedness on the part of the members of diverse and complex communities. Longitudinal research in the tropical cyclone prone north of Australia has gathered extensive datasets on community awareness, preparedness and knowledge, in order to contribute to education campaigns and mitigation strategies. Data have been used to identify issues of vulnerability to cyclones and capacity to deal with the hazard. This has been developed as a community vulnerability and capacity model that may be applied to diverse communities in order to assess levels of capability to mitigate and deal with the cyclone hazard. The model is presented here in a simplified form as its development is evolving and ongoing.     

从安全防灾到韧性建设——国土空间治理背景下韧性规划的探索与展望

新形势下城市巨系统面临更多不确定性风险与未知扰动,要求安全防灾规划从目标对象、战略定位、技术手段与规划理念等方面做出适应调整,通过韧性城市建设引领区域安全稳定发展。对韧性城市的概念起源、理论发展与实践探索进行了梳理和评述,并结合我国“多规合一”后的国土空间规划体系改革,对空间治理背景下韧性规划的内涵特征、层级类型、流程形式与公共治理进行认识与思考;并从深化韧性城市的理论构建与机理研究、转变规划编制的设计思路和实践流程、完善韧性实践中的规划传导和尺度治理、关注韧性建设中的基层治理和公众参与四个方面,提出韧性规划的实践路径展望,力求有序推进我国城市公共安全现代化治理建设。     

资源枯竭型城市产业转型及其经济韧性——以湖北省大冶市为例

产业转型是资源枯竭型城市面临的重要发展问题,探究资源枯竭型城市产业转型及其经济韧性的演化机制,对实现城市高质量发展具有重要意义。从演化经济韧性视角出发,以湖北省大冶市为例,构建资源枯竭型城市经济韧性评价指标体系,采取熵值法和PLS偏最小二乘法,定量揭示2000—2019年湖北省大冶市产业转型过程中经济韧性的演化特征及驱动机制。结果显示：（1）研究区经济韧性经历了衰退适应、抵御恢复、响应提升的演化阶段,分别对应其经济衰退转变期（2000—2009年）、发展恢复期（2010—2014年）、高效提升期（2015—2019年）,经济韧性水平呈现出“缓慢→快速”的上升态势。（2）2000—2019年研究区经济韧性演化的驱动因子由产业结构转变和创新水平提升转向多要素共同推动,其中居民收入、市场规模、政府调控能力、产业技术水平等因子是推进研究区经济韧性演进的关键因素。（3）产业多元化转型是研究区经济韧性提升的直接动力,以产业相关多样化为传导路径,在多要素驱动下研究区向更高层次的城市生命阶段演进。当压力要素消解、城市状态调整、响应方式优化时,经济韧性将通过激活产业要素、均衡化拓展驱动力来推动产业的“路...     

The dual discourse of urban resilience: robust city and self-organised neighbourhoods

Resilience has become a dominant disaster governance discourse. It has been criticised for insufficiently addressing systemic vulnerabilities while urging the vulnerable to self-organise. The urban resilience discourse involves a particular disconnect: it evokes ‘robustness’ and unaffectedness at the city scale on the one hand, and self-organisation of disaster-affected people and neighbourhoods on the other. This paper explains and illustrates the dual discourse through a case study on the reconstruction of informal and low-income settlements in the aftermath of the fire in Valparaíso, Chile, in 2014, focusing on the communication contents of two non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These NGOs deployed the discourse differently, yet both called for affected neighbourhoods to build a more robust city through self-organisation, and both suggested their work as the missing link between self-organisation and robustness. A danger in deploying the dual discourse is that it requires people who live in informal and low-income settlements to earn their right to the robust city through ‘better’ self-organisation based on fragmented visions.     

A review of coastal community vulnerabilities toward resilience benefits from disaster reduction measures

The coast has always been an area of significant hazards. In situations of community self-sufficiency, consequences of coastal hazards might be isolated to regions directly affected by the hazard. But, in the current global economy, fewer and fewer communities are isolated; damage to one location frequently has consequences around the globe and coastal community resilience can have broad-reaching benefits. Hazard responses for the built coastal environment have typically been resistance: constructing stronger buildings, enhancing natural barriers or creating artificial barriers. These approaches to hazard reduction through coastal engineering and shoreline defence efforts have been crucial to sustained coastal development. However, as coastal forces continue or magnify and resources become scarcer, resistance alone may be less effective or even unsustainable, and interest in resilience has grown. Resilience is a community's ability either to absorb destructive forces without loss of service or function, or to recover quickly from disasters. Community resilience encompasses multiple elements, ranging from governance to structural design, risk knowledge, prevention, warning systems and recovery. This paper focuses on hazards of coastal communities, and provides a review of some recent engineering efforts to improve the resilience elements of risk knowledge and disaster warnings for coastal disaster reduction.     

Disaster risk from a macroeconomic perspective: a metric for fiscal vulnerability evaluation

The Disaster Deficit Index (DDI) measures macroeconomic and financial risk in a country according to possible catastrophic scenario events. Extreme disasters can generate financial deficit due to sudden and elevated need of resources to restore affected inventories. The DDI captures the relationship between the economic loss that a country could experience when a catastrophic event occurs and the availability of funds to address the situation. The proposed model utilises the procedures of the insurance industry in establishing probable losses, based on critical impacts during a given period of exposure; for economic resilience, the model allows one to calculate the country's financial ability to cope with a critical impact. There are limitations and costs associated with access to resources that one must consider as feasible values according to the country's macroeconomic and financial conditions. This paper presents the DDI model and the results of its application to 19 countries of the Americas and aims to guide governmental decision‐making in disaster risk reduction.