Common hazards and prioritisation of livelihoods resilience building in Malawi: a deterministic spatial approach

Abstract

Despite the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters in Malawi, there is a lack of comprehensive risk assessments to inform disaster risk reduction and resilience building policies and strategies. This study explores a robust approach for assessing and quantifying the implications of common hazards affecting land-based sources of livelihoods in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts using a deterministic risk assessment and geospatial techniques. Based on the traditional risk notation (R = H*V/C), hazard implications were considered regarding probabilities of occurrence, exposure, vulnerability and capacities. Deterministic techniques assessed and quantified these variables to derive disaster risk levels. Geospatial and statistical techniques established the spatial characteristics of these variables. Simple statistical techniques prioritised resilience building. The potential of leveraging deterministic risk assessment and geospatial techniques to understand hazard implications and prioritising resilience building across data-constrained geographic expanses was successfully demonstrated. Results portrayed the spatial patterns of hazard implications on sources of livelihoods. Geophysical factors influencing the patterns of the implications were also uncovered. The approach enables a comprehensive understanding of disaster risk, thereby helping to address a critical knowledge gap in disaster risk reduction and resilience building. Adoption of the approach in similar disaster-prone and data-constrained settings offers a valuable tool for policy decision making. Policy highlights Indicators of exposure, vulnerability and capacities to hazards can provide guidance for achieving multisectoral disaster risk reduction and resilience building approaches. Spatial trends of hazard-influencing geophysical factors relative to levels of exposure, vulnerability and capacities can leverage disaster risk reduction and resilience building programming. Indicators of exposure, vulnerability and capacities to hazards can provide a framework for early warning systems. Levels of disaster risk to hazards that directly affect land-based sources of livelihoods relative to proportions of land supporting those livelihoods can provide a systematic approach for prioritising areas for resilience building across a given geographic expanse.