Sustainable management of disasters: Challenges and prospects

Abstract

The major challenges of the 21st century are: how to achieve water security, food security, energy security and environmental security? Because of growing incidence of natural and anthropogenic disasters in different parts of the world, these crucial challenges become much more complex and daunting, especially for developing and low-income countries. On the top of it, climate change is expected to exacerbate disaster risk and disaster management problems that the world already faces. The warming of climate system is indisputable as is evident from the observations such as increase in global average air and ocean temperatures, shrinking of glaciers and snowfields, rise in global mean sea level, change in rainfall patterns and intensity, gradual loss of biodiversity, etc. The IPCC studies predict that climate change will increase droughts, heat waves and fires in some areas, while in other areas, more intense tropical storms and higher precipitation will increase floods, landslides and mud slides (IPCC, 2007a). Global climate change and socio-economic changes have implications for food production, natural ecosystems, freshwater supply, health and hygiene, etc. Climate change is considered as a major challenge to the efficient management of natural resources and a barrier to the transition from poverty to prosperity (UNDP, 2007). According to (2009), it is arguably the most severe long-term threat to development faced by present generation as well as future generations. Specifically, for the developing and low-income countries, climate change is a foremost threat to sustainable development because they are most vulnerable and worst sufferers. Thus, the gravity of the problem faced by mankind at the dawn of the 21st century is apparent from (2007): We are losing our cultural heritage at a rate that will seriously diminish our opportunities to achieve sustainability in the future. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.