Combating disasters: Monocropping

Abstract

This is a short case study review of the strategic use of climate information in combating disasters in a development context (e.g. Glantz 1997; Südmeier-Rieux et al. 2006; Sacks and Rosenzweig 2007). Box III.2.1 reviews what we do in this book on this subject. We like Lassa's (2006) approach considering a disaster the forced marriage between a hazard and vulnerability. The purpose then is to increase with farmers as decision makers the awareness on potential climate and climate related hazards and their mitigation in general (e.g. FAO 2002) and for monocropping, including its dangers, in particular (e.g. Sanchez 2001; Huda and Packham 2004), with a strong wish to reduce vulnerability by preparedness (e.g. Rathore and Stigter 2007). Also Stigter et al. (2007) indicated that to cope with impact problems of frequently occurring disasters, both the vulnerability of people should be reduced and the hazards should be mitigated, which therefore means fighting on at least two different fronts. What is often badly understood by those that have to carry out policies of disaster impact reduction is that there is a long process involved in for example a drought or flood hazard to produce a disaster (e.g. Brandt et al. 2001; Connelly and Wilson 2001; Stigter et al. 2003). © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.