Integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

Climate Change is widely acknowledged to be increasing the scale and intensity of disasters. Literatures stress the need to link Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) to make more efficient use of resources and avoid overlapping. Despite growing recognition of the necessity for such linkages, little study has yet investigated the challenges confronting integration and how best to overcome them. We conducted a systematic literature review to better articulate the rationale for integrating DRR and CCA, to identify acknowledged challenges to integration, and to provide directions for future research. The review followed PRISMA guidelines and examined 37 peer-reviewed studies on linking DRR and CCA. Key challenges in integration are found to be: lack of capacity among actors and institutions, policy gaps, mismatches, governance failure, lack of coordination, fund-shortages, and obstructive influence from the influential decision makers. These challenges are underpinned by the political economy— the nexus of influencing actors, and their interests in funding mechanisms surrounding DRR and CCA. Given the underrepresentation of political economy analysis in the literature, this study recommends the needs for an in-depth political economy analysis to determine efficient governance frameworks, improved policies, and mechanisms for effective integration of DRR and CCA in different contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Systematic literature review
• integration challenges
• disaster risk reduction
• climate change adaptation
• political economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Shafiqul Islam http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9390-0734

Notes on contributors

Shafiqul Islam is a PhD candidate in the School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Australia. His areas of research are disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, public fund distribution, political economy, public policy and governance. He is a professional bureaucrat of Bangladesh and has been working for 13 years in districts and sub-districts under various ministries. His working experiences are relevant to diverse fields including disaster and climate change-related project implementations. As the CEO of local governments, he was involved in coordinating government offices in the subdistricts, monitoring development works, assisting policy making process and land management. He was awarded Japan Development Scholarships (JDS) for two-year master’s program at Kobe University, Japan and International Post Graduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) from Griffith University, Australia for completing PhD.

Professor Cordia Chu is the director of the Centre for Environment and Population Health, Griffith University. Her key areas of research expertise are global health, healthy eco-friendly settings; reproductive health; health promotion and integrated health planning; workplace health promotion and safety management; community needs assessment and policy development. She is committed to translational research and capacity-building, particularly in linking environment, health strategies and sustainable development. Her recent focus is on global health security, climate change adaptation and health. She was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2013. She has published over 190 articles and book chapters, delivered two policy/guidelines, four commissioned research communication booklets, five documentary films, 21 international consultancy reports, 1 WHO regional guideline, and has presented 62 key note addresses in conferences. She has graduated 40 PhDs and has won a national commendation for 2018 excellence in research supervision by the Australian Council for Graduate Research.

Jim C. R. Smart is an Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at Griffith University. He conducts research on the economic valuation of ecosystem services, environmental-economic accounting, and economic incentive mechanisms for improving the management of water quality.

Professor Leong Liew, the Director of the Tourism Confucius Institute and former Head of Department of International Business and Asian Studies, lectures in the Department of IBAS and is a member of the Griffith Asia Institute. Leong's research expertise includes China's political economy; political economy of Sino-US relations; development economics and studies; political economy of international business, trade and finance. Professor Liew was the first-named chief investigator in 4 Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grants. In recognition of his expertise in the political economy of developing and transition countries, especially China, Global Development Network (GDN) invited him to set up a framework of analysis and mentor early career researchers from China, Fiji and PNG in a project on understanding market reforms in developing and transition economies. Professor Liew is also the Managing Editor of the Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy (Routledge).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.