Asia Research Institute, National University of … DISASTER GOVERNANCE 21-22 SEPTEMBER 2017 2 This conference is organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore;

CLIMATE DISASTER GOVERNANCE 21-22 SEPTEMBER 2017

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This conference is organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; with support from Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 2 Grant - Governing Compound Disasters in Urbanizing Asia. In Anthropocene Asia-Pacific, climate change is driving changes to the nature and scale of environmental disasters (especially floods, droughts and heatwaves) that combine and interact with processes of planetary urbanization. Taken together, these converging forces pose fundamental questions about human settlement and the health of our planet. The effects of climate change are already well known. The year 2016 saw the highest temperatures for a third consecutive year since 1880. Global sea ice is at its lowest level since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s, and recent research suggests that predicted sea-level rises will be higher than previously estimated. The Himalayan glaciers that provide water for most of the great rivers of continental Asia are drastically retreating. Crop zones are shifting, destabilising food production and livelihoods; and areas of prolonged droughts and water shortages are expanding. Current predictions strongly suggest that the situation is worsening rapidly. The continued melting of polar glaciers and rising sea levels will result in the complete inundation of many islands and large lowland coastal regions, for example. This will affect hundreds of millions in population. The projected loss will also produce compound disasters across continental Asia with devastating impacts on livelihoods and health. As the basic facets of human life, including livelihoods, food security, urban infrastructure, and health are more frequently and deeply impacted by climate change, disaster risk governance will face increasingly tough, interconnected, multi-dimensional challenges. One is the merging of conflict disasters with environmental disasters over, for example, water and food. Populations facing disasters of these kinds will increasingly migrate across national borders as home regions become unliveable through combinations of loss of basic life supporting resources and conflict over them. With refugee flows across borders expected to exponentially increase with the intensifying impacts of climate change, national governments will also increasingly default to migrant receiving cities to cope with climate change refugees. This puts pressure on existing resources, worsens urban tensions and puts stress on infrastructure. The increasingly joined-up nature of climate change related disasters demand joined up responses as a matter of urgency. Solutions need to run across the board and take account of connectivities in cause, impact, and experience. The rapidly changing contexts for research and action suggested by the trends noted above provide the basis for building a research agenda specific to climate change-induced disaster governance in the Anthropocene and the necessity of learning from the past as well as from the present in thinking about cultural adaption and strategies for coping with climate change in the coming years. CONVENORS Dr Fiona Williamson Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore E | [email protected] Dr Michelle Miller Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore E | [email protected] Prof Michael Douglass Asia Research Institute, and Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore E | [email protected]


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21 SEPTEMBER 2017 (THURSDAY) 09:45 – 10:00 REGISTRATION

10:00 – 10:15 WELCOME REMARKS

10:00 FIONA WILLIAMSON, National University of Singapore

MICHELLE MILLER, National University of Singapore

MICHAEL DOUGLASS, National University of Singapore

10:15 – 11:45 PANEL 1 | POLICY

Chairperson JONATHAN RIGG, National University of Singapore

10:15 Policy Implication of Health Impacts of Climate Change in Hong Kong

EMILY CHAN, Chinese University of Hong Kong

10:30 Climate-Related Disasters and Economic Growth

VINOD THOMAS, Asian Institute of Management, Philippines, and National University of Singapore

10:45 Climate Disaster Governance and the Uncounted

CAROLINE BRASSARD, National University of Singapore FAYE VICTORIA SIT, National University of Singapore

11:00 The Missing Link between Climate Change and Disaster Governance: A Critique of India’s Climate Action Plans and Missions

D. PARTHASARATHY, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

11:15 Questions & Answers

11:45 – 12:45 LUNCH

12:45 FILM SCREENING | ORANG RIMBA: PEOPLE OF THE FOREST

Directed by: Isaac Kerlow Duration: 14 minutes

The ancestral forests of the nomadic Orang Rimba have vanished. In the short span of three decades oil palm plantations have replaced much of the tropical peatland rain forests in Jambi, Indonesia. The People of the Forest, Orang Rimba in their dialect, have nowhere to go. A group of families talks and shows their daily and long-term struggles for survival in an era that seems to have left their idyllic past behind.


13:15 – 14:45 PANEL 2 | FORECASTING

Chairperson ISAAC KERLOW, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

13:15 Agricultural Landscapes for Water and Food Security under Climate Change: Opportunities from Mainstreaming an Ecosystem Services Agenda in Southeast Asia

PABLO IMBACH, International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Vietnam

13:30 Applying Seasonal Climate Forecasting (and Innovative Insurance Solutions) as an Incremental Means to Tackle Climate Change Risk Management, Especially in Regard to Climate Extremes in the Agriculture Sector

ROGER C STONE, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

13:45 Coastal Hazards: Planning, Engineering, and Governing for Adaptation

KARL KIM, University of Hawaii, USA OCEANA FRANCIS, University of Hawaii, USA

14:00 Decision Support System for Flood and Water Resource Management: Examples from Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka

ANSHUL AGARWAL, Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems, Thailand


14:45 – 15:15 TEA BREAK


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15:15 – 16:20 PANEL 3 | COMMUNITY STRATEGIES OF RESILIENCE

Chairperson GREGORY CLANCEY, National University of Singapore

15:15 Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Vietnam

VU NGOC BINH, Institute for Population, Family and Children Studies, Vietnam

15:30 Decentring “Expertise”, Decolonizing Disaster Recovery

MINNA HSU, Macquarie University, Australia

15:45 Adaptive Climate Governance: Incorporating Dynamics of Vulnerability of Low-Income Communities for Low-Regret Adaptation Plans

GUSTI AYU KETUT SURTIARI, United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security,

Germany, and Indonesian Institute of Sciences


16:20 – 16:50 BREAK

16:50 – 17:55 PANEL 4 | CULTURE / INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

Chairperson RITA PADAWANGI, Singapore University of Social Sciences

16:50 Livelihood Strategies of Women under Climate Change Governance in Chiang Mai, Thailand

ARRATEE AYUTTACORN, Chiang Mai University, Thailand

17:05 Solastalgia: An Ethnographic Exploration on the Cultural Disengagements and Disembodied Belongings due to Urban Climate Changes

MEREDIAN ALAM, University of Newcastle, Australia

17:20 Revenge of Nature: Culture and Environmental Governance

MANZURUL MANNAN, Independent University, Bangladesh


17:55 END OF DAY 1

18:00 – 20:00 CONFERENCE DINNER (For Speakers, Discussants & Invited Guests)


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22 SEPTEMBER 2017 (FRIDAY) 10:15 – 10:30 REGISTRATION

10:30 – 12:00 PANEL 5 | MIGRATION

Chairperson ROHAN D’SOUZA, Kyoto University, Japan

10:30 How Prepared is Singapore for a Climate-Related Population Influx?

CHEW Y. C. MICHELE, National Security Coordination Secretariat, Singapore

10:45 Following the Paths of Filipino Migrants: Are Climate-Related Population Mobilities Really Any Different from Other Types of Migration?

CHRISTINE GIBB, University of Toronto, Canada

11:00 Governing the Mass Migration to Dhaka: Renegotiating Climate Factors

IFTEKHAR IQBAL, University of Brunei Darussalam

11:15 Potential Demographic Change and Conflict in South Asia: A Case Study of Climate-Related Population Mobility from Maldives and Bangladesh to India and its Impact

MAYILVAGANAN MUTHUMARIAPPAN, National Institute of Advanced Studies, India


11:50 – 13:05 LUNCH & FILM SCREENING

12:20 FILM SCREENING | DISOBEDIENCE

Duration: 40 minutes

Disobedience is a new film about a new phase of the climate movement: courageous action that is being taken on the front lines of the climate crisis on every continent, led by regular people fed up with the power and pollution of the fossil fuel industry.

13:05 – 14:25 PANEL 6 | RURAL-URBAN

Chairperson WINSTON CHOW, National University of Singapore

13:05

Via Skype

Building Resilience in Rural Communities in Myanmar

MIKE GRIFFITHS, Social Policy and Poverty Research Group, Myanmar

13:25 Urban-Rural Climate Resilience: A Comparative Assessment of Greater Yangon and Singapore

PEARLYN Y. PANG, National University of Singapore YI-CHEN WANG, National University of Singapore

13:45 Prospects and Limits for Climate Adaptation in India’s Urbanizing Villages

ANDREW RUMBACH, University of Colorado Denver, USA


14:25 – 14:45 TEA BREAK

14:45 – 16:15 PANEL 7 | FUTURES

Chairperson ERIC KERR, National University of Singapore

14:45 Future Climate Change Impacts on Rice Yields over Vietnam: Alerting or Alarming?

SRIVATSAN V RAGHAVAN, National University of Singapore

15:05 “City Upon the Ocean”: Coastal Cities, Climate Change, and Ideas for Floating City Extensions since the 1950s

STEFAN HUEBNER, National University of Singapore

15:25 Climate Change Adaptation, Flood Mitigation and Technological Lock-In

ROBERT JAMES WASSON, National University of Singapore


16:05 – 16:25 CLOSING REMARKS

16:05 FIONA WILLIAMSON, National University of Singapore

MICHELLE MILLER, National University of Singapore

MICHAEL DOUGLASS, National University of Singapore

16:25 END OF CONFERENCE


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Policy Implication of Health Impacts of Climate Change in Hong Kong

Emily Chan Chinese University of Hong Kong

[email protected]

Chi Shing Wong Chunlan Guo Edward YY Ng Gabriel NC Lau

Heidi Hung Chinese University of Hong Kong

Globally, the linkage between climate change and health is a key emergency public health issue for the years to come. Health threats brought about by extreme weather / climate disasters are expected to increase in frequency and intensity. Hong Kong, a major global metropolis, has already been experiencing climate change-related impacts such ambient-temperature abnormalities, more frequent extreme climate events (e.g. tropical cyclones and rainstorm surges) and pressure to intensified vector-borne disease control following the changes of weather patterns. As a densely-populated coastal city with sub-tropical climate, Hong Kong will need to gather more evidence and review current policies and plans in order to protect its community from the challenges associated with the local specific climate change impacts in health. The direct relationship between elevated temperatures and higher mortality and morbidity rates as well as the harmful effects of worsening air quality on respiratory and cardiovascular health following climate change have been supported by research. Hong Kong must implement effective public health protection measures and conduct an overall technical review of the climate readiness of its health system, without losing sight of the non-health measures, particularly those related to building and urban design. It should be emphasised that it takes multidisciplinary collaboration and actions to address climate and environmental challenges in urban settings and health measures. Health service, health workforce, health information system and technology, financing system, leadership and governance become some aspects for recommendations with policy implications on the health impact of climate change in Hong Kong. Emily Chan serves at The Chinese University of Hong Kong as Professor and Assistant Dean at Faculty of Medicine, Associate Director at JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Director at Centre for Global Health (CGH), Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC) and International Centre of Excellence in Health and Community Resilience (ICoE-CCOUC) of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR). She concurrently serves as Visiting Professor (Public Health Medicine) at Oxford University Nuffield Department of Medicine, Senior Fellow at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Visiting Scholar at FXB Center at Harvard University, and Honorary Professor at Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong. Emily is Co-chairperson of World Health Organization Thematic Platform for Health Emergency & Disaster Risk Management Research Group and member of Asia Science Technology and Academia Advisory Group of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.


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Climate-Related Disasters and Economic Growth

Vinod Thomas Asian Institute of Management, Philippines, and National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Hazards of nature have always been with us, but the growing incidence of floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts puts the spotlight on climate-related disasters and the need for preventive action. Scientists are rightly reluctant to pin climate change on individual climate-related calamities, but the broad trends are clear: in addition to human exposure and people’s vulnerability, climate-related disasters have a connection to climate change. People’s exposure needs to be dealt with, which includes management of locational decisions, enforcement of zoning, as well as plans for evacuation and relocation prior to disasters. Also needed is management of people’s vulnerability to natural hazards which would include reinforcement of embankments, improvement in drainage and water supply and assurance of provision of basic services and indeed lifelines. But beyond the management of exposure and vulnerability, climate mitigation also needs to be part of disaster prevention. The needed shift is a switch from high to a low carbon growth path. Among the areas of action are discouraging fossil fuels, encouraging renewable forms of energy, achieving greater energy efficiency, and actions across individual sectors such agriculture and forestry. Actions, however, lag the technical knowledge. To bridge the knowledge-action gap, win-win options such as greater energy efficiency must be capitalized on. Many of the other steps such as switching to renewables would also bring net wins for the economy but their differential impact on winners and losers would need to be addressed. Vinod Thomas is currently Visiting professor at National University of Singapore and at Asian Institute of Management, Manila. Previously he was Director General of Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In this capacity he reports to ADB's Board of Directors on the development effectiveness of the work of the organization. This work is intended to assess the accountability of the organization in delivering results while providing lessons of experience to help strengthen those results. Prior to coming to ADB in August 2011, Vinod was the Director-General and Senior Vice-President of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank Group. He was formerly Country Director for Brazil and Vice-President, a position that he held from October 2001 to July 2005. Before that he was Vice-President of the World Bank Institute, where he led the Institute’s efforts to improve its focus, quality, and impact. He joined the World Bank in 1976 and held several positions, including Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, Director for the World Development Report (on The Challenge of Development), Chief of Trade Policy and Principal Economist for Colombia, and Economist for Bangladesh. Vinod has a PhD and MA in Economics from the University of Chicago and a BA from St. Stephen's college, Delhi. He has authored numerous books, articles, and reports on macroeconomic, social and environmental issues. His books include The Quality of Growth, Oxford University Press, 2000, and the latest (with Xubei Luo), Multilateral Banks and the Development Process and Climate Change and Natural Disasters, both from Transaction Publishers, 2012. He has taught at Vassar College, New York and the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and has addressed numerous professional and academic fora in all regions.


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Climate Disaster Governance and the Uncounted

Caroline Brassard National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Faye Victoria Sit National University of Singapore

[email protected]

The paper analyses how some of the existing policy frameworks for climate change-induced disaster governance create new forms of risks and levels of vulnerability specifically for individuals excluded from governance systems. Within a comparative perspective, our analysis explains how national level governance systems focusing on ensuring cost-effective policy making systematically overlooks the impacts of climate change on individuals who are statistically ‘uncounted’. At the sub-national level, we also examine the roles and challenges of city-level administrators and local non-state institutions. In the context of climate change-induced disaster governance, our overarching research questions are:

1. How are segments of the population systematically excluded from national level governance systems? To what extent is this a public policy problem?

2. What are the impacts on their levels of vulnerability and the inequities they are exposed to? 3. In what ways does this exclusion impact city-level administrators and local non-state institutions? 4. What are some of the capacities (political, institutional and financial) necessary to redress this problem?

The first section of the paper problematizes the impact of climate change and disaster from the perspective of the statistically ‘uncounted’ (i.e. who do not appear in official statistics), or facing a form of ‘expulsion’ as described by Sassen (2014). Our case studies range from those ‘officially’ unemployed, unregistered migrants, foreign workers, indigenous people, illegally occupying state land, citizens living right across the border, and so-called lower caste members, as these cases highlight vicious cycles of risk. These groups are systematically excluded from any governance system either for political, cultural or social reasons – they are unrecognised and are therefore not considered ‘legitimate’. The second part builds on these case studies and discusses the perspective of city-level administration and non-state actors working at the city level, highlighting the emerging responsibilities arising from climate change-induced disaster governance. We describe the conditions under which top down (institutional) or bottom up (non-state and self-organizing individuals) responses, to the combined impacts of climate change, hazards and conflict on the ‘uncounted’, can create greater vulnerabilities and inequities for the uncounted. The final part of the paper takes a broader perspective by looking at the institutional and political processes leading to these exclusions and demonstrating the implication of excluding large segments of the population on the effectiveness and efficiency of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster governance. We discuss the various implications of this systemic expulsion of segments of the population for ‘goal-oriented’ global frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai framework of disaster risk reduction. In conclusion, we highlight knowledge gaps about climate disaster governance and the expulsed – from public policy makers, public managers, and non-state actors at the local, national, and global level, and suggest avenues for a collaborative action research agenda to address this vicious cycle.


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Caroline Brassard is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY SPP), at the National University of Singapore, where she has been affiliated since 2002. Her research focuses on development policy lessons from natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific, and humanitarian aid effectiveness. She has extensive fieldwork experience in Vietnam, Indonesia, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. At the LKY SPP, Caroline teaches courses on aid governance, research methods, economic development policy, poverty alleviation strategies and empirical analysis for public policy. Her latest edited book “Natural Disaster Management in the Asia-Pacific” (edited with David Giles and Arn Howitt) was published by Springer in 2015. Other recent publications appeared in the Asian Journal of Social Science and the Global Risk Report 2014. She has been serving as a council member of the Singapore Red Cross since 2013. Caroline holds a PhD in Economics from the University of London. Faye Victoria Sit is a PhD candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on sustainable development and environmental governance in the Global South. She has relevant fieldwork experiences in Peru and has written about the socio-environmental injustices of developing urban centres as well as water sustainability in Singapore. Her PhD thesis is on transboundary environmental governance and collective action problems in Southeast Asia.


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The Missing Link between Climate Change and Disaster Governance: A Critique of India’s Climate Action Plans and Missions

D. Parthasarathy Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

[email protected]

India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) is almost a decade old. The NAPCC is complemented by the design and implementation of Climate Action Plans at the state / provincial level. Both the national and state level regional plans have been characterized by unevenness and tardiness in strategizing, institution formation, and execution. The NAPCC envisaged the implementation of Action Plans through a set of eight National Missions covering the areas of water, energy, habitats, and agriculture. More missions are on the anvil – focusing on coastal zones, health, and waste management. A key problem in the Action Plans and Missions pointed out by critical studies is the lack of adequate attention to problems of institutions, namely the need for appropriate institutional design, and the key imperative to ensure institutional collaborations that are both cross-scale and cross-agency. In the entire debate, a key missing element pertains to disaster risks and disaster governance. The major focus is on mitigation and adaptation, with the latter not adequately conceptualized and strategized. Disaster risks and hazards resulting from climate change are conspicuously absent in the NAPCC, the State Action Plans, the National Missions, and in critical evaluations and assessments. This paper seeks to comprehend and critique this absence in terms of a) epistemology – the understanding of climate change and its impacts across sectors, and the conceptualization of mitigation and adaptation, and b) the choice and prior design of institutions that are tasked with action plans and missions. In the context of burgeoning climate research that point to the importance of regional models, and the role of devolution and decentralization for effective disaster governance, the paper provides a detailed critique of the NAPCC and the Maharashtra SAPCC from a disaster governance perspective. Issues of institutional path-dependence and isomorphism, and neo-liberal entrepreneurial urban governance are highlighted based on a study of the relationship between the degradation of urban ecosystems and disaster risks in the context of climate change in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. D. Parthasarathy is India Value Fund Chair Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has earlier worked or held visiting positions at the Australian National University, National University of Singapore, and Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. He is the author of Collective Violence in a Provincial City (1997), and has co-edited “Women’s Self Help Groups: Restructuring Socio-Economic Development” (2011), and “Cleavage, Connection and Conflict in Rural, Urban and Contemporary Asia” (2013). He has carried out research projects and published in the areas of urban studies, law and governance, climate studies, and disaster risk and vulnerability. His current research interests include urban informality with a focus on urban religion and politics, urban commons, transnational urbanism, legal pluralism and resource governance, and vulnerability to climate / disaster risks. He is currently involved in three research projects relating to coastal ecosystems, urban flooding and climate change.


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Agricultural Landscapes for Water and Food Security under Climate Change: Opportunities from Mainstreaming an Ecosystem Services Agenda in Southeast Asia

Pablo Imbach International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Vietnam

[email protected]

Tassilo Tiemann

Wendy Francesconi Godefroy Grosjean

Peter Laderach International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Vietnam

Sustainable development is threatened by land use change, climate change and degradation processes in Southeast Asia (SEA). Climate change mitigation and adaptation needs are harmonized with improved human wellbeing and sectorial development goals across Nationally Determined Contributions, various national strategies and their implementation plans. Achieving these goals requires designing development pathways based on (i) a system’s approach that ensures sustained landscape functioning to support environmental, socio-economic and multi-sectorial development goals and, (ii) addressing the challenges of a changing climate for mitigation and adaptation. Ensuring the provision of ecosystem services from natural and agricultural landscapes and their contribution for multi-sectorial development goals provides a science-based approach to support the implementation of national strategies through management of linkages between natural systems, economic activities, and human wellbeing. We present here an analysis of mitigation, adaptation and multi-sectorial development goals related to food and water security, risk reduction to natural disasters, and biodiversity conservation across countries in SEA and their dependence on mainstreaming an ecosystems services agenda across scales and institutions. We also present an implementation framework based on methods, tools and decision making processes required to address a gradient of policy goals across the region. Pablo Imbach specializes in addressing climate and land use change effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity to support sustainable development agendas. He recently joined the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to support its ecosystem services and climate information services agenda. He has modeling, quantitative and GIS skills. He has published scientific literature on ecosystems responses to climate change including climate change impacts on ecosystem services, developed methods for mapping priority areas for ecosystem services, hydrological dynamics, design biodiversity conservation networks, assess land use change scenarios and support the development of adaptation strategies through adaptive capacity and vulnerability assessments. He has also worked providing technical assistance to government and NGOs in developing countries with a later emphasis on climate adaptation issues.


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Applying Seasonal Climate Forecasting (and Innovative Insurance Solutions) as an Incremental Means to Tackle Climate Change Risk Management, Especially in Regard

to Climate Extremes in the Agriculture Sector

Roger C Stone University of Southern Queensland, Australia

[email protected]

Methods of developing resilient climate risk management systems, best practices and insurance products that will shield farmers and businesses in South East Asia engaged in the coffee, sugar, rice, cassava, and grazing industries across the agricultural value chain from physical and financial disaster associated with climate change are discussed. Key aspects in this process may include: identifying suitable climate forecast systems at seasonal to yearly or decadal time scales that possess both accuracy and suitability for critical farmer/user decisions and which form an incremental means of practically addressing key issues associated with climate change; developing and producing participatory workshops and socio-economic surveys to co-explore key climate change risks, adaptation challenges, enabling factors and barriers; direct targeting of climate forecasting to agricultural management decisions per sector to assist with this incremental climate change adaptation; developing financial risk management tools, including practical more innovative insurance products that are cognisant of the history of climate variability in the region. Roger C Stone has lengthy career in both meteorological and climatological research extending over 35 years, particularly in research and development in climate systems, extreme drought preparedness, and climate modelling targeted for agricultural production and trading. Roger Stone received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 1993 in climate science and has since held senior positions in national and international climate and agricultural modelling research centres. Roger is currently Director of the International Centre for Applied Climate Sciences and Professor in Climate Science at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Prof Stone has previously held position in senior management/senior executive levels within the Queensland State and Federal Governments and now also currently leads or forms a major component of the Australian commitment to the United Nation’s Integrated Drought Management Program (IDMP) (Geneva), the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) program, and is Program Chair/Manager of the United Nations-World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (specialising in climate variability/climate change, drought, and natural disasters in global agriculture).


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Coastal Hazards: Planning, Engineering, and Governing for Adaptation

Karl Kim University of Hawaii, USA

[email protected]

Oceana Francis University of Hawaii, USA

[email protected]

Planners, engineers, designers and builders bring diverse skills, knowledge, experiences and approaches to tackling challenges confronting human settlements and the health of our planet. Investments in urban infrastructure create strong disincentives to “picking up and leaving” even as profound environmental changes such as routine flooding, prolonged drought, and disruption of life-supporting ecosystems threaten the viability and livability of regions. Severe resource shortages can promote conflict and violence, further degrading the quality of life in stressed communities. How can we best promote change, innovation, and adaptation to flooding and other climate-related hazards? We examine planning and engineering for coastal communities with existential threats from climate change, sea level rise, and flooding. We begin with the plight and lessons from small islands already suffering with degraded ecosystems and outmigration. We consider climate risks and the management of risk through mitigation and adaptation actions. We focus next on infrastructure such as roadways, drainage, water, and wastewater systems. Conventional approaches emphasize protection, armoring, and hazard mitigation. Efforts to promote green infrastructure represent a departure from traditional engineering practice. The need for in-situ experimentation with different technologies for observing, monitoring, measuring, “downscaling”, modeling change and evaluating actions is apparent. We consider strategies for relocation and redesign of ecosystems to promote security and long-term sustainability. Greening of infrastructure and planning tools to enhance environmental quality and natural systems require new connections between health, livelihoods, and resilience. Innovation must occur in administrative and regulatory mechanisms to support safe, green, and more acceptable approaches to adaptation. Transferability of approaches is hampered by pre-existing conditions related to governance, management, financial resources, and leadership. Different disciplines represent knowledge and approaches to adaptation in diverse ways. Greater interdisciplinarity and professional flexibility is a form of cultural exchange and learning. Innovation in coping with climate change must involve new partnerships, risk-taking, experimentation, dialogue and deliberation to cross boundaries and stimulate change in the theory and practices of adaptation. Karl Kim is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaii, where he also directs the graduate program in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance. Previously, he served as the chief academic officer (Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs) at the University of Hawaii. He is Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, funded by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Center conducts research and develops training and educational programs focused on natural hazards, coastal communities, islands and at-risk, underserved communities. Dr Kim was educated at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oceana Francis is a licensed professional engineer in Alaska and Hawaii and currently an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii, where she also serves as the director of the Coastal Hydraulics Engineering Resilience (CHER) Lab. Educated at University of Nebraska, University of Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks), Dr. Francis holds degrees in physics, civil engineering, and atmospheric science. Her research focuses on modelling climate change, wave energy, sea level rise, and coastal resilience.


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Decision Support System for Flood and Water Resource Management: Examples from Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka

Anshul Agarwal Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems, Thailand

[email protected]

Flood early warning, to be effective, should provide adequate lead-time for institutions and communities at-risk to undertake preparatory and mitigating actions. Currently, flood warning capacity in many developing countries of Asia are based on real time meteorological and hydrological observations. This provides lead-time of about 6-24 hours only, which is useful for saving lives, but inadequate for protecting livelihoods, or for taking early decisions for flood preparedness and mitigation. Hence, there was a need to develop an operational flood forecasting system that utilizes longer-lead weather forecasts to generate flood forecasts. To enhance the flood forecasting capacity in RIMES member countries a web based Flood Decision Support System (Flood-DSS) is developed. Flood-DSS is capable of generating high-resolution bias corrected sub-basin average meteorological forecast using outputs from Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, translate rainfall and temperature forecasts to discharge forecasts using freely available hydrological models customized for the selected river basins, generate water level forecasts which are further corrected using real time observations from telemetry stations and finally generate the advisories. System was tested for 2016 monsoon season and its performance to forecast the peak flows and timing of peaks was found satisfactory. Most countries have found it very useful for operational flood forecasting and improve the lead time of forecast which could help in flood risk reduction. The system is further enhanced to improve the reservoir operations by providing inflow forecast and support the reservoir operators for efficient use of available resources. Anshul Agarwal currently working as a Hydrologist in RIMES is responsible for developing hydrological and hydrodynamic models for various river systems. He is also involved in climate profiling at country and basin level, linking weather and climate information to various user sectors and for analyzing climate change impacts on hydrological and agriculture sectors. Anshul holds Doctoral and Master’s degrees in Water Engineering and management from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, and Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Engineering from Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, India. His specific research areas include analysis of climate change impacts on hydrology, water resources and crop production. His recent work involves: developing the flood forecasting systems, downscaling of climate projections, uncertainty analysis in future climate projections, GIS-based analysis, hydrological modeling, crop modeling, etc.


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Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Vietnam

Vu Ngoc Binh Institute for Population, Family and Children Studies, Vietnam

[email protected]; [email protected]

While Viet Nam has been successful in achieving economic growth, poverty reduction and gender equality, the country cannot avoid exposure to a variety of disasters due to climate change, as it is among the most prone regions to disasters in the world. These include flooding, unpredictable rainfall, typhoons, extended droughts, heat waves and cold fronts, sea level rise and saline water intrusion. Viet Nam recently ranked sixth in terms of the Global Climate Risk Index 2014. On average, Viet Nam suffers 420 fatalities and Gross Domestic Product losses of USD 1.63 billion (in PPP, purchasing power parity) and 0.9 percent of GDP per year due to natural disasters. This paper will show that climate change and its impacts are not gender neutral and nor are its policies and actions. Because of prevailing gender inequalities, women are likely to be more affected than men. Sensitivity to climate change varies and is particularly strong amongst poorer, rural women, including those from ethnic minorities, who tend to rely on natural resources and climate-sensitive livelihood activities. Due to their gender-defined roles in society and traditional patterns of marginalization, women are amongst those that are likely to carry the heaviest burdens from these changes and benefit less the policies and programmes that address these, though they play a crucial role in Viet Nam. Not only do they comprise almost half of its population, but they also play important roles at household level, in the rural and urban economies and in society as a whole. The paper also shows that women should not be seen as ‘victims’. They are also crucial actors in climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR), and their needs and knowledge should be used to inform the design, implementation, and monitoring of climate change and CCA/DRR policies. Vu Ngoc Binh has been a leading expert on human rights and gender in Viet Nam for several decades now. He has published and lectured extensively on human rights and gender, focusing on marginalized groups of populations, especially children, older persons, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, women, etc in his country and at international forums. From a human rights and gender perspective, Mr Vu Ngoc Binh has provided substantive advisory and technical inputs to the National Assembly and government ministries in Viet Nam on development or amendment of related laws and policies, etc and their guidelines for implementation.


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Decentring “Expertise”, Decolonizing Disaster Recovery

Minna Hsu Macquarie University, Australia

[email protected]

In the wake of a disaster, multiple actors are mobilised to contribute their expertise in recovery efforts to ostensibly “build back better”. However, such disaster interventions may perpetuate the discourses, values and practices of colonialism and neoliberalism without an appreciation of historical context and lived experiences of marginalisation and oppression. A singular focus on the disaster moment and post-disaster recovery, with good intentions to build back better, risks becoming processes of deep colonising; the roots of disaster are often in the practices, discourses and relations constructed by colonialism, and maintained in the modern-day governance discourses and practices of state and non-state actors, which emphasises the vital importance of considering relations in context. This paper challenges the idea of “the expert” in disaster discourse and recovery along with the practices and material implications associated with the mobilisation of expertise in particular ways, offering a brief case study of the 2009 Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan. The decentring of expertise and moving towards a contextual reframing is necessary in order to sufficiently attend to the continuing challenges of negotiating and navigating autonomy and presence at diverse scales in disaster recovery and reconstruction, and moreover, development. Even when institutions do not explicitly state that the intent is to decolonise through their approaches taken, official disaster discourses espousing empowerment and better, more sustainable futures establish even stronger links between disasters and development—making considerations of intent an ethical imperative. Minna Hsu is an Honorary Postdoctoral Associate with the Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University in Australia. Her research interests include geographies of development, socio-political dimensions of environmental change, collaborative and participatory practices, and Indigenous rights. Minna completed her PhD under cotutelle with Macquarie University (Department of Geography and Planning) and National Dong Hwa University (Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures, College of Indigenous Studies) in Taiwan. She is currently the outreach coordinator for the IUCN Cultural Practices and Ecosystem Management thematic group (under the Commission on Ecosystem Management).


17

Adaptive Climate Governance: Incorporating Dynamics of Vulnerability of Low-income Communities for Low-regret Adaptation Plans

Gusti Ayu Ketut Surtiari

United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security, Germany, and Indonesian Institute of Sciences

[email protected]

This paper follows up the challenges existing adaptive urban governance studies in the context of climate change and urban planning. One of the remaining gaps is the optimization of the vulnerability scenario, risk profiles, and uncertainties under the climate change and societal transformation to achieve low-regret adaptation. This paper argues that incorporating dynamics of the vulnerability of low-income community especially after the implementation of formal adaptation measures is one of the puzzles in the current gap to describe the potential medium to long-term vulnerability from the household profile perspective. While socio-economic indicators dominate the long-term vulnerability scenario, this paper promotes the gradually societal process that influences the ability to maintain and enhance long-term adaptive capacity. Therefore, using the link between adaptation, vulnerability and resilience concepts, this paper analyzes how formal adaptation affects the households vulnerability at present and for the long-term vulnerability. Based on three years longitudinal study among 451 targeted households in coastal Jakarta, the findings show that the formal adaptation measures namely coastal dyke, reservoir, and relocation modify each component of vulnerability differently depends on how existing social capacity among communities is impacted and how adaptation measures raise a new uncertainty. The significant changing of the existing social capacity that has existed in the communities implies to the low willingness to maintain and enhance capacity to adapt which furthermore limits the sustainable action. Based on this analysis, the contribution of the role of dynamics of vulnerability is identified to enrich adaptive climate governance mechanism for low regret adaptation. Gusti Ayu Ketut Surtiari who has academic backgrounds in Human Geography and Population Studies is a researcher at the Research Centre for Population, Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI-Jakarta). Her research interests are climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, population studies, urban coastal development, and vulnerability. She conducts some interdisciplinary studies under the topics of her interests in several coastal and urban areas across Indonesia. Since 2009, she is a member of the Society for Human Ecology. Since 2014 she got a scholarship from the UNU-EHS for her Ph.D. with the research topic on the dynamics of vulnerability as the consequences of adaptation measures in Coastal Jakarta with the objective is to understand the dynamics of vulnerability influenced by adaptation measures to respond climate-related hazards in Jakarta. A mixed method with three years longitudinal study is selected for the whole research stages and empirical data collection in coastal Jakarta.


18

Livelihood Strategies of Women under Climate Change Governance in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Arratee Ayuttacorn Chiang Mai University, Thailand

[email protected]

This study explores the livelihood strategies employed by local women to deal with climate change governance. Under state forest restoration policies, rural people has been accused of being forest destroyers, thus contributing to global warming. When they are forced to leave their agricultural land, men tend to migrate to cities to become wage laborers, while women are dispossessed from natural resources and forest products. The Thai state employs a new discourse of ‘green grabbing’ to legitimate their governance practices. Based on ethnographic research, this study demonstrates the various kinds of capital (including social, human, cultural) and institutions which support women practices and strengthen their leadership roles. Women form the intersection of different kinds of mobilization: domestic and international NGOs, academics, and business people. They attempt to organize new forms of productions such as organic farming, weaving, and performance groups as alternative measures to negotiate with state control. Women establish livelihood strategies and the networks to work toward achieving sustainable use of natural resources, health and well-being, food security, and income. Arratee Ayuttacorn is a lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences and Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University. Her research interests include natural resources management, climate change adaptation, and gender. Recently, she has conducted a research evaluation focusing on access and management rights to land and natural resources of small farmers in Northern Thailand. Her current research project explores issues of gender and local women’s networks as part of people’s movements about climate change at the national level.


19

Solastalgia: An Ethnographic Exploration on the Cultural Disengagements and Disembodied Belongings due to Urban Climate Changes

Meredian Alam University of Newcastle, Australia


The irresistible global phenomenon of climate changes has been widely known as a current emerging challenge to the sustainability of public life. This article examines the climate change complexities in urban areas of Indonesia, particularly those that are a result of massive urban infrastructure development. Urban infrastructure development has been observed to have reduced the open green spaces and resulted in an increase in temperature, primarily in the city areas. This environmental issue in this region is exacerbated by the presence of ever prolonged drought due to the El-Nino in Indonesia. Several studies demonstrate that climate change phenomenon causes mental disorder amongst urban residents, characterised by emotional and cultural disengagement to their place of residence, clinically called Solastalgia. The term was coined by Professor Glenn Albrecht, an Australian environmentalist, formerly based in Newcastle NSW. This study examines and researches on this concept through ethnographic interviews with 10 young people who have permanently lived for more than 15 years in the city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This study captures Solastalgia as their experiences from such complexities. Solastalgia, as informed by the respondents, covers various socio-cultural symptoms like social tension, immobility, distress, and future security. The narratives of these respondents indicate that climate change in addition to urban infrastructure development has uprooted their belongingness to the city, valued by them as a space for communal cultural identity formation. Subsequently, on analysing their subjective experiences, this study confirms that spatial development of the urban area in favour of the economy neglects the future of young people. Meredian Alam is a PhD Candidate in Sociology and Anthropology at the School of Humanities and Social Science in the University of Newcastle. He holds an MPhil in Culture, Environment, and Sustainability from the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) University of Oslo, Norway and an MA and a BSocSci (Honours) in Sociology from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Under the supervision of Professor Pamela Nilan and Dr Terry Leahy, his doctoral thesis explores a youth environmental movement in Indonesia to reclaim the urban forest.


20

Revenge of Nature: Culture and Environmental Governance

Manzurul Mannan Independent University, Bangladesh


The present environmental crises is an outcome of the evolution of global capitalism and modernization as a result of which the power of science and technology over nature has contributed to a process of gradual de-sacralization of the cosmos and commodification of the natural world. An experiment-based scientific knowledge system has emerged to the direct detriment of experiential knowledge of people derived from nature and pre-industrial environmental equilibrium. The indigenous knowledge on waters and rivers of deltaic people of Bangladesh offers crucial insight into resource and environmental governance. People categorize the environmental governance into two basic, entwined dimensions of river cycles: gender and cosmology. For example, the gender of rivers is expressed either as male, nodh, or female, nodhi. A three-layer, cosmological referential aspect of water cycles further informs the notion of nodh and nodhi when talking about composite rivers. The terms for composite rivers are "sky-river," "earth-river," and "under-earth-river"; various feeder streams balance these three rivers. Ancient wisdom warned of the revenge of nature if the balance of three rivers is disrupted. This paper by offering “water of rivers” as an analytical category argues that indigenous knowledge as a product of a pre-industrial equilibrium between people and environmental surroundings has guided residents’ lives for millennia. It is a source of foundational understanding in evaluating all causes and effects of scientific knowledge. A new perspective on environmental governance may emerge if science and technology take into account relevant parts of the pre-industrial equilibrium. Manzurul Mannan is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh. Dr Mannan’s postgraduate training in both Political Science and Social Anthropology, and also years of research experience in NGOs and development agencies enabled him to develop diverse interests in areas of democracy and dynasty, religion and conflict, politics, culture, NGOs and development, project design and planning, etc. His current research interest involves the politics of development with an emphasis on two areas—the calamitous effects of global capitalism and modernization in eviscerating traditional world views, indigenous knowledge and relationships embedded in environment and nature; and, secondly, how cultural construction of rivers, water and delta can be effectively used in modern development planning. Mannan has published over 22 articles and book chapters on different aspects of development and conflict. His book BRAC, Global Policy Language, and Women in Bangladesh. Transformation and Manipulation was published by SUNY Press in October, 2015.


21

How Prepared is Singapore for a Climate-Related Population Influx?

Chew Y. C. Michele National Security Coordination Secretariat, Singapore

[email protected]

This paper explores the elasticity of Singapore’s responses to climate-related population mobility by using a combination of the futures methodology known as backcasting and qualitative interviews. The nation’s ability to respond to a sudden movement of people into Singapore will be examined along two dimensions. The first dimension being the availability of basic necessities of food, water, energy and shelter. Are our infrastructures able to handle the higher demand? Given that most disasters will be compound disasters, it is likely that more than one infrastructure will be affected. Using one undesired scenario, the interconnectedness of various infrastructures and the cross-sector decision making process flow will be mapped out. The second dimension examined is that of culture. It will be inevitable for conflicts to arise due to cultural differences. Using design thinking, we hope to identify the unmet challenges and to be able to recommend possible ground up solutions to facilitate cultural adaptation. These will hopefully serve as considerations for policy makers as they formulate and implement the strategies developed. Through the two dimensions, we hope to be able to illustrate the multi-dimensional challenges involved in risk governance. In her current post with the Singapore’s National Security Coordination Secretariat, Chew Y. C. Michele is able to apply her background in econometrics, management of technology, intellectual property law, and the social sciences to look at issues directly or indirectly related to national security. Topics such as urbanisation, climate change, disruptive events (disasters inclusive), and water security are topics of interest. Michele is particularly interested in the nexus of policy formulation and implementation. She enjoys combining concepts from various disciplines in her research. For example, applying the concepts and tools used in futures and technology forecasting to governance. Where her time permits, Michele helps out at grassroots activities. Michele was chairwoman of the youth executive committee of her neighbourhood. She led the team from a pro-temp group to a formal committee.


22

Following the Paths of Filipino Migrants: Are Climate-related Population Mobilities Really Any Different from Other Types of Migration?

Christine Gibb University of Toronto, Canada

[email protected]

Inhabiting an island state situated in the natural hazard-prone “Pacific Rim of Fire” Filipinos are well acquainted with the importance of climate to their well-being. In recent years, climate change has been identified as a major factor in the increasing intensity and frequency of so-called natural disasters that displace people throughout the archipelago. Where these “environmental” or “climate change-induced” migrants go is affected by diverse factors including: physical safety of sites, physical capacity to move, social networks, financial capacity, household and business assets, religious affiliation, political ties, stability of residential tenure, awareness of disaster risk reduction procedures. But are the emerging mobilities really something new? This paper characterizes environmental migration in the Philippines. It argues that migration provoked by climate change and disasters currently follow, and will to continue to follow, pre-existing migration pathways. The paper draws from interviews, participatory videos made by urban poor survivors and mapping activities conducted in Northern Mindanao, Philippines after Tropical Storm Sendong. It situates the migration ensuing from Tropical Storm Sendong and other recent disasters in the Philippines in relation to historical migration patterns. These patterns include migration to Mindanao and its role in the yet incomplete Filipinization of the country’s large southern island; spontaneous migration from the Visayas to Mindanao, a process of frontier development common throughout Asia-Pacific; and international migration in pursuit of better economic opportunities. This paper argues that learning from diverse types of past migration pathways provides the basis for supporting present and future climate-related population mobilities in Anthropocene Asia-Pacific. Christine Gibb is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, where she is researching how gendered religious practices, institutions and norms determine access to disaster assistance in Southeast Asia. Her doctoral research investigated a specific case of environmental migration in the Philippines, and focused on governmentality and exclusion in relocation sites and other post-disaster spaces. She has an interdisciplinary background, which includes studies in biology, capacity development and extension, and international development. Her research interests include environmental migration, global environmental change, feminist geography, post-disaster reconstruction, and accompanied research methodologies. Outside academia, she has worked as a consultant for several United Nations agencies and NGOs on environment, development, and youth education issues.


23

Governing the Mass Migration to Dhaka: Renegotiating Climate Factors

Iftekhar Iqbal University of Brunei Darussalam

[email protected]

With a focus on the city of Dhaka, my paper suggests that the unfolding challenges of the Anthropocene should not be wholly tied to the spectre of climate change. With more than 1500 new migrants settling in daily, Dhaka is set to be the world’s fourth largest megacity by 2030. It is estimated that 55 per cent of those affected by the climate change across the country head to the city. Such perception is linked to a broader case of misrecognition of climate issues, where the impact of climate change is conflated with the impact of more immediate human interventions into the eco-system. Displacement of people that trigger migration from coastal and hinterlands could take place due to river bank erosion, flooding, draught and cyclones, but in Bangladesh these forms of vulnerability could also be related to structural maladies in governance. An understanding of this will require examination of local politics of exclusion and extortion, filling-up of wetlands, pollution and death of water bodies, lengthy legal disputes on agrarian property and iniquitous access to pedestal natural resources like char (alluvial landforms). Dhaka, producing about 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s GDP and a major city in the Asia-Pacific region, is governed better when the science of climate change meets the political ecology of vulnerability. It is hoped that the paper will highlight the need for a synthetic approach that neither subscribes to the idea of an anthropogenic apocalypse nor extends support to tenacious climate sceptics. Iftekhar Iqbal is an Associate Professor at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam, specializing in environmental and transnational history. Trained at the Universities of Dhaka and Cambridge he has held fellowships with British Academy, Aga Khan University and Humboldt Foundation, while holding teaching and research appointments at University of Dhaka, King’s College London and Humboldt University Berlin. Iqbal has published extensively including in Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, and Environment and History. His book, The Bengal Delta. Ecology, State and Social Change 1840-1945 (Palgrave 2010), received Honorable Mention by inaugural Bernard Cohn Book Prize Committee and Bangladesh University Grants Commission award and is a member of the Board of Advisors to the journal Conservation. Iqbal is currently working on a book project on transregional environmental history connecting northeastern South Asia, southern western China and mainland Southeast Asia. Iqbal was a member of Botanical and Meteorological History of the Indian Ocean 1600-1900 network, Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex (2012-2014).


24

Potential Demographic Change and Conflict in South Asia: A Case Study of Climate-related Population Mobility from Maldives and Bangladesh to India

and its Impact

Mayilvaganan Muthumariappan National Institute of Advanced Studies, India

[email protected]

The consequences of climate change related natural disasters have gained increasing attention nationally and globally. Besides the local impact on the population and their livelihood, the effects of such environmental disasters bring significant changes in migration patterns of local population movement. The various study projections indicate that sea level rise will force entire Maldivians to relocate to the nearest safe place that would be Kerala in South India due to the geographical proximity and similar with the case of Bangladesh. Such climate disaster induced mobility in South Asia is anticipated to bring in potential demographic changes and socio-economic and religious conflict in India. Notably, the mobility of Maldivians and Bangladeshi into the Indian regions where levels of conflict over identity or interests are already high, the potential of them becoming a driver, or even trigger of violent conflict, is reasonably high. This is particularly true when the Maldivians and Bangladeshis, who are religiously different moves into Indian space, which could possibly alter the demographic balance. More importantly, the disaster risk governance in India does not seem to be comprehensive where it has taken into account the potential immigration from the neighbouring countries into policy formulation and planning. In the context, the proposed paper would investigate the consequences of climate-related natural disasters for long-term population mobility in Maldives and Bangladesh to India and policy recommendations to avert the potential conflict in the future. Mayilvaganan Muthumariappan is an Associate Professor in International Strategic and Security Studies Programme at National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, India. He earned a doctorate degree in the School of International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 2006. Before joining NIAS, he was a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Department of International and Strategic Studies, University of Malaya, based at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he taught South Asia in International Relations, Modern Warfare and International Politics. His past positions include Associate Fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi specializing Sri Lanka in particular and South Asia in general; Research Associate in the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi, specialized on Kashmir issues. His research interests include strategic and security issues concerning India’s neighbourhood, Indian Ocean, China, Japan and US Foreign Policy, Migration and Climate Change. He has published several articles and commentaries on a variety of topics related to Asia. He has also participated in various international and national seminars and given lectures at various institutes, besides appearing for various print and visual media interviews.


25

Building Resilience in Rural Communities in Myanmar

Mike Griffiths Social Policy and Poverty Research Group, Myanmar

[email protected]

Large-scale qualitative and quantitative studies of rural communities in Myanmar demonstrate that climate change is perceived by rural communities to be a significant contributor to the rapid decline in sustainability of rural livelihoods, with the emergence of new risks accompanied by new iterations of old ones. Debt is a common, and deeply erosive strategy, with over one in ten households in rural Myanmar reporting unsustainable debt levels, resulting in loss of assets, land, and resorting to risky and unrewarding work. The ability to enact behaviour which contributes to increased resilience is highly constrained by inhibiting governing frameworks such as gender inequality and political exclusion, and the absence of social safety nets and insurance mechanisms make localized livelihood investment a risky prospect, resulting in either a slow decline in resilience due to risk-averse strategies, or migration into unfavourable and risky work circumstances, effectively ‘outsourcing’ the household risk. Where remittances constitutes the main income source for households, investment levels in localized livelihoods is low, resulting in little change in the overall household resilience. Rural households show a strong awareness of climate change issues, and localized contributors to climate change effects (such as deforestation) but few options exist to collectively address root causes. This paper asserts that resilience building in relation to climate change must include activities which address constraining governing frameworks and build capacity for localized collective action to address climate change issues; without this, resilience remains a potentially disempowering acquiescence to inevitable threats. Initially trained in clinical medicine and public health, Mike Griffiths has worked in the social protection sector in Myanmar for over 13 years, currently working as lead researcher for the Yangon based Social Policy & Poverty Research Group (SPPRG), which has a particular focus on conducting research relevant to emerging government policy. Previous research work in Myanmar includes being lead researcher on the National Disability Survey 2009-10, a nationwide survey on formal sector migration, and two large-scale surveys looking at profiles of rural poverty in Myanmar. Forthcoming publications include compilations of contemporary migration research and disability research in Myanmar, and analysis of the performance of traditional social protection organizations in delivering social assistance. As well as working for SPPRG, Dr Griffiths is also a PhD candidate for the University of Hull, with current research focused on studying patterns of resilience in rural households and studies of traditional social protection organizations in Myanmar.


26

Urban-Rural Climate Resilience: A Comparative Assessment of Greater Yangon and Singapore

Pearlyn Y. Pang National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Yi-Chen Wang National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Globally, communities are tasked to constantly respond and cope with environmental threats and climate risks due to climate change and land-use land-cover change. In Southeast Asia, feedbacks from these changes are increasingly evident in hydro-meteorological hazards that have been, and are projected to, increase in anomaly, frequency and magnitude. In response to these risks, the concept of resilience is widely applied in research and policy-making. Previous applied community climate resilience studies have adopted index-based approaches and vector data models within Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to represent resilience and spatio-temporally analyse trends. However, discretising naturally continuous phenomena such as temperature and precipitation have been critiqued to remain the most problematic area of geographic data modelling. This problem is exacerbated in studies examining urban-rural resilience where the use of discrete administrative units can falsely promote the urban-rural dichotomy, generating oft-overlooked uncertainties in the results. Employing a GIS raster data model, this paper questions to what extent can the geographic dynamics of “urban-rural” resilience be accurately assessed and represented as a continuous, uneven and active process. Using drought as the hazard of interest, it aims to model and analyse spatial (urban-rural) and temporal resilience to drought in Singapore and Greater Yangon. The comparative assessment intends to highlight the underlying inherent variability of communities’ resilience capacity across heterogeneous urban-rural continuums. Pearlyn Y. Pang is a MSc Applied Geographic Information Systems (GIS) student in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and a Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute). Her current research interests include sustainability science, GIS and remote sensing applications, and coastal and marine ecology and management. Yi-Chen Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Her research interests include applications of GIS and remote sensing for studying impacts of land use/cover change, patterns and processes of landscape dynamics, and public health. Her current project focuses on investigating impacts of landscape patterns on urban ecology and sustainability.


27

Prospects and Limits for Climate Adaptation in India’s Urbanizing Villages

Andrew Rumbach University of Colorado Denver, USA

[email protected]

India’s urban population will grow by 500 million people by 2050, a radical transformation that is re-shaping human environmental relationships. In many larger cities, government agencies supported by international organizations have made significant progress in identifying environmental risks and developing adaptation plans to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. In smaller towns and urbanizing villages, however, local governments may not have similar resources or interests. In those places – where information, government and civil society capacity, and political interest in disaster risk reduction may be limited – what are the prospects for (and limits to) adaptation? To answer this question, I examine disaster risk in six ‘urbanizing villages’ in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, a mountainous area prone to floods and landslides. My paper is based on data collected over multiple visits from 2014-2017, where I interviewed key informants and surveyed 100 households living in villages in the vicinity of larger cities. The paper uses cross-case comparative analysis and finds that villages are intersecting with urbanization and disaster risk in at least two significant ways. First, the rapid growth of nearby cities has put increased environmental pressure on villages. Second, the villages themselves are becoming urban, with radical shifts in the local built environment, economy, and material flows between village and nearby urban centers. These changes have both short and long-term implications for disaster risk, and highlight the need for disaster mitigation and climate adaptation work that leverages social capacity at the local level. Andrew Rumbach is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. His research centers on household and community risk and resilience to natural hazards and climate change, in the United States and India. His work looks specifically at the intersection of urbanization and extreme weather events, and seeks to understand the political-economic context for disaster risk creation. His work has appeared in planning and development journals like the Journal of the American Planning Association, Habitat International, Urban Affairs, and the Journal of Planning Education and Research, as well as in edited volumes. His most recent project is a community-based study of earthquake and landslide risk in the hill station cities of northeastern India.


28

Future Climate Change Impacts on Rice Yields over Vietnam: Alerting or Alarming?

Srivatsan V Raghavan National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Ze Jiang Jina Hur

Shie-Yui Liong National University of Singapore

The crop simulation model Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) was applied over Vietnam, to assess future (2020-2050) impacts of climate change on rice production. The DSSAT was driven using station observed data, satellite data and projected climate data through the dynamical downscaling of global climate models (GCMs) using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Rice growth during three main seasons, namely, the winter-spring (winter), summer-autumn (summer) and autumn-winter (autumn), were selected to quantify impacts under both irrigated and rain-fed rice cultivation. The results from this climate-crop study suggest that under rain-fed conditions, future spring rice yield is likely to experience nearly 38% reduction, summer rice yield was projected to decrease by about 50%, and autumn rice yield was projected to reduce by 3%. Overall, under all climate realizations, without irrigation, the annual rice yield was projected to be decreased by about 40%. Increasing temperatures and seasonal variations of precipitation are likely to significantly reduce rice yields under rain-fed condition. With Vietnam being one of the largest exporters of rice, these findings have serious implications for the local agricultural sector and serves an early warning for the policy makers and stake holders for effective planning of not only crop production but also water resources management. The findings also give ample time for rice importing countries to make the optimal rice import diversification strategy planning. The study will also briefly discuss similar work done in Indonesia. Shie-Yui Liong is currently the Deputy Director at the Tropical Marine Science Institute, NUS. He has led a series of large projects related to climate modelling, climate change and impacts studies. He is currently the Associate Editor for the International Journal of Environmental Science and Policy and the International Journal of Smart Water. Apart from being a member of the Asia Water Council and of the Technical Advisory Committee of UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Program, he also holds a Guest Professorship from Sichuan University, China and has served as a visiting professor at different overseas universities. He is a recipient of several awards, notably, the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) of Federal Republic of Germany (2007) and a 3-time recipient of Best Paper awards from biannual IAHR-APD Congress (1994, 2003, 2012).


29

“City Upon the Ocean”: Coastal Cities, Climate Change, and Ideas for Floating City Extensions since the 1950s

Stefan Huebner Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

[email protected]

The second half of the twentieth century saw an enormous technological progress in the construction of offshore oil drilling platforms, which inspired other oceanic colonization projects, such as the creation of very large floating structures and visionary projects of mobile, floating cities. Among others, illustrious U.S. and Japanese architects and engineers such as Tange Kenzō, R. Buckminster Fuller, Kikutake Kiyonori, and John P. Craven already since the late 1950s drafted plans for floating city extensions and cities, which were designed to allow permanent offshore living without the need for large-scale land reclamation. While improvements in elevator technology and other reasons turned such projects uneconomical, climate change and a rising sea level recently have encouraged further projects among various architects and engineers. In this paper I argue that what I term an “oceanic colonizing mission” was and is driven not only by urbanization and industrialization caused population growth in coastal regions, environmental pollution, traffic congestions, and a shortage of land resulting in rising land prices. Increasingly, floating structures such as houses are also promoted as a solution to a climate change induced rising sea level (rising with it) and instable dykes, drainage related subsidence (water does not have to be drained anymore), and countermeasure to a growing likelihood of disasters both through prevention (limited protection against hurricane caused waves) and recovery assistance (floating helipads and first aid stations, etc.). Consequently, this paper sees floating structures as an increasingly significant element in global debates about continuing urbanization processes in coastal areas. Stefan Huebner is a historian of colonialism, modernization, and development policy. He is a research fellow at National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. He was awarded fellowships and scholarships at the Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC), the German Historical Institute Washington, DC, and the German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo. His second book project is a global history of oceanic colonization projects, which connects offshore oil drilling and mariculture (cultivation of marine organisms) to ideas of architects to build floating city extensions and futuristic floating cities. He received his PhD from Jacobs University Bremen (Germany) in 2015. His first book, Pan-Asian Sports and the Emergence of Modern Asia, 1913-1974, was published by National University of Singapore Press in 2016.


30

Climate Change Adaptation, Flood Mitigation and Technological Lock-In

Robert James Wasson National University of Singapore

[email protected]

Climate Change Adaptation requires flexibility on the part of communities and policy makers because of high levels of uncertainty in climate projections, particularly of precipitation and flood magnitude and frequency, and also to cope with changing socio-economic conditions that are even less predictable than climate. Most of the world’s major rivers are embanked to ‘protect’ communities from floods. Embankments represent a large investment, mostly of public funds, are a manifestation of the professionalism of engineers and hydrologists, and also are the result of professional and political entrapment. Inertia in large socio-technological systems is a result, with little incentive to adopt more adaptive and flexible solutions including non-structural measures, even in the face of evidence that structural measures do not reduce damage and in some cases make flood damage worse. Lock-in and path dependency are likely to worsen flood damage as floods become larger, more frequent, and/or deviate more from the statistical fiction of stationarity where the mean and variance of for example peak floods do not change thereby making embankment design and maintenance more difficult. Examples of the failure of embankments will be provided, from India and the USA, along with examples where they have become the refuge of last resort in India thereby making their removal problematic. Current lock-in in India will be considered in relation to political risk, professional agency fear, technological efficiency, and the dominant governance approach that is hierarchical, centralized and involves a nexus between politicians, technocrats and construction companies. Finally the attributes of a more adaptive governance regime will be compared with the current regime. In his most recent positions prior to joining NUS in 2011 Professor Robert James Wasson was Director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dean of Science and Head of the Department of Geography and Human Ecology at the Australian National University, then Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and International at Charles Darwin University, Australia. He was trained in geomorphology and his research interests are: causes of change in river catchments; environmental history; extreme hydrologic events in the tropics; cross-disciplinary methods; complexity and the emergent properties of flood damage; and the integration of science into both public and private sector policy. He has done research in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, China, Myanmar and Thailand. He is currently examining flood disasters in relation to climate change and human vulnerability in India and Thailand, and the political economy of disaster governance in India and Thailand.

Documents

Asia Research Institute, National University of … DISASTER GOVERNANCE 21-22 SEPTEMBER 2017 2 This conference is organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore;