The document discusses priorities for reducing risks from future disasters. It notes that over the past 20 years, 1.3 million people have been killed by disasters like droughts, earthquakes and storms, causing $2 trillion in damage. Improving the use of science can help better anticipate disasters. The report recommends establishing expert groups on emerging risks, a database of experts, and procedures for emergency advice. Looking ahead to 2040, disaster risks will increase as more people live in hazardous areas and weather variability grows due to climate change. The report calls for investing in science infrastructure and hazard forecasting, integrated risk modeling, and evaluating policies and actions to effectively reduce future disaster risks.

1. Reducing Risks of
Future Disasters:
Priorities for Decision
Makers
Professor Sir John Beddington
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

2. The impact of disasters
• 1.3 million killed in the
last 20 years
• Droughts, earthquakes
and storms have caused
most mortality in past
40 years
• $2 trillion damage in
past 20 years > total
overseas development
spend
• Long term and indirect
effects poorly captured
Data source: Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
2

3. The HERR and SHED report
• The 2011 HERR
recommended better use of
science to improve disaster
anticipation
• The GO Science SHED
report has delivered:
1. Risk expert group on
emerging international
risks
2. Database of experts to
provide emergency advice
3. Procedures for
Humanitarian Emergency
Expert Group to provide
immediate advice in
emergencies
3

4. Reducing Risks of Future Disasters
• Foresight Project looks out to
2040
• Lead Expert Group of
academic, industry and
humanitarian experts
• Evidence base:
• 18 independently peer
reviewed papers
• High level international
stakeholder summit
• Several expert
workshops
• Final report peer reviewed by
experts and stakeholders
4

5. Without action disaster risk will increase
• Growing concentrations of people
exposed to hazards
• 65 million more people a year in
cities in less developed regions
• Many more vulnerable people
• Number of people over 65 in less
developed countries set to triple
from 2010 to 2040
5

6. As climate change occurs, variability in weather increases
The mean is moving, but the distribution is
getting wider >2x faster
Source: Hansen et al (2012) www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109, courtesy of Tim Benton
6

7. Science for disaster risk forecasts
Professor Angela McLean

8. Science and disaster risk
• This framework is used in
many sectors for addressing
risk:
• Identify risk
• Decide how to respond to
risk
• Act to address risk
• Monitor outcomes
• For disaster risk, science
plays an important role at
each stage
8

9. Ability to forecast hazards
• To identity future
disaster risk first need
to be able to forecast
future hazards
• Where?
• When?
• How severe?
• Science can do this well
for some hazards
• Improvements are
expected by 2040
• Some gaps will remain
9

10. What is a reliable hazard forecast?
• Forecasts of hazards are inherently probabilistic, not deterministic
• Reliability is the indicator of quality: does the hazard happen as
often as the forecast says that it will
• Decision makers need to see track records of reliability so they
10
know which forecasts to trust

11. Hydrometeorological hazards
• Storms, floods and droughts
could all be fairly reliably
forecast by 2040
• This relies on improvements in Source: Foresight
technology:
• Higher resolution modelling
powered by faster
supercomputers
• Next generation of satellites
for earth observation
• More integration between
models
Source: Argonne National Laboratory
11

12. Geophysical hazards
• Earthquakes, Volcanoes and
Tsunami will remain hard to
forecast even in 2040
• Improvements are possible, Source: Foresight
from similar sources as for
hydrometerological:
• Next generation of satellites
for earth observation
• More integration between
models
• Forensic analysis of past
events
12

13. Biological hazards
• Ability to forecast disease
outbreaks in humans, animals
and plants is variable, and
will improve gradually
• Novel approaches show
promise:
• Aviation patterns
• Satellite sensing
• Social media
• Data mining
13

14. Pooling of resources for science infrastructure
• Improvements in forecasting
hazards of all types rely on
new science infrastructure:
• Satellites
• Supercomputers
• Sensors
Source: CERN
• International collaboration on
the next generation of
infrastructure could make
improvements affordable
Swinburne Astronomy Productions for SKA Project Development Office
14

15. From hazard to risk
• Disaster risk is not just hazard risk
• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience determine whether a hazard
becomes a disaster
15
• Measuring and mapping these is difficult but important

16. Exposure, vulnerability and risk
Source: UNICEF 2012 Source: Josef Muellek | Dreamstime.com
• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience depend on local context
• Need locally specific measurements
• “Bottom up” approaches will be needed
• Local decision makers can take the same hazard forecast and then
overlay measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience that
matter to them
16

17. The path to integrated risk forecasts
• Improved single hazard forecasts
• Drawing on new technology
• Pooling resources for expensive infrastructure
• Track records of reliability
• Better interfacing between hazard models
• Outputs of one model can be inputs of another
• May need interfacing software
• User friendly outputs of hazard models
• So that local measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience can
be overlaid on them
• By 2040, it should be possible to have a family of disaster risk
models that give local decision makers the information they need
17

18. Using science to tackle disaster risk
Brendan Gormley

19. Global imperatives to act now
Source: UNISDR, http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa
19

20. Acting on disaster risk
• Decision makers must decide
how to address disaster risk
• As with all risks, options are:
• Transfer risk
• Avoid risk
• Reduce risk
• Accept risk
• Need to know what works
and what does not to be able
to decide
20

21. Transfer risk
Source: Foresight
• To address disaster risk in developing countries, neither formal nor
informal mechanisms work well in isolation
• Much potential to expand both formal and informal mechanisms
21

22. Avoid risk
Source: Esoko
• Early warnings can work well
if make use of both
communities and technology
• Migration can increase as well
as avoid risk
22

23. Reduce risk: Infrastructure and cities
• Over the next 30 years, many
cities will build major
infrastructure for the first time
• Resilient infrastructure design
can reduce disaster risk
• Need to understand what Source: UNICEF 2012
designs perform well
• May require a degree of
redundancy and flexibility
• One of the biggest opportunities
to determine future disaster risk
23

24. Reduce risk: Ecosystem management
• Healthy ecosystems can
mean large reductions in
disaster impacts
Source: Foresight, compiled from other sources
• Even if reduction of
disaster risk does not
justify protection, other
benefits often result
• As with all actions, need
to know what reduces
risk and what does not
Source: Wikimedia Commons
24

25. Accept risk
• If the costs of action
outweigh the benefits,
accepting the risk may be
the right option
• But weighing up is not easy
25

26. Evidence base to support decisions
• Decision makers need to know what forecasts are reliable, and
what actions actually reduce disaster risk
• Need to build up a trusted repository of evidence
26

27. The need for culture change
• Disaster risk is not a problem that can be dealt with by disaster
specialists alone
• Many other decisions (infrastructure, ecosystems, mobile phones,
satellites) impact on future disaster risk
• And many of the solutions are in the hands of others (across
government, business, development NGOs, communities, funders)
• All those who care about sustainable development should care
about disaster risk and factor it into their decisions
• Otherwise the benefits of development will be put at risk
27

28. Thank you:
- DFID comments
- ODI comments
-Q&A

29. Reducing Risks of
Future Disasters:
Priorities for Decision
Makers
Tweeting with #DRR from:
@foresightgovuk
@uksciencechief
Live stream:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-
work/policy-futures/disasters