Executive Summary
The Community-Level Disaster Resilience Index for Cox’s is an adaptation of the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI), which was introduced by the International Environment and Disaster Management (IEDM) Laboratory of Kyoto University Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies along with its partner organizations, including CITYNET and UNISDR in 2008 to measure disaster resilience of the coastal cities by considering five dimensions: physical, social, economic, institutional, and natural. Then, the variables selection was translated to the local setting, collecting matching variables/indicators and suitable alternatives where necessary. Furthermore, RIMES incorporated the “Rapid Index of Stress to the Rohingya Crisis” into the disaster resilience index. Rapid Index of Stress to the Rohingya crisis is an adaptation of the “Rapid Index of Stress to the Syrian Crisis,” developed by UNDP, considering the Syrian refugee crisis.
The framework is mainly developed by identifying an initial list of indicators and variables following an extensive literature search and by using stakeholders’ and experts’ opinions and perceptions to achieve a consensus regarding the key indicators and assigning weights to each in order to assess community resilience and the ability to cope with disasters. This framework employs a combination of both quantitative and qualitative (i.e., public opinions and expert judgments) methods.
This study shows various vulnerability types for each of the target communities/unions. Considering the overall resilience, Raja Palong union is comparatively higher than others, whereas Palongkhali union shows the lowest resilience score. Host communities in Ukhiya are concerned about increasing labor competition, deforestation, groundwater depletion, increase in price, and damages to their physical and natural resources. Both individual homes and community shelters are weak and in poor condition. These issues are linked to the region’s poor land quality and high risk of natural disasters. Increasing risk financing opportunities, forecast-based support or bursary on youth/women employment, etc., will enhance the resilience of the communities in Ukhiya, while the risk governance monitoring system may expedite the efficiency of humanitarian and development blending mechanism. Cyclone has been identified as the most high-risk hazardous event of this Upazila. The second most risky and hazardous events include heavy rainfalls, sudden flood, and coastal floods. Water-logging and landslides are regarded as the third most hazardous event.
Ukhiya Upazila needs a comprehensive land-use and natural resource management policy that requires a climate and resource footprint assessment to avoid future resource scarcity. The resilience matrix is recommended to be used in the non-refugee hosting areas too. A decision support system (DSS) can be further developed using a variety of resilience indicators and present the output by indicators automatically. This DSS will use union-level Risk Index methodology to generate key decision-making indicators. Some of the future usages of this tool include a systematic and transparent approach to visualize, compare, and rank disaster risk at the community/union level, bridging the science-policy gap through an easy platform that allows both technical and non-technical users to understand risk and resilience, and usage of relevant data to support evidence-based decision-making for disaster risk management.
Source: Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia