2nd GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshop GEOSS: Supporting Science for the Millennium Development Goals and Beyond Bonn, Germany, August 28—31, 2012

Ecosystems, their Services and Disaster Risk Reduction — Examples from Coastal Areas

Fabrice Renaud
Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University

Environmental disasters are on the increase worldwide and although they have fortunately made fewer casualties in the last few years, an increasing amount of people and assets are being affected and economic losses are on the rise, often compromising development gains. The international community has adopted in 2005 the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 to build resilience of nations and communities with respect to disasters. This framework spells out actions to be taken by governments to achieve disaster risk reduction (DRR) and among these actions, features the role of ecosystems. Ecosystems and their services are indeed increasingly recognized as important components of DRR, yet the uptake of these ecosystem-based solutions is relatively slow. This presentation will illustrate the role of ecosystems in DRR and their limits taking as an example coastal areas with two case studies from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

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