Challenges and Opportunities for DRR Science after Sendai: the View from the Bottom

Abstract:

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) provides a top-down prescriptive for the next 15 years of DRR at a very high level of consideration. The gaps and challenges moving forward, however, have significant implications for local-level Framework adoption and implementation, which call for a bottom-up perspective. The objective of this contribution to Session PA010 is to consider the following question: where can science best “fit” within this framework? This approach raises two critical issues of importance for this panel: scale and governance. The first, scale, refers to where DRR science is best suited for successful application, while the second, governance, refers to the how of the implementation in regard to stakeholders and decision making, both public and private, at the appropriate scale. Based on previous collaborative work on DRR at the local level, the authors will discuss the challenges of the Framework guiding principles, priorities for action, and the role of stakeholders as they relate to the issues of scale and governance. In conclusion, this contribution will emphasize the importance of targeted science for DRR at the local level based on continued involvement by the authors with local level DRR science and decision making.