Browsing by Author "Yonson, Rio"

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Open Access
The measurement of disaster risk: An example from tropical cyclones in the Philippines
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2016) Yonson, Rio; Gaillard, J. C.; Noy, Ilan
What shapes people’s disaster risk exposure? Using a sub-national (provincial) panel econometric and deductive approach we answer this question by focussing on tropical cyclones, and using the Philippines as a case study for our measurement approach. We construct a new provincial level panel dataset, and use panel estimation methods to assess the influence of socioeconomic (vulnerability), geographic, demographic, topographic (exposure), and meteorological (hazard) characteristics on the resulting fatalities and affected persons from recent tropical cyclones. We find strong evidence that socioeconomic development reduces people’s vulnerability and loss of human lives. Further, good local governance is associated with fewer fatalities. Rapid and unplanned urbanization generates vulnerabilities and increases harm. Exposure, including topography, and hazard strength are likewise important determinants. However, disaster impacts on people appear to be influenced much more by vulnerability and exposure, than by the hazard itself. We quantify this difference in order to contribute to policy planning at national and sub-national scales.
Open Access
Measurement of economic welfare risk and resilience of the Philippine regions
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2018) Yonson, Rio; Noy, Ilan
Using an economic model to assess welfare risk and resilience to disasters, this paper systematically tackles the questions: 1) How much asset and welfare risks does each region in the Philippines face from riverine flood disasters? 2) How resilient is each region to riverine flood disasters? and 3) What are the available interventions per region to strengthen resilience to riverine flood disasters and what will be their measured benefit? We study the 18 regions of the Philippines to demonstrate the channels through which macroeconomic asset and output losses from disasters translate to consumption and welfare losses at the microeconomic level. Apart from the prioritization of regions based on resilience and welfare risk, we identify a menu of policy options ranked according to their level of effectiveness in increasing resilience and reducing welfare risk from riverine floods. While there are similarities in the ranking of policies among regions with comparable levels of resilience and welfare risk, the ranking of priorities varies for different regions. This suggests that there are region-specific conditions and drivers that need to be integrated into policies and development processes so that these conditions are effectively addressed. Overall, the results indicate that reduction of adverse disaster impacts, including welfare losses, and reduction of poverty are generally complementary.
Open Access
A survey of the theory and measurement of economic vulnerability and resilience to natural hazards
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2016) Noy, Ilan; Yonson, Rio
About four decades ago, the discourse on disasters was largely about natural hazards and their characteristics. The failure of this approach to substantially explain disaster impacts led to a change in paradigm. This new paradigm places its emphasis on the influence of vulnerability and resilience on the resulting impacts of disaster– be they direct or indirect. Disasters triggered by natural hazards have since been perceived as un-natural occurrences brought about by a confluence of societal factors. Economic vulnerability and economic resilience, interacting with the hazard itself and the exposure of populations and economic systems, are considered critical determinants of the resulting disaster impacts. The theoretical conceptualization and empirical measures of vulnerability and resilience, however, remain subjects of contentions. An apparently dominant view is that while vulnerability and resilience have similar underlying factors, they refer to different things. For instance, economic vulnerability and economic resilience are both shaped by the level of development, quality of development governance, and characteristics of development (widespread inequality, rapid and unplanned urbanization, etc.), yet vulnerability is considered a pre-disaster concern, while resilience, a post-disaster issue. Here, vulnerability is taken as that component of disaster risk that explains the varying impacts on elements (people, assets, systems) that have the same level of exposure to a given hazard. Resilience is what enables the exposed elements to withstand, cope and recover from disaster impacts. Thus, in terms of disaster risk reduction priorities, vulnerability is typically linked to prevention, preparedness, and mitigation; while resilience, to rehabilitation, reconstruction, and recovery. The intensified application of economic theory resulted in important advances in concretizing the concepts of economic vulnerability and resilience, as well as in measuring them. Overall, the ultimate aim for these is for a sound and widely-accepted set of concepts and measures that can be easily adjusted for practical application in different contexts (e.g. developed and developing countries), levels of assessment and governance (e.g. macro and micro; community, city, province, country), hazard types (e.g. meteorological and geologic), and elements at risk.