Course

Unit 1

Unit 1: Understand the definitions of risk, vulnerability and indicators of vulnerability, capacity and disasters, and common approaches to vulnerability assessment, methods and tools, and challenges thereof. 

Unit 2

Unit 2: Review National and International disaster risk reduction policies, frameworks, and governance mechanisms by governments and international non-governmental organizations including the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Government of India, the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement, United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals related to climate action etc. 

Unit 3

Unit 3: Critically evaluate the extant literature on multi-disciplinary scientific frameworks and tools for vulnerability identification and assessment including and Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI), Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA), Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCA) and Community Based Disaster Risk Assessment (CBDRA). 

Unit 4

Unit 4: Examine the successes and failures of structural and non-structural disaster risk reduction or mitigation strategies including nature-based solutions (NbS) popularized by national and international agencies through case study analyses, to demonstrate the interconnectedness between community vulnerabilities and protective action implementations. 

Unit 5

Unit 5: Work on a group-based case study project that involves conducting a vulnerability assessment of an identified community or sub-population, reviewing policies and offering an integrated disaster risk reduction solution 

Course Outcomes  

Unit 1: Definitions and common approaches to Vulnerability Assessment 

1. United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) (2009. UNISDR Terminology of Disaster Risk Reduction. Available at, https://www.unisdr.org/files/7817_UNISDRTerminologyEnglish.pdf
2. Twigg, J. (2015). Disaster Risk Reduction. Available at http://bvpad.indeci.gob.pe/doc/pdf/esp/doc2601/doc2601-contenido.pdf
3. Ciurean, R. L., Schröter, D., & Glade, T. (2013). Conceptual frameworks of vulnerability assessments for natural disasters reduction. np: INTECH.
4. Moret, W. (2014). Vulnerability assessment methodologies: A review of the literature. Washington, DC: FHI, 360. Available at, https://www.alnap.org/system/files/content/resource/files/main/Vulnerability%20Assessment%20Literature%20Review.pdf

Unit 2: National and International Disaster Risk Reduction Frameworks and Policies 

1. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. https://www.rcrc-resilience-southeastasia.org/ 2. National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India https://ndma.gov.in/
2. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/what-sendai-framework
3. UNDP, 2010: Mapping climate change vulnerability – http://www.adaptationcommunity.net/?wpfb_dl=58

Units 3 & 4: Multi-disciplinary scientific frameworks and tools for vulnerability assessment and case study comparisons 

1. Cutter, S. L., Boruff, B. J., & Shirley, W. L. (2012). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. In Hazards vulnerability and environmental justice (pp. 143-160). Routledge.
2. Flax, L. K., Jackson, R. W., & Stein, D. N. (2002). Community vulnerability assessment toolmethodology. Natural Hazards Review, 3(4), 163-176.
3. US Federal Emergency Management Agency (2019). 2019 National Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA). Overview and Methodology. Available at, https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/fema_national-thira-overview-methodology_2019_0.pdf
4. Barnett, J., Lambert, S., & Fry, I. (2008). The hazards of indicators: insights from the environmental vulnerability index. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98(1), 102-119.
5. GIZ, 2014: A Framework for Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments, Published by DeutscheGesellschaftfürInternationaleZusammenarbeit(GIZ) GmbH, India Project on Climate Change Adaptation in Rural Areas of India (CCA RAI). Available at, https://www.giz.de/en/downloads/giz2014-en-cca-rai-vulnerable-assessments-india.pdf 
6. Guillard-Gonçalves, C., Cutter, S. L., Emrich, C. T., &Zêzere, J. L. (2015). Application of Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) and delineation of natural risk zones in Greater Lisbon, Portugal. Journal of Risk Research, 18(5), 651-674UNDP, 2010: Mapping climate change vulnerability.
7. Asian Development Bank (2010). Community Based Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Planning: Cooks Island. Available at, https://www.preventionweb.net/files/27076_climatechangeassessmentcoo.pdf
8. Nakagawa, Yuko, and Rajib Shaw. “Social Capital: A Missing Link to Disaster Recovery.” Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 22, no. 1 (2004): 5-34.
9. Chapters 2,4, 5, 6, 9 from Twigg (2015)
10. Chapters 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16 from Twigg (2015)
11. Mercer, J., Kelman, I., Taranis, L., & Suchet?Pearson, S. (2010). Framework for integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge for disaster risk reduction. Disasters, 34(1), 214-239. Available to read for free online at, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1467-7717.2009.01126.x
12. Lindell M., C. Prater, R.W. Perry with W.C. Nicholson (2006). Chapter 6, “Hazard, Vulnerability and Risk Analysis” in Fundamentals of Emergency Management http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/fem.asp
13. Schmidtlein, M. C., Deutsch, R. C.,Piegorsch, W. W., & Cutter, S. L. (2008). A sensitivity analysis of the social vulnerability index. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 28(4), 1099-1114.

Youtube Videos 

1. 5 EXTREME Natural Disasters Caught on Camera. Available at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6uJy9WgM4U&ab_channel=Underworld
2. PBS-NOVA. Wake that Shook the World. Available at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Ekr0r1XBw&ab_channel=DocLuke (Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004) 3. Frontline. The Quake. Available at, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/haiti/

(Haiti Earthquake, 2010)