Dear Colleagues,

The cities of the Tropics are exposed to multiple hazards that are rarely present in other climatic zones. The Tropics contain the greatest heterogeneity of economies—a condition that should facilitate the exchange of best practices to face similar hydro-climatic threats. However, we still know too little about (1) how the principles set out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015) have been accepted and implemented by local governments and (2) which obstacles and which best practices have surfaced in recent years. Hazards trend under the effect of climate change and variability are still little investigated in the large cities of the Tropics. Exceptions aside, the dynamics of settlements in risk areas remain poorly understood. The case studies that have so far investigated the impacts of natural disasters on the reproduction of urban poverty are at their initial stages. Risk assessments tend to view the context as stationary. Residual risk and the efficiency of risk treatment often remain unknown. Few studies have investigated whether early warning systems are effective and whether the deficiencies depend on the poorly participated way in which they were designed. Despite these gaps, many cities are adopting stand-alone risk reduction plans, while others have preferred to mainstream disaster risk reduction into existing plans. These practices should be known more thoroughly to facilitate their dissemination. Public participation and public–private partnership in the planning process, plan implementation, monitoring and evaluation are recurrent weaknesses of local planning. These aspects require more knowledge. Efforts to reduce risks have inadvertently built new ones. We would like to know if and how official development aid is facing the social reproduction of risk.

This Special Issue is focused on the local scale and local actors. We are looking for case studies (best practices), critical reviews, systematic reviews and innovative methodological contributions from different academic fields on a range of topics:

• Non-stationary approaches to floods;
• Exposure and risk dynamics;
• Socially constructed risk;
• Natural disaster–poverty nexus;
• Local climate scenarios;
• Early warning systems;
• Multi-hazard risk assessments;
• Risk treatment efficiency;
• Risk reduction plans;
• Risk management;
• Mainstreaming risk reduction into local plans;
• Public–private partnership in disaster risk reduction;
• Public participation in disaster risk reduction;
• Tracking risk reduction plans.

References

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2. Adger, W.N.; Brown, I.; Surminski, S. Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy. Philosophical Transactions A 2018, 376
3. Amaratunga D.; Malalgoda C.; Haigh R.; Panda A.; Rahayu H. Sound practices of disaster risk reduction at local level. Procedia Engineering 2018, 212: 1163–1170
4. Calderon Ramirez, S.; Frey, K. El ordenamiento territorial para la gestion del riesgo de desastre en Colombia. Territorios 2017, 36: 239–264
5. Ford, J.D.; Berrang-Ford, L. The 4Cs of adaptation tracking: consistency, comparability, comprehensiveness, coherency. Mitig Adapt Strateg Global Change 2016, 21: 839–859
6. Jurgilevich A.; Rasanen A.; Groundstroem F.; Juhola S. A systematic review of dynamics in climate risk and vulnerability assessments. Environmental Research Letters 2017, 12: 013002
7. Lyles, W.; Berke, P.; Smith, G. A comparison of local hazard mitigation plan quality in six states, USA. Landscape and Urban Planning 2014, 122: 29–99
8. Marchezini, V.; Trajber, R.; Olivato, D.; Aguilar Munoz, V.; de Oliveira Pereira, F.; Oliveira Luz, A.E. Participatory early warning systems: youth, citizen science, and intergenerational dialogues on disaster risk reduction in Brazil. Int J Disaster Risk Sci 2017, 8: 390–401
9. Mechler, R. Reviewing estimates of the economic efficiency of disaster risk management: opportunities and limitations of using risk-based cost-benefit analysis. Nat Hazards 2016, 81: 2121–2147
10. Mees, H. Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North American cities. J Envi Policy & Planning 2017. 19(4): 374–390
11. Paul, J.D.; Buytaert, W.; Allen, S.; Ballesteros-Canovas, J.A.; Bhusal, J. et al. Citizen science for hydrological risk reduction and resilience building. WIREs Water 2018, 5: e1262
12. Renn, O. Stakeholder and public involvement in risk governance. Int J Disaster Risk Sci 2015, 6: 8–20
13. Ruiz Rivera, N.; Casado Izquierdo, J.M.; Sanchez Salazar, M.T. Los atlas de riesgo municipales en México como instrumentos de ordenamiento territorial. Investigaciones Geograficas del Instituto de Geografia UNAM 2015, 88: 145–162
14. Tiepolo, M. Relevance and quality of climate planning for large and medium-sized cities of the Tropics. In Tiepolo M.; Pezzoli A.; Tarchiani V. (Eds), Renewing local planning to face climate change in the Tropics. Cham, Springer Open, 2017: 199–226
15. Tiepolo, M. Flood risk reduction and climate change in large cities south of the Sahara. In Macchi S.; Tiepolo M. (Eds), Climate change vulnerability in southern African cities. Cham, Springer, 2014: 19–36
16. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, GAR-Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction. Geneva, United Nations, 2019
17. United Nations FCCCC, Opportunities and options for integrating climate change adaptation with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, 2017
18. Wilson, A.; Tewdwr-Jones, M.; Comber, R. Urban planning and digital technology: app development as a method of generating citizen involvement in local planning processes. Environment and Planning B 2019, 46(2): 286–302

Prof. Dr. Maurizio Tiepolo
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Pezzoli
Guest Editors

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• disaster risk reduction
• early warning systems
• exposure dynamics
• emergency plans
• floods
• drought
• hurricane
• storm
• strong wind
• urban heat island
• open data on loss and damages
• multi-hazard risk assessment
• risk prevention
• risk reduction plans
• sustainable development

Keywords: management, rainwater, flooding, infrastructure, strategy, Ziguinchor

Author: Cheikh Faye ¹*, Bouly Sané ², Eddy Nilsone Gomis³, Alassane Sow⁴
Affiliation:

1 Department of Geography, U.F.R. Sciences and Technologies, UASZ, Laboratory of Geomatics and the Environment, BP 523 Ziguinchor (Senegal).

²  Department of Geography, U.F.R. Sciences and Technologies, UASZ, Laboratory of Geomatics and the Environment, BP 523 Ziguinchor (Senegal).

³  Laboratory of Research in Architecture, National School of Architecture / University Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, 5 Alleys Antonio Machado 31 058, Toulouse, Cedex 9, France

⁴  Head of the regional sanitation service of Ziguinchor