A Changing Environment for Human Security

23  Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction

Ben Wisner

Introduction

The central focus of this book is global environmental change and human security, with an emphasis on the kinds of transformations (political, economic, cultural and technological) that are required to create human security. The focus of this chapter is on disaster risk and efforts to reduce people’s vulnerability to natural hazards that are ever more complicated by environmental changes. Few dispute the salience of such changes, especially when it comes to extreme climate events and their human consequences (IPCC, 2012). Yet to understand risk and vulnerability, it is necessary to think more broadly and consider other global changes, including how these changes interact in ...