Facing Disaster Risks Together: Academia, Policy, and Community at the Crossroads

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway.

His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, integrating climate change into both.

This interview has been authorised for publication by Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman.

SPCIS: How can international academic and policy communities work together to enhance disaster resilience, particularly in vulnerable regions?

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman: Every region is vulnerable and everyone has vulnerabilities – just as every region and everyone has ways of addressing their own vulnerabilities and of helping others. We could shift away from ‘vulnerable regions’ and ‘vulnerable groups’ to recognise that everyone and everywhere requires support and can contribute plenty. This is the essence of working together and of bridging communities, including academia and policy.

We can exchange by offering material and ideas, by conversing and communicating, and by collaborating and supporting each other. The process will be never-ending teaching and learning.

These actions require resources, most notably time. Increasing pressures combined with decreasing financing makes it more and more difficult to interact. Rather than placing demands on each other, we could do as much as we can to offer as much as we can to others. Examples are:

- Placing material online, posting to social media, and sending to email lists.

- Working on joint grant proposals, where people and organisations have the resources or are given the resources to spend time seeking grants.

- When resources are available, directly support those who lack what they need.

- Generate projects which are about creating networks, providing time for exchange, mutual training, and discussing knowledges and experiences.

Often, it is much easier to work out how to do so without travel, using travel time and money to ensure adequate and appropriate infrastructure for working together without being in-person.

Finding opportunities to share is not always easy. The key is joining together on our own terms when we can, offering our strengths for collaboration to fill in our gaps.

SPCIS:  What are the main obstacles to implementing inclusive and sustainable disaster risk reduction strategies across different socio-economic contexts?

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman: The main obstacles seem to be a combination of disinterest and ignoring the gains and benefits from avoiding disasters. In effect, it is less about ignorance (which means not knowing) and much more about ignore-ance (which means not wanting to know).

Where this lack of caring emerges from and why it is being reinforced remains obscure to me, so I would value any feedback and ideas. At baseline, it is about human values and attitudes producing human behaviours, principally by the minority with the most resources, opportunities, and political power. How we reached a point where accumulation of money at any cost is a basic human value, and where monetary wealth equals political and decision-making power, requires deeper understanding.

Certainly, one consequence is that an obstacle to achieving sustainability and to avoiding disasters is not money—although those who know what to do and how to do it are definitely lacking money to apply their knowledge. Instead, available money is being accrued by those who do not need more and who prefer ignore-ance. Mostly, they lack caring for others. They might, at times, realise that they will generally be able to afford to deal with disasters, so others do not matter to them. If you have one house and it is ruined because no effort was made to avoid a disaster, then you are devastated, often lacking options to help yourself. If you have four other houses, an insurance company which is supportive, and/or extensive savings, then losing one house is much less concerning. Those with more have fewer obstacles than those with less. Lack of equity is a main obstacle.

SPCIS: How can global cooperation be strengthened to address transboundary disaster risks, such as pandemics or climate-induced displacements?

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman: The quick summary is that much successful global cooperation for addressing disaster risks is typically happening outside of governments, to the extent that people are permitted to do so. The detailed answer is to see our work on disaster diplomacy https://www.disasterdiplomacy.org which explores the nuances, with and without governments, on strengthening global cooperation.

One aspect is that forced displacement due to human-caused climate change currently appears to be more speculation than reality. We have a long list of publications seeking and failing to find examples, including specifically from low-lying islands, while theorising why forced displacement is much more about created vulnerabilities than about hazards or changing hazards – which, naturally, is the fundament of disaster risk reduction.

SPCIS: Could you reflect on how integrating disaster risk reduction with long-term development planning has helped build resilience in any specific international case studies?

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman: Not viewing disaster risk reduction as separate from, but rather as a subset of, development, planning, and wider sustainability processes and actions has led to inspiring international successes. None is perfect. Major problems remain. They nonetheless indicate possibilities and scenarios, even where the brief summaries cannot do justice to the nuances, subtleties, difficulties, disputes, controversies, and impressiveness which any example must proffer.

In Seoul, South Korea, an elevated expressway through the city centre was torn down between 2003 and 2005 to restore and engineer the Cheonggyecheon stream. It is now a floodway for rainfall run-off and an important urban social space, with pedestrian paths, relaxation areas, events, and green spaces. Air quality improved, traffic reduced, and risks from rainwater-related flooding and the urban heat island declined.

After Hurricane Hazel wreaked havoc in Toronto, Ontario in 1954, the city chose not to rebuild destroyed houses in the floodplain. Instead, a ravine system was created along the rivers, with walking and cycling pathways, environmental education programs, and river engineering. During storms, the paths flood, but no buildings exist to be ruined.

In 1970, 1985, and 1991, Bangladesh experienced tens of thousands of deaths in cyclones. Several cyclones from 2020-2024 killed dozens each. The major decline in death toll per storm is due to a deliberate, generational program in education, awareness, warning, evacuation, sheltering, and comfort in all these activities.

We know what to do and how to do it. We have specific examples demonstrating successes. We have the resources, if we would choose to apply them. What remains is better understanding on how to apply for action what we have and what we know.

Prof. Dr. Ilan Kelman can be reached at: https://www.ilankelman.org/ and Instagram/Threads/

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