Historical perspectives on social resilience to climate change impacts with cases from developing Asia

Abstract

Currently and globally, human societies are facing complex climate-related natural hazards impacts along with an increasing intensity of population and properties. Growing concern on these challenges requires a deeper understanding on the long term dynamics of social resilience to climate impacts in the past. This study applies the concept of resilience within a few environmentally harsh and socially vulnerable cases in developing Asian, including the Pearl River Delta, the upper Mekong basin and the Karakoram mountains. The essential factors and evolution process of social resilience to hydrological hazard events are investigated at various scales.

The results indicate that engineering facilities are the very prominent measures for hazard preventions. Self-/mutual-relief is highly important for individual households, while governmental and external assists are expected to play a more significant role. Meantime, spontaneous recoveries need to be organized, planned and optimized. Systematic resilience building would benefit from an integration of individual efforts, governmental plans and organization of various external assistances. The findings offer a multi-dimensional knowledge on the dynamic climate-hazard-society relationships, providing a few missing links to understand how social resilience develops within complex human-environment contexts.