Research on integrated disaster risk governance in the context of global environmental change

To achieve sustainable development, understanding of the impact of global environmental change on natural resources and the frequency, intensity, and spatial-temporal patterns of all kinds of hazards should be advanced. In recent years, severe losses of human lives and property have been caused by very large-scale natural hazards all over the world, such as the freezing rain and snowstorm disaster in China in 2008, Typhoon Sidr in Bangladesh in 2007, and Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005. Strengthening the study on integrated disaster risk governance has become a pressing issue of sustainable development. Supported by the Chinese National Committee for the International Human Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change (CNC-IHDP), its Working Group for Risk Governance proposed to the IHDP in 2006 to launch a new international research project on integrated risk governance (IRG) in the context of global environmental change. The IRG-Project was accepted by the IHDP Scientific Committee as a pilot science project in 2008 and was approved in 2010 as a full IHDP core science project under the Strategic Plan 2007–2015. The research foci of this international science project will be on the issues of science, technology, and management of integrated disaster risk governance based on case comparisons around the world, in order to advance the theories and methodologies of integrated disaster risk governance and to improve the practices of integrated disaster reduction in the real world.