Background

Winrock International India (WII) was a partner on this collaborative program led by Institute for Social and Environmental Transition, US (ISET-US) with support from DFID (UK). The overarching objective was to develop, apply and evaluate (in terms of their costs and benefits) pro-active disaster risk management strategies, including risk reduction and risk transfer, in selected disaster-prone developing countries – India, Nepal and Pakistan. It adopted a multi-hazard case-study approach where the project can draw on prior and on-going field studies. Geological and meteorological hazards were investigated, including earthquakes, tropical cyclones, floods and droughts.

Approach

Besides micro- and macro-modelling, methodologies included literature reviews, stakeholder interviews and detailed field surveys using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Analytical frameworks were also used in this project. These explored the role played by governance and institutional considerations at local and national levels in determining the functioning of, and anticipated quantitative or qualitative benefits from, investments in risk reduction or risk transfer.

The program was jointly implemented by Winrock International India, ISET (US) & ISET-Nepal, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria (IIASA) and Pakistan Institute for Economic-Development Action Research (PIEDAR), supported by Daanish Mustafa from Kings College, London.

Achievement

In India the study was conducted in the flood prone areas in the Rohini river basin in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

WII was coordinating the India study. The study outputs have come out in the form of publications some of which are listed below and can be downloaded from www.i-s-e-t.org

Publications

• Daniel Kull, Praveen Singh, Shashikant Chopde & Shiraz Wajih, ‘Evaluation Cost and Benefits of Flood Reduction Under Changing Climatic Conditions: The Case of Rohini River Basin, India’, From Risk to Resilience Working Paper No. 4, ISET, ISET-Nepal & Provention, Kathmandu, 2008.
• Reinhard Mechler, Stefan Hochrainer, Daniel Kull, Praveen Singh & Shashikant Chopde, ‘Uttar Pradesh Drought Cost Benefit Analysis, India’, From Risk to Resilience Working Paper No. 5, ISET, ISET-Nepal & Provention, Kathmandu, 2008.

• Workshop on Risk to Resilience: Strategic Tools for Disaster Risk Management was organized in collaboration with ISET and NIDM at Delhi on February 3-4, 2009. Proceedings of this workshop can be found in www.nidm.net
• Workshop on Risk to Resilience was organized in collaboration with ISET, GEAG and UPAAM at Lucknow on February 25, 2009.