Co-Benefits of Disaster Risk Management

Many ex ante measures taken to reduce
disaster risk can deliver co-benefits that are not dependent
on disasters occurring. In fact, building resilience to
climate extremes and disasters can achieve multiple
objectives. These are secondary to the main objective of
disaster risk management of avoiding disaster losses, but
identifying and measuring additional co-benefits can enhance
the attractiveness of disaster risk management investments.
Co-benefits are often economic, such as investment in dams
or irrigation to reduce drought risk generating greater
productivity; but they can also include significant
environmental and social benefits. This paper identifies
some of the potential categories of co-benefits associated
with disaster risk management investments, expanding on
typologies created by agencies seeking to promote social and
environmental safeguarding in their work. The paper looks at
previous studies on disaster risk management where
co-benefits are mentioned but not explored in any detail.
The paper examines two new case studies where environmental
and socioeconomic co-benefits were uncovered in an
irrigation project to reduce drought risk, and an urban
flood risk management project, in Jamaica and Mexico,
respectively. This review points to several challenges in
traditional cost-benefit analysis techniques and puts
forward alternative approaches to identify environmental and
socioeconomic co-benefits when planning disaster risk
management investments. The authors argue that a
comprehensive disaster risk management co-benefits framework
is needed that includes and categorizes all potential
positive environmental and socioeconomic impacts.
Co-benefits research focused on revisiting existing cases
and developing new case studies could play an important role
in this regard.