We live in a world which continues to experience dramatic suffering and loss of life due to natural hazard. The disaster paradigm has accelerated efforts towards resilience building, particularly since the adoption of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), a ten year plan to build the resilience of
nations and communities to disasters Urban areas present complexity and interconnectivity of various elements, and this needs to be considered when building the resilience of such areas to disasters. To address urban risks, local level disaster risk reduction (DRR) is of fundamental importance, not
only because it is closer to the citizens, but because it is the repository of regulatory governance functions and local knowledge The need to scale up the capacity of DRR at the local government level to build urban resilience is a key incentive for this study. With particular reference to the
example of Makati City in the Philippines, this book analyses a local DRR approach with reference to the HFA, applies a micro-level resilience assessment and discusses an effective model for enhancing local DRR capacity in the future.
"Disasters cause economic as well as human losses. Indeed, economic losses associated directly with disasters have continued at increasing proportions worldwide since the 1970s, as the 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction conducted by the United Nations International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) illustrates. Disaster losses due to single geological events sometimes appear much greater in magnitude than those attributed to climate-related disasters. Nonetheless, the overall trend for increasing loss can largely be attributed to the increase in climate-related
disasters, which in turn is triggered in part by global climate change. Furthermore, as such disasters increase in frequency, it intensifies vulnerability in the poorest regions of developing countries. In this book, the authors discuss effective approaches to enhancing the local disaster risk
management (DRM) capacity of developing countries to combat increasing climate-related disaster impacts. Also provided are ideas and lessons on local disaster risk management, in terms of planning and practice in developing countries, with particular focus on a case study in Costa Rica."