Emergent Framework of Disaster Risk Governance towards Innovating Coping Capability for Reducing Disaster Risks in Local Communities

An emergent framework of disaster risk governance is presented as an implementation strategy for integrated risk management that incorporates innovative local coping capabilities that reduce disaster vulnerability. This framework calls for enhancement of self-support and mutual-assistance through strengthening informal or social networking efforts in local communities, rather than depending on formal or institutional governmental-assistance. The framework is supported by a societal platform of disaster risk information, called DRIP, which the NIED (National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Japan) has developed since 2006 as a tool that promotes improved disaster risk governance. With the help of DRIP, residents, communities, and other stakeholders, linked horizontally or vertically with social networks, can (1) improve their awareness of disaster risks and management issues by sharing risk information as scientific expertise, experiential knowledge, and local/folk wisdom; (2) customize risk communication through analytic deliberation of risk information by employing risk-scenarios developed by residents themselves; (3) develop collaborative activities for informed decision-making that can fully utilize local resources to reorganize coping capability against disaster risks; and (4) disseminate the generated risk scenarios with action plans to other residents who have not participated in the risk communication process.