News

IHRR awarded NERC/ESRC resilience research grant

(16 November 2010)

The Institute has been awarded a grant from the NERC/ESRC program 'Increasing Resilience to Natural Hazards.' The award for £29,616 involves Alex Densmore (PI), Lena Dominelli (Co-I), Jonathan Rigg (Co-I), David Petley (Co-I) and Katie Oven (PDRA).

The research focuses on increasing resilience to earthquakes in rural areas of the Global South and seeks to understand community perception of earthquake-related hazard in these areas, and the factors increasing the vulnerability of rural communities to seismic hazards.

This study will (1) determine the extent of local understanding of earthquake and landslide hazard, and explore how, given lay people's everyday livelihood concerns, to best engage them in discussions around rare high-magnitude events; (2) identify the factors that increase the vulnerability of rural communities to seismic hazards; (3) use scenarios and participatory exercises to explore a set of co-produced solutions or coping strategies, such as micro-scale hazard assessment, that communities might use to enhance their resilience to earthquakes; and (4) identify any barriers to their uptake or research gaps that must be addressed before these strategies can be implemented.

The scoping study will focus on Nepal, where one or more great earthquakes are overdue. IHRR researchers will work with National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal (NSET), International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Kadambari College (National School of Social Work), in comparing two communities: a recently-settled, peri-urban area and a more remote, established rural community.

More information about the grant is available on NERC's website:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/resilience/