Accelerating change: Flood hazard-disaster databases in the Indian Himalayan Region
Disaster statistics for mountain regions reveal a concerning trend of increasing event occurrence, injuries and fatalities, and socioeconomic impacts. This science policy brief details increasing disaster risk in mountain regions and a gap in historical knowledge. It also highlights need for accelerated implementation of disaggregated, sub-national, and process specific databases is grounded in international and regional perspectives. The authors summarise a major new open-access contribution to this agenda, i.e., 'HiFlo-DAT' (Himalayan Flood Database for Disaster Risk Reduction), which focusses on the Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, India.
A review of DRR policy positions reveals a strong international (e.g., Sendai Framework Priority 1) and Indian strategic commitment to the development of methodologies for the assembly of disaster loss databases tailored to national/local needs, utilising partnerships, innovative technologies and benefitting from a greater local knowledge. The authors offer policy-practice options, at district, state and national scales. These comprise data updating actions, policy-practice reviews, database upscaling and new research investigations.
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