Critical Issues in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation
Kritiska frågor i katastrofriskhantering och klimatanpassning

VRSN55, 7.5 credits, A (Second Cycle)

Valid for: 2024/25
Faculty: Faculty of Engineering LTH
Decided by: PLED BI/RH
Date of Decision: 2024-04-04
Effective: 2024-05-08

General Information

Depth of study relative to the degree requirements: Second cycle, in-depth level of the course cannot be classified
Mandatory for: MKAT2
Language of instruction: The course will be given in English

Aim

The course aims to provide students with understanding of contemporary critical issues that affect disaster risk management and climate change adaptation, as well as skills and approaches to independently consider and communicate them. The course builds on previous knowledge and abilities from one or several subject areas that the students have developed through previous courses on advanced level.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to explain particular critical issues in disaster risk management and climate change adaptation from different and sometimes incompatible perspectives.
• be able to actively relate different critical issues to each other.

Competences and skills
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to critically and systematically integrate knowledge while analysing and addressing critical issues that affect disaster risk management and climate change adaptation even with limited information.
• be able to present and discuss various critical issues both orally and in writing.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to demonstrate awareness of ethical aspects of particular critical issues in disaster risk management and climate change adaptation.
• be able to reflect on her/his own need for further knowledge concerning critical issues.

Contents

The course is structured in modules focusing on different central groupings of critical issues that affect disaster risk management and climate adaptation, now and for the future. For instance, the nexus of conflict, disaster, and global change; inequality, intersectionality, and power; colonial legacies, resistance to facts, and polarization; and displacement, protection, and the erosion of international law. Students use a smorgasbord of lectures, literature and online mini-lectures and films—and the course demands that they actively and independently seek additional material—to inform their own work, their peer review of other students’ work, and preparations for student-led seminars where particularly important issues are addressed, facilitated by teachers.

Examination details

Grading scale: TH - (U, 3, 4, 5) - (Fail, Three, Four, Five)
Assessment: Written individual paper, approved portfolio of module assignments, and participation in compulsory seminars.

The examiner, in consultation with Disability Support Services, may deviate from the regular form of examination in order to provide a permanently disabled student with a form of examination equivalent to that of a student without a disability.

Modules
Code: 0121. Name: Portfolio.
Credits: 4.0. Grading scale: UG - (U, G). Assessment: Approved portfolio.
Code: 0221. Name: Seminars.
Credits: 1.0. Grading scale: UG - (U, G). Assessment: Approved active participation in obligatory seminars.
Code: 0321. Name: Course Paper.
Credits: 2.5. Grading scale: TH - (U, 3, 4, 5). Assessment: Approved written course paper.

Admission

Admission requirements:

• Enrolled on the Master’s programme in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation.

Reading list

• Adams, C., Ide, T., Barnett, J., & Detges, A: Sampling bias in climate-conflict research. Nature Climate Changes, 8(3), 200-203, 2018.
• Amundson, R., Berhe, A. A., Hopmans, J. W., Olson, C., Sztein, A. E., & Sparks, D. L: Soil and human security in the 21st century. Science, 348(6235), 1261071, 2015.
• Barnett, J., & Adger, W. N: Climate change, human security and violent conflict. Political Geography, 26(6), 639–655, 2007.
• Baxi, U: Voices of Suffering, Fragmented Universality, and the Future of Human Rights. In R. McCorquodale (Ed.), Human Rights (pp. 159–214). Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017.
• Behrman, S: Refugee Law as a Means of Control. Journal of Refugee Studies, 32(1), 42–62, 2019.
• Brinkerhoff, D. W: Developing capacity in fragile states. Public Administration and Development, 30(1), 66–78, 2010.
• Brown, S: Aid to Fragile States: Do Donors Help or Hinder? In G. Mavrotas (Ed.), Foreign Aid for Development: Issues, Challenges, and the New Agenda. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Chimni, B. S: Globalization, Humanitarianism and the Erosion of Refugee Protection. Journal of Refugee Studies, 13(3), 243–263, 2000.
• Djoudi, H., Locatelli, B., Vaast, C., Asher, K., Brockhaus, M., & Basnett Sijapati, B: Beyond dichotomies: Gender and intersecting inequalities in climate change studies. Ambio, 45(S3), 248–262, 2016.
• Easterly, W: The white man’s burden: Why the west’s efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Easterly, W: The White Man’s Burden. The Lancet, 367(9528), 2060, 2006.
• Eriksen, S. H., Nightingale, A. J., & Eakin, H. C: Reframing adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 35, 523–533, 2015.
• Eriksson Baaz, M: The paternalism of partnership: A postcolonial reading of identity in development aid. New York?; London: Zed Books, 2005.
• Ferris, E., & Bergmann, J: Soft law, migration and climate change governance. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 8(1), 6–29. https://doi.org/10.4337/jhre.2017.01.01, 2017.
• Gluckman, P., & Wilsdon, J: From paradox to principles: Where next for scientific advice to governments?. Palgrave Communications, 2, 1–4, 2016.
• Hagelsteen, M., & Becker, P: Systemic problems of capacity development for disaster risk reduction in a complex, uncertain, dynamic, and ambiguous world. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 36, 101102, 2019.
• Hsiang, S. M., Burke, M., & Miguel, E: Quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict. Science, 341, 1235367. (Links to an external site.), 2013.
• Johnson, D., & Levin, S. A: The tragedy of cognition: Psychological biases and environmental inaction. Current Science, 97, 1593–1603, 2009.
• Kjaerum, M: Human rights: Early days or coming to an end?. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 36(4), 311–318, 2018.
• Klintman, M: Knowledge resistance: How we avoid insight from others. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.
• Lund Schlamovitz, J., & Becker, P: Differentiated vulnerabilities and capacities for adaptation to water shortage in Gaborone, Botswana. International Journal of Water Resources Development, DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2020.1756752, 2020.
• Sachs, J. D: How to help the poor: Piecemeal progress or strategic plans?. The Lancet, 367(9519), 1309–1310, 2006.
• UNDP: Supporting Capacity Development in Conflict and Fragile Contexts. New York: UNDP, 2012.
• Bolin, B., & Kurtz, L. C: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Disaster Vulnerability. In Handbook of Disaster Research: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research (pp. 181-203). Cham: Springer, 2018.
• Hearn, J: Theorizing Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Maldonado, J. K., Shearer, C., Bronen, R., Peterson, K., & Lazrus, H: The impact of climate change on tribal communities in the US: displacement, relocation, and human rights - In J. K. Maldonado, B. Colombi, & R. Pandya (Eds.), Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States (pp. 93-106). Cham: Springer, 2013.
• Niño-Zarazúa, M., Roope, L., & Tarp, F: Global Inequality: Relatively Lower, Absolutely Higher. Review of Income and Wealth, 63(4), 661-684. 2017.
• Sovacool, B. K: Bamboo Beating Bandits: Conflict, Inequality, and Vulnerability in the Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh. World Development, 102, 183-194, 2018.
• Eklund, L., Theisen, O. M., Baumann, M., Forø Tollefsen, A., Kuemmerle, T., & Østergaard Nielsen, J: Societal drought vulnerability and the Syrian climate-conflict nexus are better explained by agriculture than meteorology. Nature Communications Earth & Environment, 3(1), 85, 2022.
• Gleditsch, N. P: This time is different! Or is it? NeoMalthusians and environmental optimists in the age of climate change. Journal of Peace Research, 58(1), 177-185, 2021.
• Groesch, J. & Noy, I. (eds.): Special Issue: Poverty, Inequality, and Disasters (10 articles). Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, 4(1), 2020.
• Sabaratnam, M: Decolonizing Intervention: International Statebuilding in Mozambique. London and Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
• Schaar, J: Addressing Climate-related Security Risks in the Middle East and North Africa. New York and Nairobi: UNDPPA and UNEP, 2020.
• von Uexkull, N., & Buhaug, H: Security implications of climate change: A decade of scientific progress. Journal of Peace Research, 58(1), 3-17, 2021.
• Weldeab Sebhatu, R: Applying postcolonial approaches to studies of Africa-EU relations. In T. Haastrup, L. Mah, & N. Duggan (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of EU-Africa Relations (pp. 38-50). Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K: The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. London and New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
• Becker, P: Sustainability Science: Managing Risk and Resilience for Sustainable Development. 2 ed. Amsterdam and Oxford: Elsevier, 2023.

Contact

Course coordinator: Per Becker, per.becker@risk.lth.se
Course administrator: Linnéa Ekman, linnea.ekman@ebd.lth.se

Further information