Response and Resilience Following Compound Extreme Events

Climate change impacts are becoming increasingly common, severe, and complex. Multiple climate disasters (droughts, floods, extreme heat) may occur simultaneously or in succession, and interact with non-climate factors (COVID-19 pandemic, land management legislation), compounding the overall impacts and leading to increased vulnerability of social-ecological systems. While the potential impact of compound disasters is recognized, little is known about how societies experiencing them respond and build resilience. Thus, this project aims to understand the response to and impact of compound disasters within pastoral systems. Such understanding is directly relevant to climate change adaptation and efforts to reduce disaster risk and build resilience in the face of compound disasters. This interdisciplinary project is unique in marshaling both objective and subjective measures of resilience in understanding the capacity of both individuals and societies to respond to compound disasters, thereby transforming the growing interdisciplinary study of the resilience of those most affected by natural hazards.