Urbanisation and Natural Disaster: A Systematic Review

Systematic review and contextualisation report on implication of evidence for South Asia

Abstract

Increasingly more and more natural disasters are reported from the urban areas of low and middle income countries (LMICs). Unplanned urban growth in LMICs has been blamed on increasing the vulnerability of the urban population to the risk of natural disasters. Gaps exist in evidence on the interface between urbanisation and natural disasters and also about the effectiveness of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) approaches. This systematic review was commissioned by the South Asia Research Hub (SARH) of the UK Department for International Development for generating a robust assessment of the available evidence for decision-makers; such as policymakers, donor partners and other practitioners of this region or other similar settings.

These reports are outputs from DFID’s Systematic Review Programme for South Asia.

Citation

  • Hossain S, Spurway K, Zwi A.B., Huq N.L., Mamun R, Islam R, Nowrin I, Ether S, Bonnitcha J, Dahal N and Adams A.M. (2017) What is the impact of urbanisation on risk of, and vulnerability to, natural disasters? What are the effective approaches for reducing exposure of urban population to disaster risks? London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, University College London.
Published 1 November 2017