Climate change is exacerbating hydro-climatic extremes and associated water-induced disasters. Water security is not only ensuring sufficient water for people and economic activities, but also about protecting us against water-related disasters and having healthy aquatic ecosystems (AWDO, 2016). Therefore, enhancing resilience to water-induced disasters, more importantly of those left-behind (e.g., women, elderly, children, differently-abled, etc.) are equally important for achieving the goal of water security. Disaster is more than a natural phenomenon; it is socially-constructed and has diverse aspects, which needs to be reflected in programs aimed at enhancing resilience and subsequently improving water security. Furthermore, different sections of a society are affected to a varying level of risks to the same resilience, due to various reasons. This session therefore, aims to answer following questions –
- What are approaches for characterizing different drivers of water-induced disasters (i.e., natural roots, social roots, and developmental roots)?
- How those left-behind are differently vulnerable than others to water-induced disasters and what makes that different?
- What are risks posed by different types of water-induced disasters (e.g., floods, droughts, etc.) for people and ecosystem at different socio-economic and natural settings?
- What are frameworks available for measuring resilience with specific focus on water-induced disasters and how can they be applied to different contexts?
- What are workable ways (hard and soft) for enhancing resilience to WIDs? What are learnings from implementing resilience building programs?
