Welcome to the Disaster and Climate collaborative research resource site. I created this pathfinder in July and August 2009, as a means of organizing information and resources related to my proposed doctoral research. I am enrolled in the EdD online program at the University of Calgary, and specializing in Educational Technology. My research focus is to design and test a scalable model for participatory disaster risk reduction interventions, which incorporates climate science with local knowledge, and influences adaptive behaviours. I am specifically interested in how the power of high-tech can be used in low-tech environments. You can read more about my work under the section Our Research.

While this site has a primary purpose of organizing resources and material pertinent to my study, it has also been designed as a means of collaboration for working with students enrolled in the Master's in Disaster and Emergency Management Program at Royal Roads University, where I am the Program Head. Some of our research supports work being done by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre (IFRC Climate Centre).

This site supports research and study related to the integration of disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation, which have evolved from two different fields of research and practice. The relationship between these two fields of study are obvious. 90% of disasters are climate and weather related. They are increasing in frequency and severity, and have the greatest toll in developing countries. Over 250 million people are affected on an annual basis by disasters. These numbers are daunting; behind every number is a face, and a human story. The two videos in the sidebar on this page give a human message about climate change, one is from a global perspective, the other is a film made by farmers, who tell their own story about the need for climate adaptation. The humanitarian imperative for addressing climate change is urgent; applied research is needed to increase the evidence base of effective approaches for addressing this global problem.

While this pathfinder will expand and grow, my initial work on the development of this wiki led me to some interesting resources and researchers. Here are few examples of sites and people I found that were exciting:

Other Researchers - Petra Tschakert: I found an article she had written as part of my literature review. She has a good website which further describes her work. Of all the articles I read, this was one of the most informative, and most aligned with my own research interests, both from the topic and the research method.

Web Resources: weADAPT wiki and the Climate Change Explorer Tool. Given that I have just started to use wikis, it was interesting to see how the wiki tool has been used to support collaboration on climate adaptation. I would be curious to see what the life of this tool will be, and how it is used. It has a section on social learning, which is an approach that Petra Tschakert discusses and promotes in her paper.

This site is expected to change as I invite others to use this wiki as a collaborative tool. While the structure at present meets my needs, I suspect that it may need to change to function as a shared site.

Jean Slick, August 2009