Ecosystem and disaster risk: A review of ecological indicators in the context of disaster risk assessments and discussion of their usefulness to inform ecosystem health

Abstract

Ecosystems play a critical role in reducing disaster risk by providing ecosystem services (ESS) that influence all components of risk. The capacity to deliver ESS depends on the health of the ecosystem itself. Thus, it is key to consider ecosystem health in risk assessments for a comprehensive understanding of disaster risk and effective disaster risk management. The paper reviews ecosystem-related indicators used in disaster risk or vulnerability assessments to better understand how, and to what degree, ecosystems and their health are currently considered in indicator-based assessments relating to flood, drought and storms. Of 231 reviewed papers just under half recognise ecosystems’ role in disaster risk, and only some 35 % use “ecologically-relevant” indicators, showing that ecological systems and their health are generally underrepresented in risk and/or vulnerability assessments. Among the 284 indicators extracted from the papers, most do not capture health directly, with over 60 % being land use land cover (LULC)-related indicators, which offer little insights on the condition of the ecosystem. This paper emphasises the need to move beyond LULC. It identifies indicators that represent characteristics of a healthy ecosystem, linked to e.g. biodiversity and ecosystem connectivity and calls for ecological baselines for understanding and monitoring ecosystem health.