Social vulnerability and disaster risk reduction needs: perspectives of women

Integration of disaster risk reduction needs and experiences of different groups in the
community with the built environment is significant to achieve disaster resilience. It facilitates
identifying the nature of disaster vulnerabilities within a particular community leading to
achieve disaster risk reduction more effectively. Women‘s needs and experiences are
prominent in this context since women have been identified as a highly vulnerable group to
disasters. Women‘s higher disaster vulnerability is typically determined by their social roles
and responsibilities. Their responsibilities over production and reproduction frequently expose
them to different conditions in disasters with varying vulnerabilities. This paper is based on a
doctoral research that aims to investigate how women‘s knowledge, experiences and needs and
concerns in relation to disaster risk reduction can be identified and integrated with disaster risk
reduction in the built environment. A comprehensive literature review has been carried out in
order to explore various aspects of social vulnerability, disaster implications on women,
women‘s needs in disaster risk reduction and the means of needs capturing and integration.
Participatory methods such as public consultations are suggested as the most effective ways of
capturing disaster risk reduction needs of community women in literature whilst the significant
role of construction process and people involved in it is highlighted for integrating the needs
with the built environment.