Disability and Disaster Risk Preparedness

The relationship between disaster risk and social vulnerability has been thoroughly researched over the last decade by Verchick, Cutter, Smith, Brown, and others. It is well established that PWDs are at greater risk of harm from disaster events due to reduced levels of resilience concomitant with structural inequality. The following chapter outlines the role of States Parties in determining the resilience of PWDs through a vehicle that is often overlooked – land use regulation. Specifically, the chapter focuses on the way in which land use controls influence the physical, human, environmental, and social “assets” that create resilience and addresses the power of land use planning to enhance resilience and thus mitigate the risk of disaster events.