Disaster and Development

BDS 4734
 Course Goals

1 2 3 4 5 6

This course is Providing the Developing Practicing and Further Practicing and
designed to tools for you to your capacity to further refining developing further refining
broaden your identify, understand your oral your critical your written
understanding understand, disasters communication thinking skills analytical skills
of geography and apply individually and skills through through regular through
and regional multiple how they relate regular class course structured
development concepts of the to each other discussions. participation writing
by: development and with the and assignments.
with disasters. development assignments.
process.
Course Outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to:

Critically discuss a range of issues
from colonial to cold war,
highlighting the political economic
and ecological complexity of these
issues and the ways these issues
are problematized.
Critically evaluate Generate clear and thoughtful
normative explanations of analytical social science
economic systems, conflicts commentary in the form of
and problems, assessing dialogue and writing of various
who benefits and who does lengths.
not from these forms of
explanation.
Grading System:
Numerical Grade Letter Grade Grade Point
80% and above A+ (A Plus) 4.00
75% to < 80% A (A Regular) 3.75
70% to < 75% A- (A Minus) 3.50
65% to < 70% B+ (B Plus) 3.25
60% to < 65% B (B Regular) 3.00
55% to < 60% B- (B Minus) 2.75
50% to < 55% C+ (C Plus) 2.50
45% to < 50% C (C Regular) 2.25
40% to < 45% D   2.00
< 40% F   0.00
--------------------- I   Incomplete
--------------------- W   Withdrawn
Assessment System

Events Weightage
Semester Final Exam 50%
Midterm Exam 20%
Class Tests (Total Four) 10%
Assignments and Case Studies (Individual/Group) 05%
including Presentation(s)
Term Paper (Individual) including Presentation(s) 10%
Class Attendance and Participation 05%
Total 100%
 Serial Topics
1 Introduction and Overview of the Course
2 Basic Concepts of Disaster Management
3 Disaster Trend
4 Disaster Mitigation
5 Disaster Management: Bangladesh Perspective
Discussion Topics
6 Climate Migration: Concept and Definitions
7 Disaster Models
8 Disaster and Development: Historical Context
9 Disaster and Development: Investigation an Integrated Framework
10 Natural Disasters as Focusing Events
 Serial Topics
11 How Disasters Disrupt Development
12 The Evolution of the Study of Disaster and Risk
13 Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Framework
14 Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA)
15 Indigenous Knowledge in Disaster Risk Reduction
16 Incorporating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction
Discussion Topics
17 Impact of Disasters in Economic Growth
18 Macro-Economic Impact of Disasters
19 Financing the costs of Disasters
21 Natural Disasters and Economic Development in a Small Island State: Dominica Case
22 Natural Disasters and Public Finance: Bangladesh Case
Climatic Vulnerability, Economic Performance and the uses of climatic forecasting:
23
Malawi Case
24 Changes in Disaster Management in Bangladesh
25 Indigenous Knowledge in Disaster Risk Reduction: Tsunami Case
Course Expectations:
This is a 300-level course and I expect that you will handle yourself
accordingly. You have to attend class regularly 3 hours in a week, work
and read at least 9 hours in a week to fulfil this courses material. This is
a demanding class and I have high expectations for your participation.
You have a plan to spend a minimum of 2 – 3 hours outside the class for
clear understanding of you. If you are struggling with the material or
the assignments, all of you are always welcome in my office or call me
anytime. Part of my job is to help you learn new material and new
skills.
Academic Honesty:

Plagiarism, cheating, stealing, or lying will not be tolerated in this

class. Handing in someone else’s work is plagiarism. I take these
subjects very seriously and will take all available measures to address
suspected incidents of any of these.
Late Work:
Assignments may be turned in late only if there is a legitimate reason.
Should something happen to preclude you from turning in an
assignment, you should contact me immediately (call or email). All late
assignments will be penalized five percentage points off the total grade
for every day it is late (i.e. a paper handed in two days late that would
have earned a student an 80% will earn that student 70%).
Courtesy and Tolerance:
This class is about ideas and their application to the broad topic of
economy. As the course progresses, you are likely to discover that you
disagree with the authors you are reading, me, and/or your fellow
students. I strongly believe that disagreements are the potential
sources of new insights and new knowledge, but only when the
discussions about these disagreements focus on the ideas involved and
the evidence that is presented to support them. I expect discussions in
this class to speak to these ideas and the strength of evidence, not
target specific people.