Environmental issues and their link to sustainable development in a disaster context

Abstract

Regardless the approach from which they start, most of the meanings of the concept of sustainable development have one thing in common: they project some kind of future scenario in which the variables of interest develop over time along a preferred expected course of action, before a given environmental problematic. In modern society, the most accepted view is that this scenario is not predestined or predetermined, but depends on a wide range of human activities, environmental processes, etc. In this sense, the complexity and dynamic nature of the world are creating a multitude of possible futures, causing uncertainty as to what will materialize as a result of development in practice. Given this situation, modern individuals, organizations and societies resort to the notion of risk to make sense of their uncertain world. If the risk is related to possible deviations from a preferred future, we must reduce it to safeguard our development objectives and avoid the gestation of a disaster. Motivated by this assertion, this text focuses on brie y exploring the issue of environmental problems and their link with sustainable development in the disaster reference framework.