Introduction to disasters and its types and management

1. Relationship between Disaster, Development
and Vulnerability
• Disasters and development are closely linked.
Disasters can both destroy development
initiatives and create development
opportunities. Development schemes can
both increase and decrease vulnerability.
• In the traditional approach to disasters, the
attitude was that the disasters, especially
natural ones, were an act of god and as such
were beyond human control; accepting death
and damage to property was part of the costs.

2. • With such an attitude, most development
plans were designed without consideration for
the effect disasters would have on community
plans and vice versa.
• When a disaster did occur, the response was
directed at meeting emergency needs and
cleaning up.
• In the current approach, it has been realized
that much more can and need to be done to
reduce the severity of hazards and disasters.

3. A growing body of knowledge on the relationships
between disasters and development indicates
four basic themes as follows:
1. Disasters set back development programming,
destroying years of development initiatives.
2. Rebuilding after a disaster provides significant
opportunities to initiate development
programmes.
3. Development programmes can increase an
area’s susceptibility to disasters.
4. Development programmes can be designed to
decrease the susceptibility to disasters and their
negative consequences.

4. • Thus, the policy makers cannot ignore the
relationship between the disaster and
development.
• Projects are thus being designed to include
disaster recovery programmes and with long
term development needs in mind.
• Disasters can significantly impede the
effectiveness of development resource
allocation.

5. Disaster and Development
✓Contradictory to the term disaster—which has a
negative connotation—development often, but
not always, has a positive and progressive
implication. Development is equated to economic
prosperity, technological advancement, poverty
reduction, modern amenities, education,
freedom, and perhaps even equality. Although
the two terms—disaster and development—tend
to divert society towards opposite directions,
these two concepts are undoubtedly related to
each other.

6. The Disaster Management Training Programme
(1994), McEntire (2004) and Fordham (2007)
indicate four ways in which disaster and
development support and conflict each other:
(1) development increases vulnerability to
disaster,
(2) development reduces vulnerability to
disaster,
(3) disaster sets back development, and
(4) disaster provides development
opportunities.

7. ✓Despite of the growing acceptance of this
close relationship between disaster and
development, many challenges like political
conflict, lack of coordination, and resource
inadequacy makes this integration mere
rhetoric.

8. ✓Nonetheless, development and disaster
management activities should be integrated
and go hand-in-hand in order to alleviate
future impacts of disasters. Development has
both advantages and disadvantages which
further affects vulnerability to disasters.
✓“Development investments and projects are
almost never risk-neutral; they can either
increase or reduce vulnerability”.

9. Development Increases Vulnerability
✓Poorly planned development interventions can
become a source of hazard which further erases
the benefits of development investments. For
instance, the use of low quality construction
materials and poor building techniques during
development increases vulnerability to disasters.
✓Likewise, development may also be related to
other factors that induce disaster impacts such as
population growth, urbanization, and human
activities that deteriorate the environment.

10. • Disaster vulnerability is also growing due to
global competition among nations;
different countries are constructing high-rise
buildings, expanding industries and
manufacturing, nuclear energy and weapons.
• Development in construction technology has also
contributed to construction of skyscrapers that
are vulnerable to earthquake and terrorist
attacks.
• Industrialization and the creation of new
chemicals have
increased vulnerability to anthropogenic
disasters.

11. ✓ Similarly, numerous nuclear plants are present around
the world, and can produce harmful radiation that have
the potential to cause physical disabilities and
impairment in multiple future generations; the
ecological and environmental harm of this is
unthinkable.
✓ According to Perrow (2008) “about one-half of U.S.
population lives within 50 miles of a nuclear power
plant, and with a large release and the right wind
orientation it can create
lethal impact to the population”. Many countries are
now actively developing nuclear weapons, which can
threaten the safety of future generations as well as
destabilize international geo-political system.

12. Development Decreases Vulnerability
✓While development may indeed create
vulnerability, it may decrease vulnerability
as well (Collins 2009; Fordham 2007; McEntire
2004).
✓With the advancement in science and technology,
we are now able to identify and address hazards.
There is much hardware (Ipad, laptop, radio,
remote sensing equipment, unmanned vehicles,
etc.) and software (Arc GIS, E-Team, worldwide
webs, social networking
sites, electronic print medias, etc.) that help in all
types of emergency management activities.

13. ✓With the aid of GIS, emergency managers are
now able to identify places and population that
are in risk and adopt protective measures that
reduce their vulnerability. Development has also
made it possible to use technologies to make
buildings and infrastructures that are more
resistant to disasters.
✓For example, in Peru, new building techniques
along with locally available materials and locally
trained work force were used to build earthquake
resistant “quincha” houses.

14. ✓Similarly, development may also foster social and
economic opportunities and promote acceptance
of new values and cultures. Economic
development activities often focus on poverty
reduction through job creation. This may reduce
vulnerability to disasters. Increased
understanding and acceptance of diverse cultures
may potentially lower conflicts among various
religious and ethnic groups.

15. Disaster Sets Back Development
• Disasters have social, economic and physical
impacts, and hinder individual and community
development in the long run.
• Hurricane Mitch caused an extensive damage
to Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998, setting
development back 20 years.
• When a disaster occurs, the resources
allocated for development projects will also be
diverted to disaster recovery activities
(thereby making the community regressive).

16. • This, however, does not mean that resources should be
diverted away from disaster recovery activities. Of course,
resources are crucial to rebound from disasters.
• Nonetheless consideration should be on incorporating
disaster mitigation strategies during development. This will
not only provide a disaster resistant structure, but also
lowers the amount of resources that will be used aftermath
a disaster.
• For example, retrofitting buildings during
construction increases resistance of the building and
reduces vulnerability, which can significantly lower the
amount of resources that goes into recovery activities in
the future.

17. Disaster Provides Development
Opportunities
• Hazards and disasters often have low salience in
the political agenda. Nonetheless, disasters also
provide development opportunities for
communities and nations.
• A major disaster can open a “window of
opportunity” and help the issue move into the
policy agenda.
• Research shows that many communities
participate in better construction practices after
disaster.

18. • In the United States, the government became
more alert about terrorist activities after the 9/11
terrorist attack.
• Likewise, the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami in
Japan raised attention on potential harmful
aspects of nuclear power plants.
• Similarly, the leadership and collaboration failures
exhibited during Katrina have forced the
government to find ways to foster collaboration
among sectors and governmental bodies. The
importance of an integrated emergency
management approach is highly valued after
Hurricane Katrina.

19. • Communities with previous disaster
experience also tend to adopt building
technologies that increases the resistance
of the buildings (disaster subculture).
• Likewise a city that was completely destroyed
by a disaster may seek to adopt planning
strategies that reduce vulnerability to future
disasters.

20. • Nonetheless, the lack of resources often acts
as a barrier to incorporate effective
development practices.
• This is why despite having many devastating
experiences with disaster, many of the
developing nations are still ill prepared for
future hazards.

21. Vulnerability
• The characteristics and circumstances of a
community, system or asset that make it
susceptible to the damaging effects of a
hazard.
• Vulnerability is one of the defining
components of disaster risk.
RISK= HAZARD X EXPOSURE X VULNERABILITY

22. What makes people vulnerable?
• Vulnerability is the human dimension of
disasters and is the result of the range of
economic, social, cultural, institutional,
political and psychological factors that shape
people’s lives and the environment that they
live in.
• Vulnerability can be a challenging concept to
understand because it tends to mean different
things to different people and because it is
often described using a variety of terms
including ‘predisposition’, ‘fragility’,
‘weakness’, ‘deficiency’ or ‘lack of capacity’.

23. Vulnerability is complex
• Vulnerability is not simply about poverty, but
extensive research over the past 30 years has
revealed that it is generally the poor who tend
to suffer worst from disasters.
• Poverty is both a driver and consequence of
disaster risk (particularly in countries with
weak risk governance) because economic
pressures force people to live in unsafe
locations and conditions.

24. • Poverty and the other multi-dimensional
factors and drivers that create vulnerability
mean that susceptibility to the impacts of
hazards is often, but not always, associated
with certain groups, including women,
children, the elderly, the disabled, migrants
and displaced populations, amongst others.

25. Vulnerability relates to a number of factors,
including:
• Physical factors: e.g. poor design and
construction of buildings, unregulated land
use planning, etc.
• Social factors: e.g. poverty and inequality,
marginalisation, social exclusion and
discrimination by gender, social status,
disability and age (amongst other factors)
psychological factors, etc.

26. • Economic factors: e.g. the uninsured informal
sector, vulnerable rural livelihoods,
dependence on single industries, globalisation
of business and supply chains, etc.
• Environmental factors: e.g. poor
environmental management,
overconsumption of natural resources, decline
of risk regulating ecosystem services, climate
change, etc.

27. • In addition, vulnerability is determined by
historical, political, cultural and institutional
and natural resource processes that shape the
social and environmental conditions people
find themselves existing within (IPCC, 2012).
• These processes produce a range of
immediate unsafe conditions such as living in
dangerous locations or in poor housing, ill-
health, political tensions or a lack of local
institutions or preparedness measures (DFID,
2004).

28. • Many of the underlying drivers of
vulnerability, including poorly managed urban
development, are increasing, resulting in
vulnerability increasing in many countries and
regions of the world.
• While evidence suggests that wealthier, well
governed countries are able to reduce disaster
risks, some countries have exhibited rapid
economic growth in the last few decades
without a commensurable rate of vulnerability
reduction.

29. Factors contributing to Vulnerability
Poverty:
• The widening gap between rich and poor, rural
and urban incomes and hence the disparity in
living standards can be witnessed in the flood
plains of developing countries.
• For small landowners with marginal, degraded
land, frequent flooding can decrease the
returns from cultivating the land, thus
reducing food security.

30. • The rural poor who depend on incomes from
farming or other agricultural activities, with no
reserves to help them get back on their feet
after a disturbance or pay for basic needs, are
often obliged to migrate to the cities and are
driven into debt.
• Newcomers to an urban setting, not being
able to afford safe locations in the city, are
obliged to settle in makeshift dwellings in
informal settlements on marginal lands near
the river or other drainages where they are
extremely vulnerable to flooding.

31. Livelihoods
• The principal livelihoods of communities living
in rural flood plains are mainly farming and
fishing. However, recurring floods threaten
their stability of the their livelihoods owing to
the loss of farm products or limited access to
the markets for their products in the absence
of adequate transport infrastructure.
• The landless poor, working as hired labourers,
particularly during long flood seasons, have
trouble finding jobs to meet their basic needs.

32. Cultural beliefs
• Some cultural beliefs and fatalistic attitudes
contribute to a community’s vulnerability.
In some societies, natural disasters are
considered to be acts of God and taken as if
there is nothing human beings could do to
prevent hazards from turning into disasters.
• Lack of faith in the social system and lack of
confidence in the ability to manage flood
risks manifests itself in resistance to any such
change.

33. Equity
• Unequal distribution of resources and access to
human rights can lead to conflicts and discontent,
and in turn, the deterioration of social systems.
• For example, individuals who are denied the right
to freedom of association and access to
information may be precluded from discussing
issues related to flood preparedness and
mitigation planning, receiving essential
fundamental services and taking preventive
measures to protect themselves from flood
hazards.
• In areas where flood diversion works are in place
it may so happen that flood water are redirected
into areas where poorer sections of the society
with less political influence settle.

34. • Gender
In societies where the decision-making power
resides solely with the men of the family,
ignoring the wisdom and experience of women
and denying or limiting them the adequate
access to knowledge and capacity development
schemes, which otherwise may be available to
men, can deny the society the use of such
human resources and contribute to women’s
vulnerability in terms of personal security,
health and well being, economic security and
livelihoods.

35. Weaker social groups
• In a society made up of various social groups,
the needs of each group differ. Children,
women, elderly and disabled people have
unique group features that may add to their
vulnerabilities in particular situations, such as
during evacuation, sheltering, relief
distribution and the rehabilitation process.