AQA Geography New natural disaster ppt

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By Reid Basher et al! GLOBAL EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS FOR NATURAL HAZARDS: SYSTEMATIC AND PEOPLE-CENTRED To be effective, early warning systems for natural hazards need to have not only a sound scientific and technical basis, but also a strong focus on the people exposed to risk, and with a systems approach that incorporates all of the relevant factors in that risk, whether arising from the natural hazards or social vulnerabilities, and from short-term or long-term processes.

description

An overview of natural hazards, focusing on tectonic and early warning systmes; leans very heavily on the article: "Global early warning systems for natural hazards: systematic and people-centred By Re?d Basher*"i

Transcript of AQA Geography New natural disaster ppt

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By Reid Basher et al!

GLOBAL EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS FOR NATURAL HAZARDS: SYSTEMATIC AND

PEOPLE-CENTRED

To be effective, early warning systems for natural hazards need to have not only a sound scientific and technical basis, but also a strong focus on the people exposed to risk, and with a systems approach that incorporates all of the relevant factors in that risk, whether arising from the natural hazards or social vulnerabilities, and from short-term or long-term processes.

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A natural disaster is……

1. DISASTERS AND DISASTER TRENDS

'a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources' (ISDR 2004).

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1. DISASTERS AND DISASTER TRENDS

A disaster thus arises from the combination of the hazard event or episode, the conditions of vulnerability to that hazard and the insufficiency of capacity or measures to cope with the hazard.

From this perspective, the term 'natural disaster' is an oxymoron, as the vulnerability and coping factors in the equation are within human control to some degree and therefore are not 'natural'.

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THE CONTEXT OF NATURAL HAZARDS IN THE CONTINUUM OF HUMAN

EXPERIENCE

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DEFINING RISK

Hazard (probability) x Loss (expected)

Preparedness (loss mitigation)RISK =

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Economic issues

• Tackle social inequalities – long goal

• Self protection – “bottom up”

“Capacity” – ISDR (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction)

• “A combination of all the strengths and resources available within a community, society or organisation that can reduce the level of risk, or effect of a disaster.”

• “The means by which people use the available resources and their abilities to to face hazardous events”

VULNERABILITY

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NATURAL HAZARD PERCEPTION

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DIFFERENTIAL VULNERABILITY

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Timmerman (1981)

“Systems fail”

• Resilience – not a simple as it seems – Katrina v. Bam – c.f. LA

• Reliability – of human systems to cope

Blaikie (1994)

“People not systems fail”

• “the characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard”

• Young, old, male, female, LEDC, MEDC

HUMAN SYSTEM FAILURE?

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1. DISASTERS AND DISASTER TRENDS

Disasters disproportionately affect poor people and poor countries and are increasingly recognized as a major handicap to the development of many countries.

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Why are people at risk?• Unpredictability• Limit of alternatives• Changing danger• Russian roulette• Cost – Benefit analysis

“PHILOSOPHY AS ACTIONS “(PARK 1992)

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1. DISASTERS AND DISASTER TRENDS

Disaster impacts are generally increasing as a result of the combination of increasing populations, greater concentrations of people and assets in vulnerable areas, greater use of insurance and the modification and degradation of natural environments, such as floodplain settlement, coastal exploitation, wetland destruction, river channelling, deforestation, soil erosion and fertility decline. Vulnerability to hazards is exacerbated by poverty, disease, conflict and population displacement

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DEFINING RISK

Hazard (probability) x Loss (expected)

Preparedness (loss mitigation)RISK =

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1. DISASTERS AND DISASTER TRENDS

Prior to that date (Indian Ocean tsunami of Boxing Day 2004), the trend in death rates since the 1950s was downward, as a result of improving early warning systems, better preparedness and response, including systematic food aid systems. Together these now avoid the massive famines and flood losses that earlier prevailed.

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The individual, local, regional, national and now global responses to the hazards threat will be a function of all or

some of the following:

THE HUMAN RESPONSE TO NATURAL HAZARDS

• nature of the hazard

• past experience of the hazard / other hazards

• hazard perception – of decision-makers and public

• economic ability to take action

• technological resources

• knowledge of available options

• social and political framework

• relative importance of hazard threat compared to jobs, education, defence…

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The Human Response to Hazards

3 broad categories of response:

1. Prevent or modify the EVENT

• flood control, lava diversion, cloud seeding etc

• significant impact unlikely given current understanding & technology

2. Modify human VULNERABILITY

• Hazard-resistant design (aseismic buildings, sea walls etc)

• Monitoring, prediction & warning

• Community preparedness (education, evacuation, shelter…..)

• Land use planning (hazard zonation)

3. Modify / share the LOSSES

• International aid

• National funding for disasters

• Hazard insurance

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2. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS AND THEIR ELEMENTS

The expression 'early warning' is used in many fields to mean the provision of information on an emerging dangerous circumstance where that information can enable action in advance to reduce the risks involved.

'the provision of timely and effective information, through identified institutions, that allows individuals exposed to a hazard to take action to avoid or reduce their risk and prepare for effective response' (ISDR 2004).

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2. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS AND THEIR ELEMENTS

To be effective and complete, an early warning system needs to comprise four interacting elements (ISDR-PPEW 2005 a), as shown in figure 2, namely: (i) risk knowledge, (ii) monitoring and warning service, (iii) dissemination and communication and (iv) response capability

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2. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS AND THEIR ELEMENTS

High-quality predictions by themselves are insufficient to achieve the desired reduction in losses and impacts.

Failures in early warning systems typically occur in the communication and preparedness elements. E.g. Katrina & New Orleans, Nevado del Ruiz, Columbia and in Boxing Day tsunami it was in all four elements!

It should be noted that in order to sustain the four elements over the long run, it is necessary to have strong political commitment and durable institutional capacities, which in turn depend on public awareness and an appreciation of the benefits of effective warning systems.

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Public awareness and support is often high immediately after a major disaster event; such moments can be capitalized on to strengthen and secure the sustainability of early warning systems.

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3. A BROADER VIEW OF NATURAL RISK

From this perspective it is desirable to monitor and provide early warning and foresight not only on the short-term precipitating hazards and geophysical conditions but also on the relevant longer-term factors such as declining environmental state, risk-raising development practices and projects, risk-altering policy changes, the status of social communications and capacities, trends in food markets, settlement trends and migration, conflict and health status. This involves a wide range of time frames, as illustrated in table 1, and diverse methodologies for monitoring and forecasting.

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The classic “Risk Management Cycle”

(Smith, 1996)

In the linear model based early-warning systems, Smith assumes that the cycle ends and does not contain the essential feedback that is characteristic of people-centred approaches.

4. THE LINEAR PARADIGM OF MODEL-BASED EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

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The role of modelling

4. THE LINEAR PARADIGM OF MODEL-BASED EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

At the heart of all early warning systems is some sort of model that describes the relevant features of the hazard phenomenon and its impacts, particularly their time evolution. The model provides the means to make projections of what might happen in the future and therefore what actions might be desirable in response. Models may be as elaborate as the physics-based global numerical weather prediction models, or as straightforward as 'common knowledge' mental models (e.g. that the noisy approaching tsunami wave will arrive in a few minutes). They may be slowly evolving, as in a drought model where the loss of soil moisture may occur over months, or very rapid, such as in an earthquake where the differential speed of electromagnetic signals relative to seismic waves can be used to automatically shut down a distant sensitive system a few seconds before damaging stresses occur.

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All models are driven by a specification of an initial state, which must be obtained by observations . CHAOSObservation systems can be expensive to install and operate and are often rather inadequate, especially in poorer countries. Warnings are, therefore, inherently probabilistic, even if based on sound physics and presented in a categorical format

4. THE LINEAR PARADIGM OF MODEL-BASED EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

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4. THE LINEAR PARADIGM OF MODEL-BASED EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

A very different example to illustrate these issues is that of tsunami early warning systems, as shown in table 2. Currently, tsunami warnings mostly are based on simple statistical relationships with precursor seismic observations, but these latter observations do not allow accurate prediction of the oceanic response, and so the false warning rates are high and the probability characteristics are poorly known. Usually, the warnings are provided only in categorical forms that usually require immediate response action. However, developments in ocean observation systems and in ocean wave propagation and coastal inundation models are in place to improve this situation in the near future (Titov et al. 2005).

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5. SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LINEAR PARADIGM

People centred early warning systems need for multiple level participation and support:This will require the coordinated participation of many different types of organizations, bound by a consensus of commitment to the 'people-centred' concept, and to the idea of an integrated system that is measured by its performance namely protecting those at risk.

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6. AN INTEGRATED SYSTEMS MODEL FOR EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

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7. SYSTEMS-ORIENTED RESEARCH NEEDS FOR EARLY

WARNING

There is a need for more systemic, cross cutting and applied research, including on the following topics: (i) development and use of geospatial data models, risk maps and scenarios, (ii) cost-effective observations systems, (iii) data generation and assimilation (e.g. bathymetry for tsunami models), (iv) improvement of core prediction system models and prediction tools, (v) warning decision system tools for disaster managers, (vi) management under warning uncertainty, (vii) evaluation and comparison of warning communication methods, (viii) models of human response behaviour including evacuations, (ix) visualization of impacts and response options for community preparedness, (x) operationalization of the 'all-hazards' approach, (xi) role of early warning as an adaptation to climate change, (xii) warning system performance, indicators, benchmarks,(xiii) economic assessments of warning system effectiveness

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8. RECENT MOVES TO DEVELOP BETTER EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

The December 2004 tsunami shone an intense spotlight on questions of early warning systems and preparedness, leading most notably to the call by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in January 2005 for a global warning system for all hazards with no country left out. This was to be followed later in the year by his request to the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) secretariat to coordinate a global survey of early warning systems, with a view to identifying gaps and opportunities, as a basis for developing such global capacities (UN 2005 a). Meanwhile, negotiations by states over 2004 culminated in a major international agreement on disaster risk reduction at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, 18-22 January 2005, namely the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters (UN 20056). The topic of risk and early warning is one of its five priority areas for action. Leading UN agencies announced at the conference the launch of an International Early Warning Programme (IEWP), as a vehicle to stimulate and coordinate cooperative initiatives to advance early warning methodology and to build early warning capacities (ISDR-PPEW 2005b). Shortly afterwards, Germany offered to host a third International Conference on Early Warning (EWC III) under UN auspices (see www.ewc3.org). Rapid progress hats been made on developing a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean,

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The Institutional response

8. RECENT MOVES TO DEVELOP BETTER EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

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8. RECENT MOVES TO DEVELOP BETTER EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS

In early 2005, the British Government established a Natural Hazard Working Group under the guidance of the government chief scientist to advise on the mechanisms that could be established for the detection and early warning of global physical natural hazards, particularly those hazards that could have high global or regional impact, and including international mechanisms needed to enable the international science community to advise governments (UK-DTI 2005)

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9. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS

The task of putting science to work in policy and practice can only be achieved through sound institutional mechanismsat national, regional and international levels. The major failures of early warning systems over recent times have been failures largely of institutions rather than science. Institutions are required to capture and sustain political commitment, to capitalize on and apply existing scientific knowledge, to assess risks and manage investments in systems, to globalize and systematize early warning systems, and to guide and resource underpinning scientific research. The UN global survey of early warning systems will be an important step toward setting out gaps and needs in respect to early warning systems globally. It is clear that any globally comprehensive warning capacity will not be a centrally managed system, but will build on and strengthen existing institutional arrangements, particularly the operational mandates of WMO, UNESCO, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the member bodies of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO?see www.geosec.org), and on the organizational contexts of the ISDR and the Hyogo Framework. The embryonic IEWP provides a vehicle to coordinate and focus energy on systemic issues and capacity building in early warning systems development.

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Encourage policies that reduce vulnerability 1. Land use: plans should be put into operation that limit, or ban, building upon hazardous areas

such as steep slopes, river flood plains and faulted areas.

2. Risk and disaster impact assessments: on the basis of these, special programmes can be designed to reduce vulnerability and to use the results in development projects.

3. Design, construction and maintenance of buildings and other structures: give advice and financial incentives to encourage safe and cost-effective buildings and enforce construction regulations.

Ensure that governments, at national and local level, are prepared to cope with a hazard event 4. Emergency management planning: roles and responsibilities in emergencies should be clearly

identified.

5. Strengthen organizations: money should be put forward to train disaster managers and to provide staff to enforce regulations. All equipment for handling the impact of disasters should be main tained and updated whenever possible.

6. Communications: channels should be established for early warn ings, evacuations and relief measures. Local decision-makers should be made aware of all scientific evidence, where available, and its value to them

IDNDR POLICY GOALS

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Ensure that the community is well prepared 1. Public awareness and education: make people aware that they have to protect

themselves. Education campaigns should be instituted in order to raise public awareness about hazard risks, and what preparatory and preventive measures people should be taking.

2. Community-based programmes and solutions: communities, parti cularly vulnerable ones, should be consulted in order to identify local needs and feasible solutions.

3. Buildings with hazardous substances: buildings such as nuclear power stations and chemical stores should be retrofitted and well maintained. It could be possible to consider relocation of some buildings that fall into this category to less vulnerable sites.

IDNDR POLICY GOALS

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Special programmes for high-risk situations

1. There are a number of areas where special attention should be given as a priority. They include:

2. Essential facilities: electricity, gas water, telecommunications, hospitals and schools. Existing buildings to be retrofitted, new structures to have disaster-resistant devices built in to them. Back up systems need to be constructed.

3. High-risk groups: programmes should focus on groups such as children, the elderly and those on low-incomes, with targeted edu cation programmes, specific financial help and specialised health care.

4. Informal settlements: within the cities of LEDCs, informal settle ments are the areas often most at risk from hazards having been constructed on such sites as low-lying marshy land and steep slopes.

5. Cultural treasures/heritage: as these cannot be replaced, they will need special precautions to make sure that they survive the hazard event.

IDNDR POLICY GOALS

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• Stopping crises from becoming catastrophes Can disaster management be better integrated with development? http://www.id21.org/society/s10atp1g1.html

• Christian Aid - Facing up to the storm Lessons from Orissa and Gujerat. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/indepth/0307stor/facinguptothestorm.pdf

• Seeds - India Promotes people oriented campaigns to help communities prepare themselves in the event of natural or manmade disasters. http://www.seedsindia.org/

• Thunderbirds are No Go! High-tech search-and-rescue teams are ready to fly out of Western countries as soon as disaster strikes on the other side of the

world. But would they do better to stay at home? Article from New Internationalist. http://www.newint.org/issue222/thunderbirds.htm August 1991 issue on Disasters http://www.newint.org/issue222/contents.htm

• Disaster diplomacy A radical perspective from a group of academics.Can disasters induce international cooperation amongst enemy countries?

http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/disasterdiplomacy/index.html

• The Future of Aid, 2005-2010: challenges and choices Overseas Development Institute report covering the wider issues (Feb 2004). http://www.odi.org.uk/speeches/future_of_aid/meeting_report_29january04.html

• Time to cut the UK's aid strings Open letter - War on Want (1st Dec 2004). http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=9073

• UN scepticism The United Nations -- along with international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) -- is expressing scepticism over the eventual delivery of the hefty 2.5 billion dollars in pledges made by donors for tsunami disaster relief operations in south and southeast Asia. http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26894

• Oxfam press release details how donor governments do not always meet funding pledges. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/asiaquake_support_311204.htm

• Has Kashmir aid gone too far? BBC Jan 12 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4599540.stm Kashmir’s earthquake: don’t care or don’t know? Beena Sarwar, Open Democracy article Nov 2005 http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/earthquake_relief_3024.jsp

•  • DEC report (Jan 2006) Criticism of tsunami spending http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4604646.stm DEC response

http://www.dec.org.uk/index.cfm/asset_id,1689/pr,1 The report http://www.dec.org.uk/uploads/documents/dectsunaACFF.pdf

DISASTER RELIEF LINKS

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Agencies involved in reconstruction work• What is needed for sustainable recovery? World conference at Kobe (Jan 05)

draft report. http://www.unisdr.org/wcdr/thematic-sessions/hlrt-reports/high-level-round-table-3.pdf

• UN FAO Tsunami page has details of reconstruction projects http://www.fao.org/tsunami/ For

• Oxfam The tsunami page http://oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/emergencies/country/asiaquake/index.htm "One area that has so far received less attention is the gender impact of the tsunami, and its impact on women in particular." http://oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/conflict_disasters/bn_tsunami_women.htm

• Action Aid Asia page http://www.actionaid.org/asia/

• World Health Organisation Three months on - report planning for future. http://www.who.int/hac/crises/international/asia_tsunami/3months/en/index.html

RECOVERY PAGES