Global Natural Hazard and Disaster Vulnerability Management

Sustainable Development in Africa: Concepts and Methodological Approaches, 2019

As climate changes, hazards such as the frequency, intensity, spatial range, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events are also expected to change over time. Traditionally, policymakers and researchers have focused on hazards for disaster risk management (DRM); however, it has become clear that they must regard exposure and vulnerability as key determinants of disaster risk and impacts when risk is realized. As exposure and vulnerability change over time, disaster risks will change as well. For example, unplanned urban development near coastal areas increases exposure. Indeed, development processes affect both exposure and vulnerability. In this sense, disaster risk management is closely associated with sustainable development. Furthermore, due to recent technological developments and economic globalization, societies are more interconnected at every level, from international to regional scales. Therefore, because societies are more interdependent, disaster risks easily propagate to distant places, leading to increased vulnerability. Connections among some determinants of disaster risks and sustainable development, such as rapid urbanization, are clear. However, current knowledge does not appropriately describe regional or global significances of these connections. While introducing the fundamental concepts and frameworks for DRM, this paper explores the linkage between DRM, climate change and sustainable development, focusing on the role of development policy and disaster risk financing.

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Global population expansion, technological improvements and economic growth have made the use of the world’s coastal zones more necessary than before. However, the same developments and advanced industries, which are the basis of socioeconomic improvements of human living standards, are also contributing to an increased impact from natural, terrestrial and marine disasters around the globe. The combination of social and economic factors in the development of coastal regions – without proper planning- makes a number of developed and developing countries particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. Also in recent years, man-made disasters such as chemical, industrial, nuclear and transportation accidents and wars, are creating havoc on terrestrial and marine environments, resources and cultural sites. Slower term environmental disasters, with readily identified anthropogenic input, are also creating water and climate related hazards that will have a severe impact on humanity in the f...

The dwellers of the Himalayan region are encountering many natural hazards. Earthquake, landslide, cloud burst, flash floods, high intensity rainfall, floods, forest fire and avalanches are the common natural disasters that have been occurring and causing tragedies, specially in populated areas of the Himalayan region. In order to minimize losses through concerted international actions, the United Nations observed the last decade of the Millennium i.e. 1990-2000 as the International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). Formulation of natural disaster mitigation programme, optimal land use and provision of insurance for disaster integrated with developmental programme of all the nations, particularly the developing countries, are some of the major thrust areas spelled out in IDNDR. A switch from post-disaster life management programme to preparedness, mitigation and management has become the new focus. Awareness generation through training, mass media, education, strengthening the government support and early warning system are the key areas of the programme.

This paper is written on the basis of secondary information like government reports, books, articles, electronic journals and so on. At first local issues like Bangladesh will be discussed. Then it will be shortly interconnected with the global phenomenon in terms of climate change and, particularly, natural disasters. A disaster, or natural disaster, is the effect of a hazard on society, usually as an event that occurs over a limited time span in a defined geographic area. According to other scholars, Natural disasters are defined as events that are triggered by natural phenomena or natural hazards. In Bangladesh, hurricanes or cyclones and almost regular floods are comparatively common. Bangladesh is low income country and the standard of living of its population is very poor, whereas almost every year natural disasters cripple its economy. Thus socio-economic condition is often hampered. Beck defines 'risk' as the anticipation of the catastrophe. Beck continues, Risks are always future events that may occur, that threaten us. But in the case of Bangladesh, the risks of natural disasters are always in practice, i.e. loss of lives, more poverty, unemployment, disempowerment of women, illiteracy and so on. This affects trade and investments as well as consumption. Beck interestingly terms the globalization of environmental problems as social problems. We completely agree with Beck. About empowerment, the definition of the World Bank is mentionable, Empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives. In terms of empowerment,we argue that any natural disasters usually make women more vulnerable, as they become the major victims due to natural disasters.

Landslide Science for a Safer Geoenvironment, 2014

In May 2009, the UNISDR system published the 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR 2009). One component of this report consisted in a global risk analysis. This task was performed by several institutions which join their efforts during two years to achieve a global modelling of hazards. This includes new hazard models for floods, tropical cyclones, landslides, drought and tsunamis as well as re-interpretation of earthquakes hazard. It allowed for the computation of human and economical exposure. A totally new methodology was used to calibrate vulnerability by using a socalled "event per event" analysis. This allowed determining what are the socio-economical and contextual parameters that are associated with human and economical vulnerability. This new methodology allows considering the intensity of each event as well as contextual parameters in order to compute the risk for different natural hazards. Risk maps were produced for four natural hazards (i.e. floods, earthquakes, landslides and tropical cyclones). This was provided at a resolution of 1 x 1 km. This also allow for the computation of an index for comparing the risk level of different countries. Trend in risk were also studied.

The following report summarizes the results of a research developed during September and October of 2012, on request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Colombia. This research was done in order to create a technical document that could support the discussions about the topic “natural disasters” that will be held during the Sixth Summit of the Americas, a regional summit that will be celebrate in the city of Cartagena – Colombia, in 2012. It is suggested in here that the challenge of reducing disaster impacts in our continent demands to go beyond those models that only promote humanitarian aid or post-disaster reconstruction support, and invite to promote new approaches focused on disaster risk reduction that, without promoting disaster response preparation, gives priority to a more prospective and compensatory disaster risk management. Further on, some peculiarities that might be making difficult an integral risk management of hydroclimatic disasters in our region are presented, particularly due to a discursive practice about climate change phenomenon that seems to be taking place during the last decade. Finally, some recommendations and suggestions (most of them supported on experiences of recent disaster registered in our continent) are made focused on promote a transition in our region towards a more effective management of disaster risks.