Disaster Risk

Reduction and
Management

DEEPTHY JOSE
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
LBSITW
 MODULE 1

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 2021 Uttarakhand flood
DISASTER

•2018 Kerala floods..

•2019 Kerala floods.
•2020 Kerala floods.

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 DISASTER
• Different definitions for disaster can be given as follows:
• A serious disruption in the functioning of the community or a society causing wide spread
material, economic, social or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected society
to cope using its own resources.
• Disaster Management Act (2005) defines disaster as ― “A catastrophe mishap, calamity or grave
occurrence in any area, arising from natural and manmade causes or by accident or negligence
which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to and destruction of
property or damage to, or degradation of environment and is of such a nature or magnitude as to
be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area”
• The United Nations defines disaster as ― “The occurrence of sudden or major misfortune which
disrupts the basic fabric and normal functioning of the society”
• The root of the word disaster (“bad star” in Greek and Latin) comes from an astrological theme in
which the ancients used to refer to the destruction or deconstruction of a star as a disaster.

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 • Disasters are not new to mankind and they are as old as human history. Dramatic increase
in the disasters and the damage caused by them in the recent past has become a cause of
national and international concern. Disasters can be broadly classified as:
1.Natural Disaster
Eg. Earthquake, Cyclone, Hailstorm, Cloud-burst, Landslide, Soil Erosion, Avalanche,
Floods etc.

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 2. Man-made Disaster
Eg. Fire, Epidemics, Road, Air, Rail or Water Accidents, Leakage of chemicals, Nuclear
power plant meltdown etc

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• Two important parameters based on which disasters can be classified are:
1. Time duration to occur
2. Inducing parameters for the occurrence
 Based on Time Duration to Occur
a) Rapid Occurring Disasters – Disasters that could occur within a short period because of
which the area will be destroyed within no time (short period, i.e., few minutes).
Eg. Earthquakes, Landslides, Glacial Avalanche, Volcanic eruption, Asteroid Impact,
Tsunami, Dust Storm etc.
b) Slow Occurring Disasters – Disasters that could take some time to occur.
Eg. Soil erosion, Drought, Desertification, Coastal Erosion, Ozone Depletion, Coral Reef
Decline, Imbalanced Green House Effect, etc.
 Based on Inducing parameters
a) Induced Natural Disasters by Human Intervention
Eg. Induced earthquake, Induced landslide, Induced flood, Induced soil erosion,
Induced drought.
b) Exclusively Human-made Disasters
Eg. Environmental pollution, nuclear accidents, missile/armed attacks, stampedes.

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 • Emergency Events Database or EM-DAT (setup by Centre for Research on the
Epidemology of Disasters) aims to rationalize decision making for disaster preparedness,
as well as provide an objective base for vulnerability assessment and priority setting.

• For a disaster to be entered into the database at least one of the following criteria must
be fulfilled:
• 10 or more people reported killed
• 100 or more people reported affected
• Declaration of a state of emergency
• Call for international assistance

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WHAT IS A HAZARD? HOW IS IT CLASSIFIED?
• Hazard may be defined as ―a dangerous condition or event that threat or have the
potential for causing injury to life or damage to property or the environment. (The word
“hazard” owes its origin to the word “hazard” in old French and “az-zahr” in Arabic
meaning “chance” or “luck”)

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 • Hazards can be grouped into two broad categories namely natural and manmade.

• Natural hazards are hazards which are caused because of natural phenomena (hazards
with meteorological, geological or even biological origin).
• Examples of natural hazards are cyclones, tsunamis, earthquake and volcanic eruption
which are exclusively of natural origin.

• Landslides, floods, drought, fires are socio-natural hazards since their causes are both
natural and manmade. For example flooding may be caused because of heavy rains,
landslide or blocking of drains with human waste.

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 • Natural hazards are classified into:
a. Geological hazard: As the name indicates these occur due to earth processes.
Example: earthquake, volcanic activities, landslides, avalanches etc.
b. Meteorological hazard: these hazards are weather based or weather induced phenomenon
or meteorological process. They include cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, lightening
thunderstorms, heavy rain and flooding, heatwaves and bushfires.
c. Hydrological hazard: This hazard is triggered by hydrological extreme event phenomena.
Floods, droughts, mudslides, tsunamis etc, they can occur frequently and they can damage life
and property
d. Biological hazard: As the name indicates these are caused by the biological agents they
can also be infection agents that poses a threat to the health of living organisms. Epidemic is the
occurrence of an illness/health catastrophes that affect large number of people. This is
normally high after a disaster.

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 Geological hazard
Hydrological hazard

Meteorological hazard
Biological hazard
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 2. Man-made hazards are hazards due to result of human intent, negligence or involving a failure of a man-
made system that leads to human suffering and environmental damage.

• Fires, transport accidents, industrial accidents, oil spills and nuclear explosions/ radiation are
some examples resulting the human hazards.
• Classification of manmade hazard:

• Chemical Hazards:
• Industrial Hazards:
• Nuclear Hazards

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 Chemical Hazard

On December 3, 1984, the world's worst industrial

catastrophe occurred due to the leak of Methyl
isocyanate gas

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 • A chemical disaster is the unintentional release of one or more hazardous substances which could harm
human health and the environment.
• Chemical hazards are systems where chemical accidents could occur under certain circumstances.
• Such events include fires, explosions, leakages or release of toxic or hazardous materials that can cause people
illness, injury, or disability.
• The elements which are at highest risks due to chemical disaster primarily include the industrial plant, its
employees & workers, hazardous chemicals vehicles, the residents of nearby settlements, adjacent buildings,
occupants and surrounding community.
• Chemical disasters may arise in number of ways, such as:-
1. Process and safety systems failures
• Human errors
• Technical errors
• Management errors
2. Induced effect of natural calamities
3. Accidents during the transportation
4. Hazardous waste processing/ disposal
5. Terrorist attack/ unrest leading to sabotage
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 • Industrial Hazards:
• These are disasters caused by industrial companies, either by accident, negligence or incompetence.

• They are a form of industrial accident where great damage, injury or loss of life is caused. Other disasters can
also be considered industrial disasters, if their causes are rooted in the products or processes of industry.
• For example, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Fireworks factory explosion in Sivakasi in 5th September 2012

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 • Nuclear Hazards:
• Risk or danger to human health or the environment exposed by the radiation
emanating from the atomic nuclei is called as nuclear hazard. (OR) Nuclear hazard is an
actual or potential release of radioactive material at a commercial nuclear power plant
or a transportation accident. The degree of damage caused by nuclear accidents
depends on: Kind of radiation, Amount of radiation , Duration of radiation.
• https://gcwgandhinagar.com/econtent/document/15876180690EVSAECC01_Nuclear%
20hazards.pdf

Chernobyl Disaster,1986

the result of a flawed

reactor design that
was operated with
inadequately trained
personnel.

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 VULNERABILITY
• Vulnerability describes the characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset
that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.
• There are many aspects of vulnerability, arising from various physical, social, economic, and
environmental factors.
• Examples may include:
• poor design and construction of buildings,

• inadequate protection of assets,

• lack of public information and awareness,

• limited official recognition of risks and preparedness measures, and

• disregard for wise environmental management.

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 • Vulnerability varies significantly within a community and over time.

• This definition identifies vulnerability as a characteristic of the element of interest (community,

system or asset) which is independent of its exposure.

• However, in common use the word is often used more broadly to include the element‘s exposure.
The above explanation was taken from the United Nations (UN) International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction.

• There are four (4) main types of vulnerability:

• Physical Vulnerability

• Social Vulnerability

• Economic Vulnerability.

• Environmental Vulnerability.

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 • 1. Physical Vulnerability may be determined by aspects such as population density levels,
remoteness of a settlement, the site, design and materials used for critical infrastructure and for
housing (UNISDR).
• Example: Wooden homes are less likely to collapse in an earthquake, but are more vulnerable to
fire.

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 • Economic Vulnerability. The level of vulnerability is highly dependent upon the economic status of
individuals, communities and nations The poor are usually more vulnerable to disasters because
they lack the resources to build sturdy structures and put other engineering measures in place to
protect themselves from being negatively impacted by disasters.
• Example: Poorer families may live in squatter settlements because they cannot afford to live in safer
(more expensive) areas.

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 EXPOSURE
• The degree to which the elements at risks are likely to experience hazard events of different
magnitude.

• Exposure is defined as ― “the situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities

and other tangible human assets located in hazard-prone areas”.

• The measures of exposure can include the number of people or types of assets in an area.

• These can be combined with the specific vulnerability and capacity of the exposed elements to any
particular hazard to estimate the quantitative risks associated with that hazard in the area of
interest.

• Exposure is one of the defining components of disaster risk.

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RISK
Risk is a “measure of the expected losses due to a hazard event
occurring(Possibility) in a given area over a specific time period.
Risk is a function of the probability of particular hazardous event and the losses each
would cause.”
The level of risk depends upon:
• Nature of the hazard
• Vulnerability of the elements which are affected
• Economic value of those elements

A community/locality is said to be at ‘risk’ when it is exposed to hazards and is likely

to be adversely affected by its impact. Whenever we discuss ‘disaster management’ it
is basically ‘disaster risk management’.
• Disaster risk management includes all measures which reduce disaster
related losses of life, property or assets by either reducing the hazard or
vulnerability of the elements at risk.
• Risk reduction methods:
In the following order
• Identify, characterize and assess threats
• Assess the vulnerability of critical assests to specific threats
• Determine the risk (i.e. the expected consequences of specific types of attacks on
specific assets)
• Identify ways to reduce those risks
• Prioritize risk reduction measures based on a strategy
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 • Potential risk treatments :Once risks have been identified and assessed all techniques to manage
the risk fall into one or more of these four major categories.

• There are different ways of dealing with risk, such as:

•  Risk Acceptance: an informed decision to accept the possible consequences and likelihood of a
particular risk. (Accept, plan –formulate complain, evac plan ICS and provision of budget)

•  Risk Avoidance : an informed decision to avoid involvement in activities leading to risk

realization.(eliminate, withdraw from risk area)

•  Risk Reduction refers to the application of appropriate techniques to reduce the likelihood of
risk occurrence and its consequences.( optimize resource to mitigate effects)

•  Risk Transfer involves shifting of the burden of risk to another party. One of the most common
forms of risk transfer is Insurance.(risk transfer or enroll in insurance)
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 RESILIENCE
• Ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate
to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through
the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions

• In practice, DFID’s framework (diagram below) depicts the core elements of disaster
resilience as follows:

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• Context: Whose resilience is being built – such as a social group, socio-economic
or political system, environmental context or institution.
• Disturbance: What shocks (sudden events like conflict or disasters) and/or
stresses (long-term trends like resource degradation, urbanization, or climate
change) the group aims to be resilient to.
• Capacity to respond: The ability of a system or process to deal with a shock or
stress depends on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.
• Reaction: A range of responses are possible, including: bounce back better,
where capacities are enhanced, exposures are reduced, and the system is more
able to deal with future shocks and stresses; bounce back, where pre-existing
conditions prevail; or recover, but worse than before, meaning capacities are
reduced
RESILIENCE
 • The worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a source of unexpected stress
and adversity for many people.
• Resilience can help us get through and overcome hardship. But resilience is not something we’re
born with—it’s built over time as the experiences we have interact with our unique, individual
genetic makeup. That’s why we all respond to stress and adversity—like that from the COVID-19
pandemic—differently.
• Think of resilience as a seesaw or balance scale, where negative experiences tip the scale toward
bad outcomes, and positive experiences tip it toward good outcomes. For some people during the
COVID-19 outbreak, the resilience scale may look like this:

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 • Reducing sources of stress may include:
• Helping families meet basic needs like food, shelter, diapers, health care,
child care, and internet access or connecting them with programs that can
help
• Guiding adults who are out of work through applying for financial
assistance
• Creating and providing children’s activity kits that include things like
coloring books, crayons and markers, word searches, puzzles, books, craft
supplies, etc. to give parents and caregivers a break, even for a few
minutes at a time
• Encouraging parents, program staff, and co-workers to practice self-
care—even if it’s just taking a few minutes to themselves, going for a walk,
or getting plenty of rest. Make sure staff are aware of and taking advantage
of employee benefits such as employee assistance programs, mental health
counseling, and paid time off.

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 strengthening core skills.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we need these core skills for
things like planning less frequent trips to the grocery store or
market, filling out forms for relief funds or loans, navigating
support programs, and for managing work, home, and caring for
children

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CRISIS
• It is any event that is going (or is expected) to lead to an
unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual,
group, community, or whole society.
• Crisis is a smaller version which may degenerate in to a
disaster if not properly managed.
• Crisis develops over time and disaster is sudden
 • The economic crisis induced by COVID‐19 could be long, deep, and
pervasive when viewed through a migration lens. Lockdowns, travel
bans, and social distancing have brought global economic activities
to a near standstill.

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 Capacity
• The UNISDR(United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction )defines
capacity as the combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available
within an organisation, community or society to manage and reduce disaster risks and
strengthen resilience. Disaster Risk Management capacity consists of all the resources
available in the community (facilities, human and financial resources) to be used for
disaster risk reduction.

• Example: Area with storm resistant permanent houses, disaster risk reduction plan
developed by both local DRM authorities and community; solidarity and mutual support
of community, local people having experience in disaster response and recovery etc.

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 DISASTER MANAGEMENT
• Disaster Management can be defined as the
organization and management of resources and
responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian
aspects of emergencies, in particular
preparedness, response and recovery in order to
lessen the impact of disasters.
• Why needed ?
 To reduce or avoid potential losses
 To assure prompt and appropriate assistance to
the victims
 To achieve a rapid and effective recovery

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 • National Disaster Management Act of 2005 outlines certain measures that need to
be taken, that require planning, coordination and implementation.
1. Prevention of threat of a disaster
2. Mitigation of the risk attached to disaster and its severity/consequences
3. Building our capacity to carry out the measures in 1 and 2
4. Preparedness to handle a disaster of any magnitude
5. Prompt or quick response to such a situation
6. Assessment of the severity, magnitude or effect of a disaster
7. Evacuation and relief operations
8. Rehabilitation and reconstruction of the disaster-hit area

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 The three key stages of activities that are taken up within disaster management are:

• Before a disaster (pre-disaster). Activities taken to reduce

human and property losses caused by a potential hazard.
For example carrying out awareness campaigns,
strengthening the existing weak structures, preparation of
the disaster management plans at household and
community level etc. Such risk reduction measures taken
under this stage are termed as mitigation and preparedness
activities.
• During a disaster(disaster occurrence). Initiatives taken to
ensure that the needs and provisions of victims are met and
suffering is minimized. Activities taken under this stage are
called emergency response activities.

• After a disaster (post-disaster) Initiatives taken in response to a disaster with a purpose to achieve early recovery
and rehabilitation of affected communities, immediately after a disaster strikes. These are called as response and
recovery activities.

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 • Mitigation –
• Minimizing the effects of disaster Mitigation involves steps to reduce
vulnerability to disaster impacts such as injuries and loss of life and property.
• This might involve changes in local building codes to fortify buildings; revised
zoning and land use management; strengthening of public infrastructure; and
other efforts to make the community more resilient to a catastrophic event.
• Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; public education

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 • Preparedness –
• Planning how to respond.
• Preparedness focuses on understanding how a disaster might impact the community and how
education, outreach and training can build capacity to respond to and recover from a disaster.
• This may include engaging the business community, pre-disaster strategic planning, and other
logistical readiness activities.
• The disaster preparedness activities guide provides more information on how to better prepare
an organization and the business community for a disaster.
• Examples: preparedness plans; emergency exercises/training; warning systems

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 • Response –
• Efforts to minimize the hazards created by a disaster.
• Response addresses immediate threats presented by the disaster, including saving lives,
meeting humanitarian needs (food, shelter, clothing, public health and safety), cleanup,
damage assessment, and the start of resource distribution.
• As the response period progresses, focus shifts from dealing with immediate emergency
issues to conducting repairs, restoring utilities, establishing operations for public services
(including permitting), and finishing the cleanup process.
• Examples: search and rescue; emergency relief .

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 • Recovery - Returning the community to normal.
• It is the fourth phase of disaster and is the restoration of all aspects of the disaster‘s
impact on a community and the return of the local economy to some sense of
normalcy.
• By this time, the impacted region has achieved a degree of physical, environmental,
economic and social stability.
• The recovery phase of disaster can be broken into two periods.
• The short-term phase typically lasts from six months to at least one year and involves delivering
immediate services to businesses.
• The long-term phase, which can range up to decades, requires thoughtful strategic planning and
action to address more serious or permanent impacts of a disaster.
• Investment in economic development capacity building becomes essential to foster
economic diversification, attain new resources, build new partnerships and implement
effective recovery strategies and tactics.
• Communities must access and deploy a range of public and private resources to enable
long-term economic recovery. Examples: temporary housing; grants; medical care

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 The Need for Assessments
• Before steps can be taken to reduce risk and vulnerability, they must first be
understood. Vulnerability assessments and risk analyses allow for the
identification of areas of critical concern and help to guide mitigation efforts.
There are a variety of methods by which these assessments can be conducted
and organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration have even developed their own tools to aid this process:
•  Threat/Vulnerability Assessments and Risk Analysis - Whole Building Design
Guide
•  Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Tool
•  Community Vulnerability Assessment Tool

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 Early Warning Systems

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 Disaster risk assessment –approaches, procedures
Disaster risk assessment is the process of gathering,
synthesizing and analyzing information on the capacity and
vulnerability with the participation of local people.

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 Hazard Mapping
Hazard risks mapping is a tool generally used by local government and
communities to identify risks, vulnerabilities and disaster risk
management capacities. Thus, the hazard risks mapping provides the
necessary basis for developing Disaster Risk Reduction plans at the
different administrative levels from commune (or ward in cities) to
district, and province.

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 • PARTICIPATION (IN A MEETING CONTEXT)
• a) Definition of participation
•  Participation is the presence and contribution of opinions to the decision-
making process during the meeting.
•  Attendance is the presence but not contributing opinions to decision-
making process.
• b) Indicators of a participatory meeting A participatory meeting has the
following criteria:
•  All the opinions and feedbacks from members are listened and respected by
facilitator, before the final decisions have been made together.
•  Members are confident to raise their voices and request to get the
feedbacks on their opinions.

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 • GIS AND MAPPING
a) Disaster risk mapping
Disaster risk mapping is a tool used to gather specific information on the capacity, vulnerability and
disaster risks of the community with respect to
(i) public safety;
(ii) production and business;
(iii) health, sanitation and environment.
The information gathered from this tool helps the TSGs (Technical Support Group )at all levels to build a
realistic DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) plan; especially the information on prioritized early warning and
early evacuation.
• b) Base map (for drawing the multi-hazard risk map) Base map provides basic information of a map (such
as rivers, roads…) to help the local people and related stakeholders easily imagine and draw the
remaining information required for a multi hazard risk map.
• c) Geographic Information System (GIS) Geographic information system is a tool for mapping and
analyzing information and data, phenomena on the earth. GIS can be applied to: analysis, forecast of the
impacts of natural hazards and for support for making DRR plans.
• d) Open Source Software - QGIS Quantum Geographic Information System, or also known as QGIS is an
open source software of GIS. QGIS can support most of basic functions of a GIS software including: data
management, reading many data formats, editing and publishing maps, exporting - importing data and
spatial analysis functions
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