DISASTER

MITIGATION
 Hazard Mitigation
• Hazard mitigation describes actions taken to help
reduce or eliminate long-term risks caused by
hazards or disasters, such as flooding,
earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, or dam failure.
• As the costs of disasters continue to rise,
governments and citizens must find ways to
reduce hazard risks to our communities.
• As communities plan for new development and
improvements to existing infrastructure,
mitigation can and should be an important
component of the planning effort.
 Hazard Mitigation
• While mitigation activities can and should be taken
before a disaster occurs, hazard mitigation is
essential after a disaster.
• Oftentimes after disasters, repairs and
reconstruction are completed in such a way as to
simply restore damaged property to pre-disaster
conditions.
•These efforts may get the community back to
normal, but the replication of pre-disaster
conditions may result in a repetitive cycle of
damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage.
 Hazard Mitigation
• This recurrent reconstruction becomes more
expensive as the years go by.
• Hazard mitigation breaks this repetitive cycle by
taking a long-term view of rebuilding and
recovering following disasters.
• The implementation of such hazard mitigation
actions leads to building stronger, safer and
smarter communities that are better able to
reduce future injuries and future damage.
 Disaster Mitigation
•Mitigation reduces the impact of disasters by
supporting protection and prevention
activities, easing response, and speeding
recovery to create better prepared and more
resilient communities.

•Mitigation can include structural and

nonstructural efforts.
 Importance and Aims Introduction
•The most important part of implementing
disaster mitigation is the full understanding
of the nature of threat.
•In Pakistan, different cities are vulnerable to
different types of hazards. Some cities are
prone to floods and droughts. Some cities are
prone to earthquake, falling in highly active
seismic zone (zone 4). Most cities are prone
to combination of various hazards.
 Importance and Aims Introduction
•The effects these hazards are likely to have
and the damage they are likely to cause
depends mainly on the following:
1. Population in that region,
2. Type of houses,
3. Sources of their livelihood (Agriculture,
others),
4. Infrastructure
 Importance and Aims Introduction
•To understand hazards of a specific region/state
and to develop mitigation strategy, one should
have knowledge of:
1. Causes of hazards and how they arise,
2. Disaster History of the area
a) Occurrence of hazards,
b) Frequency,
c) Magnitude (severity),
3. Physical mechanism of destruction caused,
4. Elements at risk (most vulnerable to their
effects),
5. Economic and social consequences after
damage.
 Importance of Disaster Mitigation
•The worst effects of any natural disaster are
loss of human life, injuries and health
problems of the affected people apart from
loss of property and livelihood.
•Understanding the way that people are killed
and injured in a particular disaster is a
prerequisite for reducing casualties.
 Importance of Disaster Mitigation
•In an Earthquake, 90% of the casualties are
caused by house collapse. Hence, saving the
lives in earthquakes means focusing on
prevention of building collapse.
•Similarly, in floods, most of the deaths are
because of drowning in fast flowing or
turbulent waters. Reducing loss of life by
floods is possible by preventing or minimizing
the extent of water flow or keeping people
out of the track of potential water flow.
 Importance of Disaster Mitigation
•Mitigation is planned after studying the
elements at risk. Saving human life is of the
highest priority in mitigation plans, followed
by those of animals.
•Next comes safety of crops, infrastructure,
and other elements at risk. Identification of
elements most at risk indicates priorities for
mitigation.
 Aims of Disaster Mitigation
The specific aims of disaster mitigation are as
follows:
1. Creating awareness of risk at community
level,
2. To promote local actions through
community participation to reduce such
risks,
3. Induction of mitigation measures in the
national and regional development plans,
land use planning proposals and in project
design and appraisal in disaster prone
areas.
 Aims of Disaster Mitigation
4. To assist decision makers (politicians and
administrators) to understand the nature
and extent of various risks faced by the
communities in their area of responsibility,
and to assess the economic effects of
natural disasters on agriculture, commerce
and industry.
 Aims of Disaster Mitigation
5. To demonstrate ways and means to reduce
those risks within the limits of national,
regional or socio-economic conditions
through proper decision making and
planning.
6. To introduce effective measures to
implement disaster mitigation plans at the
different levels of public administration
based on risk assessment and vulnerability
analysis.
 Mitigation Techniques
Prevention
Government, administrative, or regulatory
actions that influence the way land and
buildings are developed to reduce hazard
losses. Includes planning and zoning,
floodplain laws, capital improvement
programs, open space preservation, and storm
water management regulations.
 Mitigation Techniques
Property Protection
Modification of buildings or structures to
protect them from a hazard or removal of
structures from a hazard area. Includes
acquisition, elevation, relocation, structural
retrofit, storm shutters, and shatter-resistant
glass.
 Mitigation Techniques
Public Education and Awareness
Actions to inform citizens and elected officials
about hazards and ways to mitigate them.
Includes outreach projects, real estate
disclosure, hazard information centers, and
school-age and adult education.
 Mitigation Techniques
Natural Resource Protection
Actions that minimize hazard loss and
preserve or restore the functions of natural
systems. Includes sediment and erosion
control, stream corridor restoration,
watershed management, forest and
vegetation management, and wetland
restoration and preservation.
 Mitigation Techniques
Emergency Services
Actions that protect people and property during
and immediately after a hazard event. Includes
warning systems, emergency response services,
and the protection of essential facilities.
Structural Projects
Actions that involve the construction of
structures to reduce the impact of a hazard.
Includes dams, setback levees, floodwalls,
retaining walls, and safe rooms.
 Common Mitigation Actions
•Enforcement of building codes, floodplain
management codes and environmental
regulations.
•Public safety measures such as continual
maintenance of roadways, culverts and
dams.
•Acquisition of relocation of structures, such
as purchasing buildings located in a
floodplain.
•Acquisition of undeveloped hazard prone
lands to ensure no future construction occurs
there.
 Common Mitigation Actions
•Retrofitting of structures and design of new
construction, such as elevating a home or
building.
•Protecting critical facilities and infrastructure
from future hazard events.
•Planning for hazard mitigation, emergency
operations, disaster recovery, and continuity
of operations.
•Development and distribution of outreach
materials related to hazard mitigation.
•Deployment of warning systems to alert and
notify the public.
 Structural Mitigation
•Prevent hazards from developing into a
disaster through structures
Examples include:
•Building dams
•Building seawalls
•Hurricane proof buildings
•Earthquake resistant structures
 Benefits and Disadvantages
Benefits of Structural Mitigation
•Financial losses lessened
•Lower insurance premiums
•Reduced rebuilding efforts
Disadvantages
•Increased upfront building costs
•Not 100% effective
•Increased risk taking by occupants
 Nonstructural Mitigation
•Prevent hazards from disasters through
administrative efforts
Example include:
•Building zoning and planning
•Building codes and enforcement
•Education and training
•Relocation
 Benefits and Disadvantages

Benefits of Nonstructural Mitigation

•Less costly than structural
•Lower insurance premiums
Disadvantages
•Less effective than structural efforts
•Require greater public commitment
 FEMA Disaster Mitigation
Framework
The National Mitigation Framework discusses
seven core capabilities required for entities
involved in mitigation:
•Threats and Hazard Identification
•Risk and Disaster Resilience Assessment
•Planning
•Community Resilience
•Public Information and Warning
•Long-term Vulnerability Reduction
•Operational Coordination
FEMA’s Mitigation Core Capabilities
 Mitigation Coordination Efforts

•The coordinating structures for mitigation

range from the individual efforts to national
coordination.
•Includes involvement from non-
governmental agencies, local government,
and state
 FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance
Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP)
assists in implementing long-term hazard
mitigation measures following a major
disaster.
•Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) provides funds
for hazard mitigation planning and projects
on an annual basis.
•Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) provides
funds for projects to reduce or eliminate risk
of flood damage to buildings.