Unit-IV Inter-relationship between disasters and development

Inter-relationship between disasters and development

Disasters and development are closely linked.
 Disasters can both destroy development initiatives and create development opportunities.
 Development schemes can both increase and decrease vulnerability.
 A growing body of knowledge on the relationships between disasters and development indicates four
basic themes as follows:
a) Disasters set back development programming,
b) Destroying years of development initiatives.
c) Rebuilding after a disaster provides significant opportunities to initiate development
programmes.
d) Development programmes can increase an area’s susceptibility to disasters, eg:
1. Dam construction induced seismic activity
2. Dam failure induced disaster
3. Seismic activity induced by mining
4. Construction and development induced landslides.
5. Rock explosion induced seismic activity.
Development programmes can be designed to decrease the susceptibility to disasters and their
negative consequences. 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.
 Factors affecting Vulnerabilities
There are many aspects of vulnerability, arising from various physical, socio-economic and
environmental factors. Examples may include:
 Poor design and construction of buildings,
 Lack of public information and awareness,
 Limited official recognition of risk and preparedness measures.
 Governance
The following factors affect vulnerabilities:
a) Physical factors: Human vulnerability, structural vulnerability (poor design & construction of
buildings and infrastructure).
b) Socio-economic factors: It includes poverty, inequity, age & health (young children, pregnant
women, and elder people without family support), social position and access to resources and
insurance, education. Children and the elderly tend to be more vulnerable. They have less physical
strength to survive disasters and are often more susceptible to certain diseases. The elderly often
also have declining vision and hearing. Children, especially young children, have less education.
Women are often more vulnerable to natural hazards than men. This is in part because women are
more likely to be poor, less educated, and politically marginalized. Women often face additional
burdens as caretakers of families. When disaster strikes, women are often the ones tasked with
protecting children and the elderly.
c) Environmental factors: Poorer environmental conditions such as diminished biodiversity, soil
degradation, air pollution, water pollution, climate change that may leads to bio-disasters, floods,
drought, and other climatic disasters.

Negative Impact of Dams:

1. Flood: In flat basins large dams cause flooding of land, destroying local animals and habitats.
2. People have to be displaced causing change in life style and customs, even causing emotional
scarring. About 40 to 80 million people have been displaced physically by dams worldwide.
3. Large amounts of plant life are submerged and decay anaerobically (in the absence of oxygen)
generating greenhouse gases like methane. It is estimated that a hydroelectric power plant produces
3.5 times the amount of greenhouse gases as a thermal power plant burning fossil fuels.
4. Earthquake: It is well recognized fact that large dams can cause earthquakes due to the extra water
stress formed in the micro-cracks and fissures in the ground below and near a reservoir. Another factor
is the varying water pressure in the dam reservoir. When dam is built and the reservoir filled with
water, the amount of pressure exerted on the earth in the area changes dramatically. When the water
level of a reservoir is raised, pressure on the underlying ground increases, when the water level is
lowered, the pressure decreases. This fluctuation can stress the delicate balance between tectonic
plates beneath the surface, possibly causing them to shift.
5. The migratory pattern of river animals like salmon and trout are affected.
6. Large dams are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and cause the spread of disease.
7. Dams serve as a heat sink, and the water is hotter than the normal river water. This warm water when
released into the river downstream can affect animal life.
8. Peak power operations can change the water level thirty to forty feet in one day and can kill the
animals staying at the shorelines.
9. One negative effect is that the reservoirs can become breeding grounds for disease vectors. This holds
true especially in tropical areas where mosquitoes (which are vectors for malaria) and snails (which
are vectors for Schistosomiasis) can take advantage of this slow flowing water.
10. Around 400,000 km2 of land worldwide has been submerged due to the construction of dams.
11. Resettlement problem: Dams and the creation of reservoirs also require relocation of potentially
large human populations if they are constructed close to residential areas.
 The record for the largest population relocated belongs to the Three Gorges dam built in China.
Its reservoir submerged a large area of land, forcing over a million people to relocate. "Dam
related relocation affects society in three ways: an economic disaster, human trauma, and
social catastrophe", states Dr. Michael Cernea of the World Bank and Dr. Thayer Scudder, a
professor at the California Institute of Technology.
 Dams occasionally break causing catastrophic damage to communities downstream. Dams break
due to engineering errors, attack or natural disaster. The greatest dam break disaster happened in
China killing 200,000 Chinese citizens. However, they have happened in California killing 600
people, Germany during World War II and other countries.

Urbanization and Disaster Risk

More than half of the world’s population and the majority of its capital assets are found in urban
settlements. Today though, cities are better described as hotspots of disaster risk. Risk comes from
increasing poverty and inequality and failures in governance, high population density, crowded
living conditions and the sitting of residential areas close to hazardous industry. The world’s
population is quickly becoming urbanized as people migrate to the cities. For example, in the 1950s less
than 30% of the world’s population lived in cities. Currently, more than half of the world’s population
lives in towns and cities, and by 2030 this number will swell to about 5 billion according to the UN
projections. International migration is also increasing including refugees. But towns and cities are limited
in resources. There are competitions for resources and livelihoods among the urban displaced and host
communities. Rapid urban growth throughout the developing world is a serious challenge to provide
adequate services for the people including internally displaced and refugees. Looking at the dynamics of
urbanization and disaster, we need to address urban disaster primarily social and political, rather than
natural phenomenon. Urbanization leads to increase in local temperature, more air pollution, decrease in
ground water level, and problem of solid waste.

Disaster Management and Sustainable Development:

Disaster management is closely inter-related with other aspects of development. One of the key
component of DM is prevention and mitigation. This is only possible if the developmental activities like
construction, agriculture, settlement etc are done keeping sustainability in mind. A sustainable
infrastructure is less vulnerable to disaster. Similarly, during the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase,
sustainability could be built by proper DM practices. For eg., recent heavy rainfalls in Chennai caused
massive urban floods due to faulty nature of development.
Sustainable development: Sustainable development is defined as “the development which meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
Principles of Sustainable development:
It can be attained by working at three levels:
1. Improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting
ecosystems.
2. Economic growth that provides opportunity for all the people.
3. Economic and social development that protect and enhance the natural environment.

Achievement of Sustainable Development:

1. Improving energy efficiency.
2. Saving forests
3. Safe guarding biodiversity
4. Adopting water resources management.
5. Managing coastal zones.
6. By control pollution.
7. Planning better cities.
8. Stabilizing world population.
9. Stopping environmental destructive activities.
10. Conserve and protect natural resources from misuse and wasteful consumption.

Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)

Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is the study to predict the effects of a proposed activity or project
on the environment. This process is used for the safeguarding of environment.
Objectives of EIA:
1. To identify, predict and evaluate the economic, environmental and social impact of development
project.
2. To provide information on the environmental consequences for decision making.
3. To promote environment friendly and sustainable development.
Types of EIA:
1. Climate impact assessment
2. Development impact assessment
3. Ecological impact assessment
4. Economical impact assessment
5. Health impact assessment
6. Social impact assessment
7. Technology impact assessment
8. Environmental Auditing.
EIA process (methodology):
The process of EIA includes eight main steps:
Whenever a new development project is planned which is likely to
affect environmental quality, it is necessary to carry out EIA. The
process of EIA includes following main steps:
1. 1. The first step is to determine whether the project under
consideration follows the environmental acts and regulation.
2. 2. If so, an EIA is under taken and environmental impact
statement
(EIS) is prepared.
3. 3. In many countries, EIS is open to public scrutiny and is
reviewed at public hearings.
4. 4. Finally, decision is taken on the project. The development
project may be:
a) Accepted or
b) Accepted with amendments or
c) An alternative proposal is accepted or
d) Rejected

Climate change adaptations

There are two main policy responses to climate change: mitigation and adaptation.
 Mitigation addresses the root causes, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions,
 while adaptation seeks to lower the risks posed by the consequences of climatic changes. Both
approaches will be necessary, because even if emissions are dramatically decreased in the next
decade, adaptation will still be needed to deal with the global changes that have already been set
in motion.
Adaptation measures may be planned in advance or put in place spontaneously in response to a local
pressure. They include large-scale infrastructure changes – such as building defenses to protect
against sea-level rise or improving the quality of road surfaces to withstand hotter temperatures – as well
behavioral shifts such as individuals using less water, farmers planting different crops and more
households and businesses buying flood insurance.
Low-income countries tend to be more vulnerable to climate risks and some adaptation measures – such
as increasing access to education and health facilities – will overlap with existing development
programmes. But adaptation goes beyond just development to include measures to address additional
risks specifically caused by climate change, such as raising the height of sea defences.
Principles for effective policy:
Fundamental principles to be considered when designing adaptation policy:
1. The effects of climate change vary by region.
2. The effects of climate change may vary across demographic groups.
3. Climate change poses both risks and opportunities.
4. Mal-adaptation can result in negative effects that are as serious as the climate-induced effects that
are being avoided.
Methods of adaptation:
Adaptation can mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change, but it will incur costs and will not prevent
all damage. The IPCC points out many adverse effects of climate change:
a) Local adaptation efforts
Cities, states, and provinces often have considerable responsibility in land use planning, public health,
and disaster management. Some have begun to take steps to adapt to threats intensified by climate
change, such as flooding, bushfires, heatwaves, and rising sea levels.
Projects include:
 By installing protective and/ or resilient technologies and materials in properties that are prone to
flooding
 Changing to heat tolerant tree varieties (eg. Chicago)
 Rainwater storage - Changing to water permeable pavements, adding water-buffering vegetation,
adding underground storage tanks, subsidizing household rain barrels (Chicago)
 Reducing paved areas to deal with rainwater and heat (Chicago, Seoul)
 Adding green roofs to deal with rainwater and heat (Chicago)
 Adding air conditioning in public schools (Chicago)
 Surveying local vulnerabilities, raising public awareness, and making climate change-specific
planning tools like future flood maps (Seattle, Chicago, Norfolk, many others)
 Incentivizing lighter-colored roofs to reduce the heat island effect (Chula Vista, California)
 Installing devices to prevent seawater from back flowing into storm drains (San Francisco)
 Installing better flood defenses, such as sea walls and increased pumping capacity (Miami Beach)
 Raising street level to prevent flooding (Miami Beach)
b) Enhancing adaptive capacity
Adaptation can be defined as adjustments of a system to reduce vulnerability and to increase the
resilience of a system to change, also known as adaptive capacity. Those societies that can respond to
change quickly and successfully have a high adaptive capacity. In their view, activities that enhance
adaptive capacity are essentially equivalent to activities that promote sustainable development. These
activities include:
 Improving access to resources
 Reducing poverty
 Lowering inequities of resources and wealth among groups
 Improving education and information
 Improving infrastructure
 Improving institutional capacity and efficiency
 Promoting local indigenous practices, knowledge, and experiences

Relevance of Indigenous knowledge with disasters

It has been found by different studies that Indigenous Knowledge Helps in Disaster Management.
The hunters, gatherers and herders interviewed in a study described how careful observation of the
behavior of animals, and of the appearance and colour of the sky, is used as early warning of natural
disasters. “When the dogs start rolling on their backs on the snow and the crows circle in flocks and
then hide, a blizzard is coming,” explained a hunter from Kamchatka. “If old reindeer run in the
evening, it’s a bad sign. They must be testing their legs before danger,” said a reindeer herder from
Nenets. Another reindeer herder, from Kamchatka, told the interviewers: “Last year birds predicted
volcano ash, which is dangerous for reindeer. They say the cleverest bird is the crow. A crow comes to
me and warns me: be careful!”
Environmental conservation and natural disaster management are important in the livelihoods of
indigenous people who often live in hazard-prone areas and have built up, through thousands of years of
experience and intimate contact with the environment, a vast body of knowledge on disastrous events.
This knowledge is a precious resource that continues to contribute to environmental conservation and
natural disaster management in these regions.
With the disruption of traditional lifestyles and settlement in permanent communities, it is a challenge to
maintain the continuity of traditional knowledge through its transmission from generation to generation.
One solution is to find new ways to ensure that this knowledge is not lost, including the development of
products to preserve and disseminate traditional knowledge and incorporation of this knowledge into
school curricula.
UNEP is currently implementing a similar project in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Swaziland,
focusing on the use of indigenous knowledge in environmental conservation and natural disaster
management and the development of training materials on indigenous knowledge for use in primary,
secondary and tertiary education institutions throughout Africa.
In 1994, the UN General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People
should be observed on 9 August every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous
People.

Examples:
1. Prediction of rainfall variation through flowering phenology of night-flowering jasmine in
Tripura.

the findings of this study demonstrates how traditional knowledge among the folk people of
Tripura can be useful for predicting changes in the weather, plan agroforestry activities for disaster
mitigation. One such prediction relates to the phenology of night flowering jasmine, which helps
them to forecast the onset of heavy rainfall. The researchers found that the flowering is a good
indicator of weather lore for the prediction of both long and short range precipitation.
2. Lessons from nature in weather forecasting : The local and indigenous people predicts the
rainfall and other weather considerations solely on the basis of bio indicators, the phenology of
plants and behaviour of animals, called as Presage biology.
3. Plants associated in forecasting and belief within the Meitei community of Manipur,
Northeast India: The Meitei community people of Manipur are used to predict and describes the
significance of indicators in the context of the current global environment change. Indigenous
people of Manipur are closely associated in various ways with their surrounding landscapes and
resources, mainly plants and animals for their day to day requirements. These people have a good
knowledge of their local resources.

All these information concluded that disaster and other calamities are difficult to predict by modern
science, the traditional knowledge may be used as a precautionary tool to minimize damages from
disasters.