Lec 5 - engaging at the NATIONAL level (uk gov) Flashcards
Lecture objectives
- Looking at the perspectives and actions of DRR policy-makers
- Current risk reduction practices and policies
- The role of governments on DRR, especially UK Integrated emergency management focusing on Flood Risk Management..
Random information
- The UN Sendai framework for DRR states that all nations should work on DRR, each signatory nation is expected to report on progress.
- UK DRR is legislated for by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the national platform for DRR is the Cabinet Office
- Uk civil protection is delivered through an ‘Integrated Emergency Management’ IEM, model
What is the UK IEM?
- IEM = DRR in uk gov language, where Emergency ~= diaster
- It comprises six elements: 1) Anticipation 2) Assessment 3) Prevention 4) Preparation 5) Response 6) recovery management
What is the UK Civil Contingencies Act 2004?
Comprised of 2 sets of responders to disasters:
1) Category 1 (core) responders - organisations involved in most emergencies at the local level. Their civil duties are:
- risk assessment
- planning
- maintain awareness
- (local authortieis only) provision of advice to commerce
2) Category 2 ( co-operating) responders are likely to be heavily invovled in some emergencies in their own sectors e.g. transport and utility firms - they share info with category 1
Scales of responsibilities in the UK
• Central Response: Cabinet Office
• Category 1 and 2 responders form local resilience forums (LRFs) based on the 42 police areas
- LRFs compile community risk registers and support category 1 and 2 responders with IEM framework
How do implementing agencies (policy makers) get evidence int he UK to inform their practices?
Sources of evidence that that can inform UK DRR national policy and practice include:
• National Risk Assessment (classified) and the associated National Risk Register NRR (public)
• the National Hazards Partnership (NHP) - a consortium of 17 public bodies with a brief to provide information, research and analysis on natural hazards and risk impacts.
Specific influences on UK flood risk management policy?
• Foresight Future FLooding report (2004) findings:
- effective risk management requires us to model the probabilities of floods from various sources and also the consequences
- shifted focus from flood defences and coastal protection to risk management; and needed the development of spatially distributed flood risk models (source-pathway-receptor)
- used to produce the NaFRA (national flood risk assessment)
• 2007 summer floods followed by the Pitt Review (2008) findings:
- Found that hazard information and warnings were too disjointed and the science was not easily translated into practice
- NHP was thus set up in 2011 after a feasibility study by the EA, MO, BGS, OS
- Led to realisation of ‘Working with Natural Processes (WWNP)’ i.e. emulating the regulating function of catchments/basins, softer/sustainable approaches needed
- Some of the concepts that emerged from WWNP included Flood Storage, SuDs and Managed Realignment
So what do the NRR and NHP do?
• The NRR developed every 2 years to cover events that could happen in next 5 years - identified emergencies associated with natural hazards
• The NHP is a forum for exchange of information for DRR; supported by Cabinet Office
- Products of the NHP: Daily Hazard Assessment (GHA) and overview of next 5 days available to all Cat 1 and 2 responders (maps and risk matrices); NRR; development of Hazard Impact Models (HIM)
What are HIMs?
- They define the total effects of a single event : e.g. surface water flooding, high winds, landslides
- It corporates uncertainty via proabilistic distributions of hazard severtieis, exposure levels and vul. calcs (all done using HEV calc)
- They are computationally intensive and designed to be run quickly by end-users to support operational decisions before and during events.
- The Hazard Impact Framework (HIM) ensures consistency and alignment between HIMs
