Lecture 3 Flashcards
Paradigm: Engineering issues and activities
What causes hazards and how can we reduce consequences?
Predict hazard frequency-magnitude; build protective structures; understand mechanics of infrastructure and components under hazard loading; develop building codes
Paradigm: Behavioural
Why do hazards cause so much damage and how can changes in behaviour minimise consequences? (e.g. White, Burton, Kates)
Hazard prediction; early warning; planning controls in developed countries.
Paradigm: Development
Why do developing countries suffer more disasters and what makes them socio-economically vulnerable? (e.g. Blackie, Wisner et al.)
Recognise voluntary and involuntary risks; concepts of vulnerability, capacity and disasters in developing countries .
Paradigm: Complex
How can we sustainably reduce risk?
Multi-hazard, multi-disciplinary risk management for local contexts, climate change, urbanisation and long-term
Human Ecology
links physical and social sciences to balance human needs and environment.
Recognise the role of human behaviour, or culture, in creating disasters.
Bounded Rationalism
Poor decisions about how we relate to the environment are caused by mis-perceptions or irrational beliefs in the balance of risk and economic reward. Vulnerability is constructed.
Pressure and Release (PAR) model
1994 (updated in 2004): Traces the progression of vulnerability from root causes, to dynamic pressures to unsafe conditions.
PAR root causes
(broad structural forces, that broker how power is accessed and determine how resources are distributed).
Limited access to power, resources, structures
Political and economic systems
PAR Dynamic pressures
(converting root causes into unsafe conditions)
Lack of local…
training, skills, standards, institutions, investments, markets, press freedom
Macro-forces
Population change, urbanisation, national debt, deforestation, loss of local food production
PAR Unsafe conditions
(specific temporal and spatial expressions of the interaction of root causes with dynamic pressures) Physical environment: Hazardous location, building regulations Local Economy: Low income, at-risk livelihoods Social relations: Population groups, institutional capacity Public actions: Lack of preparedness
PAR Environmental (natural) hazards
type, location, frequency, magnitude, extent…
Disasters are primarily caused by human exploitation
Macro-scale roots are economic and political systems; on-going pressures cause the most vulnerable people to live in unsafe places (i.e. their behaviour should not be seen as irrational).
Recent trends and challenges in DRR
Malamud and Petley (2009) ‘Lost in Translation’, observed:
A shift in staffing of aid and development agencies from physical scientists (often engineers) to social scientists (reflecting shift from behavioural to development paradigm)
Need evidence of effectiveness in reducing risk in developing countries compared with that achieved by science/engineering-based approaches dominant in developed countries.
Need to turn knowledge into action/ policy into practice.
Four DRR challenges
Humanitarian: the finite resources and abilities of governments and humanitarian actors to effectively respond to disasters and assist recovery.
Urban: the implications of rapid growth on development and infrastructure which is leading to increased vulnerability
Complexity: the dynamic nature of urban environments, and implications of cascading failures due to inter-relationships between infrastructure, institutions and ecosystems
Uncertainty: greater exposure to weather -related hazards and increased vulnerability arising from climate change which cannot accurately be forecast, and limitations in our ability to model complex systems.
Earthquake Risk Communication in an Urban Context
Resistance: Hazard mitigation through reinforcement of structures to protect existing communication infrastructure.
Persistence: A diversification of early warning communication systems to reach a broader network of actors.
Transformation: A paradigm shift in control of early warning systems, consisting of political devolution/decentralisation and a radical shift in ownership of information.
