1. Environment and Disaster Management
Rajib Shaw, Kyoto University
Hari Srinivas, GDRC
Contents of the presentation:
Problem Identification
Natural Disaster, Hazard, Vulnerability, Risk
Environment and disaster management issues
Illustrative examples of environment disaster linkages
Global and local policy environment
This presentation consists of five parts: problem identification; definition of natural disaster, hazard, vulnerability and risk; issues related to environment and disaster; a few illustrative examples of environment and disaster linkages, and global and local policy environment.
The purpose of the presentation is to provide an overall idea of environment and disaster issues, and to exemplify its linkages.

2. What is the problem? Environment and disasters are interlinked
Environmental concerns are not incorporated in disaster management practices and vice versa
Decisions and actions on environment and disasters are taken separately
The main issues are:
Lack of coordination and inter-linkage of policy and plans
Lack of perception and understanding
Lack of local actions, and
Lack of resource distribution
Bad environmental management – whether forest management practices, deforestation, riverbank management, soil erosion and silting, etc. increases the vulnerabilities that human populations face in the event of heavy rain or flooding. On the other hand, water contamination, waste and debris, ecosystems destruction etc. are some of the impacts of disasters on the environment. Therefore, environment and disasters are interlinked.
Despite this understanding, environment and disaster issues at the local and national levels are often dealt separately – with different departments, ministries, organizations and people handling different issues in an uncoordinated manner.
This should be noted that environment actions lead to disaster preparedness and vice versa. Thus, there is a strong need for synergy among different agencies working for environment and disaster management activities, and synergy of policy and action at different levels.
Lack of inter-linkage of policy, plan, lack of perception, understanding, lack of local actions and lack of resource distributions are the essential factors in the environment-disaster linkage.

3. What is a natural disaster?
A natural disaster is the consequence of an event, which causes significant loss to human lives and property
A Disaster is defined as the interaction between an event and human activities
A Disaster is often described as a function of hazard, risk and vulnerability
In understanding the complex interface of different factors of a disaster event, we need to remember that a natural disaster is the consequence of a hazard i.e. an event.
One of the key aspects focused on in understanding disasters is the human interface, and hence the critical issues considered in disaster management is risk and vulnerability. At the local level, we need to clearly look at what the risk factors are, and the impacts and vulnerabilities of the human population to those risks.
There are several earthquakes occurring in the middle of ocean and/or mountain. However, so long it does not directly or indirectly affect the human population or built environment, it is not considered as disaster.

4. Elements of Risk Hazard X Vulnerability = Risk
(Mostly Natural) (Man and Built Env.) (Consequence)
Geological Physical Death/Injury
Hydrological Social/ Cultural Financial Loss
Meteorological Economic Social Loss
A disaster ‘risk’ is caused by a hazard and the vulnerability of the human population that lie in its path.
Hazards can be of different types. They are usually categorized as geological (eg: Earthquakes and volcanoes), hydrological (eg: floods), and meteorological (eg: typhoons). Sometimes, many of these hazards are also inter-related. For example, typhoon or cyclone is considered as a meteorological hazard, but it causes flooding, which is considered as hydrological hazard.
Vulnerability is a factor determined by the proximity of human populations to a hazard. Human settlements – the built environment, and socio-economic environments – are critical aspects considered when understanding vulnerability. A ‘risk’ therefore is the consequence of hazards and vulnerabilities, and manifests itself in the form of human casualties, injury, social and financial loss.
Some people argue that risk is a factor of hazard, vulnerability and capacity. Capacity means the ability to analyze, understand, correlate, and take action to mitigate the negative impacts of a risk. Thus, higher the capacity, lower the vulnerability and lower the risk. Thus, capacity can be considered as a separate element, or it can be included as a part of vulnerability.

5. Goal of Environment and Disaster Management
The goal of Environment and Disaster Management is the safety and sustainability of human lives
Safety is related to avoiding death and injuries to human lives during a disaster
Sustainability is related to livelihood, socio-economic, cultural, environmental and psychological aspects
All the environment and disaster related activities should be targeted at safety and sustainability of human lives and property.
Safety focuses on overall protection from natural disasters, and the reduction of associated risks. It is also linked with avoiding human casualties and injuries, and safeguarding property assets, including environmental, during a disaster. Sustainability is the larger concept related to interaction between economic, social, and cultural aspects within a risk situation. It specifically relates to the restoration of a community’s ability to earn an income, and of livelihood continuity.

6. Disaster, Environment, Development
- Water
- Health
- Education
- Environment
- Poverty
Disasters
Conflict
Natural Disasters
- Population
- Migration
- Reducing Risk
- Enhancing Security
Human
Security
Disasters can have different natural and human dimensions: conflict, natural disasters, population increase and migration from rural to urban areas. These contribute to exacerbating disaster vulnerability.
Development is related to a number of issues such as water issue, health, education and poverty reduction. Environment is related to issues such as built environment, air, land and sea. When we look at these development and environment issues from the perspective of disasters, we see a strong interdependency – each influencing and being influenced by the others. At the area of interaction between these three spheres are the objectives of reducing risk and enhancing security. These two objectives, in fact, form the core of the overall umbrella of human security.
Human security is related to people’s freedom. This is a new concept developed over last 4-5 years, and is concerned with development, environment and disaster issues. The UN Millennium Summit of 2000 first described the concept of human security as a development concept related to ‘the degree of freedom’ enjoyed by people.
- Environment
Built
Air
Land
Sea

7. Disasters and Poverty
Low-income groups are more vulnerable to natural disasters
In general, floods and cyclones cause maximum damages and casualties in low-income groups, while earthquakes cause more casualties in middle-income groups
Drought and flood affect most people in low and middle income groups
Lower income groups are more dependent on the immediate environment
Understanding how humans use environmental assets is important for good disaster risk mitigation.
Disaster and poverty are very much interlinked. Disaster impacts the poor people the most, affecting the lives and livelihood. This is the case for both drought and flood situations.
Lower income groups are more dependent on the immediate local environment for their survival. This leads to degradation of the environment, and increasing the risk and their vulnerabilities during disaster events.
Understanding how humans use environmental assets – forests, lands, water etc. as well as production and consumption patterns, is important for good disaster risk mitigation. It plays a critical role in developing environmental management policies and strategies that are also focused on disaster risk mitigation.
For instance, of poor workers being laid off at bit banana plantations, moving into the rainforest, cutting down a parcel of land on a steep slope to grow their own bananas, hardly making a living on it, but then being hit by a big storm/flood, which wipes out the bananas and flushes away all the soil, so that the poor family moves on the another plot of rainforest, where the same pattern repeats itself. The overall result is continuing poverty, degradation of the natural environment, and increasing risk of flash floods – including far downstream.

8. Disaster and Development Cycle
This slide shows the relationship of development and disaster cycle. Disaster cycle consists of response, rehabilitation, reconstruction, prevention, mitigation and preparedness in a cyclic pattern. Among these, response, rehabilitation and reconstruction are steps to be undertaken after the disaster, while prevention, mitigation and preparedness are preparedness for the next disaster. Different stakeholders play important roles in the development and disaster cycle: government, NGO, academicians and international organizations. However, the most important stakeholder is the people and community, and should be the central role player in any disaster prevention or development activity.

9. Causes Effects Causes Effects Causes Effects Immediate/ Long - term
Population De
forestation
High Consumption
Climate Change
Causes
Reduced through multi-stakeholder cooperation
Causes
Building
disaster
capacity
The Environment
cause-effect cycle
Effects
The causes and effects of disasters illustrate a cyclical inter-linkage. The capacities of vulnerable communities (to prepare for disaster, and recover from a disaster) increases after every disaster, through collective efforts in the reconstruction process. This is due to accumulation of knowledge and know-how from the disaster experience.
The cause-effect spiral illustrated in the slide, highlights the point that if we want to reduce the effects of disasters, we need to reduce the causes. For example, effects such as coastal degradation, ground water contamination, land contamination and other environmental issues need to be looked from the longer term issues that cause it – for example, population growth, de-forestation, high consumption waste generation, and climate change. While causes can be reduced through multi-stakeholder cooperation, effects can be reduced through awareness, policy development and actions at local and global levels.
Thus, the key point is that to reduce disaster vulnerability, we need to look at the reduction of environmental vulnerability, and so long as disaster issues are not incorporated into environmental practices (and vice versa), it is difficult to achieve longer term safety and sustainability.
Effects
Waste
Coral Reef Damages
Coastal Zone Impacts
Ground water contamination
Siltation
issue
Effect on agriculture land
Effects
Reduced through awareness, policies & action

10. Typhoon 23 (Japan, 2004) Disaster Environment Typhoon 23
Landslide
Waste debris
Electrical waste
Siltation of river and flooding
Blockage of water passage by uprooted trees
Extreme rainfall
Failure of pump system
Collapse of dyke system
Critical timing of rainfall
Low evacuation rate
Environment
Typhoon 23
Infrastructure
Policy, Strategy, Planning
Community
This is an illustrative example of environment disaster linkage. Typhoon 23 of 2004 hit Japan, and caused severe damages on lives and properties. The typhoon damages pointed out the crucial need to link environment and disaster management practices, even in the developed country like Japan. While the disaster management issues in Japan were more concerned on early warning, evacuation etc., the root cause of the damages was a very typical environmental problem, which is forest management. Due to poor forest management practices, uprooted trees were brought downstream, and caused blockage of bridges and check-dams, and causing extensive flooding, and damaging the buildings. Also, the typhoon caused sever waste management problems, by producing significant amount of electrical, and household wastes, and also many timber wastes. Therefore, there needs to be a synergy among the infrastructures, policy, strategy, planning and community involvement.
Dyke Management
Land-use management
River basin management
Forest management
Disaster env. Linkages
Plans and programs
Dissemination
Adaptation
Implementation
Training and Human
resource development
Perception and Action
Preparedness for
Evacuation
Self-reliability
Public awareness

11. Coastal Zone Management and Disaster Preparedness
• Indian Ocean Tsunami of 26th December 2004
Green belt and mangrove in the coastal zone, coral reef protection and coastal regulatory zones are considered as environment protection measures
However, these elements are strongly linked to tsunami protection in the coastal areas
Livelihood support to the fisherman, protection of environment in the coastal area, and disaster prevention interface was lacking in most of the places
Coastal zone management is very much interlinked to disaster preparedness, as evidenced in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of There has been significant inputs to the ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management) in many parts of the world, focusing on coastal resource preservation and utilization on environmental ground. But, a few of them incorporates the disaster reduction as an elements in the ICZM. Green belt, mangrove, coral reef, regulatory zones all are considered as environmental issues, but all these elements have direct link to tsunami risk mitigation. For a sustainable environment and disaster management in the coastal region, it is required to make a balance between the livelihood security and costal resource management.

12. Integrated Waste Management
Waste is a resource, and waste prevention is better than waste regulation and control.
Disaster and waste management is closely linked
Waste causes secondary disasters
Physical and socio-economic conditions of the concerned communities should be considered in waste management
Waste management should be part of disaster plans
Waste management is another missing link between environment and disaster management. While waste management is treated as an environmental issue in many cases, disaster causes significant amount of waste, which are often not considered in the waste management plans. Different stakeholders have important roles to play in the waste management process, and this should be linked to resource conservation, environmental protection, and sustainable development, heath and sanitation issues and disaster preparedness.

13. Climate Change Impacts
Climate change is considered as an environmental phenomena.
Climate change impacts are seen in the form of natural disasters like drought, flood etc.
Livelihoods of the rural communities are directly affected by the climate change impacts
Adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly recognized as the key issue (as opposed to mitigation), and it is considered as the pre-disaster preparedness measures.
Climate change is another area where environment and disaster are linked. Climate change impacts are seen as natural disasters like drought, flood, typhoons. While climate change is considered as a major global environmental problem, and different measures are taken as mitigation measures in different parts of the world, climate change adaptation at local level is of extreme importance. People’s livelihood like agriculture, aquaculture are strongly affected by climate change impacts. Adaptation to climate change is considered as one of the best preparedness measures. For example, a good drought proofing measure for 2-3 consecutive years of drought, or cyclone-resistant housing in the areas which are not usually affected by the regular cyclone paths are considered as effective pre-disaster mitigation measures. This part will be elaborated in the Session 2.

14. Issues in Environment and Disaster Management (EDM)
What intermediaries and partners are being used?
What kinds of organizations are doing EDM?
Environment
and Disaster
Management
Who are the target audience?
What is the intended effect?
In order to raise awareness and take action on interlinking and integrating environmental concerns in disaster management, we need to ask and address a number of critical questions. These range from organization involved, to targets, scales of operation, disseminated messages, delivery mechanisms, intended effects, and partners.
The answers to these questions will help us identify the critical lacks, gaps and mismatches, and develop viable policies and strategies to not only increase environmental sustainability, but also reduce the risks involved and enhance the security of people’s lives.
What is the scale of operation?
How is it being delivered?
What is the message being disseminated?

15. MDG and Disasters: Global Tool
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are considered as important development framework, and disaster should be part of that framework.
Increasing destruction from landslides, floods and other disasters related to environmental and land-use patterns are a clear signal that massive challenges remain in achieving this MDG in environmental sustainability.
For example, the target of achieving a “significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020” will be almost impossible without developing policies to enhance their ability to confront high disaster risks associated with earthquakes, tropical cyclones, flooding, drought etc.
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the global development framework. MDGs are very much related to the disaster impacts, since disasters can affect sustainable development, and can also affect environmental conditions of natural and built areas.
In the case of a disaster event, more resources need to be diverted to disaster impacts, and post-disaster reconstruction, and therefore, can also hamper ongoing environmental sustainability and development activity, besides requiring environmentally friendly reconstruction and restoration of natural ecosystems and human settlements.
Developing people lives and livelihood will enable them to cope with natural disasters, and thereby creating a disaster-resilient community.

16. Agenda 21: For Local Actions
Agenda 21 (A21) is an action programme based on contributions from national governments and international bodies at the Rio Summit of 1991.
Social and economic dimension of sustainable development
Policy, poverty, consumption, demography, health, settlement, environment
Conservation and management of resources for development
Atmosphere, land resources, deforestation, desertification, mountain, agriculture, bio-diversity, bio-technology, ocean, freshwater, toxic, hazardous, solid, radioactive waste
Strengthening the role of major groups
Women, youth, indigenous people, NGOs, local authorities, trade union, industry, Sc/ Tech, farmers
Means of implementation
Finance, Environment Sound Technology (EST), Science, Education, Cooperation, Institution, Legal and Decision-making
To achieve environmental sustainability, Agenda 21 (A21) was proposed as an action programme that could be implemented at the local government levels, and thereby undertaking action to manage the environment. This is considered as one of the key tool for local actions, and should be closely linked to disaster initiatives.
As an action programme, A21 brings together a number of social, economic and political dimensions, and builds collective consensus on the designated roles for government agencies, NGO, academics and business sector. It calls for a comprehensive implementation in the sphere of governance, education and technology, including issues such as financial incentives, EST, education, cooperation, institution, legal actions – ultimately aiming for sustainable local communities.
Increasingly, achieving the objectives of A21 is being looked as a means to create stronger and more resilient communities that are aware and willing to take action to mitigate the risks that they face to their lives and livelihoods.

17. Summary: Environment and Disaster Management
Why?
Environment and disaster are interrelated and are linked to the sustainable development
A sound environmental practice can lead to proper disaster mitigation and vice versa
What?
How to integrate environment and disaster issues in the development practices.
Case Studies on specific issues
Like effects of typhoons, tsunami
Waste issues,
Impact of climate change as disasters
Who?
Development Practitioners, Disaster and environment managers
This slide is the summary of the presentation. Through the presentation, the relation of environment and disaster management are pointed out, and exemplified with specific issues of typhoon, tsunami, waste management and climate change. The target audiences of the course are development practitioners, and disaster and environment managers at different levels.