Disaster risk reduction

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) sometimes called disaster risk management (DRM) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing and reducing the risks of disaster. It aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them. In other words, the aim of DRR is "to prevent new and reducing existing disaster risk and managing residual risk, all of which contribute to strengthening resilience and therefore to the achievement of sustainable development".
Disaster risk reduction has been strongly influenced by the research on vulnerability since the mid-1970s as well as the mapping of natural disaster risks. Disaster risk reduction is the responsibility of development and relief agencies alike. It should be an integral part of the way such organizations do their work, not an add-on or one-off action. Disaster risk reduction is very wide-ranging: Its scope is much broader and deeper than conventional emergency management. There is potential for disaster risk reduction initiatives in most sectors of development and humanitarian work.
Internationally, an important initiative is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. It aims to help countries establish national and local strategies for DRR; as of 2022, 125 countries had national strategies. The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, on October 13, has helped increase the visibility of DRR and promote a culture of prevention. Some of the main issues and challenges include the importance of communities and local organisations in disaster risk management, governance of disaster risk and how this relates to development, and gender sensitivity of disaster impacts and disaster prevention strategies.
Definitions
Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is defined by United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) as those actions which am to "prevent new and reducing existing disaster risk and managing residual risk, all of which contribute to strengthening resilience and therefore to the achievement of sustainable development".
Disaster management
Disaster management thinking and practice since the 1970s has included more focus on understanding why disasters happen. It has also focused on actions that can reduce risk before a disaster occurs. This has put more emphasis on mitigation and preparedness in addition to the response and recovery phases of disasters. It has been widely embraced by governments, disaster planners and civil society organisations.
DRR is such an all-embracing concept that it has proved difficult to define or explain in detail, although the broad idea is clear enough. It is generally understood to mean the broad development and application of policies, strategies and practices to minimise vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout society. Its policy goals and objectives are defined in disaster risk reduction strategies and plans.
The term 'disaster risk management' (DRM) is often used in the same context and to mean much the same thing. That is, a systematic approach to identifying, assessing and reducing risks of all kinds associated with hazards and human activities. DRM is more properly applied to the operational aspects of DRR: the practical implementation of DRR initiatives. In other words, disaster risk reduction is the policy objective of disaster risk management.
Resilience
Resilience is scientifically defined as the efficiency with which a system can reduce the extent and duration of a disruption. The concept can take two forms: hard and soft resilience. Hard resilience refers to the strength of a structure to withstand pressure, while soft resilience is whether a system can recover from a disruptive event while still preserving its core function.
Alternatively, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) defines resilience as “the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.” While the two definitions utilize different jargon, the UNISDR definition includes both soft and hard resilience, simply more centered around hazards as opposed to a general definition.
Disaster risk reduction programs often see resilience as part of the goals their program should achieve. This is shown in the 2005-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action, which contained the subtitle “Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters.”
Vulnerability
Vulnerability refers to the likelihood of a structure or system to be harmed by some sort of event. In the context of disaster risk reduction, vulnerability is the ability to respond and recover from some sort of hazard as well as the amount of social or economic liability that may result from the event. The fewer resources a community has to respond and recover from an event, the more vulnerable they are.
Vulnerability plays a critical role in the analysis of risk, as the risk a structure faces is proportional to its level of vulnerability. Risk is often defined by the likelihood of (hazardous) events to occur and the vulnerability of the community to these events. The more vulnerable the community, the more risk they face. Resilience and vulnerability, therefore, are practically opposites. While vulnerability refers to the lack of recovery from an event, resilience is the ability to recover from an event with minimal change. Vulnerability adds risk, while resilience works to mitigate it.
Mitigation
Mitigation is the actions taken before an impactful event that aim to reduce any possible negative outcomes, or the reduction of harmful effects. Natural risk assessments commonly use the term mitigation, while broader climate change reports tend to use adaptive capacity instead. Although certainly interconnected, adaptive capacity refers more to the potential to adjust a system, while mitigation is the actual implementation of such adjustments.
Mitigation planning helps local governments lessen the impacts of hazards within their communities. The framework encourages community involvement, as no two locations have the same hazard risks, and communities know their own experiences best. Nonetheless, mitigation plans provide a foundation upon which local groups can enhance their policies and action plans.
Risk reduction and mitigation are often used interchangeably, however they have a few key differences. Both aim to reduce the number of negative effects of hazards, but risk reduction focuses on reducing the likelihood of the event itself, while mitigation focuses on reducing the impact of the event. Despite these nuances, policies for the terms can and do overlap to effectively assist communities experiencing hazards.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has an example of a mitigation plan. Their plan contains 4 steps: organize resources, assess risks, develop mitigation strategy, and implement the plan. These steps are broad, as they are designed to be applied to a wide variety of hazards. FEMA also has more specific policy plans, such as their Hazard Mitigation Field Book (HMFB) on Roadways. This document focuses on preventing road erosion, inundation, and debris pileup caused by damaged culverts, embankments, and road surfaces. Since this is a smaller topic, the field book is able to include more detailed advice on how to handle each problem. The HMFB uses a project identification diagram to realize each issue and a selection matrix to match that problem with an effective solution using duration, feasibility, design, and environmental considerations. While only one small guide to hazard mitigation, the HMFB serves as a solid example of mitigation policy.
Effects of climate change on hazards
Hydrometeorological hazards such as droughts, floods, and cyclones are naturally occurring phenomena. However, climate change has caused these hazards to become more unreliable, frequent and severe. Hazards are easily influenced by large scale changes in the ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere such as global warming, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events, all of which are human caused results of climate change. When the impact of these events becomes too extreme, they are often called disasters.
Disasters are defined by their influence on people: if a hazard overwhelms or negatively affects a community, it is considered a disaster. Due to increasing climate change caused by humans, more natural hazards are reaching disaster status. As of 2008, there were on average 400 disaster events per year, more than double the amount since the 1980s.
Countries contributing most to climate change are often at the lowest risk of feeling the consequences. As of 2019, countries with the highest vulnerability per capita release the lowest amount of emissions per capita, and yet still experience the most heightened droughts and extreme precipitation. Between 1970 and 2019, 91% of deaths from hazards occurred in developing countries. These countries already have higher vulnerability and lower resilience to these events, which exacerbates the effects of the hazards.
Sustainable development
Sustainable development was notorious for its "slippery nature" and ambiguities: multiple definitions have led to multiple interpretations in the agenda setting environment. However in 1987, the Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Since this definition, the term has standardized and led to clearer political interpretation.
Sustainable development balances between economic development, environmental protection, and social well-being. The economic systems aims to improve economic growth, equity, and efficiency; social systems work towards empowerment, social cohesion, and cultural diversity; and the biological/environmental system promotes genetic diversity, productivity, and resilience. Many of these objectives tie directly into disaster risk reduction, and most sustainable development plans mention DRR.
Sustainable Development Goals
An acclaimed example of sustainable development policy is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The United Nations adopted these 17 SDGs addressing problems ranging from poverty to education to climate change, realizing that the intersectionality between these issues requires solutions to all in order to fix each individual issue.
DRR is an important area of work for several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities) lists DRR as a means of implementation. Targets 11.5 and 11.B call for more investment into disaster risk resilience strategies and policies, and 11.B aims to assess DRR strategies in accordance with the Sendai Framework.
SDG13 (climate action) also uses DRR as a means of implementation. Target 13.1 aims to strengthen resilience to climate related hazards, and measures the number of local and federal governments who have adopted DRR strategies.
Numerous other SDGs also rely on DRR strategies as an interdisciplinary method of achieving their goals. For example, SDG9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) aims to build infrastructure that is resilient to hazards, and SDG1 (end poverty) asserts that many impoverished people have the highest vulnerability to disasters. DRR implementation has long lasting effects on a wide range of social issues due to this intersectionality.
International policies
There have been growing calls for greater clarity about the components of DRR and about indicators of progress toward resilience — a challenge that the international community took up at the UN's World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) in Kobe, Japan, in 2005, only days after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The WCDR began the process of pushing international agencies and national governments beyond the vague rhetoric of most policy statements and toward setting clear targets and commitments for DRR.
Hyogo Framework for Action
The first step in this process was the formal approval at the WCDR of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) (HFA). This was the first internationally accepted framework for DRR. It set out an ordered sequence of objectives (outcome – strategic goals – priorities), with five priorities for action attempting to 'capture' the main areas of DRR intervention. The UN's biennial Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction provided an opportunity for the UN and its member states to review progress against the Hyogo Framework. It held its first session 5–7 June 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland, where UNISDR is based. The subsequent Global Platforms were held in June 2009, May 2011 and May 2013, all in Geneva.
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
The Sendai Framework places the responsibility of reducing disaster risk primarily on federal governments through seven targets divided into two categories: substantial reductions and increases. It aims to reduce disaster mortality, people affected, economic loss, and damage to infrastructure and services. The remaining targets work to increase access to warning systems, aid to developing countries, and the number of countries with disaster risk reduction strategies. Since the adoption of the Sendai Framework in 2015, the number of countries with national DRR strategies has increased dramatically, from 55 to 123 countries in 2022.
The framework also details four priorities for action to be accomplished by 2030:
Understanding disaster risk
Strengthening disaster risk governance
Investing in disaster risk reduction
Enhancing disaster preparedness
These priorities acknowledge current shortcomings of DRR efforts, such as the lack of communication between local and federal governments and private programs, as well inequities faced by women and people with disabilities in the realm of disaster response.
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction
The United Nations General Assembly designated the 1990s an International decade for natural disaster reduction. The United Nations' Secretary-General had been tasked with overseeing research into the relationship between disasters and development, and in 1987 reported that there was room for improvement from the international community. Due to the increasing numbers of international deaths and damages due to climate related hazards, especially in developing countries, the United Nations believed dedicating a decade to the topic would substantially improve policies at local, regional, and federal levels.
The 1987 General Assembly session proposed 5 goals to guide policy efforts:
Improve the capacity to mitigate effects of natural disasters, especially in developing countries
Devise plans to apply preexisting knowledge of disasters from diverse perspectives
Foster programs aimed to close knowledge gaps
Disseminate information about current measures being applied
Develop programs to prevent and mitigate disasters specific to each hazard and location
Before the start of the decade in 1989, The General Assembly discussed plans for the decade in more detail and created the International Framework of Action for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. This framework restates the goals, and adds further guidelines for national governments, the United Nations Systems, and the Secretary-General to follow.
Federal governments were encouraged to participate in the decade, formulate national mitigation programs, create scientific committees, encourage local action, inform the Secretary-General of their actions, increase public awareness, monitor the impact of disasters on health care, and improve availability of emergency supplies. The proposed role of the United Nations System focused on holding countries accountable for these goals, as well as providing resources or policy plans countries may need for implementation. However, many of the tasks given to the United Nations fall to the Secretary-General.
During the 1990s, there were three Secretary-Generals: Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Boutros Boutros-Ghalil, and Koji Annan. Over the decade, these secretaries were tasked with establishing and leading a number of committees for the decade, including a scientific and technical committee on the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, a special high-level council to provide general advice and promote awareness, and a secratariat that would handle daily activities and support the other committees. These groups, as well as leaders of each country, would report their progress to the Secretary-General, who would oversee all progress and report to the General Assembly every two years on the progress of the decade's goals.
International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction
The United Nations General Assembly designated October 13th as the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) to encourage citizens and governments alike to foster more disaster-resilient communities. The day was created in 1989 as part of the United Nations' proclamation of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Originally, the IDDRR was on the second Wednesday of October and intended to highlight the goals of the decade for disaster reduction. In 2009 the day was officially set as October 13, rather than the second Wednesday of the month.
The IDDRR supports the themes of the Sendai Framework, especially after the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. The 2023 IDDRR, just months after this report, intended to bolster the framework's new plan for accelerated disaster resistance by highlighting inequalities in disaster preparedness. The 2023 IDDRR used the tagline "Fighting Inequality for a Resilient Future" and hashtags #ResilienceForAll, #BreakTheCycle, and #DDRDay to spread awareness on social media.
Cost and financing
Economic costs of disasters are on the rise, but most humanitarian investment is currently spent on responding to disasters, rather than managing their future risks. Only 4% of the estimated $10 billion in annual humanitarian assistance is devoted to prevention (source), and yet every dollar spent on risk reduction saves between $5 and $10 in economic losses from disasters. A case study of Niger showed positive cost and benefit results for preparedness spending across 3 different scenarios (from the absolute level of disaster loss, to the potential reduction in disaster loss and the discount rate), estimating that every $1 spent results in $3.25 to $5.31 of benefit.
There has been an increase in the economic losses from weather- and climate-related disasters, which contributed to $165 billion of economic losses worldwide in 2018 according to estimates from insurance giant Swiss Re.
Issues and challenges
Communities and their organizations
Traditional emergency management/civil defense thinking makes two misleading assumptions about communities. First, it sees other forms of social organisation (voluntary and community-based organisations, informal social groupings and families) as irrelevant to emergency action. Spontaneous actions by affected communities or groups (e.g., search and rescue) are viewed as irrelevant or disruptive, because they are not controlled by the authorities. The second assumption is that disasters produce passive 'victims' who are overwhelmed by crisis or dysfunctional behavior (panic, looting, self-seeking activities). They therefore, need to be told what to do and their behavior must be controlled — in extreme cases, through the imposition of martial law. There is plenty of sociological research to refute such 'myths'.
An alternative viewpoint, informed by a considerable volume of research , emphasises the importance of communities and local organisations in disaster risk management. The rationale for community-based disaster risk management that it responds to local problems and needs, capitalises on local knowledge and expertise, is cost-effective, improves the likelihood of sustainability through genuine 'ownership' of projects, strengthens community technical and organisational capacities, and empowers people by enabling them to tackle these and other challenges. Local people and organisations are the main actors in risk reduction and disaster response in any case. Consequently, it has been seen that understanding the social capital already existent in the community can greatly help reducing the risk at the community level.
Governance
In most countries, risk management is decentralized to local governments. In urban areas, the most widely used tool is the local development plan (municipal, comprehensive or general plan), followed by emergency and risk reduction plans that local governments are required to adopt by law and are updated every 4–5 years. Larger cities prefer stand-alone plans, called, depending on the context, sustainable, mitigation, or green plans. In rural areas, the mainstreaming of risk reduction policies into municipal (county or district) development plans prevails. In many contexts, especially South of the Sahara, this process clashes with the lack of funds or mechanisms for transferring resources from the central to the local budget. Too often plans do not integrate local, scientific and technical knowledge. Finally, they entrust the implementation of policies to individual inhabitants without having fully involved them in the decision-making process. The authentic representativeness of the communities and gender participation in the decision-making process still remain an objective of the local development plans instead of being the way to build them.
Gender
Disaster risk is not gender-neutral. Studies have shown that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by disasters. Following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, 77% and 72% of the deaths in the districts of North Aceh and Aceh Besar, Indonesia, were female. And in India 62% of people who died were female. This is due to socially-constructed gender roles that determine what norms and behaviors are acceptable for women and men, and girls and boys. In particular, women tend to take responsibility for home-based tasks and can be reluctant to leave their assets in the case of hazard warning; and often do not learn survival skills that can help in disasters, such as learning to swim or climb.
A gender-sensitive approach would identify how disasters affect men, women, boys and girls differently and shape policy that addresses people's specific vulnerabilities, concerns and needs.
Examples
Bangladesh
Based on the Climate Risk Index, Bangladesh is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to different types of disasters because of climatic variability, extreme events, high population density, high incidence of poverty and social inequity, poor institutional capacity, inadequate financial resources, and poor infrastructure. Bangladesh commenced its disaster preparedness following the cyclone of 1991 and has now a comprehensive National Plan for Disaster Management which provides mechanisms at both national and sub-national levels.
European Union
In addition to providing funding to humanitarian aid, the European Commission's Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO) is in charge of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to coordinate the response to disasters in Europe and beyond and contributes to at least 75% of the transport and/or operational costs of deployments. Established in 2001, the Mechanism fosters cooperation among national civil protection authorities across Europe. Currently 34 countries are members of the Mechanism; all 27 EU Member States in addition to Iceland, Norway, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Mechanism was set up to enable coordinated assistance from the participating states to victims of natural and man-made disasters in Europe and elsewhere.
See also
Business continuity planning
Center for Natural Hazards Research
Emergency management
Global catastrophic risk
International Day for Disaster Reduction
Risk management
Vulnerability
Hazard map
References
External links
Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction
Disaster Risk Management Society, GC University, Lahore.
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
FAO – Platform for East and Central Africa
EM-DAT: The International Disaster Database
Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
Preventionweb – Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters
The World Bank, Hazards Management Unit
United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response
Disaster preparedness
Disaster management
Humanitarian aid
Natural disasters
International development
Climate change adaptation