Disasters, Development and Environment

THIS BOOK IS a collection of papers drawn from presentations made to a conference on “Disasters: Vulnerability and Response” and it “...explores the institutional and managerial problems of coping with disasters within a social science framework, with first hand, research based case studies on the origins of disasters, and different approaches to mitigation from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Throughout, the emphasis is on vulnerability to disasters and on ways of mitigating suffering and reducing economic and environmental losses by sustainable control, appropriate forecasting and impact reduction measures.” Chapter one serves as an introduction where the author describes the origins of vulnerability analysis and considers how and why the vulnerability approach has been overlooked by those setting the current international agenda on disaster management. Chapter two offers an explanation of the concept of vulnerability to disaster and stresses the importance of the condition of people. The author argues that there is a need to consider the social and economic systems that both generate vulnerability and determine the type of technical interventions. He examines the presence of natural hazards within the environment and traces the root causes of vulnerability and the differences therein between rich and poor countries. Chapter three focuses on societal and human-environment relations with a historical focus on the period prior to the Peruvian earthquake disaster of 31 May 1970. The author examines how pre-Columbian Andean people adapted to natural hazards and how these adaptations were gradually eroded during colonial times resulting in socially created increased vulnerability in the region. Chapter four focuses on four Costa Rican communities subject to risks of flooding in order to examine their economic, social, political, institutional, ideological, educational, ecological and technical vulnerability to disasters. The author provides an “... overview of some of the more important difficulties which hinder the promotion of disaster prevention and mitigation policies in Central America...” (page 61) and suggests some changes which might help reduce vulnerability.
Chapter five examines two different strategies for mitigating flood disasters in Bangladesh, within the context of the 1988 flood, and evaluates their potential and limitations. The first involves “structural” responses, i.e. large-scale, costly engineering projects and the second, non-structural responses, i.e. indigenous adjustment and coping strategies. Chapter six examines the impacts on households of a major flood control, drainage and irrigation project south-east of Dhaka in Bangladesh when compared with conditions in a flood prone area. The authors conclude that “... household vulnerability has not clearly been reduced by flood protection given the uneven distribution of benefits, the continued variation in agricultural performance, and the increased losses when projects fail” (page 96).
Chapter seven examines “... the responses made by politicians at federal, state and municipal levels to the damage, death and homelessness caused by the flood disaster of 1988 in Rio de Janeiro” (page 100) and concludes that “...the help given to the victims was of short-term relevance and duration, with the longer-term problems of inequality and vulnerability to future floods remaining unresolved” (page 100). Chapter eight relates the experience of the May 1990 earthquake in north-eastern Peru and the subsequent reconstruction plan. Based on this, the author concludes that real disaster mitigation is only possible with a complete knowledge of local realities and complementary participation of people and their organizations, the state and NGOs. In chapter nine, the author considers disaster mitigation through an evaluation of the Ethiopian government’s Environmental Education Programme. “The Programme’s efforts to combat land degradation were intended to reduce vulnerabi