Factors affecting Vulnerability

FACTORS AFFECTING VULNERABILITY

The following factors affect vulnerability

• POVERTY

The widening gap between rich and poor, rural and urban incomes and hence the disparity in living standards can be witnessed in the flood plains of developing countries. landowners with marginal, degraded land, frequent flooding can decrease the returns from cultivating the land, thus reducing food security. The rural poor who depend on incomes from farming or other agricultural activities, with no savings to help them them get back on their feet after a disturbance or pay for basic needs, are often obliged to migrate to the cities and are driven into debt. Newcomers to an urban setting, not being able to afford safe locations in the city, are obliged to settle in makeshift dwellings in informal settlements on marginal lands near the river or other drainages that  are extremely vulnerable to flooding.

• LIVELIHOOD

 The principal livelihoods of communities living in rural flood plains are mainly farming and fishing. However, recurring floods threaten their stability of the their livelihoods owing to the loss of farm products or limited access to the markets for their products in the absence of adequate transport infrastructure. The landless poor, working as hired labourers, particularly during long flood seasons, have trouble finding jobs to meet their basic needs.

• CULTURAL BELIEFS:

Some cultural beliefs and fatalistic attitudes contribute to a community’s vulnerability. In some societies, natural disasters are considered to be acts of God and taken as if there is nothing human beings could do to prevent hazards from turning into disasters. Lack of faith in the social system and lack of confidence in the ability to manage flood risks manifests itself in resistance to any such change.  

• EQUITY:

Unequal distribution of resources and access to human rights can lead to conflicts and discontent, and in turn, the deterioration of social systems. For example, individuals who are denied the right to freedom of association and access to information may be precluded from discussing issues related to flood preparedness and mitigation planning, receiving essential fundamental services and taking preventive measures to protect themselves from flood hazards.In areas where flood diversion works are in place it may so happen that flood water are redirected into areas where poorer sections of the society with less political influence settle.

• GENDER

In societies where the decision-making power resides solely with the men of the family, ignoring the wisdom and experience of women and denying or limiting them the adequate access to knowledge and capacity development schemes, which otherwise may be available to men, can deny the society the use of such human resources and contribute to women’s vulnerability in terms of personal security, health and well being, economic security and livelihoods.

• WEAKER SOCIAL GROUPS

In a society made up of various social groups, the needs of each group differ. Children, women, elderly and disabled people have unique group features that may add to their vulnerabilities in particular situations, such as during evacuation, sheltering, relief distribution and the rehabilitation process.

Interrelationship between disasters and development

INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISASTERS AND DEVELOPMENT

The severity of a disaster depends on both the physical nature of the extreme event and the nature of the human populations affected by the event. Different people, even within the same region, have different vulnerability to natural hazards. The important human factors that tend to influencedisasts er severity are-

• Wealth affects vulnerability in several ways
• The poor cannot afford housing that withstands extreme weather
• They do not have insurance policies and cannot afford resources needed for disaster response
• They do not have access to health care
• However, 
• Coastal areas have expensive beachside real estate populated by the rich making them highly vulnerable to tsunamis, storm surge and other coastal hazards
• The rich lose more money due to disasters since they have valuable property at stake
• Ex- Hurricane Katrina- wealthy people, higher monetary damage fewer deaths. Cyclone Nargis - poor people, lower monetary damage, heavy death toll
• Education is an important factor in hazard impacts
• Education teaches how to avoid or reduce impacts due to disasters
• Literate people can pass written messages and spread word about hazards or specific disasters
• literate people can educate a population about hazards in order to reduce its vulnerability
• If the community contains professionals trained in hazards, they can help populations in hazard preparation and response
• Governance
• Formal and informal governments can develop policies that reduce vulnerability
• The governmentcan establish agencies like NDMA that should be made responsible for reducing vulnerability
• Support education and awareness efforts and reduce poverty by economic development

• Technology
• Technology can be used to improve forecasting of extreme events, withstand and recover from the impacts
• Technology is closely linked to wealth, education and governance
• Wealthier and educated societies have more advanced technologies
• Age
• Childern and elderly  have less physical strength and are susceptible to diseases
• Elderly have declining vision and hearing leading to vulnerability and children have less education
• Children and elderly have limited financial resources and are dependent on others for survival
• Gender
• Women are more vulnerable to natural hazards than men as they are poor, less educated and politically marginalized
• Women face additional burden as caretakers of the family
• In case of a disaster, women are made responsible to take care of children and the aged
• All the above mentioned factors makes women less mobile and are likely to experience dangerous situations

1. Disasters hamper development as all resources are diverted in responding to a disaster.
2. A disaster is a signal to the community to develop resilient systems to face disasters in future. In this sense, disasters are a precursor to scientific advancement  that leads to development

Differential Impacts

DIFFERENTIAL IMPACTS

The term, 'differential impacts' refers to the discriminatory impacts experienced by different individuals, groups or communities when faced with an event with damaging consequences. With respect to the consequences of disasters (natural or man-made), a community or society can be broadly classified into the following groups-

• Females
• Males
• Affluent
• Poor
• Labourers
• Disabled
• Children
• Old people.

Each group has their weaknesses that make them vulnerable to disasters. Another aspect that complicates the issue of diiferential impacts is that the above classification is not rigid. A certain group can be sub-divided into groups or may fall within another group. For example, the group called 'females' consists of babies, girls, young ladies or old and infirm women. Also, all the groups fall under one broad group called 'human beings'. Hence the effects of a damaging event has different impacts on different individuals in different groups. A simple list of different impacts on different people is listed below-

1. Old people, the disabled and babies will not be in a position to save themselves against any disaster without support. This group of people are extremely vulnerable (health-wise) to the slightest adverse conditions
2. Young males can easily resist adverse conditions and help save others along with playing an important role in response, rescue, recovery and reconstruction work. The labourers could be male or female and have better survival instincts due to extensive physical work in the open
3. Among the affluent and the poor, the poor are continuously exposed to stressful living conditions and are better adapted to face the hardships encountered in disasters while the affluent are adapted to a luxurious lifestyle and will not be able to adjust to the harsh environment in the aftermath of a disastrous event.

Climate change

CLIMATE CHANGE

• Climate change occurs when changes in Earth's climate system result in new weather patterns that last for at least a few decades, and maybe for millions of years. The climate system is comprised of five interacting parts, the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere.
• The climate change phenomenon refers to seasonal changes over a long period with respect to the growing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• Global climate  has been changing and the trends indicate that the world might experience the increasing intensity of climate change in the form of hotter and longer summers coupled with shorter and warmer winters.
• Some of the climate change indicators are-
• Average national and global temperatures
• Global precipitation trends
• Drought
• Ocean heat
• Sea surface temperature
• Melting glaciers, Arctic sea ice and Antarctic sea ice
• Heat related illnesses and deaths
• Lyme disease
• West nile virus
• Wildfires
• Climate change has brought many environmental risks to human health, such as ozone layer depletion, loss of biodiversity, increased pressures on food-producing systems and spread of infectious diseases. The three main categories of climate change impact on human health are:
  (a)   Direct impact (e.g. as a result of heatwaves, large-scale air pollution, natural disasters).
  (b)  Impact on ecosystems and environmental relationships (e.g. damage to agricultural crops, overabundance of mosquitoes, depletion of marine species).
  (c)   Indirect impact (e.g. poverty, displacement, conflict over resources such as water, post-disaster epidemics).
    
• Hence it is evident that trend with respect to climate change is  incresingly intense.

Complex emergencies

COMPLEX EMERGENCIES

A complex emergency is a major humanitarian crisis that is often the result of a combination of political instability, conflict and violence, social inequities and underlying poverty. Complex emergencies are essentially political in nature and can erode the cultural, civil, political and economic stability of societies, particularly when the situation is worsenes by natural hazards and diseases such as HIV and AIDS, which further deteriorate livelihoods and worsen poverty.

• For example, in Somalia, more than two decades of civil conflict resulted in loss or damage.
• Some disasters can result from several different hazards or, more often, to a complex combination of both natural and man-made causes and different causes of vulnerability.
• Examples being, food insecurity, epidemics, conflicts and displaced populations

A humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict and which requires an international response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency and/or the ongoing UN country program (Inter-Agency Standing Committee).

Such “complex emergencies” are typically characterized by:

• -extensive violence and loss of life;
• -displacements of populations;
• -widespread damage to societies and economies;
• -the need for large-scale, multi-faceted humanitarian assistance;
• -the hindrance or prevention of humanitarian assistance by political and military constraints;
• -significant security risks for humanitarian relief workers in some areas.

On a national level, conflict may involves warlike encounters between armed groups from the same country which take place within the borders. Such outbreaks of war may pose large-scale medical problems such as epidemics, lack of water, accumulation of rubbish, displaced persons, refugees, food shortage, hunger etc.

Internationally, war may break out between two or more armies from different countries. Similarly such conflict may cause large scale mass movements of refugees and displaced persons.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. It directs and coordinates the international relief activities conducted by the Movement in situations of conflict. It also endeavours to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.

A complex emergency is an emergency situation where government services have broken down. These situations don’t have to be caused by conflict, but conflict is often a part of the problem.

Emergencies are challenging by nature, but  become especially complicated when there’s no (or very little) government structure. 

That means NGOs [non-governmental organizations are missing their most important partner, and people often can’t access the help they need to recover.

The global trend in the case of complex emergencies have generally shown an increasing trend as evidenced by the statistics. This can be justified by:

Population explosion

 For example:

Pandemics

PANDEMICS

A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges and spreads around the world, and most people do not have immunity. 

Viruses that have caused past pandemics typically originated from animal influenza viruses.
Some aspects of influenza pandemics can appear similar to seasonal influenza while other characteristics may be quite different. For example, both seasonal and pandemic influenza can cause infections in all age groups, and most cases will result in the person recovering fully without treatment. However, typical seasonal influenza causes the most deaths among the elderly while other severe cases occur most commonly in people with a variety of medical conditions.

By contrast, the H1N1 pandemic caused most of its severe or fatal disease in younger people, both those with chronic conditions as well as healthy persons. It also caused many more cases of viral pneumonia than is normally seen with seasonal influenza.

In case of both seasonal and pandemic influenza, the total number of people who get severely ill can vary. However, the impact or severity tends to be higher in pandemics partly because of the much larger number of people in the population who lack pre-existing immunity to the new virus. In case of both seasonal and pandemic influenza, the highest levels of activity is expected to occur in the usual influenza season for an area. (In the temperate climate zones, this is usually the winter months). 

In the case of H1N1 pandemic, there were large outbreaks in the summer. Below listed are a few pandemics that occurred in the past:

• HIV/AIDS PANDEMIC (AT ITS PEAK, 2005-2012)
• FLU PANDEMIC (1968)
• ASIAN FLU (1956-1958)
• FLU PANDEMIC (1918)
• SIXTH CHOLERA PANDEMIC (1910-1911)
• FLU PANDEMIC (1889-1890)
• THIRD CHOLERA PANDEMIC (1852–1860)
• THE BLACK DEATH (1346-1353)
• PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN (541-542)
• ANTONINE PLAGUE (165 AD)

Historical data indicates that there is no set global trend in case of occurrence of pandemics. Pandemics occur randomly and in a staggered fashion throughout the globe. However, whenever they occur, they ensure severe financial and human resource loss. Whenever pandemics occur, they have shown an increasing trend in terms of losses.

R&R_st_ctr_othrStkHldr

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF STATE, CENTRE & OTHER STAKEHOLDERS IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Roles & Responsibilities of state in disaster management

1. The State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) is set up under the chairmanship of chief minister.
2. The responsibility of rescue, relief and rehabilitation lies with the state government.
3. When the calamity is of a severe nature and the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) is not sufficient the states may approach the central government for additional assistance from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF).
4. Work is delegated to the relief commissioner who is in-charge of relief and rehabilitation measures. He functions under the directive of the state level committee.
5. Below the state government is the district level disaster management authority (DDMA) which is responsible for actual  the ground work relief. The district magistrate, district collector and deputy commissioner coordinate and supervise the relief work.
6. The district disaster management committee comprising of officers from health, irrigation, veterinary, police, fire services, water and sanitation takes decisions on relief measures and these decisions are carried out by the disaster management team.
   

Roles & Responsibilities of centre in disaster management

1. The central government supplements the efforts of the state government by providing financial and logistic support in case of major disasters.
2. Depending on the gravity of the situation, the centre decides the scale of operations.
3. All natural disasters are coordinated by the ministry of home affairs. Only drought is taken care of by the ministry of agriculture
4. Different types of man-nade disasters are handled by the respective central government ministries. For example - Air accidents are handled by ministry of civil aviation, railway accidents are handled by ministry of railways, chemical, biological and nuclear disasters are handled by ministry of home affairs and epidemics are handled by ministry of health and family affairs.
5. The prime minister, ministers of the union cabinet and the National Crisis Management Committee are collectively responsible for the decisions taken for disaster management.

Roles & Responsibilities of other stakeholders in disaster management
Other stakeholders refers to people or entities who have a financial interest. They can be affected by actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of stakeholders are creditors, company directors, employees, owners (shareholders), suppliers and unions from which the business draws its resources. The stakeholders may be internal (employees, manager, owner) or external (Suppliers, Society, Government, Creditors, Shareholders, Customers). When a disaster strikes an area causing extensive damage to private company buildings and or manufacturing industries, the stakeholders have a few roles and responsibilities as listed below-

1. The stakeholders should engage in contingency planning taking worst case scenario under consideration
2. Disaster Risk Management (DRM) present mechanisms for emergency coordination that should be practiced/rehersed for familiarity with the role and processes to be followed
3. Communication, Interoperability and Interagency coordination are critical and essential to everyday Disaster Risk Management (DRM)
4. Each stakeholder has responsibilities in different phases of disaster
5. Stakeholders promote disaster prevention and mitigation using a risk-based and all-hazards approach
6. The community is the most important stakeholder in the disaster management process
7. Mock drills and exercises for different disasters are essential for role clarity of stakeholders and for synergising coordination of various emergency support functions
8. Coordination of efforts amongst various government departments and stakeholders generates synergy and involves bringing together agencies and functionaries to ensure effective performance

R&R of community

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF COMMUNITY IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

The community that faces a disaster should be a part of the complete disaster management process. The community knows its environment better than anyone else. Additionally, senior citizens will be aware of incidents that had occurred in the past. The community should be made aware of its history with respect to disasters along with providing necessary inputs to identify hazards and risks. The responsibilities of the community towards disaster management are listed below-

1. Engage in public awareness campaigns about disasters.
2. In case of any disaster, the community should act as the first responder before external help reaches the victims. This will reduce the work load on external agencies coming to help
3. Communities should be responsible to raise public awareness and bring about a behavioural change in disaster preparedness and mitigation
4. Communities should be responsible for deployment of stable, reliable and effective warning systems
5. It is the responsibility of the community to partner with media (radio & TV) in improving disaster awareness
6. The community is responsible for communicating and disseminating disaster warning to vulnerable people and set-up a community emergency operations centre (EOC).
7. Community Disaster Response Team (CDRT) is responsible for strengthening the existing role of District Emergency Organization (DEO)
8. Capacity building at social, economic and environmental levels

The roles of the community towards disaster management are listed below-

1.  Training
2. Planning
3. Early warning
4. Communication
5. Shelter
6. Search and rescue
7. Arrangement of food
8. Set-up of Public Distribution Centres
9. Set-up cultural groups to engage in awareness to build disaster preparedness
10. Fire prevention 
11. Initial damage assessment
12. Shelter management
13. Psychosocial support

Role of Urban Local Bodies in Disaster Management

ROLE OF URBAN LOCAL LOCAL BODIES IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Urban local bodies refers to governance of an urban area by the people through their elected representatives. The tenure of urban local self-governing bodies is fixed at five years. Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) play a very important role in planning and development of urban areas. Urban local bodies form an important stakeholder at the town level. Urban Local Bodies are classified into four major categories

1. Municipal corporation
2. Municipality
3. Town area committee and
4. Notified area committee

 Urban Local Bodies are not well equipped both administratively and financially to mitigate any natural or man-made hazard. They require help from the state government to deal with any hazard. Urban Local Bodies have the highest stake in disaster mitigation but have the least power in administrative hierarchy.  In December 2005, the prime minister launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM) to provide assistance to state governments and Urban Local Bodies. ULB's perform analysis of the city's susceptibility to floods, earthquakes and other disasters.

The role of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in disaster management is to-

1. develop, review and assess effective disaster management practices
2. help local goverment to prepare a local disaster management plan and
3. ensure the community knows how to respond in a disaster.

Heat Waves

HEAT WAVES

• Heat wave is defined as a period of excessively hot weather coupled with excessive humidity.
• A heat wave occurs when there are a number of consecutive days with high temperature that the body cannot tolerate
• A a result of heat wave animals and plants suffer from 'heat stress'.
• Human beings suffer from sunstroke, severe dehydration with vomiting, fever and ultimately die.
• Based on physical meteorological perspective, heat-wave events can be classified into 
• Dry heat wave
• Dry heat-waves are characterised by dry weather conditions with clear skies and large inputs of solar radiation
• Windy conditions can increase the heat stress
•  Dry heat waves usually occur where air is warmed adiabatically
• Moist heat waves
• They are characterized with  very warm, oppressive conditions throughout the day and night
• They normally occur under a cloud cover at night which prevents loss of accumulated heat during the day
• Such heat waves are a feature of mid-latitude temperate

• A heat wave is caused by a system of high atmospheric pressure
• In a high pressure system, air from upper levels of the atmosphere descends and rotates outward
• As it comes down, it becomes compressed, which increases the temperature

The following are the effects of a heat wave on the human body

1. Headaches
2. Muscular cramps
3. Swollen hands, feet and ankles
4. Appearance of heat rash on the skin
5. Unusual fatigue
6. General discomfort
7. Signs of dehydration like
1. Excessive thirst
2. Less frequency of urination
3. Dark urine
4. Dark skin
5. Rapid pulse and breathing

 Medical intervention is required in the following situations

1. Difficulty breathing
2. Convulsions
3. Deterioration of consciousness
1. Confusion
2. Unusual behaviour
3. Agitation
4. Hallucination
5. Lack of response to external stimuli
4. Loss of consciousness

Heat stroke is the most serious effect of heat. It can occur suddenly and quickly leas to death if not treated quickly. Signs of heat stroke are

1. Oral temperature more than 39.5 C and rectal temperature more than 40 C
2. Dry skin, hot and red 
3. Dizziness and vertigo
4. Confused and illogical speech
5. Aggressive or strange behaviour 
6. General discomfort

Role of PRi in Disaster Management

ROLE OF PANCHAYAT RAJ INSTITUTIONS (PRIs) IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT 

 The PRi is a statutory body elected by the local people through a well defined democratic process with specific responsibilities and duties. Elected members are accountable to the people of the ward, rural community, block and the district. The PRIi being a representative body of the people, is the most appropriate institution from the village to the district level in view of its proximity, universal coverage and enlisting people's participation on an institutionalized basis. Their close involvement is crucial in getting people prepared for countering natural disasters as well as involving people in all possible preventive and protective activities so that the impact of the disasters are mitigated and the people save their lives and property. PRis act as catalysts to social mobilization process an tap the traditional wisdom of local communities to complement modern practices in disaster mitigation efforts. PRis also provide a base for integration of various concerns of the community that of NGOs and CBOs that are engaged in various developmental activities at the grassroots level. If PRi's are not consulted for preparedness, planning, relief and rehabilitation work, it leads to lack of accountability and transparency resulting in loss of money.

Activities like distribution of immediate relief in the form of money, food grains, medical care, clothes, tent, vessels, drinking water and other necessities, activities of restoration, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts of damaged villages and towns can be implemented better with the involvement of local bodies. PRi plays a crucial role in mobilizing people in various situations of crisis. The impact of disasters on people living in vulnerable areas and losses to their property can be minimized by a pro-active role played by PRis at the grassroots level. PRi members can play a role of leadership in disaster management at all stages.
Role played by PRis at various levels of disaster management is given below:

PRE-DISASTER
-Organizing awareness campaigen and promoting community education on disaster preparedness
-Articulation of community need for developing preparedness plan through community involvement and panchayat ownership
-Identifying the resource gaps both physical and manpower and replenish the same through capacity building
-Establishing synergy with local agencies including NGOs / CBOs
-Dovetailing risk reduction into various development programs of national and state governments
-Establish convergence with local institutional structures created for implementing education, health, livelihood, social justice, etc
-Activating the disaster management plans with the participation of the community
-Formation of task forces and their capacity building

DURING DISASTER
-Arranging emergency communication through available resources
-Evacuation to temporary shelter and running relief camps
-Supplementing rescue and relief efforts in coordinating different agencies
-Monitoring of relief distribution
-Safe disposal of carcass along with setting sanitation facilities and safe drinking water

POST DISASTER
-Damage assessment particularly assisting in identifying victims for compensation and its distribution
-Formulating rehabilitation and reconstruction plan of houses and other local infrastructure
-Enforce minimum specification for safe reconstruction
-Supervise and monitor long term reconstruction and mitigation projects
-Mobilising special funds to use disaster resistant construction technology in vulnerable areas.