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David Alexander University College London
A Holistic Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction Problems and Opportunities
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Organisational systems: management
Social systems: behaviour
Natural systems: function
Technical systems:
malfunction
Vulnerability Hazard
Resilienc
e
Political systems: decisions
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Information and communications
technology
News and information
dissemination
Public participation in disaster risk reduction
Disaster research
Disaster management
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• science must not be allowed to be the justification for political malpractice
• if you supply data, methods or results you have some responsibility for how they are used
• accept that the primary effect of hazards is determined by vulnerability.
Some precepts
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Resilience Resistance
Risk Susceptibility
Physical (including natural, built, technological)
Social (including cultural, political, economic)
Environment Att
ribut
es
Source: McEntire 2001
Liabilities
Capa
bilities
VULNERABILITY
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The great scientists were highly sensitive to the social implications of their work.
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Professor Angela McLean, University of Oxford
(co-author, UK Government's Foresight Report on Disaster Risk Reduction):
"By 2040 it should be possible to have a family of disaster risk models
that give decision makers the information they need."
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• consolidate their power
• confound their enemies
• impose an ideology [by force]
• expropriate public funds
• ...or practise good public service.
TO DO WHAT?
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"...the fiction of good intentions, diplomatic niceties and a common
vision of human progress." - Ben Wisner
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"Our research shows that the success of early warning is largely determined
by politics, not science." - Chatham House, London
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"If you are exposed to a 5-metre tsunami there is a 30 per cent probability that you will be killed."
...but that depends on who you are.
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• effect of heroin addiction on the reconstruction of Bam, Iran
• introduction of repressive Shia and blasphemy laws in Aceh
• colossal waste of public money on transitional shelter in L'Aquila, Italy
• government insensitivity to cultural heritage protection in Christchurch.
Reality check:
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• widening wealth gap since 1970
• failure to divert resources from response to prevention and mitigation
• half of world trade goes through 78 tax havens
• one fifth of world trade is illicit (drugs, armaments, people, species)
• relationship of proxy wars to aid.
More reality check:
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Day 1: cluster bombs
What falls out of the sky?
Day 2: humanitarian rations
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• resources that debilitate local coping capacity
• munitions, military hardware, soldier training and some humanitarian stuff
• an instrument of political influence
• a means of lining certain people's pockets.
What is aid?
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• BIG concrete on poor people's land
• of direct benefit to the donor countries
• aid is in DEEP CRISIS.
What is aid?
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War and conflict
Pove
rty
Natural disasters
Inse
curity
Vulnerability and marginalisation
Military
Humanitarian assistance
assistance
The "Military Cross"
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Military assistance
Humanitarian assistance
Creation of poverty,
marginalisation, precariousness
"Capacity building":
creation of resilience
Global exploitation
Informal and black economy
Science
The international community
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Women and girls are the key to
disaster risk reduction
...but they are widely discriminated against.
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• violence (domestic, trafficking, other)
• restriction of opportunities (e.g. purdah)
• roles narrowly defined (by men)
• women forced to do the labouring
• abandoned or bereaved women as heads of household.
Discrimination against women in disasters
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• and governance (participatory democracy)
• bring responsibility
• are strongly correlated with disaster risk reduction
• are seriously under threat.
Human rights
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• consolidate power structures
• augment profits
• introduce conveniently repressive measures
• indulge in gratuitous social engineering.
The economic and social VALUE of disasters
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Treatment of uncertainty
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• there are no "black swans"
• there are large and increasing areas of uncertainty caused by rising complexity
• applied science must constantly adapt itself its focus and methods to changes in hazard and societal vulnerability
• society's priorities and preoccupations change constantly over time.
Another reality check
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Cascading effects
Collateral vulnerability
Secondary disasters
Interaction between risks
Climate change
Probability
Indeterminacy
"Fat-tailed" (skewed) distributions of impacts
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Are big disasters less important than the cumulative impact of small ones?
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DETERMINISM Cause Effect
PROBABILITY (constrained uncertainty)
Cause Single, multiple or cascading effects
THE KNOWN
THE UNKNOWN
PURE UNCERTAINTY Causal relationship
unknown
Grey area
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MAGNITUDE & FREQUENCY
KNOWLEDGE SCIENCE
LEGISLATION
IMPLEMENTATION
COMPLIANCE
LAG
LAG
LAG
CUMULATIVE LAG
EVENTS
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Varying context: • political • economic • social
STAGNATION RECONSTRUCTION
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
SHORT-TERM RECOVERY
MEDIUM-TERM RECOVERY
LONG-TERM RECOVERY
IMPACT
P E S
P E S
P E S
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Social factors
Plan
Message
Technology Response
Perception
Culture
Optimisation
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Knowledge of community
vulnerability
Knowledge of hazards and their impacts
Knowledge of coping
capacity and resilience
Disaster Risk
Reduction
DRR
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Attitud
e
The ingredients of resilience
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Sustainability
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RISKS daily: unemployment, poverty, disease, etc. major disaster: floods, storms, quakes, etc. emerging risks: pandemics, climate change
SUSTAINABILITY disaster risk reduction
resource consumption stewardship of the environment
economic activities lifestyles
SUSTAINABILITY
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INSTRUMENTS OF DISSEMINATION
• mass media • targeted campaign • social networks
• internet
Augmentation
MASS EDUCATION PROGRAMME
SOCIAL CAPITAL
HABIT
CULTURE
The creation of a culture of civil protection
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BENIGN (healthy) at the service of the people
MALIGN (corrupt) at the service of vested interests
interplay dialectic
Justification Development
[spiritual, cultural, political, economic]
IDEOLOGY CULTURE
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Conclusions
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• academic territoriality and tribalism
• failure to understand the role and modus operandi of other disciplines
• fear of the unknown; love of orthdoxy
• 18th-century approach to knowledge (love of the Scottish Renaissance)
• failure to see problems holistically.
Why is interdisciplinary work so difficult?
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• corruption and the black economy
• the arms trade, proxy wars and fomentation of conflict
• denial and curtailment of human and civil rights
• manufactured consent and the manipulation of politics
• governance must be participatory democracy.
Obstacles to progress in DRR:-
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• The opportunities for positive change have never been greater.
• Likewise, the tools and mechanisms.
• The obstacles have never been more formidable.
• Likewise, the challenges.
Disaster risk reduction: we are approaching a turning point in history
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The "cradle" of resilience:
Canonbury Tower London N1.
Built in 1509 to survive
the Universal Deluge:
Rented in 1625 to Francis Bacon.
Post-scriptum
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Resilience
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Francis Bacon Sylva Sylvarum, 1625
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www.natural-hazards-and-earth-system-sciences.net
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LAW
STATESMANSHIP
LITERATURE
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
MECHANICS
MANU- FACTURING
ECOLOGY
MANAGEMENT (ADAPTIVE)
CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGY
SOCIAL RESEARCH
DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTATION
c. AD 35 1529 1625 1859 1930 1950 1973 2000 2010
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Thank you for your attention!
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