Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers

Professor Sir John Beddington

Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

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The impact of disasters

• 1.3 million killed in the last 20 years

• Droughts, earthquakes and storms have caused most mortality in past 40 years

• $2 trillion damage in past 20 years > total overseas development spend

• Long term and indirect effects poorly captured

Data source: Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

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The HERR and SHED report

• The 2011 HERR recommended better use of science to improve disaster anticipation

• The GO Science SHED report has delivered:1.

Risk expert group on emerging international risks

2.

Database of experts to provide emergency advice

3.

Procedures for Humanitarian Emergency Expert Group to provide immediate advice in emergencies

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Reducing Risks of Future Disasters

• Foresight Project looks out to 2040

• Lead Expert Group of academic, industry and humanitarian experts

• Evidence base:• 18 independently peer

reviewed papers• High level international

stakeholder summit• Several expert

workshops• Final report peer reviewed by

experts and stakeholders

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Without action disaster risk will increase

• Growing concentrations of people exposed to hazards

• 65 million more people a year in cities in less developed regions

• Many more vulnerable people• Number of people over 65 in less

developed countries set to triple from 2010 to 2040

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As climate change occurs, variability in weather increases

Source: Hansen et al (2012) www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109, courtesy of Tim Benton

The mean is moving, but the distribution is getting wider >2x faster

Science for disaster risk forecasts

Professor Angela McLean

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Science and disaster risk

• This framework is used in many sectors for addressing risk:

• Identify risk• Decide how to respond to

risk• Act to address risk• Monitor outcomes

• For disaster risk, science plays an important role at each stage

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Ability to forecast hazards

• To identity future disaster risk first need to be able to forecast future hazards

• Where?• When?• How severe?

• Science can do this well for some hazards

• Improvements are expected by 2040

• Some gaps will remain

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What is a reliable hazard forecast?

• Forecasts of hazards are inherently probabilistic, not deterministic• Reliability is the indicator of quality: does the hazard happen as

often as the forecast says that it will• Decision makers need to see track records of reliability so they

know which forecasts to trust

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Hydrometeorological hazards

• Storms, floods and droughts could all be fairly reliably forecast by 2040

• This relies on improvements in technology:

• Higher resolution modelling powered by faster supercomputers

• Next generation of satellites for earth observation

• More integration between models

Source: Argonne National Laboratory

Source: Foresight

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Geophysical hazards

• Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tsunami will remain hard to forecast even in 2040

• Improvements are possible, from similar sources as for hydrometerological:

• Next generation of satellites for earth observation

• More integration between models

• Forensic analysis of past events

Source: Foresight

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Biological hazards

• Ability to forecast disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants is variable, and will improve gradually

• Novel approaches show promise:

• Aviation patterns• Satellite sensing• Social media• Data mining

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Pooling of resources for science infrastructure

• Improvements in forecasting hazards of all types rely on new science infrastructure:

• Satellites• Supercomputers• Sensors

• International collaboration on the next generation of infrastructure could make improvements affordable

Source: CERN

Swinburne Astronomy Productions for SKA Project Development Office

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From hazard to risk

• Disaster risk is not just hazard risk• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience determine whether a hazard

becomes a disaster• Measuring and mapping these is difficult but important

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Exposure, vulnerability and risk

Source: Josef Muellek | Dreamstime.comSource: UNICEF 2012

• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience depend on local context• Need locally specific measurements• “Bottom up” approaches will be needed

• Local decision makers can take the same hazard forecast and then overlay measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience that

matter to them

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The path to integrated risk forecasts

• Improved single hazard forecasts• Drawing on new technology• Pooling resources for expensive infrastructure• Track records of reliability

• Better interfacing between hazard models• Outputs of one model can be inputs of another• May need interfacing software

• User friendly outputs of hazard models• So that local measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience

can

be overlaid on them

• By 2040, it should be possible to have a family of disaster risk models that give local decision makers the information they need

Using science to tackle disaster risk

Brendan Gormley

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Global imperatives to act now

Source: UNISDR, http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa

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Acting on disaster risk

• Decision makers must decide how to address disaster risk

• As with all risks, options are: • Transfer risk• Avoid risk• Reduce risk• Accept risk

• Need to know what works and what does not to be able to decide

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Transfer risk

Source: Foresight

• To address disaster risk in developing countries, neither formal

nor informal mechanisms work well in isolation

• Much potential to expand both formal and informal mechanisms

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Avoid risk

Source: Esoko

• Early warnings can work well if make use of both communities and technology

• Migration can increase as well as avoid risk

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Reduce risk: Infrastructure and cities

• Over the next 30 years, many cities will build major infrastructure for the first time

• Resilient infrastructure design can reduce disaster risk

• Need to understand what designs perform well

• May require a degree of redundancy and flexibility

• One of the biggest opportunities to determine future disaster risk

Source: UNICEF 2012

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Reduce risk: Ecosystem management

• Healthy ecosystems can mean large reductions in disaster impacts

• Even if reduction of disaster risk does not justify protection, other benefits often result

• As with all actions, need to know what reduces risk and what does not

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Foresight, compiled from other sources

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Accept risk

• If the costs of action outweigh the benefits, accepting the risk may be the right option

• But weighing up is not easy

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Evidence base to support decisions

• Decision makers need to know what forecasts are reliable, and what actions actually reduce disaster risk

• Need to build up a trusted repository of evidence

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The need for culture change

• Disaster risk is not a problem that can be dealt with by disaster specialists alone

• Many other decisions (infrastructure, ecosystems, mobile phones,

satellites) impact on future disaster risk• And many of the solutions are in the hands of others (across

government, business, development NGOs, communities, funders)

• All those who care about sustainable development should care about disaster risk and factor it into their decisions

• Otherwise the benefits of development will be put at risk

Thank you: -

DFID comments

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ODI comments - Q & A

Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers

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