David Alexander University College London

A Holistic Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction Problems and Opportunities

Organisational systems: management

Social systems: behaviour

Natural systems: function

Technical systems:

malfunction

Vulnerability Hazard

Resilienc

e

Political systems: decisions

Information and communications

technology

News and information

dissemination

Public participation in disaster risk reduction

Disaster research

Disaster management

• 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

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

The great scientists were highly sensitive to the social implications of their work.

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."

• consolidate their power

• confound their enemies

• impose an ideology [by force]

• expropriate public funds

• ...or practise good public service.

TO DO WHAT?

"...the fiction of good intentions, diplomatic niceties and a common

vision of human progress." - Ben Wisner

"Our research shows that the success of early warning is largely determined

by politics, not science." - Chatham House, London

"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.

• 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:

• 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:

Day 1: cluster bombs

What falls out of the sky?

Day 2: humanitarian rations

• 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?

• BIG concrete on poor people's land

• of direct benefit to the donor countries

• aid is in DEEP CRISIS.

What is aid?

War and conflict

Pove

rty

Natural disasters

Inse

curity

Vulnerability and marginalisation

Military

Humanitarian assistance

assistance

The "Military Cross"

Military assistance

Humanitarian assistance

Creation of poverty,

marginalisation, precariousness

"Capacity building":

creation of resilience

Global exploitation

Informal and black economy

Science

The international community

Women and girls are the key to

disaster risk reduction

...but they are widely discriminated against.

• 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

• and governance (participatory democracy)

• bring responsibility

• are strongly correlated with disaster risk reduction

• are seriously under threat.

Human rights

• consolidate power structures

• augment profits

• introduce conveniently repressive measures

• indulge in gratuitous social engineering.

The economic and social VALUE of disasters

Treatment of uncertainty

• 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

Cascading effects

Collateral vulnerability

Secondary disasters

Interaction between risks

Climate change

Probability

Indeterminacy

"Fat-tailed" (skewed) distributions of impacts

Are big disasters less important than the cumulative impact of small ones?

DETERMINISM Cause Effect

PROBABILITY (constrained uncertainty)

Cause Single, multiple or cascading effects

THE KNOWN

THE UNKNOWN

PURE UNCERTAINTY Causal relationship

unknown

Grey area

MAGNITUDE & FREQUENCY

KNOWLEDGE SCIENCE

LEGISLATION

IMPLEMENTATION

COMPLIANCE

LAG

LAG

LAG

CUMULATIVE LAG

EVENTS

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

Social factors

Plan

Message

Technology Response

Perception

Culture

Optimisation

Knowledge of community

vulnerability

Knowledge of hazards and their impacts

Knowledge of coping

capacity and resilience

Disaster Risk

Reduction

DRR

Attitud

e

The ingredients of resilience

Sustainability

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

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

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

Conclusions

• 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?

• 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:-

• 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

The "cradle" of resilience:

Canonbury Tower London N1.

Built in 1509 to survive

the Universal Deluge:

Rented in 1625 to Francis Bacon.

Post-scriptum

Resilience

Francis Bacon Sylva Sylvarum, 1625

www.natural-hazards-and-earth-system-sciences.net

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

Thank you for your attention!

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