Comparative Emergency Management

1. Comparative Emergency Management Session 5 Slide Deck Session 5

2. Session Objectives • Provide an overview of the correlation between disasters and poverty • Explain how disasters influence, and are influenced by, development • Illustrate an example of a disaster impacting development through the use of a disaster case study Session 5

3. Disasters and Poverty Disasters damage economies because of: • Mitigation costs • Damage and destruction of infrastructure • Cleanup costs • Disruption in social and other services • Destruction of lives and livelihoods • Mounting debt Session 5

4. Exposure A measure of the land areas and populations that are affected by hazards and their impacts Tells what hazards are likely to occur in a given place, but not what will happen when the event actually occurs Session 5

5. Exposure to Drought Source: UNDP, 2004 Session 5

6. Development The gradual improvement of a nation’s infrastructure, access to services, institutions, public health, foreign debt, and many other development indicators Session 5

7. Disaster and GDP Source: UNDP, 2004. Session 5

8. Financial Consequences • Increased national and private debt • Reduced public funding to meet regular fiscal (budgetary) needs • Loss of economic engines (products and services) that support income and tax bases Session 5

9. Disaster Effect in Poor Countries • Development stunted, erased, or reversed • GDP diverted • Vital infrastructure damaged or destroyed • Schools damaged or destroyed • Hospitals and clinics damaged or destroyed • Businesses destroyed • Residents forced/impelled to leave • Rapid upsurge in crime and insecurity • Hopelessness Session 5

10. Recovery Affect on Development Source: ADRC, 2005. Session 5

11. Development Policies • Prospective disaster risk management: integrates hazards and risk management practice into new development that is occurring or that will occur in the future • Compensatory disaster risk management: reduces existing risk and addresses the causes of vulnerability. • Compensatory policies reduce risk that already exists, while prospective policy is the medium- to long-term solution to breaking the cycle of disasters and stalled development. Session 5

12. How Disasters Affect Development • Disaster Limit Economic Development • Disasters Limit Social Development Session 5

13. How Development Affects Disasters • Economic Development Increases Disaster Risk • Social Development Increases Disaster Risk • Economic Development Reduces Disaster Risk • Social Development Reduces Disaster Risk Session 5

14. Drivers for Development • The generation of wealth, which can raise the basic level of human development. • The distribution of wealth, which can enable even the poorest to overcome human vulnerability. • The externalities of wealth creation (waste, pollution, destruction of environments or human culture), which need to be controlled to prevent the loss of the fundamental assets on which human life depends and gains meaning. Session 5

15. Guatemala Case: Geography and Natural Hazards Profile • Situated in Central America • 42,042 square miles (slightly smaller than TN) • 2/3 mountainous and volcanic • Geologically active • Most people reside in mountainous regions • Population increase caused deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and pollution • Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes plague the country • Guatemala is particularly vulnerable to the threat of hurricanes and tropical storms from both the east and west, and flooding, and the associated mud- and landslide hazard risk, occur during each May-to-November rainy season Session 5

16. Guatemala Case: Sociology • Violent and underdeveloped • Poverty rampant and security virtually nonexistent • Illiteracy, infant mortality and malnutrition rates among the highest in the region • Life expectancy age 65, among the lowest in Latin America • Rural poor dependent on cash crops and lacked many of the basic life needs • Infrastructure vulnerable • A persistent cycle of poverty, isolation, manipulation and destruction Session 5

17. Hurricane Mitch • 4th most powerful Caribbean hurricane 1900-2000 • Most devastating in Central America in 200 years • Originated in the waters of South America • Category V, with peak winds of at least 155 mph • October 27, made landfall with a 20-foot storm surge • Reached Guatemala on October 31 • Dropped in status to a tropical storm, but brought with it torrential rain • Central American mountains hindered its movement • Slowdown caused rainfall to reach two feet/day • Runoff caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides Session 5

18. Consequences • 268 dead • Approximately 260 injured • 121 missing • Almost 1 million affected • 105,055 evacuated • >100,000 homeless Session 5