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Creating hazards and disastersNatural events and processes affect people in good and bad ways. Rains are needed to sustain crops and communities, but too much or little results in destructive floods and droughts. Coastal zones provide settlement sites and sustenance, but storm surges and erosion can destroy both. How people live in relation to these extremes of nature influences the extent of hazard and resulting disasters. Just as people create resources by using materials from the natural environment, so, too, they create the potential for disaster by locating in hazardous locations. Thus, the causes of "natural" hazards and disasters are both natural and human-made. The IGCI has staff members who have been studying hazards and disasters since the 1960s. Assessing vulnerabilityAssessing the vulnerability of communities to "natural" disasters requires a range of information about both natural and human factors. Flood-hazard locations require physical information like, climatic and hydrological factors, as well as the spread, depth, speed-of-onset, and duration of flooding. It also requires human information about people at risk, land and building elevations, the nature and intensity of land uses, and related socio-economic activities. Interrelating these data sets indicates the extent of hazard and therefore the damage potential and the social dislocation when disasters strike. Vulnerability will also be influenced by what people do to reduce the risks. The IGCI has developed a range of simple and sophisticated techniques for evaluating community vulnerability to natural hazards and disasters. The former includes graphic techniques of use with rural villagers in developing countries. The latter requires technical knowledge for applying integrated assessment computer models in government agencies or research institutions. For both simple and sophisticated approaches, IGCI has developed capacity-building training courses. Risk-reduction measuresThere are many measures or coping strategies that can be taken to reduce hazards and thereby the risks of future disasters. In many countries, these measures are set within a national framework of policies and legislation accompanied by a hierarchy of institutional arrangements. Elsewhere, they have evolved within local communities and hierarchical arrangements are still developing. There are several typologies for organizing the various measures. IGCI has long used a three-fold typology including measures that:
Building disaster potentialOver many years, research, including that done by IGCI staff, has shown that some measures, like embankment against floods and coastal erosion, reduce loss-potential in the short-term, but increase disaster potential in the longer-term. This is because they encourage land-use intensification in the "protected", yet still flood-prone, areas. While benefits accrue from these measures, they also contribute to the escalation of disastrous losses when the level of protection is exceeded by either breaching by design events or overtopping by larger-than-design events. Integrated risk reductionStaff in IGCI have for long promoted an integrated approach to reducing hazards and thereby disaster potential. Relying on single measures, like engineering protection or relief and rehabilitation, will not result in risk reduction. Indeed, where relief and rehabilitation enables redevelopment of the same hazard-prone area, people and property are still at risk from events of similar scale. While a programme focused around land-use management, and related measures, aimed at reducing community susceptibility to losses from extreme events would be beneficial, the lag in its implementation suggests that other measures in the typology should be adopted in conjunction. Which package of measures a community adopts in an integrated programme depends on their local circumstances, both in terms of the physical attributes of the hazard-prone area and the level of community development and vulnerability. More informationFor more information about the IGCI integrated approach to natural hazards and disasters visit our webpage http://www.waikato.ac.nz/igci or e-mail us at igci@waikato.ac.nz.
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