In 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New York City with wind gusts of up to 155 km per hour. The total damage it caused, which included the flooding of the New York subway system, devastation of over a hundred homes in the Queens District and loss of electricity for several days, was estimated at US $32 billion.
Closer to home in Asia, 2013’s typhoon Haiyan caused a storm surge with tidal waves of over 5 meters in height striking the city of Tacloban and other nearby areas in the Philippines, resulting in the loss of 10,000 lives, the displacement of 630,000 people and the wholesale destruction of homes and facilities. According to the UN’s Global Assessment Report, the annual average losses in the built environment associated with disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tropical cyclones and volcanic ash are already in the order of US $314 billion. This figure would be higher if the impact of chronic events, such as droughts, temperature variations and agricultural damage are considered. With this evidence, the need to be prepared for climate-related and other types of disasters is borne out by the cost incurred through asset damage and human suffering.
Resilience is defined as “the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.”
Building Resilience
Building resilience in communities and cities is a way of coping with disasters. Disasters are caused by three factors: hazards, vulnerability and exposure. Vulnerability affects communities that lack capacity to deal with disasters. For instance, as urbanization increases, populations migrating to cities from rural areas are often unprotected as they are outside of a city’s jurisdiction. Another example would be slum dwellers who have no choice but to live in dire housing conditions as other options are too expensive in the city. Exposure is best described as hazardous locations such as coastal positions or low-lying areas which are likely to be affected in severe weather conditions. Vulnerable populations who live in exposed and hazardous areas are hence impacted the most each time a disaster strikes.
When it is not possible to keep communities out of hazardous areas, cities try to build resilience in order to prepare for, handle, respond to, and recover from disasters. This in turn reduces disaster risk.
Resilience can be formulated under mitigation, preparedness, emergency response and recovery
Mitigation
Mitigation refers to efforts undertaken before an event to reduce or eliminate the risks from hazards that may affect human lives and property. The Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, in the US, identifies several forms of mitigation:
- Community protection works – large engineered structures such as dams, levees and seawalls designed to protect against natural hazards.
- Land use practices – various forms of development regulations and zoning approaches designed to keep developments out of hazardous areas.
- Building construction practices – building codes and special utility codes designed to lessen structural damage due to flooding and high winds. • Building content practices – such as securely mounting key equipment on walls and erecting protective bunds around critical installations.
- Maintaining protective features of the natural environment by protecting sand dunes, wetlands, vegetation cover and other ecological elements that absorb water (which are forms of non-structural mitigation).
Preparedness & Emergency Response
Disaster preparedness on the other hand requires putting in place practices that protect human lives and property. These include establishing a risk and hazard profile of the community, determining the types of resources and actions needed to deal with hazards, knowing which populations are likely to be at risk, developing contingency action plans and providing incident management procedures. In the event of a disaster, emergency response activities involve securing the impacted area, warning the population, evacuating the impacted area, conducting search and rescue for the injured, providing food and emergency care, and sheltering the evacuees.
Recovery
Post disaster relief is both short-term (restoration of access to affected areas, re-establishment of economic activities, restoration of critical infrastructure and restoration of community services) and long-term (rebuilding of houses and major structures like bridges, roads and buildings). As governments tend to take on the responsibility of short-term measures, it is often left to the private sector to lead in the reconstruction process. In many cases, a ‘build back better’ approach is undertaken in order to restore livelihoods as well as constructing more robust infrastructure and communities.
As the vulnerability of communities depends on critical infrastructure and facilities that represent lifelines such as bridges, utilities, water, sewers, power, communications, fire and police stations, hospitals, post offices and radio stations, critical facilities are an important component for emergency response and disaster recovery. It is advisable not to site these facilities in exposed and hazardous areas as loss of critical infrastructure means that the recovery is slower and can have significant impacts on public health and safety.
Plan to be Resilient
Lastly, achieving resilience starts with planning. Measures such as development regulation, land use management, building standards, natural resource protection, property acquisition, critical facilities policies and public education are significant for promoting hazard mitigation.
In conclusion, as urban communities grow our propensity for vulnerability and exposure increases as we are forced to take up dwellings in hazardous areas. Climate change and other factors mean that the occurrence of disasters like flooding and severe storms is likely to be more frequent. Infrastructure that was designed for milder conditions will be compromised; this problem is exacerbated by ageing assets and urban population expansion. To address this, we need to design resilient infrastructure (e.g. drainage channels, storm protection facilities and weatherproofed buildings) for future communities.
Infrastructure alone will not achieve resilience. Sound development plans that are predicated on disaster risk assessments and land use policies advocating mitigation and preparedness are needed. In addition, members of the community will also have to play a role in learning how to be resilient. Nature when unleashed has no mercy nor boundary. It is down to mankind to deal with these stresses. Resilience will be a path towards our survival, a journey rather than a process for humanity.