Disaster Risk Management in Asia and the Pacific

Ian Davis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138056152, 9781138785021
• eBook ISBN: 9781317644866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

This book uses two international frameworks—the Millennium Development Goals and the Hyogo Framework for Action, a program focused on disaster risk management—to study the key trends in the region in terms of disaster incidence, sources of vulnerability and social and economic challenges. As both frameworks draw to a close, international debate is taking place during the period 2012–2015 on their current progress. This book seeks to help readers understand the process better.

The chapters are written by eight independent internationally based authors. Collectively, they have extensive regional experience in the areas of disaster risk management and climate change as well as working in academia, research, consultancy, the UN and international agencies, government and the NGO sector. The analysis presented benefits from their varied backgrounds in medicine, architecture, economics, engineering, planning, social studies, development studies and political science.

Throughout the book, relevant examples, drawn from the region, are included to 'earth' the project in the harsh realities of risk and disaster impact.

Part 1
Background

1
Introduction

Ian Davis

“Genuine learning begins when you realize that you are ‘at-risk’.”

– Anonymous

“Reducing disaster risk is everybody’s business, and needs everyone’s participation and investment – civil society, professional networks as well as municipal and national governments.”

– Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary-General, on the occasion
of the International Day for Disaster Reduction
(“Curbing disaster risk,” 2010)

Context of study

In 2015, two international frameworks draw to a close: the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA): ‘Building the capacity and resilience of the community against disasters 2005–15’ – a program focusing on disaster risk management (DRM) (UNISDR 2005). International debate is taking place on current progress with both frameworks to define future ways to effectively manage disaster risks and to reduce poverty and how to link these agendas in the coming decades (UNISDR 2013c). This study seeks to inform this dialogue.

Key trends and challenges within the Asia-Pacific region introduce the study, with a consideration of the challenges posed by vulnerability and social and economic realities. This is followed by discussion concerning two major concerns of governments: (1) compound disasters and (2) financing and insurance. The final section reviews various levels of governance of DRM, starting at the local and community levels, rising to the national level and followed by the regional level. This section concludes by considering the ways that DRM can be advanced through international frameworks. A series of conclusions and recommendations for decision makers closes the study.

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by our team of authors as we have worked on this study has been how to capture the flood of information that this subject now generates, how to use it to develop and expand our collective knowledge and then, the most difficult part, how to distil this emerging knowledge into practical wisdom. This is needed so that those with the responsibility to make wise decisions in the complex fields of disaster risk and climate change can protect people, their habitat and the environment.

The regional disaster threat

The Asia-Pacific region, with 60 per cent of the world population, is highly vulnerable to the impact of hazards and has experienced major and minor disasters throughout the past decade. Between 2002 and 2011, 40 per cent of all reported disasters (1,524) occurred in Asia, causing 63 per cent of all global disaster deaths (669,263), affecting 90 per cent of all those affected globally (2.2 billion) and causing 48 per cent of global damage (US$691 billion).

Populations ‘at-risk’ in Asia-Pacific countries

In the Global Risk Hotspots Analysis, the first eight globally ranked countries with “relatively high mortality risk from multiple hazards” were all within the Asia-Pacific region. Noted below are the percentages of the population of the country that lived in areas of high risk.

This number is followed by the number of people who were at risk within these countries in 2005 (Dilley et al. 2005).

Table 1.1 Populations ‘at risk’ in Asia-Pacific countries

What is particularly striking about these statistics is that the vast majority of the population of Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines (with a combined total population of 249 million people) was faced in 2005 with the threat of virtually blanket exposure and vulnerability to hazards. While it is not known how these statistics have changed during the intervening eight years, the likelihood is that these patterns of virtual risk saturation remain.

The year 2011 was an ‘extreme year’ for global disaster exposure and vulnerability. It was the costliest on record for disasters, with economic losses exceeding the previous record of US$262 billion – a record set in 2005. Some 80 per cent of these losses were attributed to the Asia-Pacific region (Guha-Sapir et al. 2012; Oxley 2013). During this year the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami occurred, with 19,846 reported dead or missing, the destruction of almost 300,000 buildings and an estimated total economic loss of US$201 billion, but this figure is projected to rise to approximately $375 billion (ESCAP and UNISDR 2012, p. 7). The disaster had severe economic consequences, including a decline of 47 per cent in Japanese automobile production during 2011.

Later in 2011, the Southeast Asia floods caused massive devastation, and the international economic consequences were particularly felt in Thailand, where 813 persons died and the reported economic losses were US$45–45.7 billion. Swiss Re reported that insured losses were estimated at US$12 billion (the highest number on record for a single flood event) (Jha & Stanton-Geddes 2013, p. 66).

One consequence of the flood impact was the increase in the global cost of computer hard drives, which tripled on account of factory damage and the consequent disruption of international supply chains (ESCAP and UNISDR 2012, p. xxv). (See Thailand flooding case study in Chapter 3, p. 78.)

But in September 2011 there was some encouraging news. A serious earth quake, measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale, occurred in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. This coastal town had suffered extensive damage and loss of life in the South Asian earthquake and tsunami of 2004. However, due to improved disaster preparedness as well as the quality and safety of the reconstruction, only two persons were killed in this event (Jakarta Post 2011).

The trends described and analyzed in Chapters 2–4 indicate that disaster risk management activities within the region have a fourfold concern, with closely interwoven priorities:

• Protecting lives
• Protecting property (in the form of all forms of investment in buildings, infrastructure, etc.)
• Protecting livelihoods at the micro-scale and economies at the macro-scale (a concern requiring authorities to look beyond regional boundaries to global supply chains)
• Protecting and sustaining the natural environment.

(See Appendix 1, Table 1.1, The impact on lives and property of major Asian Disasters 2004–2013.)

Aim of study

The serious risk situation in the Asia-Pacific region provides the impetus for this study, which seeks to provide senior decision makers in the governments of the region with an overview of the steps they can take to reduce disaster risks. Such steps include developing their staff capacities, building ‘learning cultures’, creating appropriate governmental structures and developing sound policies. All are needed to reduce the unacceptable level of growing disaster threats to lives, property, economic assets and the environment and to adapt to the changing climate.

Study themes

To achieve the aim of this study a number of critical questions require answers. They concern the anticipated changes in patterns of risk facing the Asia-Pacific region in the future. These questions are set within four threads that run throughout the fabric of the entire study:

1. Expanding risks (Chapters 2–5)
   Increases in vulnerability and exposure lie at the heart of the escalating risks throughout the region, provoking the following questions:
   • what risks in the region are expanding and why?
   • how can the progression of vulnerability be reduced?
   • what social and economic challenges need to be faced?
   • how can complex, compound disasters be managed?
2. Innovative solutions (all chapters)
   Examples include innovative disaster risk financing as described in Chapters 4 and 6 and a wide range of community awareness approaches described in Chapter 7. Questions include:
   • what financial instruments are available?
   • how can compound disasters be managed?
3. Holistic approach (all chapters)
   A key message of this book is that vulnerability is a micro and macro process, concerning all hazard categories, and is multi- and inter-sectoral. Each of the case-study examples cited in the various chapters indicates the complex amalgam of factors that must be understood before they can be addressed through a broad holistic approach. Questions include:
   • how can risks be most effectively managed at various levels?
   • what sectors does disaster risk management need to be linked with?
   • what are the significant gaps that need to be closed in well-integrated DRM strategies?
4. The pivotal role of national governments (Chapters 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10)
   There is a strong tendency for governments to focus their attention on emergency management and the assessment and monitoring of hazards, with less attention devoted to assessing and reducing patterns of vulnerability and exposure. The examples cited throughout the study, and in particular in Chapters 3 and 9, highlight the critical roles that governments play in creating and maintaining vulnerability, or in countering such processes by building resilience. Therefore, questions are raised concerning these issues:
   • why should governments give high priority to risk reduction?
   • what are the incentives and constraints on taking action?
   • where in government structures should DRM be located?
   • what opportunities exist at the varied levels of governance?
   • what recommendations for governments emerge from the study?
   • how can governments effectively relate to wider regional and international frameworks?

Organization of study

The study, conceived by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was reviewed by regional experts and government officials in ADBI in Tokyo in October 2012 and February and June 2013.

Highlights of this study were presented at the ADB Annual Meeting in Delhi in May 2013, with additional valued feedback (ADBI 2013). These review processes have strengthened the study with a useful critique from officials, experts and practitioners, and the dialogue has raised awareness of the need for national commitment to effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures and to building common ownership.

Audiences of the study

The primary audience is composed of national government leaders and senior policy-making officials within ADB member countries. They have the main responsibility to manage and reduce the risks faced by their citizens. This group can be broken down into political leaders and senior government officials in varied government locations ranging from the apex of political power to officers within individual line departments. In addition there are regulatory authorities and emergency services who are also involved in risk reduction and climate change activities. These officials may exist in the center of governments, but within more ambitious safety structures they may be replicated in local government or urban government offices (see Chapter 8).

Government authorities include:

Disaster/crisis management authorities

These bodies are often called the national disaste...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Executive summary
• PART 1 Background
• PART 2 Trends and challenges
• PART 3 Responding to major concerns in the region
• PART 4 Governance structures for disaster risk management
• Conclusions and recommendations
• Suggested reading list
• Glossary
• Contributors
• Index