Does a good disaster risk reduction formula involve community resilience?
First we need to understand the terms disaster here which simply means- "any hazardous or catastrophic event which has consequential impact on the lives of the people and living beings. Disaster could be natural or human induced disasters, for eg: Tsunami, earthquake, fires, chemical disaster etc NoRead more
First we need to understand the terms disaster here which simply means- “any hazardous or catastrophic event which has consequential impact on the lives of the people and living beings. Disaster could be natural or human induced disasters, for eg: Tsunami, earthquake, fires, chemical disaster etc
Now we need to understand the key components of disaster management plan.
So, it could be betterly understand from the cyclic concept of disaster management where it emphasis on the two broader aspects of it- Pre-disaster management and post-disaster management plans.
Pre-disaster management includes the two major key components- preparedness and mitigation measures.
1. Assessment– it includes the proper assessment of that region in terms of risk factors and vulnerability it possesses from the future disasters based on that data priority should be placed.
2. Planning or preparedness– it’s a wider scope to understand as it involves all the major activities which helps the local people to prepare themselves for the disaster. So it involves policy making, resources placement according to vulnerability of the region, infrastructure and capacity building.
Post-disaster management involves three significant features- response, recovery and rehabilitation.
It’s an event which starts just after the disaster hits the region so this phase is so crucial from the point of view of the casuality and damages to the ecosystem.
1. Response– it involves the catering the emergency needs of the people affected from the disaster which incorporates- providing medical supplies, temporary homes, clothes and shelter, logistics support, clean food and water supply etc.
2. Recovery or rehabilitation– it is also crucial phase as it involves the rebuilding of the lives of people affected from the disaster who lost everything in that disaster. Infrastructure rebuilding– roads, hospital, education centre etc, debris cleaning which has been accumulated from the disaster, economy rebuilding– providing them jobs and means of earning source considering long term impacts, and planning to learn from the disaster to prevent or reduce the vulnerability of the region in future.
This both phase constitutes significance in itself from the point of view of the disaster hitting a region from reducing its vulnerability to rebuilding the infrastructure incorporates lots of planning, execution and cooperation.
The basic difference between the natural and human induced disaster is that we can’t predict the disastrous events in the natural disaster but in the human one can predict the event due to the human errors made during the operation part. So the planning becomes quite easy while preparing for the human induced disaster as it would be more accurate in terms of its predictability.
In terms of its responsiveness, the difference are not that much because it totally depends on the how intense and large area it had impacted, so on that basis both can be wide spread and narrowly impact on the area.
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and reducing the risks of disaster. It aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as deal with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them. Community resilience is the sustained abilityRead more
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and reducing the risks of disaster. It aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as deal with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them. Community resilience is the sustained ability of a community to use available resources (energy, communication, transportation, food, etc.) to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations. This allows for the adaptation and growth of a community after disaster strikes. The scope of community resilience extends beyond natural disasters and includes man made ones too.
Role Of Community Resilience In Drr
Community Resilience Is Not Enough
Communities do not exist in isolation. The level of a community’s resilience is also influenced by capacities outside the community, in particular by emergency management services but also by other social and administrative services, public infrastructure, and a web of socio-economic and political linkages with the wider world. Apart from community resilience we need:
Disaster Management has to be a multi-disciplinary and proactive approach. Besides various measures for putting in place institutional and policy framework, disaster prevention, mitigation, community resilience, and preparedness have a key role to play in achieving our goal of moving together, towards a safer India.
See less