Disaster Management

Causes of Landslides

1. Natural Causes:

Heavy Rainfall and Flooding: That is by soaking the soil and weakening it to the extent that the ground becomes unstable in nature.

Earthquakes and Seismic Activity: Moves and shakes and removes the rocks and the soil.

Volcanic Eruptions: It forms loose volcanic ash that tends to lead to occurrences of landslides.

Snowmelt: Due to the fast rate of melting, the water contributes to the soil and reduces it strength.

– Weathering and Erosion: Slow denudation or wearing away of the slopes by constant processes of weathering and corrosion.

– Slope Topography and Vegetation Loss: Skymer further classified fascism into six levels where steep slopes and regions with low vegetation cover are most affected.

1. Human-induced Causes:

– Deforestation: That means once the trees are removed, the roots will not be anchored to the soils making the slopes insecure.

– Construction Activities: Road constructions, constructions of buildings, and construction of dams upset the state of balance of the slopes and thus become instable.

– Mining and Quarrying: Blasting and excavation have detrimental effects on support systems on slopes.

– Bad Agricultural Practices: If not checked or controlled Shifting cultivation or terracing will lead to weakness to slopes

– Climate Change: Brings the likelihood of the intensity of the rainfall which could trigger landslides to happen more frequent.

Effects of Landslides

1. Human Casualties and Injuries: Such landslides are well evidenced mobile often causing loss of lives and serious injuries.

Economic Loss: Waste property and roads, infrastructures agricultural lands & forests let unfathomable financial damage.

Environmental Impact: The landslide results in such consequences as disturbance of the existing ecosystem, loss of homes as well as may result in furthering soil erosion and thus river sedimentation which might culminate in quality water issues.

Infrastructure Damage: It is very likely that the formation of land slide will damage the roads, bridges and constructions needed for transport and communication.

Displacement of Communities: Landslide requires people to be shuffled, resulting to a disruption of their income source and psychosocial disruption.

1. Service Disruptions: Basic services such as; water, power and telephone may be cut off due to destruction of infrastructure.

The above elements makes up the compact that is the National Risk Management Strategy.

The National Risk Management Strategy creates capacity and anticipates how to manage natural disasters. Major elements would include;

1. Risk Assessment and Mapping: Geographic categorisation of high-risk locations to get insight into hazardous areas for making an effective risk management plan.
2. Early Warning Systems: Technologies and forecast and warning systems that would produce an early signal to vulnerable communities.
3. Community Awareness and Education: Awareness creation, whereby training to the communities about the possible landslides and the measures they should take when they see them.
4. Resilience in Infrastructure: Effective construction and design of roads, bridges and buildings which resist the threat of landslides and other related calamities.
5. Ecosystem-Based Approaches: Methods that were considered in the reestablishment of slopes that are within the natural technique include reforestation vegetation cover.
6. Policy and legal framework: Prescription of measures controlling road construction, human settlement, the kinds of undertaking allowed on a piece of land, and reforestation to prevent man-made landslides.
7. Pre-disaster preparedness and response planning: Further the response plan for landslides must consider evacuation plan and or response readiness of the emergency services.
8. Research and development: On the successful completion of the program, the following contribution shall have been made By the candidate towards research in causation prediction and prevention of landslides in order to influence policies and advice on mitigation methods.
9. Financial resource and risk transfer mechanisms: promote insurance, funds or incentives that aid to regain the affected community and pass some of the risk associated with landslides.

This strategy will try to make efforts in reestablishment of balance between readiness and recovery as will strive to mitigate effects of landslides for a quick and efficient bounce back.

The COVID-19 has affected almost all areas of society and human life, the functioning of states, and the global economy. The following represent some of the major areas where the pandemic has catalyzed change:

1. Health systems and individual and community health literacy
It has revealed the vulnerabilities of global health systems, brought new attention to the health facilities, reserves, and vaccines.. Increasing awareness about public health has led to a higher consciousness of hygiene and vaccination and preventive health measures.

2. Work and the Economy
The pandemic actually encouraged the adoption of working remotely in most industries, and it has remained at its level in most industries so far. This change has affected the nature of cities and work-life balance and transformed the employee expectations’ nature. Economies have diversified their supply chains in a bid to reduce their reliance on single sources and to build resilience against future interruptions.

3. Digital Transformation
The pandemic has compressed years of digitalization, first in the education, healthcare, retail, and finance sectors. Telemedicine, online education, and e-commerce grew at an explosive rate; access to the digital world became paramount. This shift has highlighted and aggravated the digital divide-a wave of global efforts to improve connectivity.

4. Education Systems
Lockdowns called for remote learning, which challenged the institutions to be innovative. Although it was uncomfortable for underprivileged areas, it brought about online resources and flexible learning models that change the operational model of education even to this date.

5. SWOT: Social Aspects Of Mental Health and Knowledge
Long-term isolation, social distancing and confinement infringe negatively on power of sustained social interactivity and health of mind. Mental health now also appears to be far more of a concern than it has ever been before, as the stigmatization of and the feeling of shame surrounding mental health problems appear to have decreased and people are becoming more accepting of the fact that they have mental health issues.
Most of these governments and organizations are now prioritizing the provision of mental health services and the supporting systems.

6. Environmental Awareness and Sustainability
Lockdowns revealed short-term declines in global emissions and pollution that underlined human impact on the environment: it beckoned a much stronger drive toward sustainable practices, with greater interest in green energy, conservation, and responsible consumption.

7. Global cooperation and geopolitics
As the pandemic accentuates the increasing need for global cooperation, it also led to the further escalation of geopolitical tensions, particularly with regard to vaccine distribution and the establishment of dependencies in supply chains. States are getting more entrenched in a self-reliant approach in important areas, such as healthcare and technology.

The pandemic has acted like a catalyst, catalysing trends already in place, accelerating changes that are long-term for public policy, business practices, and even individual behavior. In the best judgment I can make, these shifts have opened up new paths toward resilience, innovation, and inclusivity.

Education and community awareness programmes are grassroots initiatives that can promote caution and safety during disasters through:

Awareness raising
A little effort made towards enlightening the people about the possible threats and ways to prepare before disaster occur will make people to consider the aspect of safety before disasters are occurred.

Unfortunately some of these policies include calling for early evacuation.
Informing the people of prevention measures and how to start evacuating early will be minimizing the number of affected individuals.

Involving grassroots
Local communities may be involved in disaster operation and therefore will minimize the number of people affected.
There is a strong premise for the use of media in increasing people’s participation in disaster management processes. It could include getting time-to-time science based information for the management on the subject.

Double check on instructions can help decrease confusion at the time of disaster.

Workshops on environment: through conducting environmental workshops the issues concerning environment can be taken to the notice of the local communities and thereby make them capable of handling them own.

Introduction:

India will soon witness the urban population to attain 40.76% in the year 2030. Therefore, there is a huge relevance of the urgency of need for urbanization to heighten economic growth. It has been researched that the major cause of urban flooding includes inappropriate urban planning and climate change which was recently witnessed in Hyderabad (2020), Chennai (2015), and Bengaluru.

Causes:

1. Rapid urbanization: Unplanned urban growth and bad drainage infrastructure contribute to the increase in surface runoff causes flooding in urban regions. example- Mumbai.
2. Climate Change: Changes in rainfall patterns and climatic changes from extreme events boost the chances of urban flooding. eg- Maharashtra
3. Deforestation: Natural vegetation cover gets destroyed, and impervious surfaces increase, leading to lack of infiltration. This runoff increases with speed and overwhelms the drainage system. Conducting an assessment of the country’s annual runoff, it has been estimated that it has a spectacular increase by approximately 1.3 billion cubic meters of runoff with decreased infiltration and increased surface runoff as stated by the ICED 2022.
4. Poor Drainage Networks: Absence of maintenance, blockage, and improper design of the drainage structures slow down the water flow rates resulting in enhanced flood dangers.
5. Intrusion into Water Bodies: Construction on water bodies diminishes their storages capacity. During heavy rainfalls, the displaced water gains entry to the cities.

Preparation Mechanisms:
1. Urban Plan and Zoning: Based on relevant strategies of city planning, such as putting an emphasis on land-use zoning regulation, flood-proof construction measures can be implemented so as to decrease flood risks. Like
2. Enhanced Drains Infrastructure: Storm water, retention ponds and green infrastructure enhance the drainage including implementation of modern drainage networks as well as systems.
3. Early Warning Systems: The implementation and putting into practice of means and methods for issuing timely warnings that provide information on current rates of rainfall and flood rates facilitates taking of active responses.
4. Flood Mapping and Risk Assessment: Carrying out the flood mapping and risk assessment means that areas that are most at risk are easily identified and mitigation can be done in a formulated manner.
5. Public Education and Community Mobilization: Flood risks that are availed to the public increases the ability of communities to be defended within the societies.
6. Emergency Response Planning: Consequently floods are handled through efficient operational systems, qualified people and stock on essentials that facilitate swifter response to disasters.

What is Vulnerability?
Vulnerability has more to do than what happens direct from a disaster. It involves social and environmental factors that influence people’s capabilities in dealing with challenging events-for instance, natural hazards.

Types of Vulnerability:-
1.Tangible Vulnerability: Potential loss of crops, livestock, machinery, equipment, buildings, and infrastructure.

2.Intangible Vulnerability: Potential loss of social cohesion, community structures, cultural artifacts.

3.Socioeconomic vulnerability Poor family is socially positioned to live in hazard-prone zones, or dilapidated structures. They have low savings so after disaster they cannot get back on their feet quickly.

4.Physical / Material vulnerability: Engineering weaknesses which causes building/ bridges / dams to collapse quickly during earthquakes, cyclones et al, causing heavy casualties. Similarly, lack of building codes, hotel/homes built in flood, cyclone or earthquake prone areas is more vulnerable.

5.Motivational/Attitudinal Vulnerability: Communities with fatalistic or dependent ideologies may be more vulnerable because they can’t cooperate or recover successfully after the disaster.

6.Social/Organizational Vulnerability: Where there is a division on grounds of race, religion, and class or caste. The relief items are deprived to those on the lower rungs. Example: Bihar Kosi river floods and the lot of the scheduled castes villages concentrated.