After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Priorities for Management of Natural Environmental Hazards 2. Prediction, Warning and Public Information for Management of Natural Environmental Hazards 3. Public Policy 4. Measures.
Priorities for Management of Natural Environmental Hazards:
The strategy for hazard mitigation embraces measures to reduce, if not eliminate, the probability or frequency of occurrence and intensity of impacts. It may be emphasized that individually or severally any one measure taken can never be effective, only a combination of measures can yield desired results.
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To ensure participation of the people of the affected/threatened area, which is extremely desirable, hazard- coping measures must be compatible with the local traditions and culture.
What is effective in the USA or Philippines, for instance, may not be appropriate in the Kumaun Himalaya. It is also imperative that the cost of the measures should be within the economic capabilities of the local people or the government. To stabilize a slope, an Indian geologist would not necessarily recommend the same technology as a Swiss geologist would do.
As the vast majority (>80%) of hazard victims belong to the poorest section of the population, deaths are primarily due to the vulnerability of the locations of settlements and to the constructional weakness of their dwellings.
Hazard-coping measures should therefore give priority to risks to the poorest sections of the community for whom the investment today is less than 5%, even though their fatality exceeds 80%.
Recognizing the priorities of the local people and appreciating their sensitivity to tradition and culture, appropriate measures of rehabilitation should incorporate providing the affected people with key materials at (subsidized) prices which they can afford and offering them expertise for building houses and engineering structures for the prevention of hazard and protection of settlements.
Prediction, Warning and Public Information for Management of Natural Environmental Hazards:
By tapping the reserve of accumulated experience of generations, by reading various signs of instability in the natural systems, by analysing various geophysical changes that take place on the ground, and by studying the erratic behaviours of insects, birds and animals who have an extraordinary perception of impending disasters, it may be possible to forewarn the people of a potentially hazardous event.
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Capability of predicting to some degree the occurrence of earthquakes has been developed in China, Japan and the USA.
At Haicheng in China a major seismic event was predicted (February 4, 1975) which otherwise would have taken a toll of lakhs of people. However, after Haicheng, the Tangshan earthquake occurred on July 28, 1976 without warning, killing 240,000 people. In the USA, the success in prediction has been only partial—the place and magnitude have been successfully predicted, but not the time.
The confident prediction of likely event is to be followed by warning the people through various media and by enforcement of a hazard-preparedness programme—including evacuation, if necessary. The public must be educated simultaneously about the nature of the hazard, the risk involved, and the likely impacts on the natural environment. This education should spur the people to voluntary action.
Brochures on the hazard-preparedness plan should be distributed beforehand among various organizations and agencies identified for mobilization of relief work, including fire-fighting, medical care and sanitation, food supply, rehabilitation and shelter, as also law and order. The plan must ensure smooth and coordinated functioning of the various agencies.
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Minimizing the Probability of Hazards:
Measures should be taken to reduce the frequency of occurrence of hazards, such as developing effective drainage systems which prevent triggering of landslides, or constructing engineering structures to protect the people and their houses from the hazard. Table 30.4 offers various methods for the abatement of hazards of different kinds, as discussed in depth by Petak and Atkisson.
Public Policy for Management of Natural Environmental Hazards:
Public policy for hazard management should include land use classification, building codes capital investments by governments, public information, education and warning. Policy plans include formulating and enforcing laws and regulations for preventing or restricting development and use of the lands prone to hazards as indicated in the hazard-zoning maps.
Since preventive and restrictive measures have proved ineffective in India, the most effective way of curbing the tendency to occupy hazardous tracts would be to impose a series of disincentives such as:
(i) Denial of government assistance for development of roads hospitals, schools, etc., in the identified hazard-prone areas,
(ii) Non-availability of loans from the banks’
(iii) Denial of essential supplies such as water and electricity, and public services such as communication lines, sewer system, bus service, etc., and
(iv) Denial of insurance against hazards, natural or man-made Alternatively, the government can acquire the areas for alternative land use such as recreation parks wildlife sanctuaries, afforestation or allowing the original owners to pursue agriculture but forbidding construction of buildings, etc. In this way productive use is made of land that is in short supply while the degree of risk is reduced.
The following policy actions involving legislative and/or administrative measures are suggested:
1. Formation of a national agency (which might be called the Natural Hazards Management Agency (NHMA)) to provide the community with all information relating to vulnerability of the areas to hazards extent and magnitude of risks and likely impacts and the mitigation measures to be taken up in time.
This can be conveyed through periodic bulletins on hazards or other media containing all the information including the hazard-zoning maps.
The Agency would plan and coordinate the efforts of different government agencies and voluntary organizations mobilized to cope with hazard relief and rehabilitation It may be emphasized that each government agency-through its normal activities-is expected to provide leadership and take action to reduce the risk and minimize impacts.
The chief of the NHMA will act as the coordinator (in the manner of the Chief Election Commissioner during elections) and help to mobilize governmental personnel and civil defence organization, and provide financial assistance for all measures, including relief, Medicare, food, sanitation, shelter, unemployment allowances, loans for economic recovery, etc.
The NHMA would develop and promote an integrated programme of hazard-zone mapping and land use classification. This programme can be pursued through academic institutions, if need be on a contractual basis. The various maps and comprehensive reports may be published and distributed among all agencies, organizations and the interested public.
The local governments should also be required to identify areas prone to any hazard and publish information regarding frequency of the hazard and magnitude of risks. Simultaneously, they should identify buildings and structures that are too dangerous for continued future use. The local governments would have their own hazard-management plan to be approved and coordinated by the NHMA.
However other kinds of problems may arise when such an agency starts functioning. The owner of the hazardous land, for instance, may claim that he is affected by loss of value of his property because of the agency’s assertion that the land is dangerous and seek legal aid to counter.
This is also true in the USA. Also of interest is the Swiss case where all property is inventoried and the existence and degree of risk are recorded in the legal offices of the authorities so that any possible buyer of land will see immediately if there is any natural hazard risk.
2. The critical parts of the identified hazard zones should be compulsorily acquired by the governments and converted to parks, forests, fuel wood farms, fodder farms horticultural gardens, etc. There is a strong need for legislation enforcing disincentives for use and occupation of the identified hazard-prone areas.
3. A distinction should be made between a critical structure and ordinary structure. A critical structure—such as a nuclear power plant or a high dam—is one whose destruction or severe damage by a natural disaster would cause such extensive damage that it should not be built even if the chance of hazard is relatively small.
An ordinary structure (e.g., a building or a bridge) might fail or cause property damage or loss of life but the destruction would not be catastrophic.
4. Governments should lay down building codes in all populated areas identified as hazard-prone.
Building standards should be enforced even by lending and mortgaging agencies, such as banks, which should not support or finance construction without first ascertaining that adequate safeguards against hazards have been incorporated into the construction plan.
Implied in this regulation is the full declaration by the applicants of reports on the state-of-the-environment of the area, including its vulnerability to hazards. There is also a need for legislation for mobilizing financial resources for monitoring, research and management of hazards.
Measures for Abatement of Natural Environmental Hazards:
A number of measures can be undertaken for abatement of Natural hazards (Table 30.3):
