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Introduction

Natural hazards, like natural resources, are part of the offering of our natural systems; they can be considered negative resources. In every sense natural hazards are an element of the "environmental problems" currently capturing so much public attention: they alter natural ecosystems, heighten the impact of those ecosystems' degradation, reflect the damage done by humans to their environments, and can affect large human populations.

While virtually every book about natural hazards contains a chronicle of death and destruction, a similar accounting of damage avoided is almost never included. But the effects of the disasters caused by natural hazards can be greatly reduced by action taken in advance to reduce vulnerability to them. Industrialized countries have made progress at reducing the impacts of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. For example, Hurricane Gilbert, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, was responsible for 316 fatalities, though less forceful hurricanes killed thousands of people earlier in the century. A combination of zoning restrictions and improved structures together with new prediction, monitoring, warning, and evacuation systems made the difference. Latin American and Caribbean countries have reduced loss of life from some hazards, principally through disaster preparedness and response; they now have the opportunity to reduce economic losses through mitigation in the context of development to a much greater extent than they have to date.

The disasters caused by natural hazards generate a demand for enormous amounts of capital to replace what is destroyed and damaged. The development community should address this issue because it affords, among all environmental issues, the most manageable of situations: the risks are readily identified, mitigation measures are available, and the benefits that accrue from vulnerability reduction actions are high in relation to costs.

THE TOLL

With depressing regularity, natural disasters become international headlines. Each year one or more hurricanes strike the Caribbean region. Particularly destructive ones, such as Gilbert in 1988 and Hugo in 1989, can cause billions of dollars of damage. Flooding, too, occurs annually, but no reliable estimates are available of the cost in human lives and property. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur unpredictably with disastrous effects: the mudslide precipitated by the eruption of Volcán Ruiz in Colombia in 1985 killed 21,800 people, and earthquakes in Mexico (1985) and El Salvador (1986) together killed more than 10,000. Landslides are limited in area, but occur so frequently that they account for hundreds of millions of dollars in damage every year. While not as spectacular, drought can be more harmful to agricultural production than hurricanes. After the 1971 drought, for example, banana production in Saint Lucia did not recover fully until 1976. Disaster aid, however, is scarce in the region for this type of pervasive, slow-onset hazard.

Over the past 30 years the average annual costs of natural disasters to Latin America and the Caribbean were 6,000 lives, adverse effects on 3 million people, and US$1.8 billion in physical damage. Moreover, the impacts are increasing: during the 1960s approximately 10 million people were killed, injured, displaced, or otherwise affected; the number for the 1970s was six times larger, and for the 1980s, three times larger.

A conservative estimate of the impact of disasters on the region from 1960 to 1989 is given in Figure 1. It can be seen that droughts and floods affect the largest number of people; earthquakes account for the most deaths; and earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes cause the most financial damage. Hurricanes are the most devastating natural hazard in the Caribbean region, earthquakes in the Mexico-Central America region. Floods, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes are all very destructive in South America. Figure 2 summarizes the effects of some of the worst recent disasters.

In addition to the direct social and economic impact, natural disasters can affect employment, the balance of trade, and foreign indebtedness for years after their occurrence. After Hurricane Fifi struck Honduras in 1974, for example, employment in agriculture decreased by 70 percent.1/ Funds intended for development are diverted into costly relief efforts. These indirect but profound economic effects and their drain on the limited funds now available for new investment compound the tragedy of a disaster in a developing country. Furthermore, international relief and rehabilitation assistance has been insufficient to compensate countries for their losses; during the period 1983-1988, reconstruction assistance amounted to only 13 percent of the estimated value of losses.

1/ World Bank. Memorandum on Recent Economic Development and Prospects of Honduras (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1979).

Yet natural hazards appear to generate little constituency for their prevention.

Figure 1 - IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTERS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: 1960-1989

Source: Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance/United States Agency for International Development. Disaster History. Significant Data on Major Disasters Worldwide, 1900-Present. July 1989 (Washington, D.C.: USAID/OFDA, 1989).

NATURAL HAZARDS AND DEVELOPMENT

The losses are a concern not only for the countries in which they occur but also for international lending agencies and the private sector which are interested in protecting their loans and investments. The investments are often at risk of both natural hazards and the side effects of development projects that exacerbate these hazards. For example, excessive erosion and siltation reduces the useful life of large multipurpose dams. Many smaller dams in the region also experience this type of damage: accelerated erosion caused by a hurricane filled half the storage capacity of a reservoir in the Dominican Republic virtually overnight. As a result of these concerns, one important lender, the Inter-American Development Bank, is studying the process of evaluating dam projects on the grounds that more realistic methods of estimating life expectancy and cost-benefit ratios will have to be introduced if the problem of erosion and siltation cannot be resolved satisfactorily for any project.

While the development efforts of the past have brought economic advancement to many parts of the world, they have also brought unwise or unsustainable uses of the natural resource base. Indeed, in recent years, the United Nations specialized conferences on the human environment, desertification, water management, deforestation, and human settlements all point to environmental degradation brought about by development, and the corresponding reduction in the capacity of an ecosystem to mitigate natural hazards.

Nevertheless, development agencies often continue to operate as though their activities and natural disasters were separate issues. As Gunnar Hagman points out in Prevention Better than Cure:

When a disaster has occurred, development agencies have regarded it as a nuisance and tried to avoid becoming involved; or even worse, the risk of existing or new potential hazards has been over-looked in the planning and implementation of some development activities, it is now being observed that intensive development may be the cause of many new disasters in poor countries.2/

2/ Hagman, G. Prevention Better than Cure (Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Red Cross, 1984).

Figure 2 - LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: SELECTED NATURAL HAZARD EVENTS (1983-1989)a/

Country

Year

Event type

Number of fatalities

Affected populationb/ (thousands)

Economic losses (million US$)

International assistancec/ (million US$)

Antigua & Barbuda

83

Drought

0

75.0

- -

0.44

Argentina

83

Floods

0

5,580.0

1,000.0

1.74

Bolivia



83

Floods

250

50.0

48.4

1.85

83

Drought

0

1,583.0

417.2

71.41

84

Drought

0

1,500.0

500.0

0.53

Brazil





83

Floods

143

3,330.0

12.0

0.18

83

Drought

0

20,000.0

- -

9.48

84

Floods

27

250.0

1,000.0

0.10

85

Floods

100

600.0

200.0

- -

88

Floods

289

58.6

1,000.0

0.65

Chile

85

Earthquake

180

980.0

1,500.0

9.98

Colombia



83

Earthquake

250

35.0

410.9

3.76

85

Volcano

21,800

7.7

1,000.0

22.65

88

Hurricane Joan

26

100.0

50.0

- -

Ecuador


83

Floods

307

700.0

232.1

12.68

87

Earthquake

300

150.0

- -

11.30

El Salvador

86

Earthquake

1,100

500.0

1,030.0

308.68

Eastern Caribbean Islandsd/

89

Hurricane Hugo

21

50.0

- -

11.67

Haiti

88

Hurricane Gilbert

54

870.0

91.3

3.32

Jamaica


86

Floods

54

40.0

76.0

3.41

88

Hurricane Gilbert

49

810.0

1,000.0

102.41

Mexico

85

Earthquake

8,776

100.0

4,000.0

21.70

Nicaragua

88

Hurricane Joan

120

300.0

400.0

- -

Paraguay

83

Floods

0

100.0

82.0

0.56

Peru


83

Floods

364

700.0

988.8

83.81

83

Drought

0

620.0

151.8

18.05

Venezuela

87

Landslide

96

15.0

0.8

0.03

a/ Information for all columns but International assistance was obtained from the United States Agency for International Development/Office of Foreign Disaster, Disaster History, Significant Data on Major Disasters Worldwide, 1900-Present, August 1990 (Washington, D.C.: USAID/OFDA, 1990). Damage estimates may be preliminary and therefore, other sources may show different figures.

b/ Excluding fatalities.

c/ Information obtained from United States Agency for International Development/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, OFDA Annual Report FY 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1989 (Washington, D.C.: USAID/OFDA, 1983-1989). Disaster assistance figures do not include contributions from international reconstruction loans and grants.

d/ Information obtained from a preliminary report from the United States Agency for International Development/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), "After-Action Report of the Hurricane Hugo OFDA Disaster Relief Team" (Washington, DC: OFDA, 1990).

- - Information not available.

Until quite recently, in fact, many practitioners believed that development efforts themselves would spontaneously provide solutions to problems posed by natural hazards. In 1972 the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm declared:

Environmental deficiencies generated by the conditions of underdevelopment and natural disasters pose grave problems and can best be remedied by accelerated development through the transfer of financial and technological assistance as a supplement to the domestic effort of the developing countries.

In the intervening eighteen years enormous amounts of financial aid and sustained technical assistance have been provided, but far from reducing the effects of natural disasters, development has contributed to disaster vulnerability in areas where the presence of hazards was not properly assessed.

While the link between natural disasters and development has been demonstrated repeatedly, governments and lending agencies do not yet systematically integrate the consideration of natural hazards into project preparation. Past losses and the vulnerability of infrastructure have reached such levels that in some areas development assistance consists almost entirely of disaster relief and rehabilitation. When loan proceeds are routinely programmed for reconstruction, little remains for investment in new infrastructure or economic production. Thus, recurrent disaster relief and reconstruction needs have brought about a reassessment of economic development programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, the Paraguay River Basin, and several Caribbean island countries.

There is a growing awareness that natural hazard management is a pivotal issue of development theory and practice. The United Nations has declared the 1990s the "International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction" (IDNDR) and calls on developing countries to participate actively in reducing disaster vulnerability. The OAS has endorsed the IDNDR and made natural hazard management a priority technical assistance area.

PREVENTION VERSUS RECONSTRUCTION

A key element to be addressed in this decade is the distribution of resources between disaster prevention and post-disaster efforts. Prevention, which includes structural measures (e.g., making structures more hazard-resistant) and non-structural measures (e.g., land-use restrictions), is a cost-effective means of reducing the toll on life and property. Post-disaster relief and reconstruction measures are important for humanitarian reasons, and may include improvements that are designed to prevent or mitigate future disasters. This is increasingly the case in projects funded by development financing organizations. Nevertheless, post-disaster measures are disproportionately costly for each life saved and each building reconstructed. Moreover, preventive measures in developing countries can reduce the human tragedy and the incalculable costs of lost jobs and production associated with natural disasters.

It is useful in this regard to distinguish between hazard management and disaster management. Both include the complete array of pre-event and post-event measures, but they differ in their focus. Disaster management is concerned with specific events that destroy lives and property to such an extent that international assistance is often needed. Hazard management addresses the potentially detrimental effects of all natural hazardous events, whether or not they result in a disaster; it is the more inclusive of the two terms, seeking to incorporate consideration of natural hazards in all development actions, regardless of the severity of the impact. It thus concentrates more on the analysis of hazards, the assessment of the risk they present, and the prevention and mitigation of their impact, while disaster management tends to concentrate more on preparedness, alert, rescue, relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.

Despite the clear economic and humanitarian advantages of prevention, it is relief and reconstruction measures that typically enjoy political appeal and financial support. Donor nations quickly offer sophisticated equipment and highly trained personnel for search and rescue missions. Politicians of a stricken nation gain more support from consoling disaster victims than from requesting taxes for the undramatic measures that would have avoided the disaster. Short-term efforts to address immediate needs usually take precedence over long-term disaster recovery and prevention activities, particularly given the visibility attached to the relief phase of disaster by the mass media. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that of all funds spent on natural hazard management in the region, more than 90 percent goes to saving lives during disasters and replacing lost investment; less than 10 percent goes to prevention before disasters.

The situation is similar with respect to science and technology. Increasingly, investment is directed toward prediction, monitoring, and alert technologies as opposed to basic information on the location, severity, and probability of events-the data that provide the basis for prevention measures. A sound balance must be sought between obtaining additional scientific information and applying existing information to institute mitigation measures resting chiefly on economic and political organization and process.

THE MESSAGE OF THIS BOOK

From the seven years of experience the Organization of American States through its Department of Regional Development and Environment (OAS/DRDE) has had in assisting its member states with natural hazard management and reduction of vulnerability to natural disasters, several related principles have emerged:

The impact of natural hazards can be reduced. The information and methods exist to minimize the effects of even the most sudden and forceful of hazardous events and prevent them from causing a disaster. While in some cases the event itself cannot be avoided, construction measures and location decisions can save lives and prevent damage. In other cases, such as flooding, the integration of hazard mitigation measures into development planning and investment projects may make it possible to avoid the event altogether.

Hazard mitigation pays high social and economic dividends in a region with a history of natural disasters. Mitigation measures should be seen as a basic investment, fundamental to all development projects in high-risk areas, and not as a luxury that may or may not be affordable. The vulnerability of many areas of Latin America and the Caribbean to hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, or drought is widely recognized. Planners should not ask themselves whether these events will occur, but what may happen when they do.

Hazard management is most effective in the context of integrated development planning. Traditional single-sector planning cannot maximize the benefits of mitigation techniques and may, in fact, increase the risk exposure of people and their property. Because the traditional development project often represents an isolated intervention into complex and long-standing natural and socioeconomic processes, an advance in one sector may not be accompanied by needed change in another. When natural events subsequently exert pressure, the fruits of the project may be lost to a disaster caused by the deterioration of the natural and human environment related, in turn, to the project itself.

Integrated development planning, in contrast, means a multisectoral approach. It accounts both for a change in associated sectors that share a defined physical space and for the changing relationships between sectors as the result of an intervention. Underlying the integrated approach is the assumption that change is organic and that an initiative in one sector affects the region as a whole. In its development work the OAS applies this philosophy by preparing packages of interrelated projects that reflect a balance between investment in infrastructure, productive activities, service provision, and resource management.

Natural hazard considerations should be introduced at the earliest possible stage in the development process. If a site lies in a fault zone subject to earthquakes, that should be known before it is planned for urban development. If an area considered for an irrigation project is subject to flooding, that should be taken into consideration in the formulation of the project. As natural hazard risk is identified earlier in the planning process, fewer undesirable projects will be carried forward simply on their own momentum. Mitigation measures should be introduced early, and non-structural mitigation, the most cost-effective mechanism, requires particularly early recognition of the need for land-use restrictions. Like an environmental impact statement conducted on a project already formulated, an after-the-fact natural hazard evaluation has much less value than an evaluation conducted in time to influence the original formulation of the project.

One of the roles of development assistance agencies such as the OAS is the identification and preliminary formulation of investment projects which later may be funded by international lending agencies for more advanced study and implementation. It is important that development assistance agencies incorporate hazard considerations into their part of the development process since it becomes progressively more difficult to do so in later stages.

Use Common Sense. People know the kinds of hazards that occur in their home areas. They may not know how to quantify these dangers or the best ways to mitigate them, but they understand something must be done about them.

This book is a guide to natural hazard management in the context of integrated development planning based on the accumulated experience of the OAS. It is in no sense comprehensive, but rather is confined to the experiences of the recent past in development planning in this hemisphere. Readers should also be aware that it focuses on broad strategies and methodologies, rather than specific instructions for all possible particular cases. But it is about what has proved useful in actual field work.

 

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