"Let us refocus our attention on building community resilience through effective governance and delivery systems, appropriate risk sensitive development planning and strengthening the community capacity to cope with natural and human induced events." - Abha Mishra, UNDP, India
As many members have mentioned
we still have many more miles to travel before we have a safe world. What
has been an extremely important discovery for me is that we haven't differentiated between urban and rural approach to disaster risk reduction. Based on my experience both in rural and urban environment, I for one
believe that there are certain measures that need to be taken for the coastal
cities to ensure its safety from tsunami and extreme events.
India has
experienced exponential urban growth in the last few decades. The urban
population of India has grown from 285 million in 2001 to 377 million in 2011,
which is likely to touch 533 million by 2025. Most of India’s approximately 7,500 km long
coastal regions are low-lying and densely populated, with nearly
250 million people living within 50 km of the coast, many of them in the 130
cities and towns that together form the engine of India’s economy: Mumbai,
Kolkata, Chennai, Goa, Surat, and Thiruvananthapuram. Between 20-60% of the
populations in these individual settlement zones live in slums where they
pursue their livelihood, and this section is automatically located in areas
most vulnerable to natural disasters; areas that are already subject to
periodic flooding. (http://infochangeindia.org/environment/coastal-nightmares/coastal-cities-need-to-clean-up-their-act.html)
The unregulated growth pattern of
cities with its weak regulatory and planning regimes, and increasing number of
people living in slums, have exacerbated the urban risk exposure. Cities have
complex and inter-connected socio-technical systems where food, fuel and water
supplies, drainage, mobility, communications and health care services rely
increasingly upon uninterrupted energy provision and all-weather transport
infrastructure such as roads, bridges and railway networks. Disruption of any
of these would have repercussions on the functioning of the city and the
well-being of its residents.
I have few recommendations for the
world leaders who despite increase in the intensity and frequency of natural
disaster forget that our cities are not being built keeping in mind the
following
- Improve mechanism for enforcement of laws: Despite enactments of the various laws (DM Act Town Planning Act, Building Codes), they don’t have much to show on the ground as these legal instruments have become redundant, as they are not mandatory with rules that clearly state the roles and responsibilities of diverse agencies, or fixes accountability for lapses.
- Make Disaster Impact Assessments mandatory: Risk assessment is not undertaken based on any scientific analysis for both to existing and potential risks when under Land-use planning or formulating development programmes for the growth of the city’s leading to increased risk.
- Community to be at the centre of all development including technological advances: While technology is important for growth of the cities we sometimes that community is at the core to ensure its usability and sustainability and if it does not reach the last person it is of no use. So we need to invest in both scientific as well as support adaptation of indigenous technologies be it for early warning, preparedness or mitigation measures
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