Enhancing Resilience 2

Enhancing Resilience

David AlexanderUniversity College London

The Philippines, Japan and Mexico:the Odyssey of a disasterologist...

Philippines

Taclóban, E. Visayas Province, LeyteIsland, Philippines, four months aftercyclone Yolanda (Haiyan) 8/11/2013

The storm surge exceeded 5 metresin places, and 7,360 people died.

House occupiedby a family

Dangling pieceof concrete

Vulnerability

Collapsedsports arena

We conducted 160 interviews withsurvivors (a 97% response rate).

"Good morning - may weask you some questions?"

"Was your house damaged by thecyclone? ... It was destroyed."

"Did you build this shelter yourself? ...You did. Did you receive any help? ...No."

"Did anyone tell you how tobuild a safe shelter? ... No."

"Did you buy the materials?... You found them."

"How many people in your family? ...11 before the cyclone, 6 afterwards."

"Did you receive a warning? ... Yes.Did you evacuate? ... Women andchildren, not men. They drowned."

"Your employment situation? ...Husband was rickshaw driver before

the cyclone, you are unemployed now."

"Did you receive help fromthe Government? ... 15 kilosof rice. Is that all? ... Yes."

"From NGOs? ... 12,000 pesosfrom Tzu-Chi Foundation."

"What did you use it for?... Building materials."

"Were they more expensivethan usual? ... Yes, 30%"

Beached ships

Sea

Village

"What do you know about thereconstruction? ... Nothing."

• men were more likely to die, womenbore greatest burden in recovery

• cash distribution saved the day forsurvivors but contributed to inflation

• transitional shelter was poorlyconstructed and not hazard-proof

• links between emergency, transitionalphase and reconstruction were very poor

• opportunities to lift people out ofpoverty and destitution not taken.

Some conclusions on Tacloban

Simple, existing knowledge was not widelyutilised to make life safer for survivors.

The transitional phase between emergencyand reconstruction remains controversial.

Tacloban,Philippines

Kesennuma,Japan

Tōhoku earthquakeand tsunami11 March 201118,500 dead,6,150 injuredmax. wave height 40.5 metres500 sq. km devastated in three prefectures.

Shizugawa,Miyagi Prefecture

Cascading effects

Collateral vulnerability

Secondarydisasters

Interaction between risks

Climatechange

Probability

Indeterminacy

"Fat-tailed" (skewed)distributionsof impacts

For what magnitude and frequency ofevent should structural defences be built?

Organisation Resources

Self-organisation

Imposedorganisation

Voluntarism

Community disaster planning

Laws, protocols, directives

Standards, norms, guidelines

Communityresources

Governmentalresources

Donations

International resources

"...we had long been alarmed by the lack of gender sensitivity in plans for

disaster risk reduction and reconstruction."

Domoto, A. et al. 2013. Disaster Risk Reduction: A Japanese Women's Perspective on 3/11. Japan Women's

Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, Tokyo, 31 pp.

"Organized solely by men and operated on the basisof bureaucratic expediency, the tightly regimented shelters completely disregarded ... women’s needs."

Domoto, A. et al. 2013. Disaster Risk Reduction: A Japanese Women's Perspective on 3/11. Japan Women's

Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, Tokyo, 31 pp.

"...local community leaders, most of whom wereelderly men with outdated values, took charge."

Domoto, A. et al. 2013. Disaster Risk Reduction: A Japanese Women's Perspective on 3/11. Japan Women's

Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, Tokyo, 31 pp.

"Like most older Japanese, the women were unaccustomed to challenging authority."

Domoto, A. et al. 2013. Disaster Risk Reduction: A Japanese Women's Perspective on 3/11. Japan Women's

Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, Tokyo, 31 pp.

The disaster hasmany importantcultural connotations

Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture

Memory and commemoration

Long term

Short term

Emic components

Etic components

METAMORPHOSISOF CULTURE

Experiences of culture[mass-media and consumer culture]

Accumulated cultural traits and beliefs

Inherited cultural background

Ideological(non-scientific)interpretations

of disaster

Learned(scientific)

interpretationsof disaster

COASTALNATURALHAZARDS

The national culture of'top-down' recovery

and mitigation

JAPAN

The localspontaneousrisk aversion

culture

The localinherited

marine culture(bonds withthe sea)

The national culture ofacceptance of authority

DYNAMIC STATICOR LESS DYNAMIC

STATIC

EXPEDIENT

Etic elementsof culture

Emic elements

of culture

Areaof culturalinterpenetration

Post-Earthquake Report cardInstitutional learning: professional/bureaucratic

model (partially successful)Governance: still very top-downVolunteer organisation: progress, but starting

from a low levelCommunity organisation: weakGender issues: progress, but starting

from a low levelEnvironmentalism: poorDRR: narrow, dominated by structural solutionsDevelopments beyond Kobe 1995:

strong in certain sectorsDevelopments beyond Tōhoku 2011: limited

The rapidity of reconstruction in TōhokuRegion (7-year programme) means that many

problems will be faced after it is over,which will make them harder to resolve.

Time is socially necessary in disaster recovery.

Vending machines: the mostresilient things in Japan?

Mexico

Teziutlán

Puebla

Mexico City

5 October 1999: Aurora109 dead in landslide here

Ayotzingo: a communityreconstructed

Urban landslidingin Teziutlán

Aire Libre: house occupied by afamily threatened with landslide

Teziutlán: an emergingcivil protection system

Functionaldivisions:government,healthcare,

commerce, etc.

Hierarchicaldivisions:national,regional,local, etc.

Geographicaldivisions:catchments,jurisdictions,areas, etc.

Organisationaldivisions:police, fire, ambulance,

etc.

Divisionand

integration

PESTOR

Policies/Ethics

Strategies

Tactics

Operations

Results

Generalpublic

Public administratorsand politicians

Emergency andtechnical services

Commandfunction

organisation

Some of the indicators used to evaluatethe civil protection system in Teziutlán

System state Capabilities

Integration with

other levels and

services

Birth of the civil protection system

Nascent Very few None

Threshold of an incipient functional entity

Restricted

operationSome Limited

Threshold of widened and improved functionality

Functional Improved Significant

Threshold of excellence and efficiency

Fully efficient Comprehensive Fully integrated

Stage of

development*

0

1

2

3

4

5

EM

ER

GE

NC

E

• reveal the weakest parts of the system

• indicate where investment is needed

• help decide priorities for growth

• assess emergency response capacity

• draw an objective picture of the system.

How does evaluation of a CP system help?

Conclusions

There is no doubtthat "we live in

interesting times".

"The City of Venice joined the[UNISDR Safe Cities] Campaign

as a Role Model for cultural heritageprotection and climate change adaptation."

• corruption

• political decision-making

• shoddy building (often wilful)

• ignorance (sometimes wilful)

• seismicity.

What causes earthquake disasters?- in probable order of importance -

Organisationalsystems:management

Socialsystems:behaviour

Naturalsystems:function

Technicalsystems:

malfunction

VulnerabilityHazard

Resilienc

e

Politicalsystems:decisions

HUMANCONSEQUENCES

OF DISASTER

“ORTHODOX” MODEL

PHYSICALEVENT

HUMANVULNERABILITY

“RADICAL CRITIQUE” (K. HEWITT et al.)HUMAN

CONSEQUENCESOF DISASTER

HUMANVULNERABILITY

PHYSICALEVENT

PROPOSAL FOR A NEW MODEL

HUMANCONSEQUENCES

OF DISASTER

HUMANVULNERABILITY

CULTURE HISTORYPHYSICALEVENTS

CONTEXT & CONSEQUENCES

THE PILLARS OF MODERN LIFE

idealismprinciplebelieffaith

fanaticismultranationalismauthoritarianism

backlash

virtuecharityservicedefence of principles

unscrupulousnesscorruption

opportunismcensure

capital availabilitywealth diffusionfinancial security

financial repressiondebt burdenconsumerism

ingegnuitypragmatismtechnological progress

crass materialismgalloping consumption

pollution and wastetechnological hegemony

Ideocentrism

Morality

Luchrocentrism

Technocentrism

SPI

RIT

FLESH

PHILOSOPH

ICAL

MECHANISTIC

Positive Negative

...culturally conditioned.

Ideocentrism+ ideal: effective disaster mitigation- fanaticism: politicization of humanitarian relief

Morality+ virtue: untiring application of mitigation measures- corruption: failure to observe building codes

Luchrocentrism+ financial security: monetary reserves vs. disaster- financial repression: poverty --> vulnerability

Technocentrism+ ingenuity: new hazard monitoring systems- technological hegemony: unfair distribution of

mitigation benefits

The vulnerabilityis the hazard!

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Ishinomaki