To build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters, we need equal and active participation of men and women in disaster risk reduction.
Type:News briefs
Date:8 Mar 2011
Source:United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)
Language:English
Disasters affect men and women differently, and so we will continue to lobby for gender-sensitive vulnerability, risk and capacity assessments. Studies show that women’s vulnerabilities during and after disasters is linked to their role and status in society, making women and children 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster.
At the same time, we will work towards increasing women’s understanding, knowledge and capacity on disaster risk reduction, and of its links with other development sectors. We will continue to encourage governments to invest in discovering women’s needs, so that women are better able to prepare for, and respond to, disasters.
However, advancing gender perspectives and women’s rights is not just a job for women – more men must advocate at a high level for the empowerment of women, and for the incorporation of gender budgeting into national and local development plans.
The United Nations has increased its leadership in gender issues and UN Women has been created for concerted action in promoting gender equality in and outside the United Nations system. For its part, the UNISDR secretariat has the mandate and responsibility for gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction, in line with the Hyogo Framework for Action adopted by 168 countries at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005.
Making disaster risk reduction gender sensitive will secure the equal participation of men and women in policy making and policy implementation in disaster risk reduction, making it possible to achieve disaster-resilient nations and communities. And, as the frequency and impact of climate-related disasters increases, UNISDR is committed to building a culture of prevention that is founded on the specific needs, voices, roles, and potential of women, men, boys, and girls.
***********
Margareta Wahlström
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Disaster Risk Reduction
March 2011
Related Links
UNISDR Publications: Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction
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Tel: +41 22 917 8908/8907
Fax: +41 22 917 8964
Friday, March 11, 2011
In times of dwindling resources, disaster risk reduction is an easy win
UNISDR
Description
Posted: Thursday, March 10, 2011
In times of dwindling resources, disaster risk reduction is an easy win
Type:Press release
Date:9 Mar 2011
Source:United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)
Language:English
Geneva, Switzerland – A new report from the United Nations confirms what governments already hear but are slow to believe: that disciplined public sector involvement in “disaster risk reduction” can significantly reduce setbacks brought by hundreds of droughts, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and other hazards that befall the world each year, on average.
Released today, the “Mid-Term Review of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters,” points out that a majority of countries have roadmaps for creating and safeguarding wealth, but many are lacking capacity. In some cases, there is capacity but no legal basis for coordination among the different government sectors.
“The world needs to hear from its leaders, ‘This fragmentation leads to weakness. The political, economic and social agenda is not complete if we can’t protect our wealth from the next earthquake or storm,’” says Ms. Wahlström, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. “The report emphasizes that countries need to conduct risk assessments that lead to wiser development plans, to be carried out by institutions that are well-funded, well-coordinated and trustworthy.”
The report, written half-way through the ten-year mandate of the Hyogo Framework, analyses the findings from nine workshops around the world on disaster risk reduction, four online debates involving over 300 participants, six in-depth studies, a literature review and internal reviews conducted by major non-governmental organizations and bilateral and multilateral aid organizations.
Agreed in 2005, the Hyogo Framework for Action is the world’s only blueprint for staving off losses caused by natural hazards, often overshadowed by news on losses from war, unemployment or inflation. The earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 and New Zealand in September 2010 and February 2011, and the floods in Pakistan in July 2010 and in Australia in December 2010 are some recent examples of the devastating effects of disasters on lives and social and economic fabric of the societies.
According to the report, countries that regularly experience disasters have become more safety conscious. Those countries are now trying to ensure that disaster lessons are not forgotten, such as Japan with its National Day of Earthquake Remembrance and National Disaster Risk Reduction Day. Similar examples can be found in Bangladesh, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, and Vietnam.
Countries are also more serious about implementing the Hyogo Framework. The number of countries voluntarily reporting on progress through the “HFA Monitor,” developed after the 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, has risen since the Framework came into being in 2005. During the first reporting cycle ending in 2007, 27 governments completed reports on HFA implementation. The number grew to 77 during the second reporting cycle, ending in 2009. For the cycle ending in 2011, more than 100 reports have been initiated nationally.
Many countries also have recently enacted laws relating to disaster risk reduction, among them India, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Anguilla (UK), Gambia, Indonesia, Egypt, Philippines, Zambia and Papua New Guinea. The report however notes that countries must strive for “a senior, over-arching authority” that can set policies, be accountable for how policies are carried out and ensure enough funds to sustain work in disaster risk reduction.
Ms. Wahlström cautioned: “We are still far from having empowered individuals adopt a disaster risk reduction approach in their daily lives. We need individuals to demand that development, environmental and humanitarian policies and practices be based on sound risk reduction measures.”
When the Hyogo Framework for Action ends in 2015, a successor framework for disaster risk reduction, was indicated in the report, should be based on “solid, structural links” with sustainable development and climate change international framework agreements.
Said Ms. Wahlström: “This report provides an opportunity to catalyze discussion and focus attention on activities that must be undertaken urgently if we are to achieve the outcome expected in the Hyogo Framework for Action by 2015 and contribute to setting the agenda for the Rio+20 world summit on sustainable development, planned for 2012.”
Available here
Press Release [PDF 26.66 KB]
Download the HFA Mid-Term Review
Related Links
HFA Mid-Term Review on PreventionWeb
Description
Posted: Thursday, March 10, 2011
In times of dwindling resources, disaster risk reduction is an easy win
Type:Press release
Date:9 Mar 2011
Source:United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR)
Language:English
Geneva, Switzerland – A new report from the United Nations confirms what governments already hear but are slow to believe: that disciplined public sector involvement in “disaster risk reduction” can significantly reduce setbacks brought by hundreds of droughts, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and other hazards that befall the world each year, on average.
Released today, the “Mid-Term Review of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters,” points out that a majority of countries have roadmaps for creating and safeguarding wealth, but many are lacking capacity. In some cases, there is capacity but no legal basis for coordination among the different government sectors.
“The world needs to hear from its leaders, ‘This fragmentation leads to weakness. The political, economic and social agenda is not complete if we can’t protect our wealth from the next earthquake or storm,’” says Ms. Wahlström, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. “The report emphasizes that countries need to conduct risk assessments that lead to wiser development plans, to be carried out by institutions that are well-funded, well-coordinated and trustworthy.”
The report, written half-way through the ten-year mandate of the Hyogo Framework, analyses the findings from nine workshops around the world on disaster risk reduction, four online debates involving over 300 participants, six in-depth studies, a literature review and internal reviews conducted by major non-governmental organizations and bilateral and multilateral aid organizations.
Agreed in 2005, the Hyogo Framework for Action is the world’s only blueprint for staving off losses caused by natural hazards, often overshadowed by news on losses from war, unemployment or inflation. The earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 and New Zealand in September 2010 and February 2011, and the floods in Pakistan in July 2010 and in Australia in December 2010 are some recent examples of the devastating effects of disasters on lives and social and economic fabric of the societies.
According to the report, countries that regularly experience disasters have become more safety conscious. Those countries are now trying to ensure that disaster lessons are not forgotten, such as Japan with its National Day of Earthquake Remembrance and National Disaster Risk Reduction Day. Similar examples can be found in Bangladesh, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, and Vietnam.
Countries are also more serious about implementing the Hyogo Framework. The number of countries voluntarily reporting on progress through the “HFA Monitor,” developed after the 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, has risen since the Framework came into being in 2005. During the first reporting cycle ending in 2007, 27 governments completed reports on HFA implementation. The number grew to 77 during the second reporting cycle, ending in 2009. For the cycle ending in 2011, more than 100 reports have been initiated nationally.
Many countries also have recently enacted laws relating to disaster risk reduction, among them India, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Anguilla (UK), Gambia, Indonesia, Egypt, Philippines, Zambia and Papua New Guinea. The report however notes that countries must strive for “a senior, over-arching authority” that can set policies, be accountable for how policies are carried out and ensure enough funds to sustain work in disaster risk reduction.
Ms. Wahlström cautioned: “We are still far from having empowered individuals adopt a disaster risk reduction approach in their daily lives. We need individuals to demand that development, environmental and humanitarian policies and practices be based on sound risk reduction measures.”
When the Hyogo Framework for Action ends in 2015, a successor framework for disaster risk reduction, was indicated in the report, should be based on “solid, structural links” with sustainable development and climate change international framework agreements.
Said Ms. Wahlström: “This report provides an opportunity to catalyze discussion and focus attention on activities that must be undertaken urgently if we are to achieve the outcome expected in the Hyogo Framework for Action by 2015 and contribute to setting the agenda for the Rio+20 world summit on sustainable development, planned for 2012.”
Available here
Press Release [PDF 26.66 KB]
Download the HFA Mid-Term Review
Related Links
HFA Mid-Term Review on PreventionWeb
Managing floods through proactive governance
Managing floods through proactive governance March 2011
By N Vinod Chandra Menon
Indian officialdom is pioneering efforts to incorporate disaster management in development planning.
Art: Sworup Nhaisiju
Flood-preparedness measures are divided into structural and non-structural varieties. The former include embankments and related flood-protection walls, while the latter include measures such as zoning within floodplains, building shelters, raising the platforms of borewells and hand pumps above flood level, public-awareness campaigns and capacity-building for a range of preparedness. Forecasting and early-warning systems constitute another significant non-structural measure when dealing with flood-prone areas. In India, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has established a country-wide forecasting system, with alert information shared with all concerned state governments. During the monsoon season, data from 945 stations in the country’s 62 river sub-basins is collected, analysed and applied on a daily basis.
Let us start with a bit of historical context. During the British period, the agency mandated with disaster management in India was the Ministry of Agriculture, as the most frequent disasters in the Subcontinent were recurrent floods and famines. After Independence, the Ministry of Agriculture continued to play this role until as late as 1999, when an official review suggested formulating disaster-management plans at the national, state and district levels. One of the most significant recommendations included in the subsequent report of 2001 was to vest the Ministry of Home Affairs with responsibility for disaster management. Another important recommendation was to establish institutional mechanisms for disaster management, including an apex body at the national level and similar institutions at the state and district levels.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, in December 2004, was a major turning point in understanding the need for comprehensive disaster-management approaches. A year later, the government enacted the Disaster Management Act, following which the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA, of which this writer is a former member) was established and took on the apex role. The NDMA’s executive committee is headed by the home secretary, and its membership includes the secretaries of 14 key ministries; this body performs the tasks related to the implementation of the policy, plans and guidelines. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 also mandated the establishment of State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), headed by the chief ministers of the states of India, as well as District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs), headed by district collectors and co-chaired by the elected representative of the respective zilla parishads.
Serious challenges still remain in disseminating alert and early-warning information to flood-prone communities themselves. With the spread of new telecommunication technologies, multiple communication channels are today being used to try to get this critical information ‘the last mile’. The CWC currently operates a network of 878 hydro-meteorological observation sites and disseminates flood forecasts, alert and early-warning messages through a countrywide network of over 500 wireless stations to district authorities; this is now buttressing telephone, telex, fax, satellite and VoIP (Internet telephone) facilities for communicating early-warning messages to various authorities. This has helped to reduce the loss of lives and disruption to livelihoods to a large extent.
From the district headquarters to taluka and tehsil levels, phone, fax and wireless communication is often used. From the tehsil headquarters to villages and smaller settlements, wireless, phone and mobile phones are used. At the very lowest level, even loudspeakers are used to spread evacuation messages. These multiple channels of communication have been used by various agencies to transmit alert and early-warning messages over the past several years. In the recent past, however, innovative approaches have also been attempted by civil-society organisations in several disaster-prone areas to disseminate these messages to the community level, deploying combinations of communication media, including wireless communication supplemented by public-address systems.
The CWC has also deployed automatic water-level-monitoring sensors and tidal gauges with satellite-based transmitters. These can transmit information on rising water levels to designated control rooms, which in turn communicate with district authorities who are tasked with alerting flood-prone communities. During monsoon season, these messages are sent two or three times a day – and during peak flood situations, even hourly. Agencies such as the Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Earth Sciences also use remote sensing information to identify areas that are likely to be inundated, backed by scenario analysis and simulation models. The CWC uses 175 stations for flood forecasting, of which 147 are for river stage forecast and 28 stations are for flow forecast. These stations are spread over nine major river basins in the country. The 147 ‘river stage’ forecast stations use sensors to monitor the water levels in the rivers that flood regularly, and transmit messages to designated control rooms for onward transmission to government officials. The 28 ‘flow forecast’ stations are located at critical locations for monitoring the inflow into the rivers, especially from reservoirs that release water when their water level rises.
Heads together
Given the nature of Southasian rivers, floods in India are frequently the result of waters coming from across the borders in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet/China and Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, headed by the water ministers of both countries, has been functioning since 1972, tasked with monitoring all concerns related to common rivers. Since 1989, Kathmandu and New Delhi have been maintaining 42 monitoring stations in Nepal and 18 in India to monitor flooding situations in rivers common to the two countries. In addition, 35 stations are maintained by the Bhutanese government, which shares all such information with New Delhi.
In 2002, New Delhi and Beijing also signed an agreement for information-sharing related to water levels on the Tsangpo Siang/Brahmaputra at three sites; during the monsoon, Indian officials receive this information twice a day. In 2005, another agreement was signed with China to establish a monitoring station in Tibet on the Sutlej river (Langquin Zangbu), and again to share information with New Delhi twice a day. As envisaged in the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, India and Pakistan have created permanent posts – Commissioners for Indus Waters – in each government, and together they form the Permanent Indus Commission. India shares daily data from 280 hydrological sites in six basins of the Indus system every month with counterparts in Pakistan. For the rivers of the Indus system, India also shares priority telegrams, telephone messages and radio broadcasts with Pakistan based on monitoring. These messages are sent to the Indus Commissioner’s Office in Pakistan and, depending on the nature of the message, appropriate channels are chosen for the communication.
While these constitute relatively good starts, crossborder information needs to be made available on a real-time basis if appropriate flood-preparedness measures are to be initiated by local communities after early warnings. Trans-boundary concerns on disaster-related information-sharing have been discussed at several bilateral and regional meetings. But inter-governmental platforms (such as SAARC and ASEAN) as well as relevant institutions (such as the new SAARC Disaster Management Centre and ICIMOD, the mountain-focused agency) have yet to place adequate priority on these concerns and improve coordination for effective data-sharing. Most of these issues have been treated as concerns to be addressed bilaterally, but the solutions tend to be ones that require a regional focus. The potential of bilateral agreements has yet to reach its full strength, typically due to other contentious undercurrents between the governments.
There is also a pressing need to document successful flood-management practices, and to share this information with flood-prone communities. Eventually, there will also need to be a widespread risk assessment and vulnerability analysis of flood-prone areas, including the preparation of highly detailed base maps. In the case of most river basins, the CWC and the Ministry of Water Resources have carried out studies, but more needs to be done in terms of scenario analysis and modelling. Still, one of the most important mitigation measures remains the simple preventive maintenance of embankments and flood-protection walls. To date, embankment maintenance, desilting, canal repair and constant monitoring of field channels have been neglected by most state governments, often due to resource constraints and the low priority assigned to these tasks under a ‘business as usual’ approach.
Due to improvements in early warning and flood forecasting, district authorities in India can today initiate proactive evacuation action. In areas that face recurrent flooding, zones that can serve as temporary relief camps are identified in advance, and arrangements are being made for safe drinking water, sanitation and health facilities. Local youths are also being trained to carry out search-and-rescue operations, and to evacuate individuals caught in flooding. Training programmes and mock drills have been conducted in flood-prone areas to teach people to make rafts from locally available materials, and to prepare improvised life-saving equipment. Flood-prone communities are also being provided training in preparing emergency relief kits, and storing valuables and important documents in safe locations in their houses.
After the immediate crisis of the flooding has passed, transparency in the distribution of relief assistance to flood-affected people is widely known to improve confidence levels in affected communities. The publication of relief entitlements – on, for instance, gram panchayat notice boards – can help in ensuring that there are no leakages, and also guarantee that eligible individuals are not deprived from the assistance they are owed.
Local youth volunteers must be made aware of the possibility of the spread of water-borne diseases after the onset of floods, as hand pumps and borewells frequently become contaminated by muddy water during and after floods. Similarly, the disposal of animal carcasses and the cremation of the deceased also require special care in such situations. The caregivers in each community must be trained to provide psycho-social support and mental health care, as some of those who have lost their relatives, lands, houses or assets will undoubtedly be traumatised, and might need help to overcome their grief and trauma.
Planning ahead
In the aftermath of the Kosi floods of 2008, the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka floods of 2009 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2010, the state governments cumulatively estimated the damage caused at some INR 800 billion. If the capacities for disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response had been strong enough, most of these losses could have been prevented. For the sake of comparison, note that for the period 2005-10 around INR 213.3 billion had been earmarked for India-wide disaster management. The gap between this and the actual losses clearly highlights the strong justification for investing in strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. So far, most governments have only reacted to disasters after the fact, typically by providing relief assistance to affected communities. More recently, however, the emphasis has shifted to strengthening pre-disaster preparedness, capacity-building of local communities and introducing disaster-related risk-reduction interventions.
In the tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07), the National Planning Commission for the first time introduced a separate chapter on disaster management, which focused on looking at disasters from a development perspective. ‘Development programmes that go into promoting development at the local level have been left to the general exercise of planning,’ it read.
Measures need also to be taken to integrate disaster mitigation efforts at the local level with the general exercise of planning, and a more supportive environment created for initiatives towards managing of disasters at all levels: national, state, district and local. The future blue-print for disaster management in India rests on the premise that in today’s society while hazards, both natural or otherwise, are inevitable, the disasters that follow need not be so and the society can be prepared to cope with them effectively whenever they occur … the compounded costs of disasters relating to loss of life, loss of assets, economic activities, and cost of reconstruction of not only assets but of lives can scarcely be borne by any community or nation.
During the early stages of drawing up strategies for inclusive growth for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2008-13), the Planning Commission set up a working group chaired by a Member of the NDMA to work out ways to incorporate disaster management in development planning. Based on subsequent recommendations, the 11th Five-Year Plan extended the spirit of the transition initiated in its predecessor, aiming to give ‘impetus to projects and programmes that develop and nurture the culture of safety and the integration of disaster prevention and mitigation into the development process.’ It also noted that ‘the guidance and direction to achieve this paradigm shift’ would be expected to come specifically from the NDMA.
The Planning Commission further explained that ‘mainstreaming’ disaster management into development planning means looking at every part of that process ‘not only from the perspective of reducing the disaster vulnerability of that activity, but also from the perspective of minimising that activity’s potential contribution to the hazard.’ Examples of such an approach include zoning and urban planning, upgrading and enforcing building codes, adopting disaster-resilient building designs, expanding insurance and early warning systems, and creating additional technical competence among a range of engineers, etc.
In consultation with the Planning Commission, the NDMA and concerned ministries have worked out ways to scrutinise the incorporation of disaster management concerns in development plans throughout the central and state governments. For instance, if hospitals or school buildings have to be constructed in areas of high seismic risk, their design must incorporate earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Similarly, if roads are to be built in areas that are prone to flooding or storm surges, the specifications require that these are built in such a way that they cannot be washed away during the monsoon season or when the rains arrive. These now have to be complied with while submitting any plan proposal before the Planning Commission. In so doing, the Indian government has become one of the first in Southasia (and one of the leading examples around the world) to operationalise the mainstreaming of disaster management in development plans. The 12th Five-Year Plan is likewise expected to build on this success by institutionalising the processes within the development-planning framework in the central and state governments.
New roles
As local communities are always the first to respond to a disaster situation, the Indian government is encouraging the involvement of all stakeholders in strengthening community-based disaster management through comprehensive training programmes, public-awareness campaigns, mock drills and so on. This is one of the pillars of the National Policy for Disaster Management, as officially approved in October 2009. While formulating individual State Disaster Management Policies, many state governments have also started to apply these principles for emphasising communities in disaster preparedness, disaster-related risk reduction, mitigation and emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery.
Over the past few years, disaster situations in India have also witnessed changing roles of women, from passive victims to agents of social change. During the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, women in many villages mobilised their own savings to provide necessary support to affected communities, and even financed some risk-reduction initiatives for their villages. This transformed the quality of life of the disaster-prone communities through large scale social-mobilisation efforts. Examples can be seen in improved levels of confidence and community resilience among women’s groups in many disaster-prone communities, and the success stories of replication of Community Disaster Resilience Funds in thousands of villages due to women-led initiatives in several states.
Special efforts are also being made to create a culture of disaster preparedness, mitigation, risk reduction and emergency response among children and youths, including through changes to curricula. The Committee on Boards of Secondary Education, the All India Council on Technical Education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the University Grants Commission, the Indian Medical Council and others have reviewed the curricula of relevant educational programmes by setting up expert working groups, and carried out necessary revisions in the curricula of schools, higher education and professional education. Special efforts are also being made to involve youths in NCC, NSS and Nehru Yuvak Kendra (a voluntary youth organisation supported by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, with state, district and sub-district presence) in improving disaster preparedness in their neighbourhoods.
An empowered community – one that is aware about the disaster-related vulnerability of their local area and capable enough to address the challenges of establishing temporary relief camps, providing safe drinking water, sanitation and health services, and managing a system of transparent assessment of damages and distribution of relief assistance – is clearly one of the most important parts of any effective disaster-management system. Public awareness campaigns and capacity-building initiatives are being launched with the help of elected representatives, NGOs, self-help groups and related small-scale organisations. Due to the myriad experiences that have evolved through the years, successful coping strategies of communities which have been living with floods historically will have to be documented and widely shared.
Fragile governance systems will always pose serious challenges in improved flood preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. In the context of disaster management, good governance (especially transparency, accountability, inclusion, non-discrimination, etc) cannot be left as a responsibility of the government alone. Rather, besides the community, corporate sector, civil society and multi-disciplinary professionals all have to contribute to identify possible emerging risks and vulnerabilities, developing worst-case scenarios and preparing to face them in advance by developing local capacities through training, mock drills, awareness campaigns, participatory risk assessment and vulnerability analysis exercises, and capturing the wisdom of elderly people in understanding coping strategies. Natural disasters are often caused by human interference with nature, and also by lack of effective coordination among multiple entities with overlapping mandates. Recent experiences thus underline a need to carry out frank diagnostics of the failure of governance systems in disaster-prone areas.
The impact of the various planning interventions mentioned above is already being seen, in reducing the loss of lives due to flooding in several parts of India. Even though the lives of about 200 million people are affected by floods during the worst such years in India, the number of lives lost due to flooding has been declining. The real challenge continues to be to reduce the economic damage caused by the floods, especially by reducing the number of houses, the hundreds of kilometres of roads and the community assets and rural infrastructure destroyed and damaged by flooding every year. Even though efforts have begun in mainstreaming disaster management in development planning at the national level, the institutionalisation of these efforts at the state, district and sub-district levels continue to remain serious challenges. The involvement of all stakeholder groups is required to meet these challenges in making disaster-prone communities take greater responsibility for disaster risk reduction in their local neighbourhoods.
-- N Vinod Chandra Menon is a former member of the Indian government’s National Disaster.
By N Vinod Chandra Menon
Indian officialdom is pioneering efforts to incorporate disaster management in development planning.
Art: Sworup Nhaisiju
Flood-preparedness measures are divided into structural and non-structural varieties. The former include embankments and related flood-protection walls, while the latter include measures such as zoning within floodplains, building shelters, raising the platforms of borewells and hand pumps above flood level, public-awareness campaigns and capacity-building for a range of preparedness. Forecasting and early-warning systems constitute another significant non-structural measure when dealing with flood-prone areas. In India, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has established a country-wide forecasting system, with alert information shared with all concerned state governments. During the monsoon season, data from 945 stations in the country’s 62 river sub-basins is collected, analysed and applied on a daily basis.
Let us start with a bit of historical context. During the British period, the agency mandated with disaster management in India was the Ministry of Agriculture, as the most frequent disasters in the Subcontinent were recurrent floods and famines. After Independence, the Ministry of Agriculture continued to play this role until as late as 1999, when an official review suggested formulating disaster-management plans at the national, state and district levels. One of the most significant recommendations included in the subsequent report of 2001 was to vest the Ministry of Home Affairs with responsibility for disaster management. Another important recommendation was to establish institutional mechanisms for disaster management, including an apex body at the national level and similar institutions at the state and district levels.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, in December 2004, was a major turning point in understanding the need for comprehensive disaster-management approaches. A year later, the government enacted the Disaster Management Act, following which the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA, of which this writer is a former member) was established and took on the apex role. The NDMA’s executive committee is headed by the home secretary, and its membership includes the secretaries of 14 key ministries; this body performs the tasks related to the implementation of the policy, plans and guidelines. The Disaster Management Act of 2005 also mandated the establishment of State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs), headed by the chief ministers of the states of India, as well as District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs), headed by district collectors and co-chaired by the elected representative of the respective zilla parishads.
Serious challenges still remain in disseminating alert and early-warning information to flood-prone communities themselves. With the spread of new telecommunication technologies, multiple communication channels are today being used to try to get this critical information ‘the last mile’. The CWC currently operates a network of 878 hydro-meteorological observation sites and disseminates flood forecasts, alert and early-warning messages through a countrywide network of over 500 wireless stations to district authorities; this is now buttressing telephone, telex, fax, satellite and VoIP (Internet telephone) facilities for communicating early-warning messages to various authorities. This has helped to reduce the loss of lives and disruption to livelihoods to a large extent.
From the district headquarters to taluka and tehsil levels, phone, fax and wireless communication is often used. From the tehsil headquarters to villages and smaller settlements, wireless, phone and mobile phones are used. At the very lowest level, even loudspeakers are used to spread evacuation messages. These multiple channels of communication have been used by various agencies to transmit alert and early-warning messages over the past several years. In the recent past, however, innovative approaches have also been attempted by civil-society organisations in several disaster-prone areas to disseminate these messages to the community level, deploying combinations of communication media, including wireless communication supplemented by public-address systems.
The CWC has also deployed automatic water-level-monitoring sensors and tidal gauges with satellite-based transmitters. These can transmit information on rising water levels to designated control rooms, which in turn communicate with district authorities who are tasked with alerting flood-prone communities. During monsoon season, these messages are sent two or three times a day – and during peak flood situations, even hourly. Agencies such as the Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Earth Sciences also use remote sensing information to identify areas that are likely to be inundated, backed by scenario analysis and simulation models. The CWC uses 175 stations for flood forecasting, of which 147 are for river stage forecast and 28 stations are for flow forecast. These stations are spread over nine major river basins in the country. The 147 ‘river stage’ forecast stations use sensors to monitor the water levels in the rivers that flood regularly, and transmit messages to designated control rooms for onward transmission to government officials. The 28 ‘flow forecast’ stations are located at critical locations for monitoring the inflow into the rivers, especially from reservoirs that release water when their water level rises.
Heads together
Given the nature of Southasian rivers, floods in India are frequently the result of waters coming from across the borders in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet/China and Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, headed by the water ministers of both countries, has been functioning since 1972, tasked with monitoring all concerns related to common rivers. Since 1989, Kathmandu and New Delhi have been maintaining 42 monitoring stations in Nepal and 18 in India to monitor flooding situations in rivers common to the two countries. In addition, 35 stations are maintained by the Bhutanese government, which shares all such information with New Delhi.
In 2002, New Delhi and Beijing also signed an agreement for information-sharing related to water levels on the Tsangpo Siang/Brahmaputra at three sites; during the monsoon, Indian officials receive this information twice a day. In 2005, another agreement was signed with China to establish a monitoring station in Tibet on the Sutlej river (Langquin Zangbu), and again to share information with New Delhi twice a day. As envisaged in the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, India and Pakistan have created permanent posts – Commissioners for Indus Waters – in each government, and together they form the Permanent Indus Commission. India shares daily data from 280 hydrological sites in six basins of the Indus system every month with counterparts in Pakistan. For the rivers of the Indus system, India also shares priority telegrams, telephone messages and radio broadcasts with Pakistan based on monitoring. These messages are sent to the Indus Commissioner’s Office in Pakistan and, depending on the nature of the message, appropriate channels are chosen for the communication.
While these constitute relatively good starts, crossborder information needs to be made available on a real-time basis if appropriate flood-preparedness measures are to be initiated by local communities after early warnings. Trans-boundary concerns on disaster-related information-sharing have been discussed at several bilateral and regional meetings. But inter-governmental platforms (such as SAARC and ASEAN) as well as relevant institutions (such as the new SAARC Disaster Management Centre and ICIMOD, the mountain-focused agency) have yet to place adequate priority on these concerns and improve coordination for effective data-sharing. Most of these issues have been treated as concerns to be addressed bilaterally, but the solutions tend to be ones that require a regional focus. The potential of bilateral agreements has yet to reach its full strength, typically due to other contentious undercurrents between the governments.
There is also a pressing need to document successful flood-management practices, and to share this information with flood-prone communities. Eventually, there will also need to be a widespread risk assessment and vulnerability analysis of flood-prone areas, including the preparation of highly detailed base maps. In the case of most river basins, the CWC and the Ministry of Water Resources have carried out studies, but more needs to be done in terms of scenario analysis and modelling. Still, one of the most important mitigation measures remains the simple preventive maintenance of embankments and flood-protection walls. To date, embankment maintenance, desilting, canal repair and constant monitoring of field channels have been neglected by most state governments, often due to resource constraints and the low priority assigned to these tasks under a ‘business as usual’ approach.
Due to improvements in early warning and flood forecasting, district authorities in India can today initiate proactive evacuation action. In areas that face recurrent flooding, zones that can serve as temporary relief camps are identified in advance, and arrangements are being made for safe drinking water, sanitation and health facilities. Local youths are also being trained to carry out search-and-rescue operations, and to evacuate individuals caught in flooding. Training programmes and mock drills have been conducted in flood-prone areas to teach people to make rafts from locally available materials, and to prepare improvised life-saving equipment. Flood-prone communities are also being provided training in preparing emergency relief kits, and storing valuables and important documents in safe locations in their houses.
After the immediate crisis of the flooding has passed, transparency in the distribution of relief assistance to flood-affected people is widely known to improve confidence levels in affected communities. The publication of relief entitlements – on, for instance, gram panchayat notice boards – can help in ensuring that there are no leakages, and also guarantee that eligible individuals are not deprived from the assistance they are owed.
Local youth volunteers must be made aware of the possibility of the spread of water-borne diseases after the onset of floods, as hand pumps and borewells frequently become contaminated by muddy water during and after floods. Similarly, the disposal of animal carcasses and the cremation of the deceased also require special care in such situations. The caregivers in each community must be trained to provide psycho-social support and mental health care, as some of those who have lost their relatives, lands, houses or assets will undoubtedly be traumatised, and might need help to overcome their grief and trauma.
Planning ahead
In the aftermath of the Kosi floods of 2008, the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka floods of 2009 and the Uttarakhand floods of 2010, the state governments cumulatively estimated the damage caused at some INR 800 billion. If the capacities for disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response had been strong enough, most of these losses could have been prevented. For the sake of comparison, note that for the period 2005-10 around INR 213.3 billion had been earmarked for India-wide disaster management. The gap between this and the actual losses clearly highlights the strong justification for investing in strengthening disaster preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. So far, most governments have only reacted to disasters after the fact, typically by providing relief assistance to affected communities. More recently, however, the emphasis has shifted to strengthening pre-disaster preparedness, capacity-building of local communities and introducing disaster-related risk-reduction interventions.
In the tenth Five-Year Plan (2002-07), the National Planning Commission for the first time introduced a separate chapter on disaster management, which focused on looking at disasters from a development perspective. ‘Development programmes that go into promoting development at the local level have been left to the general exercise of planning,’ it read.
Measures need also to be taken to integrate disaster mitigation efforts at the local level with the general exercise of planning, and a more supportive environment created for initiatives towards managing of disasters at all levels: national, state, district and local. The future blue-print for disaster management in India rests on the premise that in today’s society while hazards, both natural or otherwise, are inevitable, the disasters that follow need not be so and the society can be prepared to cope with them effectively whenever they occur … the compounded costs of disasters relating to loss of life, loss of assets, economic activities, and cost of reconstruction of not only assets but of lives can scarcely be borne by any community or nation.
During the early stages of drawing up strategies for inclusive growth for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2008-13), the Planning Commission set up a working group chaired by a Member of the NDMA to work out ways to incorporate disaster management in development planning. Based on subsequent recommendations, the 11th Five-Year Plan extended the spirit of the transition initiated in its predecessor, aiming to give ‘impetus to projects and programmes that develop and nurture the culture of safety and the integration of disaster prevention and mitigation into the development process.’ It also noted that ‘the guidance and direction to achieve this paradigm shift’ would be expected to come specifically from the NDMA.
The Planning Commission further explained that ‘mainstreaming’ disaster management into development planning means looking at every part of that process ‘not only from the perspective of reducing the disaster vulnerability of that activity, but also from the perspective of minimising that activity’s potential contribution to the hazard.’ Examples of such an approach include zoning and urban planning, upgrading and enforcing building codes, adopting disaster-resilient building designs, expanding insurance and early warning systems, and creating additional technical competence among a range of engineers, etc.
In consultation with the Planning Commission, the NDMA and concerned ministries have worked out ways to scrutinise the incorporation of disaster management concerns in development plans throughout the central and state governments. For instance, if hospitals or school buildings have to be constructed in areas of high seismic risk, their design must incorporate earthquake-resistant construction techniques. Similarly, if roads are to be built in areas that are prone to flooding or storm surges, the specifications require that these are built in such a way that they cannot be washed away during the monsoon season or when the rains arrive. These now have to be complied with while submitting any plan proposal before the Planning Commission. In so doing, the Indian government has become one of the first in Southasia (and one of the leading examples around the world) to operationalise the mainstreaming of disaster management in development plans. The 12th Five-Year Plan is likewise expected to build on this success by institutionalising the processes within the development-planning framework in the central and state governments.
New roles
As local communities are always the first to respond to a disaster situation, the Indian government is encouraging the involvement of all stakeholders in strengthening community-based disaster management through comprehensive training programmes, public-awareness campaigns, mock drills and so on. This is one of the pillars of the National Policy for Disaster Management, as officially approved in October 2009. While formulating individual State Disaster Management Policies, many state governments have also started to apply these principles for emphasising communities in disaster preparedness, disaster-related risk reduction, mitigation and emergency response, rehabilitation and recovery.
Over the past few years, disaster situations in India have also witnessed changing roles of women, from passive victims to agents of social change. During the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, women in many villages mobilised their own savings to provide necessary support to affected communities, and even financed some risk-reduction initiatives for their villages. This transformed the quality of life of the disaster-prone communities through large scale social-mobilisation efforts. Examples can be seen in improved levels of confidence and community resilience among women’s groups in many disaster-prone communities, and the success stories of replication of Community Disaster Resilience Funds in thousands of villages due to women-led initiatives in several states.
Special efforts are also being made to create a culture of disaster preparedness, mitigation, risk reduction and emergency response among children and youths, including through changes to curricula. The Committee on Boards of Secondary Education, the All India Council on Technical Education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the University Grants Commission, the Indian Medical Council and others have reviewed the curricula of relevant educational programmes by setting up expert working groups, and carried out necessary revisions in the curricula of schools, higher education and professional education. Special efforts are also being made to involve youths in NCC, NSS and Nehru Yuvak Kendra (a voluntary youth organisation supported by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, with state, district and sub-district presence) in improving disaster preparedness in their neighbourhoods.
An empowered community – one that is aware about the disaster-related vulnerability of their local area and capable enough to address the challenges of establishing temporary relief camps, providing safe drinking water, sanitation and health services, and managing a system of transparent assessment of damages and distribution of relief assistance – is clearly one of the most important parts of any effective disaster-management system. Public awareness campaigns and capacity-building initiatives are being launched with the help of elected representatives, NGOs, self-help groups and related small-scale organisations. Due to the myriad experiences that have evolved through the years, successful coping strategies of communities which have been living with floods historically will have to be documented and widely shared.
Fragile governance systems will always pose serious challenges in improved flood preparedness, mitigation and emergency response. In the context of disaster management, good governance (especially transparency, accountability, inclusion, non-discrimination, etc) cannot be left as a responsibility of the government alone. Rather, besides the community, corporate sector, civil society and multi-disciplinary professionals all have to contribute to identify possible emerging risks and vulnerabilities, developing worst-case scenarios and preparing to face them in advance by developing local capacities through training, mock drills, awareness campaigns, participatory risk assessment and vulnerability analysis exercises, and capturing the wisdom of elderly people in understanding coping strategies. Natural disasters are often caused by human interference with nature, and also by lack of effective coordination among multiple entities with overlapping mandates. Recent experiences thus underline a need to carry out frank diagnostics of the failure of governance systems in disaster-prone areas.
The impact of the various planning interventions mentioned above is already being seen, in reducing the loss of lives due to flooding in several parts of India. Even though the lives of about 200 million people are affected by floods during the worst such years in India, the number of lives lost due to flooding has been declining. The real challenge continues to be to reduce the economic damage caused by the floods, especially by reducing the number of houses, the hundreds of kilometres of roads and the community assets and rural infrastructure destroyed and damaged by flooding every year. Even though efforts have begun in mainstreaming disaster management in development planning at the national level, the institutionalisation of these efforts at the state, district and sub-district levels continue to remain serious challenges. The involvement of all stakeholder groups is required to meet these challenges in making disaster-prone communities take greater responsibility for disaster risk reduction in their local neighbourhoods.
-- N Vinod Chandra Menon is a former member of the Indian government’s National Disaster.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Use of technology for emergency response
Minutes after the February 22, 2011, earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, our power lines and water supply stopped working. For those with a battery-operated radio, news of the unfolding disaster was still available, minus images on television. Others like me, with an MP3 player that could also get on radio, were limited by the battery-life of the player itself. Most emergency lines were jammed for the first few hours following the disaster as people came to terms with what had happened, the news spread and calls poured in to establish the safety of loved ones.
In the week following February 22, we were stranded in Christchurch with dying cell-phones and no access to basic human necessities, including water and sewage. Information about the location of hot food, portable toilets, drinking water, first-aid services and medical supplies was not spreading quickly enough to reach us, as we were living in one of the worst-hit suburbs in the city. Calling emergency services, the power company, the Red Cross and other groups with toll-free lines led to massive confusion on when they expected the services to be up. The law and order situation was one of concern to us, being foreigners, trapped in a dark house, with cumulative loss of sleep when most neighbours had left to be with friends in safer places.
Through the whole time, what struck me as most odd was that not one mass-SMS was sent to inform citizens about where they could access resources. The use of technology in times of disaster can be very crucial, especially when considering human density in places such as India where the loss of life in natural disasters is huge. I had been through one other emergency such as this one, when I was a graduate student during the twin tower bombings on September 11, 2001. I was at college in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was a good ten-hour drive from New York. However, the memories of that night, with parents of many friends calling me from India, when they couldn't reach their children, will never leave me. In terms of co-location, for the parents of my friends in India, I was the closest to the emergency.
Proactive crowdsourcing
Both natural disasters and emergencies, especially ones that lead to massive loss of life, bear inspection in terms of how to utilise technology to mitigate some portions of the anxiety and uncertainty that follow such an occurrence. In this article, I explore an idea from my dissertation titled Proactive Crowdsourcing which proposes Location-Based Services in non-commercial spheres such as Emergency Response.
Most proposals for managing emergencies, except in the areas of surveillance, are reactive in nature. This curbs their effectiveness by several orders of magnitude. In the case of emergency management, the need of the hour is to enable more proactive solutions. Crowdsourcing is a term used to describe de-centralising operations and trusting the work to the co-ordinated actions of a crowd. Instead of an Emergency Services provider waiting until the emergency has occurred, assessing the nature of the problem and then deploying resources, if they could instead rely on citizens co-located with the emergency, the management of the emergency would become more agile and effective. Users co-located with the emergency are, arguably, the best sources of information on what might be needed to mitigate the effects.
Sometimes, the requirements are not intuitive and no amount of surveillance or pre and post-op training can predict the needs of the people affected by the disaster. For example, in the case of Hurricane Katrina, one of the biggest requirements that the responders fell short of was ice! Enhanced 911 (or E-911) was proposed in order to link people at the time of an emergency to critical resources. Reverse 911 is another example of a public safety communications system that was built to communicate with people within certain geographies where a database of phone numbers and associated addresses are used to identify citizens co-located with emergencies. Both E-911 and Reverse 911 fall in the category of reactive systems or approaches to the problem. In the case of Reverse 911, the biggest barrier to effectiveness is that in case of a fire in San Diego, locating all households in San Diego en masse may not be the most efficient action plan. There might potentially be several people that have travelled to San Diego from surrounding areas or from afar and locating them is best achieved via a cell-phone, rather than fixed geographical and list-based approaches.
In the February 22, 2011, earthquake, on day two, some of our neighbours opened up well-water from their private wells for people to use for drinking (after boiling) or doing their washing. This was a very localised service and there was no way to intimate people. Word-of-mouth did the job in this case and these wells proved to be invaluable in the emergency, especially from the perspective of elderly citizens and people with children, who couldn't go very far to fetch water and had no information on when the water trucks would reach their neighbourhoods. In this case, Proactive Crowdsourcing might have involved Civil Defence deploying a small team of information specialists in conjunction with the Telecom companies to accept news from locals who were offering up well-water and re-sending the same as a mass SMS to citizens in the area who wanted to avail the service.
This is just one of many examples for, as the days went on (we stayed in Christchurch for six days after the emergency), it was pretty much down to neighbour helping neighbour with everything, from well water to cooking gas to barbeque ranges to short-term generators or rides for free food that was being offered by local churches. Two Web sites came into play on days 5 and 6 following the earthquake, which monitored the location of twitter messages within Christchurch and tracked the locations of the aftershocks. The Internet, while a great source of information, is limited to people with powerful/smart phones that are browser-enabled, which are often not the most ubiquitous models to program for.
Watch out for unruly elements
One of the most obvious problems that arise from allowing citizens to send messages are the unruly elements, who impersonate or send wrong information out. There were many cases reported of people impersonating earthquake victims and Urban Search and Rescue officials, amongst many others. With SMS-es that citizens send to disseminate information about local services, one intuitive way to verify authenticity would be to match the location from which the SMS is sent to the location that the registered phone user (provided they consent to this) might have in the provider's address database. The other method would be to build a reputation vector around the person that is sending the message, either by checking their immediate social network (to establish cranks with brand new phones) or by polling for more information for identification and verification by Civil Defence to establish the authenticity of the sender and then send mass SMS-es to other people in the vicinity.
The first responders during the Latur (Maharashtra) quake were Amateur Radio Operators from Mumbai and Hyderabad, which is a great example of an ad hoc network which starts with information from local citizens. In this context, there is a prevalence of language barriers and low-cost handsets which are more popular. It is unlikely that in India, people would flick on their iPhones and send Twitter messages in the case of a large-scale disaster or even that those that did would represent the majority demographic affected by it. India has one of the best coverage numbers when it comes to cell-phone usage. The use of low-cost, non-GPS enabled handsets, however, means that it would be up to the Telecom Services Providers to enable one or more services that utilise proactive Crowdsourcing, as they have the most information about the location of callers with respect to cell-sites which they have installed.
The notion of Crowdsourcing can also extend to other aspects of emergency management. Consider a situation where two adjoining counties (or administrative domains) are involved in an emergency. To best handle the situation, it might be beneficial for the two counties to work in tandem to share their pool of resources and allocate resources based on the shortest path to the site rather than dealing with bureaucratic limitations. This is particularly important when local citizen groups (such as neighbourhood watch patrols) have to communicate to pool resources.
In the time we had to understand the magnitude of what happened on February 22, 2011, and grasp how the situation might unfold and make decisions about our own personal safety, the most helpful thing in the first 36 hours would probably have been an SMS, as all other modes of communication were down. Proper laws and regulations to seek cell-phone subscribers' consent to contacting them at the time of an emergency and ensuring that any state or private organisation does not compromise a citizen's long-term safety would also be paramount to enabling such ideas.
The author is founder of PatNMarks, an intellectual property consulting firm, and a faculty member in Computer Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology.
In the week following February 22, we were stranded in Christchurch with dying cell-phones and no access to basic human necessities, including water and sewage. Information about the location of hot food, portable toilets, drinking water, first-aid services and medical supplies was not spreading quickly enough to reach us, as we were living in one of the worst-hit suburbs in the city. Calling emergency services, the power company, the Red Cross and other groups with toll-free lines led to massive confusion on when they expected the services to be up. The law and order situation was one of concern to us, being foreigners, trapped in a dark house, with cumulative loss of sleep when most neighbours had left to be with friends in safer places.
Through the whole time, what struck me as most odd was that not one mass-SMS was sent to inform citizens about where they could access resources. The use of technology in times of disaster can be very crucial, especially when considering human density in places such as India where the loss of life in natural disasters is huge. I had been through one other emergency such as this one, when I was a graduate student during the twin tower bombings on September 11, 2001. I was at college in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was a good ten-hour drive from New York. However, the memories of that night, with parents of many friends calling me from India, when they couldn't reach their children, will never leave me. In terms of co-location, for the parents of my friends in India, I was the closest to the emergency.
Proactive crowdsourcing
Both natural disasters and emergencies, especially ones that lead to massive loss of life, bear inspection in terms of how to utilise technology to mitigate some portions of the anxiety and uncertainty that follow such an occurrence. In this article, I explore an idea from my dissertation titled Proactive Crowdsourcing which proposes Location-Based Services in non-commercial spheres such as Emergency Response.
Most proposals for managing emergencies, except in the areas of surveillance, are reactive in nature. This curbs their effectiveness by several orders of magnitude. In the case of emergency management, the need of the hour is to enable more proactive solutions. Crowdsourcing is a term used to describe de-centralising operations and trusting the work to the co-ordinated actions of a crowd. Instead of an Emergency Services provider waiting until the emergency has occurred, assessing the nature of the problem and then deploying resources, if they could instead rely on citizens co-located with the emergency, the management of the emergency would become more agile and effective. Users co-located with the emergency are, arguably, the best sources of information on what might be needed to mitigate the effects.
Sometimes, the requirements are not intuitive and no amount of surveillance or pre and post-op training can predict the needs of the people affected by the disaster. For example, in the case of Hurricane Katrina, one of the biggest requirements that the responders fell short of was ice! Enhanced 911 (or E-911) was proposed in order to link people at the time of an emergency to critical resources. Reverse 911 is another example of a public safety communications system that was built to communicate with people within certain geographies where a database of phone numbers and associated addresses are used to identify citizens co-located with emergencies. Both E-911 and Reverse 911 fall in the category of reactive systems or approaches to the problem. In the case of Reverse 911, the biggest barrier to effectiveness is that in case of a fire in San Diego, locating all households in San Diego en masse may not be the most efficient action plan. There might potentially be several people that have travelled to San Diego from surrounding areas or from afar and locating them is best achieved via a cell-phone, rather than fixed geographical and list-based approaches.
In the February 22, 2011, earthquake, on day two, some of our neighbours opened up well-water from their private wells for people to use for drinking (after boiling) or doing their washing. This was a very localised service and there was no way to intimate people. Word-of-mouth did the job in this case and these wells proved to be invaluable in the emergency, especially from the perspective of elderly citizens and people with children, who couldn't go very far to fetch water and had no information on when the water trucks would reach their neighbourhoods. In this case, Proactive Crowdsourcing might have involved Civil Defence deploying a small team of information specialists in conjunction with the Telecom companies to accept news from locals who were offering up well-water and re-sending the same as a mass SMS to citizens in the area who wanted to avail the service.
This is just one of many examples for, as the days went on (we stayed in Christchurch for six days after the emergency), it was pretty much down to neighbour helping neighbour with everything, from well water to cooking gas to barbeque ranges to short-term generators or rides for free food that was being offered by local churches. Two Web sites came into play on days 5 and 6 following the earthquake, which monitored the location of twitter messages within Christchurch and tracked the locations of the aftershocks. The Internet, while a great source of information, is limited to people with powerful/smart phones that are browser-enabled, which are often not the most ubiquitous models to program for.
Watch out for unruly elements
One of the most obvious problems that arise from allowing citizens to send messages are the unruly elements, who impersonate or send wrong information out. There were many cases reported of people impersonating earthquake victims and Urban Search and Rescue officials, amongst many others. With SMS-es that citizens send to disseminate information about local services, one intuitive way to verify authenticity would be to match the location from which the SMS is sent to the location that the registered phone user (provided they consent to this) might have in the provider's address database. The other method would be to build a reputation vector around the person that is sending the message, either by checking their immediate social network (to establish cranks with brand new phones) or by polling for more information for identification and verification by Civil Defence to establish the authenticity of the sender and then send mass SMS-es to other people in the vicinity.
The first responders during the Latur (Maharashtra) quake were Amateur Radio Operators from Mumbai and Hyderabad, which is a great example of an ad hoc network which starts with information from local citizens. In this context, there is a prevalence of language barriers and low-cost handsets which are more popular. It is unlikely that in India, people would flick on their iPhones and send Twitter messages in the case of a large-scale disaster or even that those that did would represent the majority demographic affected by it. India has one of the best coverage numbers when it comes to cell-phone usage. The use of low-cost, non-GPS enabled handsets, however, means that it would be up to the Telecom Services Providers to enable one or more services that utilise proactive Crowdsourcing, as they have the most information about the location of callers with respect to cell-sites which they have installed.
The notion of Crowdsourcing can also extend to other aspects of emergency management. Consider a situation where two adjoining counties (or administrative domains) are involved in an emergency. To best handle the situation, it might be beneficial for the two counties to work in tandem to share their pool of resources and allocate resources based on the shortest path to the site rather than dealing with bureaucratic limitations. This is particularly important when local citizen groups (such as neighbourhood watch patrols) have to communicate to pool resources.
In the time we had to understand the magnitude of what happened on February 22, 2011, and grasp how the situation might unfold and make decisions about our own personal safety, the most helpful thing in the first 36 hours would probably have been an SMS, as all other modes of communication were down. Proper laws and regulations to seek cell-phone subscribers' consent to contacting them at the time of an emergency and ensuring that any state or private organisation does not compromise a citizen's long-term safety would also be paramount to enabling such ideas.
The author is founder of PatNMarks, an intellectual property consulting firm, and a faculty member in Computer Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Mining, deforestation cause severe drought in Jharkhand
Mining, deforestation cause severe drought | The Asian Age>
2 days ago - Mining, deforestation cause severe drought. Mar 05, 2011 | ... mining of coal, iron ore and bauxite has created a huge water scarcity in Jharkhand. ...
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DAE claims Tarapur spent fuel rods not a health hazard | The Asian ...
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Natural Disasters | India Environment Portal - 6 visits - 2 Mar
3 days ago - Mining, deforestation cause severe drought. Massive deforestation and unchecked mining of coal ... Drought hit. Villages in Jharkhand could go dry by March. ...
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6 days ago - Mining, deforestation cause severe drought · DAE claims Tarapur spent fuel rods not a health .... Jharkhand's water table falls three metres in one year ...
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Deforestation - Rainforests
7 hours ago - What are some examples of activities that cause deforestation? ....(02/01/2011) Hundreds of mining and oil palm plantation companies are operating ...
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India evacuates more than 3000 from Libya | Deccan Chronicle ...
5 days ago - "This escape of mine makes me feel I am in heaven," said Mohammed Sali, 63, an engineer. ... Mining, deforestation cause severe drought ...
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Haq News Photos Videos - Rediff.com
1 day ago - Massive deforestation and unchecked mining of coal, iron ore and bauxite has created a huge water scarcity in Jharkhand. The result is that for the... ... http://www.asianage.com/india/mining-deforestation-cause-severe-drought-256 ...
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3 days ago - He also added that diclofenac was first thought to cause thanatosis, ... Gujarat High Court Orders to Stop Mining Activities Within National Parks .... I personally feel that Orissa, Jharkhand, and other states affected by the threat .... However, due to displacement of communities, drought in some areas may have ...
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Deforestation - TipThePlanet
4 days ago - Gold mining, for example, is one of the main causes of deforestation in the Amazon. ... The effects of flooding, a result of deforestation can be severe. Flooding andDrought: One of the forests primary functions is absorbing and ...
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7 hours ago - What are some examples of activities that cause deforestation? ....(02/01/2011) Hundreds of mining and oil palm plantation companies are operating ...
rainforests.mongabay.com/0801.htm - Cached - Similar
India evacuates more than 3000 from Libya | Deccan Chronicle ...
5 days ago - "This escape of mine makes me feel I am in heaven," said Mohammed Sali, 63, an engineer. ... Mining, deforestation cause severe drought ...
www.deccanchronicle.com › National - Cached
Haq News Photos Videos - Rediff.com
1 day ago - Massive deforestation and unchecked mining of coal, iron ore and bauxite has created a huge water scarcity in Jharkhand. The result is that for the... ... http://www.asianage.com/india/mining-deforestation-cause-severe-drought-256 ...
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Animal Adventurer
3 days ago - He also added that diclofenac was first thought to cause thanatosis, ... Gujarat High Court Orders to Stop Mining Activities Within National Parks .... I personally feel that Orissa, Jharkhand, and other states affected by the threat .... However, due to displacement of communities, drought in some areas may have ...
animaladventurer.blogspot.com/ - Cached
Deforestation - TipThePlanet
4 days ago - Gold mining, for example, is one of the main causes of deforestation in the Amazon. ... The effects of flooding, a result of deforestation can be severe. Flooding andDrought: One of the forests primary functions is absorbing and ...
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Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy
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"India's supremacy in space technology is imperative for Asean countries, which are occasionally exposed to calamities and natural disasters that have ...
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5 Mar 2011 ... Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy. By P. Vijian NEW DELHI, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean and India should jointly ...
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TAP INDIA'S SPACE TECH TO SOLVE NATURAL DISASTERS, SAYS SAMY ...
5 Mar 2011 ... NEW DELH, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean and India should jointly set up aspace-technology-aided disaster management centre to monitor natural ...
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Samy :Tap India's Space Tech to Solve Natural Disasters ... - [ Translate this page ]
5 Mac 2011 ... NEW DELH, 5 MARCH, 2011: Asean and India should jointly set up a space-technology-aided disaster.
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Tap India's space technology to solve natural disasters, says Samy ... - [ Translate this page ]
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5 Mar 2011 ... Tap India's space tech to solve natural disasters, says Samy. BERNAMA -. NEW DELHI, (Bernama) - Asean and India should jointly set up a ...
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Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural... - TechnologyIndia ...
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy: By P. Vijian NEW DELHI, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean... http://bit.ly/g8nkrg ...
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Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy
2 days ago
"India's supremacy in space technology is imperative for Asean countries, which are occasionally exposed to calamities and natural disasters that have ...
Bernama - 25 related articles
►
BERNAMA - Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy
5 Mar 2011 ... Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy. By P. Vijian NEW DELHI, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean and India should jointly ...
www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=568678 - Cached
TAP INDIA'S SPACE TECH TO SOLVE NATURAL DISASTERS, SAYS SAMY ...
5 Mar 2011 ... NEW DELH, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean and India should jointly set up aspace-technology-aided disaster management centre to monitor natural ...
malaysia.news.yahoo.com/.../tts-samy-disasters-993ba14.html - Malaysia - Cached
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy ...
5 Mar 2011 ... Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy. . By P. Vijian. NEW DELHI, Mar 5 (Bernama) — Asean and ...
livenewsindia.com/tech/tap-indias-space-tech-to-solve-natural-disasters-says-samy/ -Cached
Samy :Tap India's Space Tech to Solve Natural Disasters ... - [ Translate this page ]
5 Mac 2011 ... NEW DELH, 5 MARCH, 2011: Asean and India should jointly set up a space-technology-aided disaster.
www.malaysiandigest.com/.../18331-samy-tap-indias-space-tech-to-solve-natural-disasters.html - Malaysia - Cached
Tap India's space technology to solve natural disasters, says Samy ... - [ Translate this page ]
Tap India's space technology to solve natural disasters, says Samy. March 5, 2011 — Leave a Comment. Posted in National, National News ...
www.peraknews.com/.../tap-indias-space-technology-to-solve-natural-disasters-says-samy/ - Cached
Tap India's space tech to solve natural disasters, says Samy ...
5 Mar 2011 ... Tap India's space tech to solve natural disasters, says Samy. BERNAMA -. NEW DELHI, (Bernama) - Asean and India should jointly set up a ...
news.mylaunchpad.com.my/Local/Article?Key=9a5532d6-f0a1... - Cached
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural... - TechnologyIndia ...
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy: By P. Vijian NEW DELHI, March 5 (Bernama) -- Asean... http://bit.ly/g8nkrg ...
friendfeed.com/.../technologyindia/.../tap-india-space-tech-to-solve-natural-disasters -Cached
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural... - TechnologyIndia ...
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters, Says Samy http://bit.ly/fnQ4oL.
friendfeed.com/.../technologyindia/.../tap-india-space-tech-to-solve-natural-disasters
SarahAr (sarahistheone) on Twitter
malaysiandigest Samy :Tap India's Space Tech to Solve Natural Disasters #News http://bit.ly/efUkx6 about 13 hours ago via AutoTweet Connector Retweeted by ...
twitter.com/sarahistheone - Cached
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters... - Akademi ...
Tap India's Space Tech To Solve Natural Disasters In The ASEAN Region, Says Malaysia's Samy Vellu http://bit.ly/gLsMg6 - http://twitter.com/naveenk. ...
friendfeed.com/.../tap-india-space-tech-to-solve-natural-disasters?...1 - Cached
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Tuesday, March 1, 2011
This monsoon, MMS alerts to warn of disaster
This monsoon, MMS alerts to warn of disaster
Published: Monday, Feb 28, 2011, 1:37 IST
By Priyanka Sharma | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
The civic body will go high-tech to avert any disaster this monsoon and avoid all forms of miscommunication.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will send MMS alerts to citizens to spread awareness on flood-like situations and water-logged roads. In a bid to leverage the message’s reachability and enhance the communication system, the BMC will explore the third generation(3G) technology.
The Bombay high court had earlier criticised the role of TV channels in airing old pictures and videos during monsoon, which propagate incorrect information and create panic among people. Civic officials claimed that the MMS alerts sent to citizens will aim at eradicating all such possibilities.
SS Shinde, joint municipal commissioner (disaster) said the custom method needs to be modernised to efficiently manage any disaster during monsoon. “The civic body will collaborate with the telecom service providers in the city for this enhanced service. The aim is to boost the information circuit and create awareness among the citizens at the earliest,” Shinde said.
BMC officials added that the purpose of effective communication is rarely met through bulk SMS alerts. “SMS alerts to around one lakh people take over 12 hours. The new method will be quicker and more citizen-friendly,” said a senior BMC official.
BMC is working on improvising the system of custom bulk SMS alerts. Shinde said that they are working on sending lakhs of text messages in a span of half an hour through usage of optical fibres. The BMC’s disaster cell currently relies on hotlines and HAM system to communicate.
Also, language is too a hitch, said the official. Along with English, the civic body will be sending the alerts in Hindi and Marathi. Due to the speed constraints and language, usage of 3G technology is will be adopted.
Implementing 3G will boost the rate at which the information is provided to the people, the official added.
Through the motion pictures, it will be easier for citizens to gauge the gravity of the situation themselves, the official said. The BMC is, meanwhile, finalising the monetary feasibility for the scheme. The MMS will also provide information on traffic jams, tidal information and rainfall intensity. Along with this, the information will be forwarded to the police control room.
However, BMC’s concern is the effective implementation of the service. “Not all citizens have cell phones which are capable of reading messages sent through MMS. Thus, its reliability will not be complete,” added Shinde.
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Tel: + 91 22 3988 8888
Fax: + 91 22 3980 1000
Published: Monday, Feb 28, 2011, 1:37 IST
By Priyanka Sharma | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
The civic body will go high-tech to avert any disaster this monsoon and avoid all forms of miscommunication.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will send MMS alerts to citizens to spread awareness on flood-like situations and water-logged roads. In a bid to leverage the message’s reachability and enhance the communication system, the BMC will explore the third generation(3G) technology.
The Bombay high court had earlier criticised the role of TV channels in airing old pictures and videos during monsoon, which propagate incorrect information and create panic among people. Civic officials claimed that the MMS alerts sent to citizens will aim at eradicating all such possibilities.
SS Shinde, joint municipal commissioner (disaster) said the custom method needs to be modernised to efficiently manage any disaster during monsoon. “The civic body will collaborate with the telecom service providers in the city for this enhanced service. The aim is to boost the information circuit and create awareness among the citizens at the earliest,” Shinde said.
BMC officials added that the purpose of effective communication is rarely met through bulk SMS alerts. “SMS alerts to around one lakh people take over 12 hours. The new method will be quicker and more citizen-friendly,” said a senior BMC official.
BMC is working on improvising the system of custom bulk SMS alerts. Shinde said that they are working on sending lakhs of text messages in a span of half an hour through usage of optical fibres. The BMC’s disaster cell currently relies on hotlines and HAM system to communicate.
Also, language is too a hitch, said the official. Along with English, the civic body will be sending the alerts in Hindi and Marathi. Due to the speed constraints and language, usage of 3G technology is will be adopted.
Implementing 3G will boost the rate at which the information is provided to the people, the official added.
Through the motion pictures, it will be easier for citizens to gauge the gravity of the situation themselves, the official said. The BMC is, meanwhile, finalising the monetary feasibility for the scheme. The MMS will also provide information on traffic jams, tidal information and rainfall intensity. Along with this, the information will be forwarded to the police control room.
However, BMC’s concern is the effective implementation of the service. “Not all citizens have cell phones which are capable of reading messages sent through MMS. Thus, its reliability will not be complete,” added Shinde.
+ -
Related links
Budget fails to enthuse PuneITs
Pune Inc gives thumbs up to Pranab Mukherjee
Maharashtra's sugar industry ‘sour’ as policy issues remain unresolved
Food processing companies in Pune happy with budget
Tax on tests, hospitals will inflate health bills in Pune
Gallery
Disaster awaits ration office in Borivali
Comments | Post a comment | Share this article | Print | Email
Contact Information
Other Details
subscriptions@dnaindia.net
Diligent Media Corporation
DNA Wing, First Floor, Oasis Building,
Kamla Mills Compound,
Lower Parel, Mumbai - 400 013
Tel: + 91 22 3988 8888
Fax: + 91 22 3980 1000
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