CORDIM 2016 : IEEE WORKSHOP ON DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS FOR COORDINATED DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Interfacing Technology, Disaster and Development

The Idea of Risk Informed Development Planning System

Author – Kamini Katiyar, Co-Author – Rajat Shubhro Mukherjee

9/28/2015

The use of Technology has improved lives in ways which were never thought of, even when

the technology was developed. In fact the development of Technology has single-handedly

changed our lives more than any other form of initiative or institution. Using technology to

make development policy decisions is not only important but the need of the hour and its use

in averting risk for robust planning is undeniable.

Abstract:

The use of Technology has improved lives in ways which were never thought of, even when the

technology was developed. In fact the development of Technology has single-handedly changed our

lives more than any other form of initiative or institution. Using technology to make development

policy decisions is not only important but the need of the hour and its use in averting risk for robust

planning is undeniable. Lessons from the disaster response mechanism of Japan and France have a

lot to show to the world regarding the approach of technology towards disaster planning. The

French group called Intervention Robotique sur Accident or Group Intra that makes robots designed

especially for the purpose of high hazard disaster response shipped such equipment to Japan during

the Fukushima Daiichi emergency in order to manoeuvre through radioactive debris in order to

conduct rescue operations. The Japanese model of disaster management functions on a

collaborative effort amongst Emergency Departments like fire fighters, schools for better disaster

management consciousness. This is a strong insight in the way a foresight has been created in order

to make plans that serve contingencies while also making spillover benefits in the society. A

collaborative learning experience and management is good, but is better when a country like Japan

implements which lies on the highly active seismic zone called the Pacific Ring of Fire. These lessons

and many more locally and internationally have created a strong impetus to generating a

scientifically and technologically robust foresight towards policy planning.

Introduction: The Causal understanding of Disaster and Development:

When we speak of Disaster in a time frame of our conscious lives we sometimes are not able to

fathom the magnitude at which they affect our lives by altering our ecosystem. Going by the

numbers put up by the UN natural disasters in the last 2 decades have affected almost 4.4 Billion

people, almost 60.3% of the world population, claimed almost 1.3 Million lives with damages worth

$2 Trillion. The exponential growth of such disasters has outpaced the flow of aid to support a stable

living condition in the affected regions. The total cost of disaster for 2010 to 2012 has crossed $100

Billion, which has been completely unprecedented (UNISDR 2013). The cumulative effect of these

devastations has an adverse effect on the socioeconomic existence of humans. Livelihoods are

destroyed, businesses are lost, infrastructure is fractured, and the adversities resonate across from

the individual to the entire economy. What it does is to weaken the edifice upon which the modern

society relies so much, a gestalt of interlinked and interrelated mechanisms that create the

contemporary life. Building this gestalt to its contemporary form is called development and disasters

by virtue of what they are, hinder this process, as Ban Ki Moon very tersely exclaimed, “Economic

losses from disasters are out of control.” (Hillier and Nightingale 2013).

This discussion envisages a thorough understanding of the dependency of development on good

practices of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and proper capacity building for reducing vulnerabilities,

together with a strong follow-up and rehabilitation mechanism to rebuild the lost traction in the

development process. These initiatives and measures become imperative when these Hazardous

regions are also impoverished regions. Disasters have been known to slow down or hinder poverty

alleviation efforts, bring about periodical distress migrations which are bad for the economy and the

health of the labour capital, and destroy vital infrastructure, rebuilding which diverts resources away

from core development programs. Data has shown a massive slippage of the population below

poverty line who would usually be above, after disaster. Examples from Kutch earthquake, Kashmir

and Uttarakhand flood, and the more than popular periodic cyclone disaster in Orissa has, time and

again reflected this issue of aggravating poverty. Internationally, Philippines form a stark example

where storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng in 2009 caused a marked rise in poverty figures, from 5.5%

in 2006 to 9.5% in 2009. Even in 2015 they have only managed to bring down the poverty levels to

7.6% which effectively still way worse-off than the number 9 years ago (Shepherd, et al. 2013).

There is however, a reverse causality too. Unplanned development practices, aiming for high paced

economic growth can also enhance the risks of the ecosystem. Unplanned urbanization around

Industrial Agglomerations, the mentality of lowering cost to increase the profits which includes

cutting down on safety measures, and unsustainable reliance on certain forms of energy, together,

form a situation that in a risk enhanced environment the marginalized sections become further

weakened, while reducing the overall uptake of development by the population. It is therefore

unwise to ignore the interplay of human vulnerabilities and capacities, hazards in the ecosystem,

human exposure to such hazards and the overall risk it poses.

Understanding Hazard, Vulnerability and Risks –

The triad of Hazard, Vulnerability and Risk play an important role in determining how a community, a

region, or the entire civilization in the course of history shall fare. Examples like the Potato famine in

Ireland, the black plague in Europe, HIV/AIDS in Africa and South Asia, and Climate Change in the

whole world, show us how being ill-prepared in the face of disasters affects the sheer existence of

humankind. To carry forth this understanding it is imperative that the meaning of the terms Hazard,

Vulnerability, and Risk be examined to understand in what capacity they affect us and our species in

the long run.

To understand the afore mentioned it is important to have a contextual definition of these three

terms of Vulnerability, Hazard, and Risk and how are they linked with each other

Vulnerability can be defined as the state of being open to or appearing to be open to injury and

harm. This stems from the understanding that humans are, by nature of the position in the social set

up of hierarchies have differing levels of coping and withstanding external harm. It may appear that

Vulnerability is an ascribed constant, however on the contrary it is an acquired variable that takes

shape depending on the Capacity of the person to withstand and cope with adversities. This capacity

is not only biological but also cultural and economic. This idea of capacity stems from a cursory

reading of the second normative claim of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach stating that the idea of

well-being draws from a person’s capability or his or her opportunity to do and be what they have

reason to value (Robeyns 2011). The inability to master one’s own wellbeing causes the inability to

withstand the onslaught of external adversities.

However, this variable in itself is not an indicator of the problem. The problem stems from a

constant which is extraneous to the human body, a fortuity that depends on the forces of probability

and nature. This is what Hazard represents, an external impetus of a constant form that affects the

ecosystem where it manifests. It is constant because it completely depends on external factors and

remains as it is vis-à-vis the individual vulnerabilities. Hazards however do depend on human

interference with nature, or human negligence, but that only increases the probability of the existing

Hazard to manifest. Hazards therefore are a constant threat to those living within a spatial context.

The discussion sums itself to the definition of Risk, which forms a combination of Hazard,

Vulnerability, Capacity, and the Exposure Time. Given these information one can determine the

overall effect on a human being. This effect is called the Risk. Risk is a situation where one is exposed

to danger, and the intensity of the risk depends on given Hazard of the space in question, the overall

vulnerability of the people, the cumulative lack of capacity of the people, and the time component

of the hazardous Exposure.

The main motive of this discussion is to build up a case of how development is affected by the

presence of these risks, and how can a relationship be drawn between Development and Risk.

Development’s Inverse Relation to Risk –

Development is nothing but an event which bears a change from the previous state of existence. In

the context of human wellbeing, Development traces the change from one level of existence to

another accounting for greater prosperity. Furthermore, development must also acknowledge and

account the growing levels of capacity of the people and their reducing vulnerabilities as a result of

the growing capacities. The question therefore is how development and the idea of risk of disaster

fit in a single, seamless equation that explains how Disasters or Risks affect Development and what

must, therefore be done in order to evade such situations.

To arrive at this a point needs to be established first concerning our outlook towards disaster. Yeb

Sano, UNFCCC Negotiator, said in Philippines in 2013, “We must stop calling events like these

[typhoons] as natural disasters. Disasters are never natural. They are intersection of factors other

than physical. They are the accumulation of the constant breach of economic, social, and

environmental thresholds.” (Hillier and Nightingale 2013). If we analyse this statement it shows that

disasters are nothing but the adverse manifestations of Hazards, which occur due to reasons

extending from bad infrastructure to bad policy outcomes concerning the economic, gender, and

cultural minorities.

Hence nature’s Hazards are only a Risk when the Vulnerabilities of humans are allowed to fester and

the exposure of humans to such hazards are not curbed by the structures put in place to do so. Risk

therefore can be defined by the following mathematical expression that represents the individual

relationships of Risk with myriad elements.

𝑅 = 𝐻 ×𝑉

𝐶× 𝐸

R - Risk

H - Hazard

V - Cumulative Vulnerability

C - Cumulative Capacity

E - Exposure (Time Component)

Risk is therefore directly proportional to the Vulnerability, Exposure time to the Hazard, and the

Hazard (the intensity) itself, while it is inversely proportional to the Capacity of the people. This

formula categorically establishes that building capacity reduces vulnerability of the people by the

value of the rise in capacity hence reducing risk proportionally. It also shows that measures can be

taken to reduce Exposure Time and reduce Risk. Hazard may or may not be Constant depending on

the timeframe. Within a short run Climate Change related Hazards are constants within the

biosphere, however, in the long run they can be enhanced or reduced by human intervention.

Furthermore a relation can be drawn with the levels of development where we can say that

development, since it is directly proportional to the capacity levels of the people, is inversely

proportional to the risk. The overall expansion in the quantum of risk over time would proportionally

lower the development levels and the capacity to absorb future development of the population in

the given space. This is an important parallel to draw since it allows establishing the correlation

between levels of one when the other is available. It also allows policy makers to undertake

informed planning for more Risk Resistant Schemes.

Understanding Risk Informed Development Planning System (RIDPS):

Risk resistant schemes and policy making is extremely important, considering that when the risks

manifest as disasters they push back development and the ability to develop exponentially. It is

therefore imperative that Development Planning be Risk Informed and that this information must

flow seamlessly through all levels of system in order to create a robust development mechanism.

This practice is called the Risk Informed Development Planning System, as developed by the UNICEF.

The aim for this process is to simply provide a development planning interface that allows

constructing contingency plans and robust decision making being well informed of the risks that are

posed to the geographical area and the people living there.

Technology and Development –

Technology and development are not only supplementary but also an inseparable aspect of each

other. From the primitive technological innovations of making a wheel and starting a fire to modern

day nanotechnologies, technological advancements are synonymous with development and using

them for the overall physical and intellectual progress of the society is not only imperative but also

inevitable. Technology has changed everything for us, starting from health, to entertainment. The

experience of the outside world has a new meaning because of technology. We therefore also

realize that public policy planning, and development can also be catapulted to newer heights using

technology. Financial inclusion, health, livelihoods, etc. have all been intermeshed with technology

in order to give the most efficient output of initiatives while saving both time and resources. In

disaster situations it becomes all the more important because lives are in perilous situations at any

given moment and without timely search and rescue, or aid work a lot of lives might be lost.

Technology driven interventions include creating strong information sharing and storing system, cost

reducing mechanism, creating physical access for resources, creating accessible data base for

identification, creating tracking systems for better search and rescue missions, and also create large

social information sharing platform for people to participate in the process of disaster risk reduction

processes and development. At Uttarakhand, rescue and aid initiatives could run smoothly because

of the use of social media, however, this was all as an aftermath of a disaster. But the technology

exists now and it can be used to create information sharing systems for impending dangers rather

than for an effort to rebuild. If it can be prevented then why aim for a cure!

Technology and development need to be integrated at all levels in order to gain a holistic level of

development planning. Starting from understanding the local issues in creating patterns of seasonal

drought and flood to the overall climatic effect on such events must be seamlessly woven into a

system that reflects the risk at all levels, environment, policy, human, location, etc. Technology is an

excellent way to bring macro and micro data together in a sensible format in order to make timely

and well informed predictions at a scale that policy making may be integrated with such information

flow.

Risk Informed Development Planning – System allows these features to be custom fit into the

government mechanism in order to make its initiatives robust and outcome oriented.

The Merits of RIDPS –

Risk Informed Development Planning System is an evidence based, decision support analytical

system and a convergent multi-sector database. The database supports in a holistic way priorities

linked with the need for systematic collection of data and identification of risks and vulnerabilities

based on analysis of development and hazard/ climate impact indicators in order to allow targeted

risk informed planning and mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

in development planning. This vertical integration of data across structures allows for timely decision

making for all departments and levels of the government, which were earlier non-convergent on a

permanent platform- where data was available within particular departments, not accessible to

others for cross sectoral analysis

The “Risk Informed Development Planning System” (RIDP-S) proposes, with use of modern

technologies, to create a system at state and district level to allow real time monitoring and

evaluation of various interventions vis-à-vis hazard risks impacting a specific territory and analyse

such information in correlation with development, demographic and economic indicators. The

system collects simultaneously and on ongoing basis hazard and climate data, development,

economic and demographic data to allow the identification of most vulnerable pockets both from

the point of view of slow development and hazard/climate risk impacting and slowing the

development. The regular analysis of the data helps in risk informing by focussing and targetting

development planning for all departments and sectors within a specific block and district. The

systematic collection of data allows the monitoring of trends over time, both in terms of variations

of impact of hazard on specific territory as well as in terms of impact of this hazard on development.

This is particularly useful for monitoring trends and impact of disasters with a slow onset such as

drought. Applying risk informed planning supports a holistic approach to development of a particular

area that will lead inevitably to a more sustainable development, risk reduction and resilience of the

population.

This system therefore, strengthens surveillance and data collection systems at district and block-

level, while establishing sustainable, risk informed development planning and mainstreaming in key

departments’ work at the state and national level. It furthermore improves knowledge on the

impact of hazards and climate change to development at sub national level, while enhancing data

collection and analytical skills of users.

Expected Output of RIDP-S Implementation –

One of the most important outputs the RIDP-S implementation plan foresees is an immediate

response from the government in recognizing the issue at hand and the importance of Risk centric

data collection and analysis for policy making and implementation. Other Output expectations also

include real time data restructuring, analysis, and results on the focussed data collection which

results in a data convergence platform allowing all departments to view such data and use it in their

activities creating a network of educated policy intervention. This basically allows to not only have a

strong data base and promote transparency, but also to understand the effect of the activities of

one department on another in order to have a concerted effort towards holistic policy making.

Intended Outcome of RIDP-S Implementation –

What RIDP-S intends to change is the way the government hierarchy perceives public policy making

and implementation. The idea of Risk has never been brought in beyond the understanding of

disasters, which has reduced the efficiency of the implementation mechanism and has substantially

reduced the effectiveness of public policy interventions in development. RIDP-S intends to equip the

government mechanism with the ability to foresee and act, and not suffer and react. The importance

of this has been seen time and again and juxtaposed within India where Risk centric planning has not

only helped in saving more lives and reduce rescue and rehabilitation cost, it has also allowed the

policy makers to rethink their political, economic, and spatial understanding of risk prone regions

through a cross-sectoral analysis of the data collected under this program.

Concluding Remarks:

“We’ve only harvested four sacks of millet this year, compared with the 20 we can get in a normal

year. But it’s a long time since we had a normal year. Last year, the floods destroyed much of the

harvest. We go from one catastrophe to another, either because of too much water or too little.”

Ramata Zore, Burkina Faso

Such stories are dime a dozen in today’s world and the number do not seem to be reducing any time

soon. Disasters are not inevitable. The way that governments manage and regulate both public and

private investment determines the degree of hazard, exposure to those hazards and vulnerability of

people and property. Disaster risk reduction and Climate Change Adaptation measures are proven to

be both highly effective and highly cost effective.

Cyclone Phailin, which hit Odisha in October 2013, provides a clear example of successful DRR where

12 million people were affected, nearly one million people were evacuated, and there were just 27

casualties. The small number of deaths is testament to good government planning and response,

where the death toll used to be in the 1000s. Other countries that prioritise disaster management

have had similar impressive results. Casualties in Bangladesh have been greatly reduced by an

effective early warning system, a nationwide programme to build shelters – from only 12 shelters in

1970 to over 2,500 in 2007 – coastal protection and raising awareness at community level (Haque, et

al. 2011). These examples show how certain regions which have continued to practice DRR and CCA

have benefited from their practice and have been able to establish a robust system of development

planning which takes into consideration the risks of the region. RIDP-S seeks to make this into a habit

for the political and administrative system in order to achieve way better results during natural

calamities and not even let the 27 die as happened in Odisha.

Works Cited Haque, Ubydul, Masahiro Hashizume, Korine N Kolivras, Hans J Overgaard, Bivash Das, and Taro

Yamamoto. “Reduced death rates from cyclones in Bangladesh: what more needs to be

done?” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 24 October 2011: 150-156.

Hillier, Debbie, and Katherine Nightingale. How Disasters disrupt Development: Recommendations

for Post-2015 Development Framework. Brief, Oxford: OXFAM, 2013.

Robeyns, Ingrid. The Capability Approach. 14 April 2011.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/ (accessed September 26, 2015).

Shepherd, Andrew, et al. The Geography of Poverty, Disasters, and Climate Extremes in 2030.

London: ODI, 2013.

UNISDR. “Tackling Future Risks, Economic Losses, and Exposure.” 2013.