AT RISK Piers Blaikie Terry Cannon Ian Davis Ben Wisner

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "AT RISK Piers Blaikie Terry Cannon Ian Davis Ben Wisner"

Madison May
5 years ago
Views:

2 AT RISK Many disasters are a complex mix of natural hazards and human action. At Risk argues that the social, political and economic environment is as much a cause of disasters as the natural environment. Published within the International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction, this book suggests ways in which both the social and natural sciences can be analytically combined through a disaster pressure and release model. Arguing that the concept of vulnerability is central to an understanding of disasters and their prevention or mitigation, the authors explore the extent and ways in which people gain access to resources. Individual chapters apply analytical concepts to famines and drought, biological hazards, floods, coastal storms, and earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides the hazards that become disasters. Finally, the book draws practical and policy conclusions to promote a safer environment and reduce vulnerability. It should prove of interest to students, academics and policy makers in Geography, Environmental Studies and Development Studies. Royalties from the sales of this book are being donated to Oxfam, in support of its work in reducing people s vulnerability to hazards. Piers Blaikie is Professor at the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. Terry Cannon is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, University of Greenwich, UK. Ian Davis is Managing Director of Oxford Centre for Disaster Studies, Oxford, UK. Ben Wisner is Professor at the School of Social Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, USA.

3 AT RISK Natural hazards, people s vulnerability, and disasters Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis, and Ben Wisner London and New York

4 First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-library, To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge s collection of thousands of ebooks please go to Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis and Ben Wisner All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data At risk: natural hazards, people s vulnerability, and disasters/ Piers Blaikie [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Natural disasters. I. Blaikie, Piers M. GB5014.A dc ISBN Master e-book ISBN ISBN (Print Edition) ISBN (pbk)

5 CONTENTS List of figures and tables xii Preface xiv Part I Framework and theory 1 THE CHALLENGE OF DISASTERS AND OUR APPROACH In at the deep end 3 Audiences 6 What is vulnerability? 8 Orientation, scope, and plan of the book 10 Limits and assumptions 14 Limitation of scale 14 Technology and human hazards 15 Notes 17 2 DISASTER PRESSURE AND RELEASE MODEL 21 The nature of vulnerability 21 Two models 21 Cause and effect in the disaster pressure model 22 The chain of explanation 22 Time and the chain of explanation 26 Box 2.1 Landless squatters in Dhaka 26 Box 2.2 Karakoram hazards 27 Limits to our knowledge 29 Global dynamic factors 30 3

6 Population growth 32 Box 2.3 Population growth, age structure, and vulnerabilities 35 Rapid urbanization 36 Global economic pressures 39 Land degradation and environmental losses 41 Global environmental change 42 War as a global pressure 43 Notes 43 3 ACCESS TO RESOURCES AND COPING IN ADVERSITY Access to resources 47 The formal framework: the household submodel 50 The formal framework: households in society 53 Incorporating change over time 55 Box 3.1 Using access models in the real world 56 The access model and vulnerability 58 The access model as a research framework 60 Vulnerability and poverty 61 Coping in adversity 62 Coping defined 63 Types of coping strategies 64 Preventive strategies 65 Impact-minimizing strategies 65 Creation and maintenance of labour power 66 Building up stores of food and saleable assets 66 Diversification of the production strategy 66 Diversification of income sources 67 Development of social support networks 67 Post-event coping strategies 69 Coping and vulnerability analysis 69 v 47

7 vi Notes 70 Part II Vulnerability and hazard types 4 FAMINE AND NATURAL HAZARDS 75 Introduction 75 Famines and conflicting ideas about their causes 76 Review of explanations of famine 80 Indian Famine Codes 80 Influence of disaster vulnerability analysis 81 Natural hazards and link with food availability decline 82 Markets and market-failure explanations 84 Failures of entitlements 85 Criticisms of the entitlements approach 87 Access and famine 88 Policy 93 Early warning systems 95 Strengthening livelihood systems 96 Response to famine from the grass roots 96 Conclusion 98 Notes 98 5 BIOLOGICAL HAZARDS 101 Introduction 101 Limits to vulnerability analysis? 102 The perspective of population biology 103 Livelihoods, resources, and disease 104 The role of access 104 Vulnerability-creating processes 106 The micro-environment 106 Regional social environment 106 Regional physical environment 107

8 vii Pressures affecting defences against biological hazards 108 Genetic defences 108 Box 5.1 The Irish Potato Famine (1845 8) 108 Environmental defences 112 Cultural defences 112 Root causes and pressures: biological hazards and vulnerability in Africa 113 Steps towards risk reduction 114 Earlier successes 114 Policy directions 115 Box 5.2 AIDS in Africa 115 Box 6.1 Precautionary science 119 Notes FLOODS 123 Introduction 123 Floods and known risks 124 Disastrous outcomes for vulnerable people 125 Mortality, morbidity, and injury 125 Livelihood disruption 127 Floods and vulnerability 131 Flooding and deforestation: the causation controversy 132 Flood prevention and mitigation 134 Local-level mitigation 134 Flood prevention 135 Bangladesh A tech-fix or people s needs-based approach to flooding? 136 Flood avoidance measures 142 Flood mitigation and preparedness 143 Notes SEVERE COASTAL STORMS 145

9 viii Introduction 145 The physical hazard 147 Patterns of vulnerability 148 Contemporary coastal settlement 149 Coastal livelihoods 150 Country case-studies 155 Remote coasts 155 Densely populated rural coasts 159 The small island 161 Rapidly-industrializing coasts 161 Policy response 163 Notes EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANOES, AND LANDSLIDES 167 Introduction 167 Vulnerability to earthquakes 167 Box 8.1 The Guatemala earthquake, 4 February Vulnerability to hazard warnings 171 Box 8.2 The Mexico City earthquake, 19 September Box 8.3 Box 8.4 Landslides 181 Volcanoes and related hazards 183 Policy response and mitigation 184 Case-study: pre-disaster planning, Taal volcano, the Philippines Case-study: post-disaster response following the Nevado del Ruiz volcanic eruption, 13 November 1985, Colombia Notes 191 Part III Action for disaster reduction 9 VULNERABILITY, RELIEF, AND RECONSTRUCTION 195 Introduction 195

10 ix Principle 1: The Peruvian earthquake of Sudan Principles for managing disaster recovery 204 Recognize and integrate the coping mechanisms of disaster survivors and local agencies Principle 2: Avoid arbitrary relief assistance Principle 3: Beware commercial exploitation 207 Principle 4: Avoid relief dependency 207 Principle 5: Decentralize decision-making when possible 208 Principle 6: Recognize disasters as political events 208 Principle 7: Recognize pre-disaster constraints 209 Principle 8: Balance reform and conservation 209 Principle 9: Avoid rebuilding injustice 210 Principle 10: Accountability the key issue 211 Principle 11: Relocation is the worst option 211 Principle 12: Maximize the transition from relief to development 212 Putting it all together: discussion of principles 213 Educating about the global-local connection 213 Learning from local people 214 Conclusion 214 Notes TOWARDS A SAFER ENVIRONMENT 217

11 x Introduction 217 A decade for disaster reduction 217 Release from the pressure 218 Living with hazards 220 Managing a reduction of vulnerability 221 Principle 1: Vigorously manage mitigation 221 Principle 2: Integrate the elements of mitigation 223 Principle 3: Capitalize on a disaster to initiate or to develop mitigation 223 Principle 4: Monitor and modify to suit new conditions 224 Principle 5: Focus attention on protection of the most vulnerable 227 Principle 6: Focus on the protection of lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable Principle 7: Focus on active rather than passive approaches Principle 8: Focus on protecting priority sectors 229 Principle 9: Measures must be sustainable over time 229 Principle 10: Assimilate mitigation into normal practices 230 Principle 11: Incorporate mitigation into specific development projects 230 Principle 12: Maintain political commitment 231 Disaster prevention and mitigation 231 Conclusion: towards sustainable reduction of disasters 232 Action in the fields and on the streets: tapping the energy of citizen-activists for disaster mitigation 234 Notes 237

12 xi Bibliography 239 Index 277

13 FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES 1.1 Ratio of reported deaths from disasters Pressures that result in disasters: the progression of vulnerability Reported disasters Economic losses and insured losses due to natural disasters Number of natural disasters Access to resources to maintain livelihoods Access to resources to maintain livelihoods: the impact of famine Pressures that result in disasters: the Irish Potato Famine AIDS cases per million in Africa Access to resources to maintain livelihoods: the impact of AIDS Pressures that result in disasters: flood hazards Major rivers and distributaries of Bangladesh region, showing extent of flooding in September Pressures that result in disasters: Bangladesh floods 1987 and Explanation for deaths caused in the Andhra Pradesh cyclone of Pressures that result in disasters: Divi Taluk, Krishna Delta, Andhra 156 Pradesh cyclone The release of pressures to reduce disasters: the Mozambique 158 cyclone The release of pressures to reduce disasters: Bangladesh cyclone 162 risk 8.1 Distribution of building damage in the 1985 earthquake in Mexico 176 City relative to the lake-bed 8.2 Pressures that result in disasters: Mexico City earthquake, September The release of pressures to reduce disasters: the situation following 179 the recovery of Mexico City from the earthquake of 19 September Hazard risk map of Taal volcano, the Philippines Distribution and degree of vulnerability in Darfur in the aftermath of 203 the famine disaster The release of pressures to reduce disasters: the progression of safety 219

14 TABLES 2.1 Major cities at risk Time periods for components of the access model Population of cities over 100,000 in Third World regions Types of information required for vulnerability analysis 226 xiii

15 PREFACE Long before they met each other, the four authors encountered many of the hazards discussed in this book as they worked and visited in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They shared a dissatisfaction with then prevailing views that disasters were natural in a straightforward way. They shared an admiration for the ability of ordinary people to cope with poverty and even calamities, and this perspective has strongly influenced the book. The authors brought to this project complementary skills and expertise. Blaikie had written on the socio-economic background to land degradation 1 and poverty in Nepal 2 and more recently on the AIDS epidemic in Africa. 3 Cannon has incorporated teaching on hazards into his work for many years, and is active in the Famine Commission of the International Geographical Union. He has edited a collection of studies of famine, 4 and published extensively on development and environmental problems in China. Davis had spent many years studying shelter following disasters 5 and the growth of disaster vulnerability with rapid urbanization; 6 he also brought to the project years of practical work in training government officials in disaster mitigation. Wisner has been concerned with rural physical and social planning since the mid-1960s. This took the form of land-use studies, 7 research on coping with drought, 8 and work on rural energy 9 and health care delivery. 10 As the project began he was about to draw these themes together in a systematic study of basic-needs approaches to development in Africa. 11 This book has taken a long time to complete, with all the complications of multiple authorship, and the added difficulty that the four were for much of the time in three different countries. We met about six times for several days, and progressed from sketched outlines to substantial drafts at each meeting. Much paper and many electrons and floppy disks sailed back and forth between us. A great deal of ideological baggage was stripped away as a consensus view of hazards, vulnerability, and disasters emerged. We provided crash courses for each other in areas of our own expertise. The result is a fully co-authored book, although we are aware that some idiosyncrasies of style and variations in point of view may still be visible here and there. The process had lots to recommend it, even if speed is not one of them. Yet the book has managed to appear midway through the International Decade of

16 Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). It arrives in the context of this decade (with its overemphasis on technology and hazard management) in the hope that it will establish the vital importance of understanding vulnerability in the context of its political, social, and economic origins. The book reasserts the significance of the human factor in disasters. It tries to move beyond technocratic management to a notion of disaster mitigation that is rooted in the potential that humans have to unite, to persevere, to understand what afflicts them, and to take common action. While the book was being written, there has been growing awareness of vulnerability to disasters, and of the range of causal factors. We welcome this groundswell of changing awareness, and appreciate the insights of many other contributors to the analysis of disasters. There are so many people to thank for their encouragement and help in the production of this book that it would be impossible to compile a list that did not offend by erroneously omitting some. So if all those people, including those affected by disaster, friends, colleagues, publishers, students, conference participants, members of NGOs, government and UN officials, will forgive us for not including their names, let us express our thanks to them in this way. In particular, we must also thank our families for their patience, for enabling our meetings and providing a great deal of help and moral support. xv NOTES 1 Blaikie (1985b); Blaikie and Brookfield (1987). 2 Blaikie, Cameron, and Seddon (1977, 1980). 3 Barnett and Blaikie (1992). 4 Bohle, Cannon, Hugo, and Ibrahim (eds) (1991). 5 Davis (1978). 6 Davis (1986, 1987). 7 O Keefe, Westgate, and Wisner (1977). 8 Wisner (1978b, 1980). 9 Wisner et al. (1987); Wisner (1987b). 10 Wisner (1976a, 1988b, 1992a); Packard, Wisner, and Bossart (eds) (1989). 11 Wisner (1988a).

17 xvi

18 Part I FRAMEWORK AND THEORY

19 2

20 1 THE CHALLENGE OF DISASTERS AND OUR APPROACH IN AT THE DEEP END Disasters, especially those that are connected in the minds of the public with natural hazards, are not the greatest threat to humanity. Despite the lethal reputation of earthquakes, epidemics, and famines, many more of the world s population have their lives shortened by unnoticed events, illnesses, and hunger that pass for normal existence in many parts of the world, especially (but not only) the Third World. Occasionally earthquakes kill hundreds of thousands, and very occasionally floods kill millions at a time. But to focus on these (in the understandably humanitarian way that outsiders respond to such tragedies) is to ignore the many millions more who are not killed in such events. There is a daily and unexceptional tragedy of those whose deaths are through natural causes. Under different economic and political circumstances they should have lived longer and enjoyed a better quality of life. We feel this book is justified despite this rather artificial separation between people at risk of natural hazards and the dangers inherent in normal society. Analysing disasters allows us to show why they should not be segregated from everyday living, and to show how the risks involved in disasters must be connected with the vulnerability created for many people through their normal existence. It seeks the connections between the risks people face and the reasons for their vulnerability to hazards. It is therefore trying to show how disasters can be perceived within the broader patterns of society, and, indeed, how analysing them in this way may provide a much more fruitful way of building policies that can help to reduce disasters and mitigate hazards. The crucial point about understanding why disasters occur is that it is not only natural events that cause them. They are also the product of the social, political, and economic environment (as distinct from the natural environment) because of the way it structures the lives of different groups of people. There is a danger in treating disasters as something peculiar, as events which deserve their own special focus. By being separated from the social frameworks that influence

THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITIES OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITIES OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN TOWARDS THE WORLD HUMANITARIAN SUMMIT (WHS) Report of the Survey under the Consultation with the Affected Communities of Latin America and