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Infrastructure and disaster risk management
under changing climate conditions
Heather Auld and Don MacIver, Adaptation and Impacts Research Division, Environment Canada
E
vidence from around the world indicates that the cost of
weather-related disasters is continuing to increase. While the
number of lives lost declined over the last 30 years, thanks
to better disaster preparedness and prevention programmes, the
number of affected people has increased. Over the last decade,
those affected by natural disasters through injury, homelessness or
hunger increased significantly, to average over 200 million people
annually.
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The largest rises occurred in developing countries. The
rising losses from hydrometeorological disasters highlight the need
for meteorological and hydrological services to play an even greater
role in disaster management.
While large year-to-year variations in the number and intensity of weather
and hydrological hazards are expected, it is not normal for the resulting
costs to continue rising significantly. When a natural hazard becomes
a disaster, this is as much a result of the way that the community does
business or adapts as it is of the hazard itself. The fact that both insured
and uninsured losses fromweather and water-related disasters have been
rising rapidly reflects a failure of communities and society to
adequately adapt to current climate variability and extremes.
Varied roles for meteorological and climate
services in disaster management
National Meteorological andHydrological Services (NMHS)
and other climate agencies have many roles in disaster risk
management. There are two windows for action:
Pre-disaster or risk management planning and prevention
through:
• Pillar 1 – disaster risk mitigation/prevention
• Pillar 2 – emergency preparedness
Actions imminently before, during and after disasters (crisis
management) through:
• Pillar 3 – emergency response and relief
• Pillar 4 – disaster recovery and rebuilding
Effective overall disaster management requires coordinated
and comprehensive integration over all four pillars. In
most countries, natural hazard policies traditionally focus
on crisis management that minimizes the impacts during
a disaster and provides immediate relief and support to
victims. Although disaster response is important, it can fail
to address the causes of disaster losses. The World Bank
has estimated that every dollar spent in preparing through
pre-disaster or risk management actions saves seven in
response.
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NMHS are well placed to help reduce weather and water-
related disasters by:
• Provision of hazard information for community risk
assessments and land-use planning
• Improvements to climatic and hydrological design infor-
mation for safer infrastructure and communities
• Developing environmental prediction and risk
interpretation products
• Monitoring to detect hazards and emerging threats
• Forecasting and timely early warnings for emergency
response and recovery and rebuilding operations
• Assistance with risk management education and capac-
ity building.
Risk management measures: targeting risks
There is a saying that ‘forewarned is forearmed’. Klaus
Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) said: “When we know
R
isk
G
oveRnance
and
M
anaGeMent
Global trends in frequency of major natural disasters
Number of great weather and hydrological disasters for each year in the
EM-DAT database for the period 1900-2005
Source: EM-DAT, 2006
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