Disaster Management in changing climate

L-R: Sidr/Aila displaced people yet to be rehabilitated. Conventional Disaster management cycle

It is estimated that 135 million people in Bangladesh have been affected by natural disasters, and while many have lost their lives or been injured, many millions have also lost their homes, land and livelihoods in the past 20 years. Bangladesh also has proven capacity of handling disasters like cyclone, flood and river erosion. But changing climate is also changing the disaster pattern of the country. International Climate Change Risk Assessments, published in 2010 identified Bangladesh as the world's most vulnerable country to negative impact of climate change and high intensity of natural disasters.
Climate, geographic location and hydrogeological features of Bangladesh made it a highly vulnerable country. Coping with disaster is part of people's life. Every region of the country faces one or other type of hazards. Being a high density and low per capita resource country, Bangladesh is too vulnerable to climate change impacts. According to recent research outcomes , it is in second position with respect to climate change vulnerability after Haiti.
Flood, cyclone, drought, extreme weather and salinity are predominant natural hazards which are augmented due to increased temperature, changing pattern of rainfall and variance of water flow in major rivers throughout the year. The changes in climatic factors are affecting life and livelihood of millions of people.
Due to seasonal distribution of rainfall early and late floods are commencing in the haor areas that destroyed major crops of the area in 2009 and 2010. Scarcity of potable water and reduced agricultural production are major threats in coastal districts due to rising sea level. People in many areas of Chittagong and Khulna are compelled to store rain water in rainy season for drinking purpose all the year round. Drought in Rajshahi district tremendously affected mango production in 2011. Rising flood water in the flood plain of Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers and salinity in coastal district such as Patuakhali and Jhalkhathi are major threats to rice cultivation. Not only are these, a huge number of people remain yet homeless due to cyclone Sidr and Aila that hit the region years back.
According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2010, an average of 8,241 people died each year in 244 cases of extreme weather conditions in Bangladesh, with the damage amounting to over $2 billion a year and a GDP loss of 1.81%, during 1990-2008.
When a cyclone commences, it floods paddy fields with sea water, damages home, standing crop and irrigation systems and destroys seed supplies. Death from cold shock and heat stroke also increased in Bangladesh. Death toll due to landslides in hilly districts of south-eastern Bangladesh owing to heavy rainfall also increased in recent years.
Shifting paradigm in disaster management
The backdated outlook emphasizes on rescue, relief and rehabilitation where external assistance comes after a disaster already commenced. Rescue team operates to find out injured people and recover dead bodies. Relief (food, cloth, drinking water and medicine) are distributed to affected community.
Later, an approach came forward with a view to working towards disaster preparedness and community risk reduction. However, conventional disaster management cycle starts with prevention and ends with recovery without focusing on community empowerment.
The latest approach is to increase the resilience of the community so that they can face and cope with the natural hazards themselves as much as possible. In this respect local knowledge and indigenous resources are considered very important and utilized for building community resilience.
Ways forward:
Reducing Disaster Risk (DRR) of augmenting hazards
Resilience building activities within vulnerable communities
Emergency preparedness and managing emergency situation
Capacity building of grassroots and community based institutions (who are the first to respond to any disasters) through training and awareness
Research on future change in hazard occurrence pattern
Utilizing regional perspective on disaster management
Comprehensive approach: Bangladesh is vulnerable to many hazards including flood, drought, cyclone, salinity intrusion etc. we need to consider multi-hazards approach to disaster management. Disaster preparedness program from national to local levels should be multi-hazards approach.
Reducing disaster risk : Recent research findings and field level observations show that recurrence and intensity of flood, drought, river erosion and cyclone are increasing in Bangladesh. Disaster risk reduction would be vis-a-vis multi-hazard and all the major hazards should be addressed in the risk reduction action plan.
Resilience building activities within vulnerable communities: If the adaptive capacity of vulnerable community could be heightened to a resilient level against common hazards, disaster management becomes the duty of the community. Competent community, itself capable to tackle disaster, well prepared for a coming disaster, would be able to significantly reduce casualty and property loss during a disaster. They have their local resources and their indigenous knowledge can be used to face the disaster.
Strengthening early warning system(EWS): Early warning is very important for emergency preparedness. As early and as detail and accurate the forecasting system is, more the possibility of taking right type of preparedness for the upcoming hazards. An efficient and well functioning EWS can save lives and prevent loss of property significantly during flood and cyclone.
Emergency preparedness: Role of grassroots and community based organisations is very important in emergency preparedness and tackling emergency situation. In fact, preparedness for emergency situation of community involves community people, grassroots organisation and local administration with appropriate roles.
Capacity building at grassroots: Volunteer organisations like scout, girls guide, members of community based organisations and members of government bodies like Ansar and Fire Service and Civil Defence are the real actors in disseminating warning message and emergency management that include search and rescue, distributing reliefs such as food, drinking water and medicine. Through training and awareness raising workshop their capacity should be enhanced for efficient emergency management.
Research on hazard occurrence: As the changing climate is pushing a pattern of change in the disaster occurrence, we need to know well the changing trend of hazards for better management of natural disasters. Academic and research institutions need to carry comprehensive studies to find out climate change impacts on extreme weather, land slide, flood, drought, salinity intrusion and cyclone as well as identifying remedies.

The writer works for Islamic Relief, Bangladesh, as an Impact and Policy Officer