MODULE IV

Concept of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Disaster Risk Reduction

and Management

Introduction

The terms disaster and

emergency are often used
interchangeably. Before one can
even begin to discuss disaster
planning or preparedness, under-
standing the difference between a
disaster and an emergency is
important. According to the World
Health Organization (WHO, 2005),
an emergency is a situation where
a sudden incident or event has occurred and normally used, local responses will suffice
to care for the situation without calling in outside help. An emergency can be natural or
man-made.

A disaster is any event that leads to a response beyond which the affected community
can deal with locally. Disasters, like emergencies, can be man-made or natural.
Disasters are subset of emergencies and tax responding agencies beyond their
capacity. Disasters for one community may not be more than emergencies for another
community and degree of response can be like a spreading ring of concentric circles,
influencing the outer rings less and less (WHO 2005).

Objectives:

In this unit, you should be able to:

● discuss key concepts, principles, and elements of DRR;
● discuss different community-based practices for managing disaster risk to
specific hazards;
● develop a community preparedness plan; and
● prepare survival kits and materials for one's family, public information and
advocacy.
Climate Change & Disaster Risk

Lesson 1

Types of Disasters

There are basically two different types of disasters: natural and man-made. Natural
disasters are such things as earthquakes, tsunamis, pandemic flu outbreaks, and
tornados (see Figure 1). Man-made disasters include anything that a human being has
done to cause a disaster, such as acts of bioterrorism, hijackings, and war. The type of
response does vary in specifics, but generally, it is same for all disasters: assess,
contain, respond, and recover.

Figure 1. Ruins of houses in Aceh, Indonesia after the Boxing Day Tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian
Ocean Earthquake

Natural Disasters
Natural disasters often strike without warning, though most areas know what is “normal”
for their areas and prepare for such occurrences. Assessing is done by reviewing the
history of the region, looking at what weather and other disasters have occurred in the
past. For example, at the southern tip of Illinois through Missouri and Arkansas is a fault
line called the New Madrid Fault. The last time this fault moved and produced a major
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earthquake was in 1811-1812. The disaster covered more than 50,000 square miles,
almost 10 times the size of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Because the
potential for another major earthquake exists and the fault is due for one, almost all
towns along the fault and through much of Illinois and Missouri are prepared to deal with
such a natural disaster.

Man - made Disasters

There are some man-made disasters that occur or can occur with some warning, such
as knowing that a dam is weak and, without proper mitigation, it will break, releasing a
flood. However, most of the serious man-made disasters are the result of unexpected
accidents (e.g., an oil tanker running aground or a power plant blowing up) or deliberate
acts of terrorism. There are also epidemics and pandemics that occur with some
regularity and, while one may not consider these man-made, many are the result of
people living with the livestock, as in influenza, or living in crowded conditions, which
helps spread tuberculosis.

Natural Hazard Risk

The risk from a natural hazard is determined by the combined understanding of

three components:

Hazard: how big and how often?

Exposure: what elements are at

risk (people, buildings,
infrastructure, agriculture etc.)?

Vulnerability: how does each

exposed element respond to the
level of hazard?
Figure 2: Conceptual framework for disaster risk assessment 

Estimating risk is an uncertain science as it involves forecasting events for which the
time and location might be largely unknown. This uncertainty is captured mathematically
by the concept of probability.

Reducing risk can only be achieved by decreasing the contribution from one or more of
these three components. Examples of risk reduction or managing the risk in these
components are:

Hazard building a flood levee to alter the course of flood events

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Exposure land-use planning decisions to ensure that new development is

not exposed to hazard events, or influencing the type of
development
Vulnerability retrofitting older buildings that were built to lower building
standards or before building codes were enforced

Hazard

A hazard is a natural or man-made event that has the potential to cause impacts to
people, buildings, infrastructure, agriculture, environmental assets and communities.

Hazard modelling helps us understand a hazard's intensity (or magnitude), frequency

and source. It is typically underpinned by mathematical models that describe the
propagation of the hazard across the landscape.

Without knowledge of the past, we cannot predict what might happen in the future.
Historical catalogues are used to understand the frequency of hazard events. They help
us develop synthetic event sets that represent, for example, up to 10 000 years of
events. This allows us to understand what might be possible in the future and to prepare
for events that we have not seen in our lifetime. For rarer hazards such as earthquakes,
palaeoseismological investigations play a critical role in identifying and characterizing
individual pre-historic events that make up the neotectonics record.

Exposure

Exposure refers to the elements at risk from a natural or man-made hazard event. This
could include: individuals; dwellings or households and communities; buildings and
structures; public facilities and infrastructure assets; agricultural commodities;
environmental assets; and business activity. Exposure information is about the location
and characteristics, or attributes, of each of the elements and is therefore about what is
at risk. This information feeds into a natural hazard risk analysis to identify what
elements at risk are in the location, and enough information about each of the elements
to help understand how they are likely to behave when subjected to natural and artificial
hazards.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability to natural hazards is an integral factor in understanding the true extent of

risk. Although there is no single definition for vulnerability, it generally refers to the
impact a hazard has on people, infrastructure and the economy. This is, it asks how
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large an effect does a hazard of a certain severity have on a particular element at risk?
Vulnerability can be divided into four main areas: physical, social, economic and
system-depending on the class of elements at risk being considered.

Physical vulnerability

Physical vulnerability is the potential for physical impact on the built environment,
infrastructure or population. Information on the vulnerability of buildings and
infrastructure has been developed in countries such as the United States and in Europe,
but different building techniques, standards and materials adopted in Australia require
significant model calibration and testing under Australian conditions.

Vulnerability models of people to physical injury, known as casualty models, have also
been developed internationally based primarily on empirical data linking the likelihood of
occupants being injured or killed in the event of building damage or failure.

Modelling Physical Vulnerability

Physical vulnerability is modelled through describing a probable damage severity or

economic loss for a particular type of infrastructure when it is subjected to some level of
hazard.

Take for example a residential building with brick walls and a tile roof that is subjected to
a particular level of ground motion due to an earthquake. Our models define the
probability that the building will be in one of five damage states. Each of those damage
states has a repair cost associated with it and likely level of habitability. The overall
outcomes predicted for the buildings are not necessarily correct for each specific
building, but should be representative of the overall population exposed to the same
hazard.

These models can be developed in a number of ways including:

Expert opinion people with experience in the impact of natural hazards develop
understandings of the likely damage caused by hazards of
different intensities. This knowledge can be used to develop
vulnerability relationships through a variety of heuristic
techniques;

Empirical models these are based on post-event damage surveys and are limited
to the infrastructure surveyed and the hazard to which it was
subjected. A number of houses all subjected to the same wind
speed would only provide one point on a damage curve.
Insurance portfolio and claim data can also be used;

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Engineering these are based on our knowledge of the structure and its
models components and how they will behave when loaded. This type of
model is difficult to develop and will require calibration against
empirical data. However, it permits an assessment of what
contributes most to the vulnerability, and the cost-effectiveness
of various mitigation strategies to be assessed.

Social vulnerability

Just as different types of buildings respond to hazards in different ways, individual

people respond to hazards in different ways. Social vulnerability refers to the factors
that influence the way people, households and communities react to a hazard and to the
things that influence the losses they experience. Social losses are not always financial;
outcomes such as poor health, mental health issues, loss of social interactions, loss of
identity and family breakdown are all social losses.

Social vulnerability is nested in that the losses of an individual can impact on the whole
household, and the losses of a household can affect a whole community. Community
can be viewed as either a contained geographic area, such as a town or neighborhood,
or a group of spatially dispersed individuals who meet for a collective purpose, such as
a sporting team or theatre group.

Social vulnerability is complex-just as people are complex-and ongoing research,

usually conducted as post-disaster surveys, tries to understand the interaction of factors
that influence social losses. However, a number of factors are understood to play a part:

Demographics and These factors are often needed for operational needs in the
socio-economic response phase of disasters and are easily measured
statistics, such as age, quantitatively through the Census and other datasets;
disability status,
income and motor
vehicle ownership
Social capital The social networks and resources that people can call upon
to help in times of crisis. Friends, family and neighbours play
an important role in all areas of the hazard cycle from
warnings, to evacuation, to support in recovery. Some data
is available for quantitative analysis, but the gaps need to be
met with qualitative analysis;

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Risk perception The household's understanding of whether the hazard will

happen to them, and what the impacts of the hazard will be.
An appropriate perception of the risk is required before
households will prepare for and respond to a hazard.
Warnings will be ignored if the household does not think that
the hazard will happen to them personally. Risk perception is
usually studied qualitatively, but people often behave
differently during a disaster than how they said they would
before the disaster, so quantitative post-disaster studies of
behavior are also used;
Health and mental People with poor health or mental health issues are at much
health greater risk of harm or death when a hazard occurs.
Conversely, poor health and mental health are common
outcomes of disasters in previously healthy people. There is
currently little quantitative data available for the small areas
required for social vulnerability assessment.

Economic loss

Broadly, economic loss tends to be classified as three types of costs:

Direct tangible costs Costs resulting from the impact of the event, such as
physical damage to buildings and their contents, which have
a market value and so can be easily quantified
Indirect tangible costs Costs that result from the flow on effects of a disaster that
have a market value, such as business disruption and clean
up
Intangible costs Any direct or indirect cost that does not have a market value,
such as death and injury, loss of memorabilia, disruption to
social activities or loss of environmental assets. Intangible
costs are difficult to measure and so non-market valuation
techniques using proxy values are usually used

Ideally, an economic assessment of potential or actual losses from a disaster will

incorporate all of these loss categories. However direct tangible losses are the simplest
to obtain, because they follow more directly from the physical impact, while intangible
losses are complex, so many assessments include direct tangible losses only.

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System vulnerability

Critical infrastructure facilities are made up of many different components that work
together to deliver services to communities. These can be electric power stations, water
treatment plants or telecommunication hubs. Some components might be more
vulnerable to hazard exposure than others. Some might be more critical to the functions
of the facility, could be a more costly component or require longer lead time to restore.
The susceptibility of a critical infrastructure facility to severe hazard in terms of damage
and service disruption is called system vulnerability.

System vulnerability is assessed by creating a network model of the facility that

represents the key components and their relationship to others. As the natural hazard
intensity is increased the component damage, loss of function and implications for
facility service delivery is assessed. Information on the likely prognosis for the facility
returning to service is also predicted from repair cost and restoration time.

Post-disaster surveys

Natural disasters regularly impact communities. They damage buildings and

infrastructure, disrupt essential services, disrupt business activity and impact
households. These consequences require time and resources to enable recovery.
However, they also provide opportunities to learn about the current vulnerabilities of
what make up our communities, the factors that are contributing to these vulnerabilities,
and of the opportunities to mitigate these. This information can help avoid damage,
understand risk and inform measures to make our communities more resilient.

Activity No. 1

A. What is the difference between hazard, impact and risk assessments?

A hazard assessment is concerned with estimating how often events of various sizes or
larger occur. It can address questions such as:

● What is the probability of a given flood height, wind speed, or level of earthquake
ground shaking occurring at a given location?
● What is the flood height, wind speed, or level of earthquake ground shaking for a
given return period or annual exceedance probability?
● How does the hazard vary spatially? That is, which area is more likely to
experience floods, severe wind or earthquakes?
An impact assessment might be conducted where the impact from a single hazard
scenario is assessed. The scenario may be selected based on its probability of a local

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hazard severity occurring, or it may be based on an historical event, or selected to be a

certain magnitude (e.g., Category 5 tropical cyclone, or magnitude 8 earthquake).
Impact assessments can also be used to test mitigation strategies. Questions that could
be addressed include:

● What is the building damage for a magnitude 5 earthquake occurring near

Manila?
● What would the building damage be if an event similar to Super typhoon Yolanda
was to occur again?
● What would the building damage be for a 500-year return period tropical cyclone
event to impact Cagayan Valley? What would the building damage be for the
same event if the vulnerability of pre-code buildings were mitigated by
strengthening them to current building code standards?
A risk assessment considers the full suite of hazard scenarios (that is, the full synthetic
event set) to understand the risk (probability of magnitude of loss) to the community,
infrastructure and agriculture. It can address questions such as:

● What is the annual expected building loss from earthquake events for a given
location? How does the loss estimate change with mitigation strategies
enforced?
● Which areas will experience higher building loss from earthquakes?
● Which communities are more vulnerable to earthquake risk?

Lesson 2

Community-Based Disaster Risk

Reduction and Management

Each community is unique in its physical, environmental, economic, and socio-cultural

aspects. It follows that different communities are exposed to different sets of hazards,
have different disaster risks, vulnerabilities, and resilience.

How should disaster risk reduction be done in each community?

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Learning Content

Community-based risk reduction management (CBRDM) is a process that a

community undergoes in order to derive a set of locally-appropriate and adapted
strategies for disaster preparedness and management. All members of the community
are active participants and contributors to all aspects of risk reduction and management.
This includes identification and assessment of risks, risk reduction, management and
recovery planning. The decision-making of the community is based on their own
experiences, and the unique characteristics of their community. It will serve to build the
capacity of the community in disaster risk reduction and management, as well as the
resilience of every member of the community, including its vulnerable sectors (e.g.
children, elderly, pregnant, physically challenged, and unprivileged).

There are four components to consider in community-based risk reduction

management:

1. Emergency Plan
2. Monitoring and Evaluation
3. Early Warning Systems
4. Survival Kits and Materials

Emergency Plan

In emergency planning, it is important to establish who to prioritize during a response

based on the individual’s capacity and vulnerability. The role of individuals, rescuers,
and the government in an emergency event, should be identified. Emergency planning
is the basis for a community’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) or Emergency
Operations Plan (EOP).

Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring aims to track the steps done in the mitigation procedures and the result of
post-disaster actions. This helps the community to evaluate the compatibility of the
disaster risk reduction plans done by the government. This also serves as basis for
modifications for future disaster risk reduction planning suited to the community needs.

Early Warning Systems

Early warning systems are vital for information dissemination. This serves as a warning
for the community in an upcoming hazard so that they can take the necessary
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precautionary procedures to reduce the negative impacts of disasters. Early warning

devices are based on the resources of a community. An effective early warning system
has four main elements

which are:
1. knowledge of the community about the risks they have;
2. monitoring and forecasting of hazards;
3. dissemination and communication methods; and
4. knowledge and capability of community members to respond when the warning
is delivered.

Survival Kits and Materials

These are supplies needed to be prepared

before a disaster. This includes materials
that are needed for survival and immediate
relief during and immediately after a disaster
event. Some of the materials needed for
survival kits are water, ready to eat food that
can last for 72 hours, battery-operated
radios, medicines, etc.

Activity No. 2
A. Identify the type of community-based disaster risk reduction component.

1. bags with supplies that can last up to 72 hours -

2. EOPs and SOPs - _______________________________
3. device used for warning the community in an upcoming disastrous event -_____
4. assessment of the compatibility of the disaster risk reduction management - ___
5. Track the steps done in the mitigation procedures - _______________________

B. Evaluation and synthesis.

How does a community’s geographic location affect its CBRDM? Cite an example to
elaborate your answer.
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

C. Research the community-based strategies in DRR used by your local government.

Write your findings in the table below:

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FACTOR FINDINGS
Emergency
Plan
Monitoring
and
Evaluation
Early
Warning
Systems
Survival Kits
and
Materials

Lesson 3

Community Preparedness Plan

What do you think should be inside a bag that you can

easily? get and bring with you during a disaster? Inside
the bag below, write down what you think are the five
most important things you need to have: The individual
survival kit is called also known as the “Go bag”. Every
individual in the community is encouraged to secure one
as preparation for an upcoming disaster. Is this kit
enough for the community to withstand a disaster?

How can we make a community preparedness plan?

Learning Content
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The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) is responsible for developing the National Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management Plan (NDRRMP) which aims to provide a set of
strategies and approaches to reduce risks and manage disasters at a national level. It
serves as a guide for disaster risk reduction and management for a safer, adaptive, and
disaster resilient Filipino communities towards sustainable development.
Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction Management can adapt measures
developed by NDRRMP and tailor them based on the characteristics, experiences, and
current capacities of the community.

1. Disaster Prevention and Mitigation

Prevention aims to avoid any adverse impacts of catastrophe by creating plans and
procedures before a disaster strike. An example is l and use regulation such as
prohibiting residential use in disaster high-risk zones. Mitigation refers to reducing the
inevitable impacts of disaster. This includes engineering techniques for
hazard-resilient infrastructures and improved environmental policies and public
awareness.

2. Disaster Preparedness
This is the sum of all knowledge and capacities of all stakeholders to effectively
anticipate, respond, and recover from the likely negative impacts of disasters.

3. Disaster Response
This refers to actions in response to the impacts of disaster that aims to primarily save
lives, and reduce health impacts.

4. Disaster Recovery
Recovery includes rehabilitation, restoration, and improvement of facilities and living
conditions of disaster-affected communities.

Disaster Preparedness in the Community

Disaster Preparedness is not isolated from and is in fact a component of Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management (DRRM). Thus, community efforts to prepare for a potential
disaster event will affect the other components of DRRM. Taking off from the
community-based disaster risk reduction management, preparedness planning involves
participation of the whole community in the disaster preparedness planning and
implementation.

A. Community Risks and Vulnerabilities

Before developing a preparedness plan, the community should be able to anticipate
possible impacts of disaster by first identifying the risks and the possible disaster events
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that can result from the hazards in the area; as well as the vulnerable sectors and other
sources of vulnerabilities in the community. Impacts of disaster that should be
anticipated include the effects to different aspects of the community such as its people,
infrastructure and assets, food supply, and economy. Previous disaster experiences of
the community are good sources of information in disaster preparedness.

B. Resources Identification
Demographics of the community as well as the roles of existing sectors and
organizations should also be known. Aside from people, other community resources
should also be identified like sources of basic needs and services, supplies and
materials for response, evacuation, relief, and rehabilitation. Resources can include
local source of materials and manpower; and external linkages that can be tapped in
emergency situations.

C. Detailed Planning
Disaster Preparedness entails the development of a detailed Emergency Plan which
includes the tasks and roles of different community members, community-developed
Standard Operating Procedures and a list of resources needed for rescue and relief
operations. Identifying government agencies and Non-Government Organizations that
can provide assistance during rescue, relief, and recovery should also be included in
planning. It would be very helpful if data on locations of highly vulnerable sectors,
evacuation centers, fire stations, and list of hospitals and other service providers outside
the community, can be easily retrieved during an emergency. Rescuers from outside the
community that may come to assist, also need to be familiar with the locations of people
in need, and the nearest hospitals for instance.

An Early Warning System should be developed that is based on the known hazards,
and the resources of the community. Flood-prone communities for instance can develop
an audible alert system using varying siren sound duration depending on the alert level.
Communities that have a wide access to text messages, can be sent warning messages
if electricity supply and network signal is fairly reliable.

D. Implementing Disaster Preparedness Activities

After developing a detailed plan, educating the whole community about disaster risk
reduction management and disaster preparedness are an essential step that can render
the plan useless if majority of the population is not educated. Lectures, community
meetings, workshops, printed signs and reminders are some means to instill knowledge
and understanding about disaster risks and preparedness. The whole community
should be aware of the risks, what to do before, during, and after a disaster. Moreover,
members of the community will be able to use the disaster preparedness plan as a
basis or model of their family/household preparedness plan.

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The emergency plan, roles of community members in case of an emergency, and the
early warning system in place, should be practiced by the community through drills.
Through drills, members of the community will gain better understanding on how to
respond to emergency situations. Monitoring, assessment, and evaluation of awareness
activities and drills are sources of information to improve and make the disaster
preparedness plan more adapted to the local context.

Activity No. 2
A. Identify which thematic area do the following belong: .
1. Risk and hazard maps - ________________________________
2. Strengthen rescue operations - ________________________________
3. Reconstruction of resilient buildings - ________________________________
4. Efficient insurance systems - ________________________________
5. Increase community capacity - ________________________________
C. Evaluation and synthesis.
How will community disaster preparedness affect disaster risk reduction and
disaster
management? Explain your answer.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

Reference:
● https://depositphotos.com/46963967/stock-illustration-survival-kit.html
● https://graphicriver.img.customer.envatousercontent.com/files
● https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Backpack_icon.svg
● https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Conceptual-framework-for-disaster-risk-asse
ssment-adapted-from-21_fig2_317527127
● Ladds, M., Keating, A, Handmer, J and Magee. L 2017. How do disasters cost? A
comparison of disaster cost estimates in Australia. International Journal of
Disaster Risk Reduction 21 (2017)

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