DRRR NOTES

• A disaster is a damaging event that occurs suddenly and involves loss of life and property .

• According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2008), disaster is “a serious disruption of the
functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental
losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own
resources”.

Disaster is "a sudden, calamitous occurrence that causes great harm, injury, destruction, and devastation to life and
property”. It disrupts the usual course of life, causing both physical and emotional distress such as an intense feeling of
helplessness and hopelessness

• According to United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction defines disaster as a serious disruption
of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or
environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using
its own resources.

• Disasters are often a result of the combination of: the exposure to a hazard; the conditions of vulnerability that
are present; and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with the potential negative consequences.

DISASTER RISK

 Risk has various connotations within different disciplines. In general, risk is defined as “the combination of the
probability of an event and its negative consequences” (UNISDR, 2009).

 The term risk is thus multidisciplinary and is used in a variety of contexts. It is usually associated with the degree
to which humans cannot cope (lack of capacity) with a situation (e.g. natural hazard).

 Risk refers to the potential (not actual and realized) disaster losses, in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets, and
services which could occur in a community or society over some specified future time period.

 Disaster risk is the product of the possible damage caused by a hazard due to the vulnerability within a
community. It should be noted that the effect of a hazard (of a particular magnitude) would affect communities
differently (Von Kotze, 1999:35).

 Its impacts may include loss of life, injury, disease and other negative effects on human physical, mental, and
social wellbeing, together with damage to properties, destruction of assets, loss of services, social and economic
disruptions, and environmental degradation.

 It can also be determined by the presence of three variables: hazards (natural or anthropogenic); vulnerability to
a hazard; and coping capacity linked to the reduction, mitigation, and resilience to the vulnerability of a
community.

Classification of Disasters:

• A. Natural Disasters – a natural phenomenon is caused by natural forces, such as earthquakes, typhoon,
volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, fires, tornados, and extreme temperatures. They can be classified as rapid onset
disasters and those with progressive onset, such as droughts that lead to famine. These events, usually sudden,
can have tremendous effects.

• B. Man-made - Disasters caused by man are those in which major direct causes are identifiable intentional or
non-intentional human actions.

Subdivided into three categories

• 1. Technological/industrial disasters - Unregulated industrialization and inadequate safety standards increase

• EXAMPLE: leaks of hazardous materials; accidental explosions; bridge or road collapses, or vehicle collisions;
Power cuts

• Terrorism/Violence - the threat of terrorism has also increased due to the spread of technologies involving
nuclear, biological, and chemical agents used to develop weapons of mass destruction
 • EXAMPLE : bombs or explosions; release of chemical materials; release of biological agents; release of
radioactive agents; multiple or massive shootings; mutinies

• Complex humanitarian emergencies - the term complex emergency is usually used to describe the humanitarian
emergency resulting from an international or civil war. In such situations, large numbers of people are displaced
from their homes due to the lack of personal safety and the disruption of basic infrastructure including food
distribution, water, electricity, and sanitation, or communities are left stranded and isolated in their own homes
unable to access assistance.

• EXAMPLE: conflicts or wars and Genocide the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a
particular ethnic group or nation

• 1. Exposure - the “elements at risk from a natural or man-made hazard event (Quebral, 2016).

• 2. Hazard-a potentially dangerous physical occurrence, phenomenon or human activity that may result in loss of
life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption, or environmental degradation.

• 3. Vulnerability - the condition determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes,
which increase the susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazard .

• The following are also taken into consideration when risk factors underlying disaster are involved:

• Severity of exposure - which measures those who experience disaster first-hand which has the highest risk of
developing future mental problems, followed by those in contact with the victims such as rescue workers and

• health care practitioners and the lowest risk are those most distant like those who have awareness of the
disaster only through news.

• Gender and Family - the female gender suffers more adverse effects. This worsens when children are present at
home. Marital relationships are placed under strain.

• Age - adults in the age range of 40-60 are more stressed after disasters but in general, children exhibit more
stress after disasters than adults do.

• Economic status of country - evidence indicates that severe mental problems resulting from disasters are more
prevalent in developing countries like the Philippines. Furthermore, it has been observed that natural disasters
tend to have more adverse effects in developing countries than do man-caused disasters in developed countries.

Factors which underlie disasters:

• 1. Climate Change - can increase disaster risk in a variety of ways – by altering the frequency and intensity of
hazards events, affecting vulnerability to hazards, and changing exposure patterns.

• For most people, the expression “climate change” means the alteration of the world’s climate that we humans
are causing such as burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other practices that increase the carbon footprint
and concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

• This is in line with the official definition by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) that climate change is the change that can be attributed “directly or indirectly to human activity that
alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed
over comparable time periods”

• 2. Environmental Degradation - changes to the environment can influence the frequency and intensity of
hazards, as well as our exposure and vulnerability to these hazards.

• For instance, deforestation of slopes often leads to an increase in landslide hazard and removal of mangroves
can increase the damage caused by storm surges (UNISDR, 2009b).

• It is both a driver and consequence of disasters, reducing the capacity of the environment to meet social and
ecological needs.

• Over consumption of natural resources results in environmental degradation, reducing the effectiveness of
essential ecosystem services, such as the mitigation of floods and landslides. This leads to increased risk from
disasters, and in turn, natural hazards can further degrade the environment.

3. Globalized Economic Development - It results in an increased polarization between the rich and poor on a global
scale.
 • Currently increasing the exposure of assets in hazard prone areas, globalized economic development provides
an opportunity to build resilience if effectively managed.

• By participating in risk-sensitive development strategies such as investing in protective infrastructure,

• 4. Poverty and Inequality - Impoverished people are more likely to live in hazard-exposed areas and are less
able to invest in risk-reducing measures.

• The lack of access to insurance and social protection means that people in poverty are often forced to use their
already limited assets to buffer disaster losses, which drives them into further poverty. Poverty is therefore both
a cause and consequence of disaster risk (Wisner et al., 2004), particularly extensive risk, with drought being the
hazard most closely associated with poverty (Shepard et al., 2013).

• The impact of disasters on the poor can, in addition to loss of life, injury and damage, cause a total loss of
livelihoods, displacement, poor health, food insecurity, among other consequences. Vulnerability is not simply
about poverty, but extensive research over the past 30 years has revealed that it is generally the poor who tend
to suffer worst from disasters

• 5. Poorly planned and Managed Urban Development - A new wave of urbanization is unfolding in hazard-
exposed countries and with it, new opportunities for resilient investment emerge.

• People, poverty, and disaster risk are increasingly concentrated in cities. The growing rate of urbanization and
the increase in population density (in cities) can lead to creation of risk, especially when urbanization is rapid,
poorly planned and occurring in a context of widespread poverty.

• Growing concentrations of people and economic activities in many cities are seen to overlap with areas of high-
risk exposure.

6. Weak Governance - weak governance zones are investment environments in which public sector actors are unable or
unwilling to assume their roles and responsibilities in protecting rights, providing basic services and public services.

• Disaster risk is disproportionately concentrated in lower-income countries with weak governance (UNISDR,
2015a).

• Disaster risk governance refers to the specific arrangements that societies put in place to manage their disaster
risk (UNISDR, 2011a; UNDP, 2013a) within a broader context of risk governance (Renn, 2008 in UNISDR, 2015a).

• This reflects how risk is valued against a backdrop of broader social and economic concerns