Sussex Development Lecture Terry Cannon 17 Feb

Sussex Development Lecture17 February 2011

Unnatural Disasters, Natural HazardsTerry Cannon

Climate Change & Development Group

These slides will make more sense in conjunction with the recording of the lecture available here:

http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/news/natural-hazards-unnatural-disasters-understanding-disasters-in-the-context-of-development



Starting out – what do we mean by disasters…

• 1976 Nature article• At the same time I am sitting in India, amidst flood

waters, writing a very similar article published later in a geography magazine

• Soon after, I met Ben Wisner in Sheffield, and the idea of the book that became At Risk was born

• 35 years later the idea of natural hazards has not gone away, but its influence has been reduced – for some a paradigm shift to vulnerability analysis

Nature 1976

1994 1st edition

2004, 2nd edition

First three chapters free on internet athttp://www.unisdr.org/eng/library/Literature/7235.pdf

Translations:• Spanish 1996• Japanese 2010, published by Tsukiji Shokan• Chinese in preparation

http://www.unisdr.org/eng/library/Literature/7235.pdf

• In the past 30 years, a great shift has taken place in "explaining" disasters: away from the notion that they are "natural" and towards the idea that people are "vulnerable".

• But what makes people vulnerable, and is it the same as poverty? This lecture explores these issues, and argues that vulnerability is a consequence of two major issues: failed or bad development, and unsuitable attitudes to risk.

• And why should disasters be seen in the context of “development” (and what do I mean by that?)

• Short answer – vulnerability is a reflection of good and bad development

1900 – 1999Cause of death

Estimates used in At Risk 2nd edition

NumbersKilled

(millions)

%

Political violence 270.7 62.4

Slow-onset disaster 70.0 16.1

Epidemics 50.7 11.6

Road, rail, air & industrial incidents 32.0 7.6

Rapid-onset disaster 10.7 2.3

TOTAL 434.1 100

• 9 million child deaths per annum from 5 preventable diseases

• Malaria, polio, pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles

Disasters are not “natural”

• The hazard is natural, but all disasters are socially constructed…Earthquakes do not kill people – buildings do

• Social construction of different types: social systems lead people to live in dangerous places for different reasons:– good place to gain a livelihood – choose to live to live there for other benefits– forced to live there by economic and/or

political processes that reduce people’s choices: class-based exposure to risk

– combination of some or all these

Social construction of disasters

• Shift from “physicalist” or naturalist explanations to include vulnerability

• What needs to be included in the processes of social construction? Enter:– Vulnerability– Capacity – Resilience?– Exposure– “Culture”– Community… oh dear!

• Let’s start with why disasters are not natural, then build up the factors to be included

Blog on Haiti earthquake, 2010

Book on Hurricane Katrina disaster

2006, Routledge

There is no such thing as a sudden onset disaster – each one has been

in preparation for many years already..

James Lewis

World Bank publication

2010

Input document for the 2011 Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction

British Medical Journal, 2 June 2001

Police now put up notices that say Traffic Incident

Sweden’s long-term road safety goal is that there should be no fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic.

This goal was approved by the Swedish Parliament in 1997 and is based on the “Vision Zero” program.

Swedish road safety work is based on a refusal to accept human deaths or lifelong suffering as a result of road traffic.

Estimate of global road deaths 2004:

1.2 million

(this is around 10% of ALL deaths from sudden natural hazard impacts for the ENTIRE 20th century)

New York City version of Swedish Vision Zero

“Under Vision Zero, safety is prioritized over all other objectives of the transportation system, including mobility”

Is this feasible in relation to natural hazards?

USA road deaths 2004

48,500

How many people have been killed by earthquakes in the past 100 years?

• One of easiest to define as socially constructed

• Probably less than a thousand? Heart attacks etc.

• People are killed by buildings and structures collapsing, not by earthquakes

• Earthquakes are not natural disasters – they are socially constructed – caused by “society”

• (Many people are killed in secondary impacts of earthquakes – fire, landslides, tsunami, floods from reservoirs and lakes - earthquakes are almost always more than one disaster – they show how disasters are complex and compound)

Wenchuan earthquake12 May 2008Main shock 7.9 Richtermany powerful aftershocks

88,000 dead and missing, of which5,300 children (official figure…)375,000 injured

For pictures of the impact of the earthquake put this into Google:“wenchuan earthquake pictures”.Photos cannot be reproduced here for copyright reasons.

In this photo combo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Penghua Village in Mianzhu is shown on August 11, 2006, above, and then after this week's devastating quake on Friday, May 16, 2008, bottom. AP Photo/Xinhua, Chen Xie

http://cryptome.cn/cn-quake6/cn-quake6.htm

Parents holding portraits of their dead children attend a memorial service at the destroyed Fuxing primary school in the earthquake-hit Wufu town of Mianzhu county, Sichuan province May 21, 2008. The Chinese government has announced 19,000 students were killed in the earthquake.

http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2759080/Chinese-govt-19-000-students-died-in-earthquake.html

REUTERSWeeping parents hold portraits of their children during a May 27 memorial service at the ruins of Juyuan Middle School

Ai Weiwei was attacked by police in Sichuan (China) hotel during his show (top right, school children’s

backpacks) about the earthquake. Photo shows him being treated later in Munich during his show (top left)

How should we define the term vulnerability?

Is it the inverse (reciprocal) of capacity / capability / resilience ?

Is it a general condition, or do you have to be vulnerable to something?

It must be predictive – not some vague general condition somehow similar to

poverty

The Vulnerability word…• Have become almost as useless as the

term sustainable…• Abused by politicians, media, and

researchers?...• Need to rescue it to have some proper

scientific meaning: • Must be predictive (not post-hoc), related to

specific risks, category-specific – we must know vulnerable to what?

• (compare “Freedom” – must be freedom from what?)

Hazard

Flood

Cyclone

Earthquake

Tsunami

Volcanic eruption

Drought

Landslide

Biological

Vulnerability component

Livelihood & its resilience

Base-line statusWell-being

Self-protection

Social Protection

Governance

EXPOSURE

“Crunch” Pressure and Release (PAR) model

DISASTER

Components of Vulnerability

• Livelihood & its resilience– Assets and income earning activities

• Base-line status - well-being– Health (physical & mental), nutrition,

• Self-protection– Quality of house construction & location

• Social Protection– Adequacy of building controls; large-scale measures

• Governance– Power system, rights, status of civil society

Defining Governance

“the way power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development”

World Bank Governance and Development,1992

All agree we need good governance – what is it?

Bad governance = when power is used for the benefit of the powerful…

What are the priorities of different actors?

National & International

Political Economy

Power relations

Demographics

Conflicts & War

Environmental Trends

Debt Crises

Etc

SocialStructures & Power Systems

Class

Gender

Ethnicity

Caste

Other power relationships

Hazard

Flood

Cyclone

Earthquake

Tsunami

Volcanic eruption

Drought

Landslide

Biological

DISASTER



Base-line status

Well-being

Self-protection

Social Protection

Governance

SOCIAL

FRAME


ROOT

CAUSES

PAR / “crunch” model used by hundreds of NGOs, international organisations and

researchers

The model is used in IDS Strengthening Climate Resilience project on Climate Smart Disaster Risk Management approach

http://community.eldis.org/scr/

http://community.eldis.org/scr/

Simplified history of conceptsDisasters are natural disasters (“naturalist” / “physicalist” explanations)

1970s – paradigm shift – enter vulnerability analysis (e.g. At Risk, Wisner et al) disasters socially constructedDisasters = Hazard x Vulnerability

1980s – enter “community”, capability, resilience…(e.g. Rising from the Ashes 1989 Anderson & WoodrowDisasters = Hazard x Vulnerability

Capacity

1990s – enter “disaster risk reduction/ management”Disasters = Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability

Capacity

2000s – enter role of culture, innocence and disastersDisasters = Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability x “Culture”

Capacity/Resilience

Conceptual progression…

• Disasters are social constructs• But what factors and processes should be

identified as contributing to this social construction?

• Vulnerability (coping, capacity, resilience...)• Capacity (avoid victim mentality) > Resilience• Exposure• Risk taking behaviour > “Culture”


Political Economy

Power relations

Demographics

Conflicts & War


Debt Crises

Etc


Class

Gender

Ethnicity

Caste


Hazard

Flood

Cyclone

Earthquake

Tsunami

Volcanic eruption

Drought

Landslide

Biological

DISASTER



Base-line statusWell-being

Self-protection

Social Protection

Governance

SOCIAL

FRAME


ROOT

CAUSES

Exposure

Population increase:

changes in the number of more

or less vulnerable people

Location of that increase

The PAR “crunch” model is a basic approach, with limitations discussed in the book. The main limits are dealt with through the much more complex “Access” model, dealt with in Chapter 3 of At Risk.

The next slide is the basic diagram of the Access model.

“Access” model – household political ecology


Political Economy

Carbon based growth

Power relations


Debt Crises

Etc


Class

Gender

Ethnicity

Caste


Hazard

Flood

Cyclone

Drought

Landslide

Biological

DISASTER


• Livelihood & its resilience

• Base-line status• Well-being

• Self-protection• Social

Protection• Governance

SOCIAL

FRAME

ROOT

CAUSES

Climate change makes hazards worse

Poverty hits environmentCC undermines livelihoods& increases exposure

Exposure

Population increase:

changes in the number of more

or less vulnerable people

Location of that increase

Regional distribution is uneven

Environment provides:

RisksOpportunities

Hazards: floods,

earthquakes, hurricanes, eruptions

Production resources: land, water,

minerals, energy

Class - Gender - Ethnicity

Unequal access to opportunities and unequal exposure to hazards

Social systems and power relations

Political and economic systems – national and international

People do not separate these! They are often willing to live in unsafe places

Hazardous places are livelihood places

• People often trade the risks of a place for the livelihood and other benefits of that location– Volcanic soils– Floods and soil fertility and fish – Coasts for fishing– Water supplies and fault zones– Florida, California, Netherlands…

• Living in dangerous places– are people forced? – do they choose? or a combination– Do they have a different set of priorities?

Scale of choice of where to live and work

Less choice More choice

No choice but to live in

dangerous places

Essential livelihoods are often in dangerous places

Choosing to live in

dangerous places

“Any idiot can face a crisis. It is day-to-day living that wears

you out.”A character’s comment in The Wager (short story)

by Anton Chekhov

People typically do not have the same concept of risk as outsiders who want them to prepare for

hazards. Thousands of community surveys show that people give priority to everyday issues as at

the bottom of the next slide

Risk hierarchy

Extreme but infrequent“Little we can do about them..”

Damaging & within memory

Common & coped with

EQ

Landslide

Flood

DroughtFire

Tropical

cyclones

Severeflood

Everyday life: poverty, illness,hunger, water, traffic accidents Priorities !

Photo: La Paz, Bolivia

Fabien Nathan

In this and the next photos, Fabien Nathan has interviewed the inhabitants of many of the houses and found that people are choosing to live there. In the final photo, you can see that after a landslide, they are putting in reinforcements to save the house that now hangs over the slope...


Fabien Nathan


Fabien Nathan


Fabien Nathan

Problem of community as the “agency” of implementation

• Community-based this and that is the solution to all the world’s problems…– Community Based Disaster Risk Management

/Reduction– Community Based Adaptation– WB and UNDP decentralisation policies after 1990s

• Climate change and adaptation funding – the coming nightmare of determining how it should be spent...

Bringing in “culture” & community...

• People’s attitudes to risk – – People’s willingness to take risks….– fatalism, predestination, “it will not happen to me…”– risk hierarchy & dominance of the every day

• Power at the locality– Class, caste, ethnicity, religion, etc– One person’s vulnerability is another person’s

resilience…– Assets (capitals) are unequally owned and controlled

Disaster preparedness project in Cambodia

The project had considerable difficulties in dealing with the internal tensions within ‘community’.

The project leader said:

“The more powerful in society may not want the most vulnerable to participate. Therefore changing this may require advocacy by the NGO which is not really compatible with a participatory research methodology, or by-passing the more powerful in society which is not sustainable once the NGO has left. Doing this may actually endanger the most vulnerable, putting them at risk of reprisals.”

Situation report after the Indian Ocean tsunami (26 December 2004):

“Although devastating, the tsunami disaster is not likely to have a catastrophic impact on economies

in the region. This is mainly because the areas affected, for the most part, were not industrial

centers but poor fishing villages and small coastal towns, places of limited economic value.”

This assessment by a risk analysis corporation leaves out the community...

http://www.stratfor.com/index.php

Spaces for development – where do our goals fit into the way the world works, what is our scope for success against

more powerful processes

• Development is NOT the same as economic growth• Development is what we try to achieve purposely against

the operation of normal “progress” – market economy, existing power relations, goals of corporations and governments, landlords and despots

• Development space is shrinking in the face of corporate power and neo-liberalism, and with it the space for disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change

Global Income Distribution, 2000http://www.eoearth.org/article/Patterns_of_economic_growth_and_development

Hierarchies of influence…2006 US$ millions

GNP of USA 13,000,000 Banking and credit crises.. ?,000,000

Foreign Direct Investment 1,200,000

Official Development Assistance 104,421

US costs of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, “on terror”, per annum (estimate)

80,000

EU Common Agricultural Policy farm subsidies 53,000

USA spending on pets 34,000

Oxfam International 640

The spaces for development are constrained by much more powerful processes and actors...

Education

Sussex Development Lecture Terry Cannon 17 Feb