Abstract
In his foreword to “Living with Risk,” the United Nations’ Secretary General, Kofi Annan raised awareness to human-induced conditions that increase vulnerability to natural disasters. Rapid urbanization and land degradation, globalization and socio-economic poverty, global warming and climate change are among the global trends that affect the world at large and result in the severity, if not be the cause of natural disasters.
Communities will always face natural hazards, but today’s disasters are often generated by, or at least exacerbated by, human activities… At no time in human history have so many people lived in cities clustered around seismically active areas. Destitution and demographic pressure have led more people than ever before to live in flood plains or in areas prone to landslides. Poor land-use planning; environmental management; and a lack of regulatory mechanisms both increase the risk and exacerbate the effects of disasters.
Kofi Annan.
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Notes
- 1.
Annan, Kofi, 2002: Foreword to Living with Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives, (UN/ISDR). Quoted in UN/ISDR, 2003: Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development. A background paper for the World Summit on Sustainable Development; http://www.unisdr.org (2006):1.
- 2.
In simplest terms, urbanization is an increasing proportion of a population living in settlements defined as urban centers (Satterthwaite 2005: 2). The immediate cause of most urbanization is the net movement of people from rural to urban areas (which is mostly higher than urban to rural migration). It is important to note that national governments set their own population benchmarks to define what constitutes an urban area. Therefore, the scale of the world’s urban population may vary according to different national standards.
- 3.
The proportion of people living in cities is lower than the proportion living in urban centers, as a significant proportion of people live in urban centers that are too small to be called cities (Satterthwaite 2005: 22). In this book, the term urban area will be used to identify both urban centers, cities, and their agglomerations.
- 4.
Mega-cities are cities with populations of ten million people or more. The United Nations first used the term in the 1970s to designate urban areas with populations of eight million or more. The threshold was increased in the 1990s.
- 5.
According to the 2010 UN population estimates, Paris, Jakarta, Kinshasa and Guangzhou (Guangdong) are other urban areas that will reach populations over ten million people by the year 2020.
- 6.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change “refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity” (McCarthy et al. 2001: 3).
- 7.
Munich Re Group 2005: Megacities—Megarisks: Trends and Challenges for Insurance and Risk Management. Munich Re Group Knowledge Series; at: http:www.munichre.com (2006):25.
- 8.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2001).
- 9.
The World Bank (WB) defines poverty as an unacceptable deprivation in human well-being; which goes beyond the traditional view as measured by income or consumption; but that includes basic material needs including adequate nutrition, health, education, and shelter as well as social needs including security and empowerment (WB 2001; Ames et al. 2002). According to the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategies, urban poverty is explained with dimensions of income poverty, health and education poverty, personal and tenure security, and disempowerment (Baharoglu and Kessides 2002).
- 10.
Informal settlements have recently been defined and used under the large umbrella of the term slum. Standard and operational understandings of slums include both its traditional definition as declining housing areas that have deteriorated with the movement of their original dwellers to new and better areas of the cities, as well as informal settlements in urban periphery of mostly developing nations and that encompass both squatter settlements and illegal subdivisions (UN-Habitat 2003: 9). In this book, the terms slum and informal settlements are used interchangeably.
- 11.
Communication with Prof. Dr. Selim Karpuz.
- 12.
Dodman et al. (2009).
- 13.
The popularisation of pueblos jovenes in official terminology, instead of the former term of tugurios (inner-city slums) and barriadas (squatter communities), is argued to be an attempt of authorities “to address the damaging effect of prejudice against slums” (UN-Habitat 2003: 10).
- 14.
It should be noted that shanties or slums in Mumbai are a combination of peripheral and inner-city settlements. Indeed, one of these inner city squatter settlements, Dharavi, which was the largest slum in Asia in the 1980 s, has a population estimated to be somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people, but today there are four other slums in Mumbai larger than Dharavi. “Dharavi in Mumbai is no longer Asia’s largest slum”, in The Times of India (6 Jul 2011).
- 15.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2004): 61.
- 16.
Dodman et al. (2009): 29–30.
- 17.
A similar slum clearance campaign is experienced today in Rio de Janeiro as the government is preparing for the 2016 Olympic Games and pushing out drug gangs in the favelas and these slums are now turning into lucrative real estate opportunities for the wealthy.
- 18.
Dodman et al. (2009).
- 19.
Baker (2006).
- 20.
Baker (2006): 1.
- 21.
Baker (2006): 2.
- 22.
Baker (2006): 23.
- 23.
Baker (2006): 23.
- 24.
Meli and Alcocer (2004: 33) explains that “the rate of distress and failure suffered by school and hospital buildings after major earthquakes is consistently higher than, or at least equal to, than of other common buildings.” They argue for the existence of two major reasons for this high rate of damage. One is related with “inconsistency among design seismic-induced loads, expected performance, and design and detailing rules,” and “the second reason is related to the more complex and irregular structural layouts” of these buildings (Meli and Alcocer 2004: 33).
- 25.
In studying Latin American cities, Gilbert (1996: 93) argued that “hilly cities are arguably less clearly polarized than flat cities,” as high-income and middle-income areas develop in close proximity to barrios and favelas on steep slopes unsuitable for formal-sector construction. Gilbert (1996: 93) wrote: “Here, every exclusive residential development appears to have its low-income neighbour next door. A functional symbiosis has developed; the urbanización provides work for the maids, shoe menders, laundresses, and the like, and the barrio provides cheap labor”.
- 26.
“Japanese architect falsified earthquake data”, in Architectural Record, 2006. News Briefs.
- 27.
“Earth-shaking news”, in Economist (December 2005): 46.
- 28.
These were survey studies on local government approaches to hazards. There was a high survey response rate ranging between 75 and 90 %; and types of informants were local planning directors or designees, and local flood coordinators. For more information on floodplain hazards, see “Coping with floods” (Burby and French 1981) and Flood Plain Land Use Management (Burby and French 1985). For coastal storms and hurricanes, see Catastrophic Coastal Storms (Godschalk et al. 1989). For earthquakes, see “A national assessment of local earthquake mitigation” (Berke et al. 1992), and for multiple natural hazards see Sharing Environmental Risks (Burby et al. 1991), and Factors Promoting Comprehensive Local Government Hazards Management (Kartez and Faupel 1995).
- 29.
These are conclusions derived from the following studies: The Politics and Economics of Earthquake Hazard Mitigation (Alesch and Petak 1986); “Hurricane vertical shelter policy” (Berke 1989); “A national assessment of local earthquake mitigation” (Berke et al. 1992); Flood Plain Land Use Management (Burby and French 1985); “Mandates, plans and planners” (Dalton and Burby 1994); Earthquake Mitigation Policy (Drabek et al. 1983); Catastrophic Coastal Storms (Godschalk et al. 1989); Analysis of Adoption and Implementation of Community Land-use Regulations for Floodplains (Hutton et al. 1979); Role of States in Earthquake and Natural Hazard Innovation at the Local Level (Lambright 1984); Seismic Hazard in the Central United States (Olhansky 1994); and Preparing for California’s Earthquakes: Local Government and Seismic Safety (Wyner and Mann 1986).
- 30.
Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) (2002).
- 31.
Among them were statewide Florida, large cities and counties in Nevada, coastal region in North Carolina, statewide Oregon, coastal California, and growth management jurisdictions in Washington State (Steinberg and Burby 2002: 23).
- 32.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (2001).
- 33.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (2001).
- 34.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (2006).
- 35.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (2006): 26–28.
- 36.
See “Governing Land Use in Hazardous Areas with a Patchwork System” (May and Deyle 1998: 57–82) for legal programs and policies that influence land-use and development in hazard-prone areas.
- 37.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2004): 63.
- 38.
Satterthwaite (2011): 16–17.
- 39.
See “Disaster management plan for the State of Maharashtra, India” (Vatsa and Joseph 2003) for the Mumbai case.
- 40.
According to the UN-Habitat’s Governance Campaign, principles of “good urban governance” is characterized by sustainability in all dimensions of urban development, subsidiarity of authority and resources to the closest appropriate level, equity of access to decision-making processes and the basic necessities of urban life, efficiency in the delivery of public services and in promoting local economic development, transparency and accountability of decision-makers and all stakeholders, civic engagement and citizenship, and security of individuals and their living environment. United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), 2004: Principles of Good Urban Governance; at: http://www.unhabitat.org (2006):3–7.
- 41.
Satterthwaite (2011): 19.
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Gencer, E.A. (2013). Natural Disasters, Urban Vulnerability, and Risk Management: A Theoretical Overview. In: The Interplay between Urban Development, Vulnerability, and Risk Management. SpringerBriefs in Environment, Security, Development and Peace(), vol 7. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29470-9_2
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