Future Disaster Trends And Policy Implications For Developing Countries
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Date
1994
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Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
As the developing world continues to industrialize and urbanize, it
is continually creating conditions for more and worse disasters in
the future that will, among other things, contribute further to
environmental degradation and hinder developmental programs. The
processes of industrialization and urbanization, however positive
in effects along certain lines, will both increase the number of
potential disaster agents and enlarge the vulnerabilities of
communities and populations that will be at risk.Making for an increase are: (1) the accelerating expansion of
accidents and mishaps in the chemical and nuclear areas; (2)
technological advances which reduce some hazards but make some old
threats more dangerous; (3) new versions of old and past dangers
such as urban droughts; (4) the emergence of innovative kinds of
technologies such as computers and biogenetics which present
distinctively new dangers; and, (5) an increase in multiple (e.g.
natural disasters creating technological ones) or synergistic type
disasters resulting in more severe environmental consequences. Increasing the vulnerabilities are that: (1) both natural and
technological disaster agents will simply have more built-up areas
to impact; (2) more vulnerable kinds of populations will be
impacted than in the past; (3) metropolitan areas will be
increasingly impacted and along certain lines the social
organizations and group configurations of urban areas are not
particularly well suited for coping with disasters; (4) increasing
localities will have disastrous conditions from sources that may be
quite distant and even from the past; and (5) certain future
disasters have catastrophic potential even though they may produce
no casualties nor do much property damage. Although there are a few countervailing trends, these two set of
conditions will insure both quantatively more and qualitatively
worse disasters in coming decades. Among the major implications
are furtherance of environmental degradation, in some cases
polluting some areas almost forever and creating problems for future generations. Projected future disasters will also slow down
the implementation of developmental programs and perhaps even the
adoption of otherwise worthwhile technological innovations. will reduce and weaken some of the negative effects of the probable
catastrophic disasters of the future. Among major ones are: (1)
noting and accepting the fact that all disasters are essentially
social occasions that primarily have to be dealt with by social
more than technological means; (2) eliminating the distinction in
planning between natural and technological disasters and moving to
an all hazard or generic approach; (3) making disaster mitigation
at least as much a priority in planning and application as
emergency preparedness, response and recovery; (4) more closely
integrating disaster planning to the developmental planning or
social change processes of the social system involved; and (5)
ascertaining in what ways disaster problems are similar to and
different from other environmental problems, and concurrently
addressing both where there are similarities.
If the right policies and measures are put in place the future will
not be the past revisited nor will it be only the present repeated.
Description
Keywords
Disaster, Trends, Policy Implications, Developing Countries