10/27/2016
Where is flood risk management going?
Last week I was lucky enough to attend the 3rd FloodRisk 2016 European Conference of Flood Risk Management in Lyon, France in order to present research from the IDEA project at Oxford Brookes University which I am currently working on. This research relates to the improvement of data management as a means to improving damage assessment, cost-benefit analysis of flood risk management strategies and compensation processes. My presentation focused on the data requirements for forensic disaster investigations, a relatively new and innovative approach to understanding the drivers of damage in disasters. Here I present some observations about the conference.
Prevailing themes
The Role of Community
The first day focused mainly on the role that communities do
and can play in flood risk management.
- · Erik Wagner from the Dutch Waterboard spoke about a lack of awareness in Holland among the people who have never experienced a flood in their lifetime and the challenges associated with raising awareness of flooding.
- · Mario Mendiondo from the Brazilian Ministry of Science spoke about the benefits of public participation in urban planning as a means to engage.
- · Lindsey McEwan from the University of West of England spoke about knowledge integration and the capturing of data through community archives.
- · Jonathan Simm from HR Walingford presented about Arnstein’s ladder of participation and claims they have data on community groups who manage flood risk and promotes the building of community capacities to manage initiatives.
- · Others spoke of digital storytelling as a way of capturing memories of flooding
Data and Modelling
Another overarching theme of presentations focused on the
need for improved datasets and data sources in order to improve damage
assessment and prediction. This is very much in line with the work of the IDEA
project.
Infrastructure and Escalation of Risk
Discussions around the importance of damage to
infrastructure is an emerging theme that seems to be growing. This is coming from
an understanding that preventing damage to buildings is relatively straightforward
with engineering solutions and zoning policies tackling the physical risk to
properties. It is now being recognised that the more complex and potentially
disastrous impacts can come from damage to the increasingly complex and
interconnected infrastructure networks and the interactions they have with social
and economic activities. This is borne out by the recent release of the
Government’s National Flood resilience Report which outlines the need to better
understand risk and protect local infrastructure.
Community Data Gathering
Linking the previous two areas of interest was a specific
focus on how community sourcing of data and help to improve understandings of
flooding and thus improve flood risk modelling and damage assessment.
- · Jerome Le Coz spoke about citizen science and crowd sourced data giving examples of Flood Patrol in the Phillipines and using image analysis techniques in order to understand water speeds and depths etc.
- · Olivier Piotte from Vigicrues presented about his work on collecting data about high water marks through crowd sourced data which feed into French FRM strategy.
- · Teresa Fenn from Risk Policy Analysts spoke about her work in assessing the damage caused by flooding in the UK in 2013. Her findings displayed high uncertainty and difficulty in disaggregating flood damage from other damages such as economic.
- · Lehmann from the US Army Copr of Engineers gave a presentation about a system he developed which allows for quick and dirty estimations of damage in order to see if further investigation is necessary. Based on ECAM (Economic Consequence Assessment Model).
Risk and Urban Planning
An area of interest that came out of a session and which a
lot of people seemed passionate about is the intersection of urbanity and risk
including flooding. It was clear that a gap exists between planning policy and
the understanding of risk possibly as a result of the inability of flood risk
experts to communicate the importance and impacts of flooding.
Observations
Attendance
The event was attended by academics, policy makers and
industry representatives from around Europe and even from countries as far away
as Brazil and Peru. As the conference was in France, there was a large French contingent
to the detriment of the conference as many presentations had a focus on similar
events and similar approaches to Flood Risk Management (FRM) strategies. A
strong British, German, Dutch and Italian contingent was notable also with few
representatives from countries such as Poland, one of the countries most
affected by flooding in Europe.
Lack of Solutions
It seems that the academic world is still grappling with how
best to improve our ability to predict flood events and the damage caused yet
there seems to be a lack of hard solutions to the risk and the damage. There
was an overriding bias towards improving data, modelling and mapping and how
these can be implemented in emergency situations and in recovery. There was
very little in terms of structural measures and perhaps this is a reflection of
the direction in which flood risk management is moving. Where hard solutions
were discussed, the discussion was about sustainable alternative large scale
solutions and how best to evaluate their performance.
Where to go from here
Sustainable alternatives for flood property-level protection
With the trend for sustainable solutions to flood risk
management mostly at river catchment and community level, perhaps there are
alternatives for sustainable, building level protection. This could be a very
interesting field that can involve a value added element for developers that
incentivises better flood risk measures, a solution that was raised as a
possible alternative to harder solutions that tend to not be valued by house
buyers.
Interaction of urban planning and flood risk
It was generally agreed that flood risk and risk in general
is quite far down the list of priorities for urban planners. One of the biggest
challenges is in communicating the need for better risk planning and
potentially targeting developers as a means of improving the uptake of better
solutions. This could be done through incentivising flood management measure
through the improvement of sustainable drainage solutions that also add to the
living quality of developments.
Issues of density and risk reduction are also an area that could
be explored. Our understanding of how
density and risk of flooding and other risks interact is changing with our
changing infrastructure and connectedness. Perhaps collaboration with the
planning department could be a strategic move.
Research group/centre
Perhaps a research group that focuses on an innovative area
of flood risk could be a good idea. The area of urban planning and flood risk or
risk in general is one that could be innovative. This could be initiated between
academic institutes or commercial groups.
Expand horizons from Property level solutions
With growing recognition that flood risk needs to be managed
at various scales, it could be beneficial to offer a holistic view on flood
risk and then market other solutions as fitting within this view.
9/28/2016
Mapping systemic flood risk.
In 2007, the Mythe Water Treatment Plant was shut down to protect it from disastrous damage. This resulted in nearly 300,000 people losing access to clean drinking water, some of them for up to 2 weeks. Roads were closed, businesses were shut, emergency services had difficulty accessing certain areas. People that lived miles from identifiable flood risk areas were hit badly, Their lives disrupted.
This shows clearly, our flood maps are only the tip of the iceberg. We need systemic flood risk maps.
Systemic Risk
Insurance companies and the Environment Agency (EA) are pretty good at this stage at modelling how heavy rainfall will affect certain areas. They can identify with pretty good accuracy, the areas most at risk of being flooded. Where they are currently trying to improve is in using that information combined with weather forecasts to be more pro-active in responding to floods by predicting with as much foresight, where will flood and when.
What nobody is doing is mapping the indirect impact of these areas being flooded. If a hospital is flooded it has an enormous impact. Lives can be lost. In many cases it is understood who a hospital serves and where they live. That is why most hospitals have emergency plans, back-up generators and temporary flood barriers. This is nothing new.
What we are yet to fully understand is the impact that the loss of businesses and smaller infrastructure might have on the wider economy and population.
Maybe you live on a hill and the car manufacturer you work for is located 5 miles form a flood risk area. You might feel that flooding is of no interest to you. But what if the company that supplies vital engine parts to your company gets flooded? What if the road to your factory is closed due to flooding and no parts can get in? What if your main customer gets flooded and can't buy any stock from you for several weeks? What if your electricity supplier loses a substation and your company is without electricity for several days?
Your company may not close or even get wet but it may lose a lot sales, be unable to make good on contracts, lose custom to competitors or have to lay off staff. Of course insurance is there to cover any losses but how many businesses consider those kind of risks when taking out insurance? How well do insurance companies even understand the risk that businesses or people are really at?
The answer is not very well.
Insurance companies need to know the risk that each and every customer is at because, by their very nature, they are assuming the risk of those customers. Because of the extensive nature of floods, they can result in a huge number of claims all at the same time, putting huge strain on an insurance company.
How does this impact on you and me? Well due to competition, every insurance company wants to be able to offer the cheapest policy possible and they can only do that by reducing their own risk. Affordability is key to resilience when it comes to insurance.
The non-physical
Having recently spoken to the risk mapping manager for a leading UK and international insurer, they really don't understand what I call systemic risk at all. The reason is simple. It's too complex. Mapping critical infrastructure is easy. The EA knows where their flood defenses are. Water companies know where their treatment plants are. Likewise electricity companies and their substations.
What is more difficult is the non-physical aspects of systems. We can likely map the supply chain of an individual company with some time and effort but to do so for even a small town is beyond the capabilities of any insurance company or government agency at the moment.
Where can we learn from in trying to do this? Can geographers collaborate with economists and business experts to start this process? Who is willing to kick start it? What are the drivers behind such an initiative?
If this information can benefit the insurance industry then perhaps that is a potential point of entry. Unfortunately by their nature, insurance companies are protective of their data and analysis techniques but maybe the benefits can be passed on to the customer.
Can the government take this on? The recently published National Flood Resilience Review highlighted the importance of mapping infrastructure at risk of flooding which is a big step forward, if a few years behind what many in the industry have been saying for many years. Can mapping the non-physical be the next step?
1/20/2015
Urban disaster response in Port Au Prince; a case study.
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread
of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives
deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” Italo
Calvino (Calvino 1972)
Port Au Prince
Michael
Batty has characterised cities as being complex systems that evolve and
organise themselves, adapting rapidly to various alterations in its fabric. (Batty
2005) With the rapid urbanisation and modernisation of the last century
and the resulting stresses on the environmental, economic, social and
infrastructural capacities of cities, there has been an increase in disasters
and the emergence of new forms of disaster that we have yet to fully conceive (Ramalingam
2012). Here I will look at some of the diverse processes and
contributing factors that produce vulnerability in cities with a focus on Port
Au Prince that led to the devestation (220,000 dead and over 1 million left
homeless) witnessed in Haiti following the earthquake of 12th
January 2010. While the disaster affected the entire country, a very large
number of people and the majority of economic impact were felt in the urban
areas.
There
are issues with choosing Haiti as a case study. As the disaster happened only 4
years ago, there has been little time for humanitarian agencies to reflect
objectively on their actions and for a large body of valid, reliable and
objective material to be published, documenting the data-based results of the
humanitarian response and the impact of programmes. Also, it is recognised that
Haiti is an extreme case that portrays many negative aspects of the urban
fabric. I have attempted to also identify some of the positive aspects of the
city that provided assistance in the emergency response and recovery phases. By
analysing reports from different agencies involved in different sectors of the
response, I have identified some of the typical responses to the disaster in
urban areas and the lessons learned by agencies.
Underlying Causes of Vulnerability
The cost of
urban post-disaster reconstruction can lead to large international debt
reducing options for economic growth and anti-poverty policies, effecting
cities and their inhabitants disproportionately. With repetitive disasters, as
is the case in Haiti, governmental debt can and has led to cuts in food,
education and transportation subsidies and public sector restructuring leads to
higher unemployment and increases in informal employment and a rise in urban
poverty. (Pelling 2003)
Poverty reduction has been slower in urban areas where the identification of
the most vulnerable is more difficult resulting in an ‘urbanisation of
poverty’. The use of poverty lines to identify the most vulnerable has led to a
false reduction in the number of urban poor relative to the rural. National
poverty levels are usually set according to the cost of basic living needs such
as housing, food, education and health but the costs of these commodities are
usually higher in an urban context thus leading to a large number of urban poor
not being categorised as such. (Baker 2008) Prior to the earthquake in 2010, 55% of the population of Port Au
Prince were living on less than 1.25 US$ per day. (IASC 2010b)
The scale of
disasters has increased proportionally with the growth of cities. Of the 20
earthquakes with the highest fatalities, all had high concentrations in urban
areas (Coburn 1989).
However the scale in fatalities cannot be put down to a simple increase in size
and density of cities as cultural, political and socio-economic factors also
play a part in vulnerability. A strong correlation can be seen between poverty
and recent migrants to cities who tend to be excluded and lack the social
integration to access livelihoods and housing. (Pelling 2003)
The growth of slums or the ‘urbanisation of poverty’ is an important factor in
the increase of vulnerability with many slum dwellers struggling to survive in
informal shelter, informal income-generation and lack of access, physically and
socially, to land, education, credit, health, sanitation and markets and are
often located in inadequate housing on land prone to the effects of climate
induced hazards. (Habitat 2003)
Habitants of slums are often isolated from political participation and
representation leading to worsening of the underlying causes of poverty and
vulnerability. A lack of access to credit due to reliance on the informal
economy results in high interest loans being the only
option for mortgages as low-income families are excluded from bank lending reducing
housing entitlements (Pelling
2003) (Westendorff 2004).
86% of people in Port-Au-Prince were living in slum conditions (Committee 2012)
prior to the 2010 earthquake (USGS).
 |
| Figure 1 Inequality, poverty and slum formation (UN Habitat, 2003) |
Low-income
households are unable to invest in renovations and upgrades and governments are
reluctant to invest in infrastructure for areas where land tenure is not
secure. 10 to 15 million families in Latin America live in inadequate housing
with up to 60% of urban populations living in self-built slum housing. (Duncan
2012) With 70% of the
population without access to clean drinking water and 68% without access to
sanitation (IASC 2010b) Port Au Prince grew to become one of the most densely populated
cities in Latin America with nearly all of Haiti’s resources going towards the
consumption of its 2 million people. No regulation of construction created physically
vulnerable areas and further weakened the government. “It was in effect, the
falling of a house of cards,” said Charles Clermont who leads the commission
charged with housing. (IFRC 2010)
Figure 2 Access to
infrastructure (UN Habitat, 2003)
Impacts and response
‘An
assumption made was that working in urban contexts would be easier than working
in rural ones; which in fact was the opposite.’Acting
Country Director, member agency (Carine
Clermont and Spraos 2011)
As is the case in most disasters, the first
responders in Port Au Prince were the communities themselves. The residents of
the city helped each other saving countless lives while the government and
international community mobilised. These communities faced many restraints such
as the failure of electricity, widespread rubble, limited medical skills and
widespread trauma and fear. Although Civil Society Organisations were affected
heavily by the earthquake, they provided valuable immediate assistance. (IASC 2010b)
Urban
populations rely heavily on markets which have the potential to distribute
emergency materials and supplies for reconstruction and food and health items.
If these markets are not functioning there can be a huge delay in the
distribution which can affect all socio-economic levels in post-disaster
recovery. (Brown
2012) Direct impacts are felt in and around a city, interrupting the
flow of goods, services and information which become the root causes of
systemic impacts such as instabilities in political sectors. (Pelling
2003)
Click here to read about the role of public spaces in urban refugee sites.
Click here to read about the role of public spaces in urban refugee sites.
The
response of agencies eroded existing services in Port Au Prince by assuming
that local skills and services were not available. For example water vendors
were not able to compete with free water and building material suppliers were
unable to compete with large scale imports by aid agencies. Some agencies,
notably Christian Aid and Save the Children did work with food vendors for the
distribution of emergency food supplies but these types of responses were too
few. The complex relationships of commerce and competition affected the realistic
capacities of agencies which didn’t reflect the scale of their ambitions.
Several agencies stated that there was no clear exit strategy or indicators of
success established. (Carine
Clermont and Spraos 2011)
In
her book Radical Space, Margaret Kohn (Kohn
2003) outlines the links between physical space and politics through
space’s ability to form individuals’ and groups’ actions, identities and
interpretations. The built environment is also linked symbolically and
pragmatically to institutions of power which, in a disaster situation are
relied upon for coordination due to the complex social systems and high number
of stakeholders in an urban setting. Damage to the built environment can
inhibit the capacities of these government institutions.
Port Au Prince had the advantage of the presence of state bodies
such as the water authority, which played key roles in the provision of certain
services, and many agencies worked through these bodies. (Carine Clermont and Spraos 2011) However, the initial government response was heavily impeded by
the extent of the damage to many official buildings and civil servants. The
National Disaster Risk Management System was severely affected by human and
material loss and the fire station damaged heavily. Many government officials
did not have mobile phones prior to the earthquake which made communication
difficult. Despite all of this, the Emergency Operations Centre (DPC) became
operational the day after the earthquake and began the coordination of
international agencies meeting with representatives twice weekly. (IASC 2010b) The international Search
and Rescue response was highly effective in Port au Prince. Teams from 27 different
countries were operating in 6 groups within 48 hours and rescued 134 people
which is the highest number ever rescued by international SAR teams. (IASC 2010b)
In a DFID report on the humanitarian sector, Paddy Ashdown
describes the response in Haiti as “less than the sum of its parts” with some
1000 NGOs flying into the city. (Ashdown 2011). It has been pointed out that agencies were much more effective
when collaborating. The spatial restrictions of an urban environment call for
the need to coordinate the response with the precision of a city planning
department but this was not the case in Port Au Prince. The presence of
clusters was a positive factor but the sheer number of attendees at cluster
meetings made for ineffective coordination. There was some collaboration with
pre-existing NGOs but it was limited and a more collaborative response may have
led to more sustainable long-term recovery. (Carine Clermont and Spraos 2011). The contradictory report by IASC which reports the effective
coordination of the international humanitarian response illustrates a different
perception to that of the agency reports and may be useful in identifying the
positive actions of some of the government bodies. (IASC 2010b)
The provision of transitional shelters in Port au Prince has been
problematic (Ashdown 2011). This approach has been successful where issues of land ownership
were clear but as is very often the case in Port Au Prince, (prior to the
earthquake only 5% of land was registered), it can result in agencies not
understanding the complexity of the safe return of displaced people, one of the
durable solutions proposed by UN Habitat (Habitat
2007). For example the density of the city led to a scarcity of
land which was further compounded by the 19 million cubic metres of rubble
resulting from the earthquake. (Commission 2011) It has been
suggested that it would be beneficial to appoint an urban settlement specialist
such as UN-Habitat as a member of the core humanitarian coordination team. (IASC 2010b) The difficulties are evident in the one million people still in camps such as Corail in March 2011 (Carine Clermont and Spraos 2011). The focussing of services in camps resulted in a magnetic effect,
drawing more and more people to the camps, increasing numbers. These camps are
generally located outside of the city due to issues with land ownership and
they are remote from services and jobs and there is a large risk of these
becoming future slums. (Fieser 2010)
Findings
In their
extensive analysis of the participation of agencies in Port Au Prince, DEC (Carine Clermont and
Spraos 2011) suggest 10 recommendations for humanitarian actors in urban areas
that came out of the response in Haiti and reflect the general concensus of
most reports. These include working with municipalities and service providers
when possible to strengthen local structures, building social and human capital
at all stages of relief and recovery, not competing with the local private
sector, ensuring the safe return of IDPs to their homes, finding local
professional skills and resources, reconstructing permanent homes rather than
providing temporary shelters, improving the link between analysis and action to
adapt to complex and changing situations, implement cash transfer programmes to
strengthen markets, adapt urban response tools
and incorporate long-term disaster risk reduction strategies in relief
and recovery phases to prepare for future disasters.
It would
appear from many of the reports that while the response was generally quite
successful in that many lives were saved, the recovery period was lacking in
leadership and critical issues relating specifically to an urban environment
were not addressed sufficiently which may lead to an exacerbation of the
previously existing underlying problems such as land tenure, creation of slums,
poverty, insecure living conditions and a lack of spatial considerations in
planning all of which will surely lead to further vulnerability and continue
the cycle of disasters that Haiti has experienced for many years.
Conclusion
There seems to be a lack of expertise in urban studies among
humanitarian agencies illustrated in a lack of insight into the restless,
contradictory and ephemeral nature of cities. Without a deep understanding of
these characteristics, humanitarian agencies will struggle in applying
approaches that try to address the urban as a homogenous system. As Henri
Lefebvre wrote, a good urbanist ‘will come to “listen” to a house, a street, a
town, as an audience listens to a symphony’. (Lefebvre 1992)
In a disaster situation speed and numbers are the
imperative and political and institutional dimensions often conflict with the
humanitarian goals. Damaged infrastructure and buildings not only account for
financial losses but also impair political stability, cultural identity, social
cohesion and livelihood creation that ultimately impede the necessary developmental
approaches necessary for building what has become known as resilience and until
this is addressed, disasters will continue to prevail in the most vulnerable
areas. The difficulty lies in the fact that the appropriate
adaptations may go against the first principles of humanitarian action of
impartiality and neutrality. It will be the task of the humanitarian sector to
find innovative solutions to these issues in the very near future and only when
these practices are mainstreamed into the humanitarian institutional
architecture will agencies become truly effective.
Bibliography
Committee,
D. E. (2012). "HAITI EARTHQUAKE FACTS AND FIGURES." Retrieved 16/03/2014, from http://www.dec.org.uk/haiti-earthquake-facts-and-figures.
United Nations Human
Settlements Programme. Nairobi, Kenya.
USGS. "Earthquakes with 1,000 or More Deaths since 1900."
Retrieved 16/03/2014, from http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/world_deaths.php.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)