Nepal is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world due to its complex geophysical condition and poor socio-economic situation. The country faces various types of natural disasters such as: floods, landslides, fires, earthquakes, wind storms, hailstorms, lightning, glacial lake outburst floods, droughts, epidemics, avalanches, etc. In addition, it is also exposed to various types of natural disasters due to the rugged and steep topography, extreme weather events, and fragile geological conditions. Nepal’s vulnerability to disasters is compounded by rapid population growth and unplanned and haphazard settlement development.
Rural houses are mainly built with wooden and straw roofs and therefore very weak and most of them remain highly vulnerable to disasters such as fires, earthquakes, landslides and floods. Disaster occurs almost every year in one or another part of the country.
Thousands of families every year become homeless due to natural disasters and most of them are poor families as they usually live in disaster prone areas due to socio-economic conditions and repressive caste system. It is obvious that they are more victimized since they are located in planned settlements in the area affected by the threat/risk with minimal preventive measures (use of poor construction materials), disorderly use of the land for agriculture and other activities.
Large swaths of rural areas are often inhabited by low-income communities that depend on agriculture, ranching, daily wages, forest products, small businesses, and services for their livelihoods. Once disaster strikes, these extremely vulnerable people are mothers dependent (for a long time) on outside help in the absence of community safety nets and weak government infrastructure and support systems.
The types of natural and human-induced hazards in Nepal, drawn from the active dataset (table 1) maintained by MoHA, which covers a period of 45 years (1971 to 2015), tells us that a total of 22,373 have been recorded. disaster events during this period. . This results in an average annual exposure to 500 disaster events.
Nepal has been classified by the World Bank in 2015 as one of the world’s “hot spot” countries with high risk of multiple hazards and disasters. Consequently, “Nepal ranks 11th in the world with the highest disaster risk in terms of vulnerability to earthquakes, 30th with regard to floods, and fourth in risk of climate change-induced disasters, making it the the 20th country most prone to disasters among 198 countries in the world” (PNUD/BCPR, 2004). According to the “National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management in Nepal 2009” of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), Nepal suffers the loss of life of about 1000 people every year due to natural hazards, and a direct loss of an average nearly 1208 million Nepalese Rupees per year. Millions of national and international expenditures are spent on disaster response activities each year, absorbing vast amounts of resources that would normally be allocated to well-founded national development efforts.
Nepal is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world due to its complex geophysical condition and poor socio-economic situation. The country faces various types of natural disasters such as: floods, landslides, fires, earthquakes, wind storms, hailstorms, lightning, glacial lake outburst floods, droughts, epidemics, avalanches, etc. In addition, it is also exposed to various types of natural disasters due to the rugged and steep topography, extreme weather events, and fragile geological conditions.
The key research question is the analysis of community resilience to frequent natural and man-made disasters. This will include understanding of:
a) the forms of coping in situ of the community within their families as a unit and
b) the preparedness measures they have and how they act when a disaster occurs
research will continue to investigate and analyze the patterns of disasters in the study area, the impact of past disasters on the community and the landscape.
These actions will help frame the project narrative that describes disaster patterns, impacts, community coping mechanisms, incl. preparedness and mitigation measures
Until the 1970s, disasters were understood as synonymous with natural hazards/events such as earthquakes, windstorms, floods, and landslides. The magnitude of a disaster was considered to be a function of the magnitude of the hazard. For example, earthquakes and wind storms cannot be avoided; the emphasis of national governments and the international community, therefore, was mainly on a reactive approach to responding to events (disasters) and, at best, preparing for them, with the assumption that disasters are unavoidable and should be treated with response only. Share.
But, from the 1970s onwards, and starting millions of decades after the 2000s, especially following the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), it has been established that disasters are intimately connected with processes of human development. Natural hazards such as windstorms, floods, and earthquakes, no matter how intense, unavoidable, or unpredictable, translate into disasters only to the extent that society is unprepared to respond and unable to cope (reflecting the state of their vulnerability) and consequently is severely affected. In other words, there is nothing natural about disaster; it is the result of human inaction or lack of appropriate action in development (World Bank).
So now there is a new paradigm shift where natural hazards by themselves do not necessarily lead to disasters. Natural hazards are triggering disaster events, but for a hazard to become a disaster, it has to affect vulnerable people. If people can become less vulnerable or non-vulnerable, then a hazard can still occur, but it need not result in a disaster. It is now recognized that disaster risks (physical, social and economic) left unmanaged (or poorly managed) for a long time lead to the occurrence of disasters. Whether or not a disaster occurs will depend on whether or not those risks are properly managed. Disasters are the result of poorly planned and unplanned development. Even the appearance of recent climatic anomalies attributed to global climate change is attributed to human activities such as the emission of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane… ) unmanaged and extremely high. Looking at the disaster from this perspective, emergency management (response) itself ceases to be a priority.
As such disasters are the result of the combination of threats, vulnerability conditions that generally accumulate over time, and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce potential damage. This is reflected in a simple empirical formula:
Disaster Risk: Hazard x Vulnerability
Ability
Since little can be done to reduce the occurrence and intensity of most natural hazards, actions and activities should focus on reducing existing and future vulnerabilities to damage and loss. This clearly establishes that vulnerability reduction is the key to disaster risk reduction and should be acted as the integral component during the program development phase. It should not be left for action by humanitarian actors after a disaster.
It is a concept applied in an integrated approach to a disaster event in which the management cycle can be carried out through a sequence of activities/phases, each one being responsible for or designed to address a specific type of intervention. Disaster risk management as an action to deal with disasters could refer to any intentional commitment before, during and after a disaster occurs as a cycle with different phases, from preparation to response, from prevention, mitigation and preparedness to relief, recovery and rehabilitation. Disaster risk management is critical due to its ability to promote the holistic approach to disaster risk management and demonstrate the relationship between disasters and development.
The relationship between disaster and development as a cycle reinforces the fact that disasters, however unavoidable, can be managed through proper planning and preparation for response. The disaster risk management cycle of prevention, mitigation and preparedness comprised the development part, while relief and recovery comprised the humanitarian assistance part, and preparedness linked both types of efforts. Thus, the disaster risk management cycle consists of four phases: Prevention/Mitigation and Preparation in the pre-disaster stage, and Response and Rehabilitation/Reconstruction in the post-disaster stage. The two stages of disaster risk management: the pre- and post-disaster phases are illustrated in the DRM cycle.
Pre-Disaster Phase: Covers Risk Identification, Prevention, Mitigation, Adaptation and Preparedness measures undertaken to reduce disaster risks associated with potential hazards to prevent or minimize the adverse impact on human and material losses caused by a disaster. The intent of preparedness is to prevent or minimize loss and damage in the event of a disaster. Preparedness denotes the post-disaster phase of the disaster risk management cycle
Post-Disaster Phase: It includes the Response, Recovery and Reconstruction actions taken in response to a disaster with the purpose of achieving the prompt recovery and rehabilitation of the affected people and communities. Response includes search and rescue; the satisfaction of the basic humanitarian needs of the affected communities and other humanitarian actions. Recovery begins after the immediate threat to human life has subsided. The immediate goal of recovery is to return the affected area to a certain degree of normalcy and to a situation that should be better than before the disaster, following the principle of humanitarian assistance “Build Back Better”.