hydro-meteorological disasters and climate change: conceptual

e-Journal Earth Science India Vol.2 (II), April, 2009, pp. 117 - 132

http://www.earthscienceindia.info/

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Hydro-meteorological disasters and climate change:

conceptual issues and data needs for integrating

adaptation into environment - development framework

Anil K. Guptaa, Sreeja S. Naira and Vinay K. Sehgalb

aNational Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi – 110 020 bIndian Agriculture Research Institute,

Division of Agriculture Physics, New Delhi 110 012

Email: [email protected], [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract

Integrating Risk Reduction to the Environment and Development Framework at local and regional levels has now emerged as the core strategy for minimizing hazards and managing disasters. This strategy calls for a ‘paradigm shif by treating disaster management and climate change as developmental issues interlinked to each other and requiring common management approaches’. Disaster management comprises of (1) disaster risk management and (2) emergency organization for protecting natural, built and socio-economic environments from impacts at temporal and spatial scales. Damage and losses due to extreme events depend upon the magnitude and intensity of hazardous event along with the vulnerability of population, habitat, resources, and developmental settings, as against the capacity to withstand the risk. Designing the approach for convergence of Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and mainstreaming towards development, it required an analysis of various components of environment-development complex that are to be put into adaptation agenda. Availability of suitable, accurate and proper data is crucial for any assessment, planning or decision task. The present paper presents an effort of cross-sectional probe into various conceptual issues relating to hydro-meteorological disasters, climate-change impacts and disaster risks, issues for adaptation nd convergence, disaster risk reduction framework in India and examples of data needs at different stages for their better management.

Introduction Natural disasters are increasing in number and intensity and taking a terrible toll in human lives and social and economic infrastructure (Fig. 1). Global analysis of records reveals that nearly 90 % of loss of life due to natural disasters was caused by weather-climate- and water-related hazards (Fig.2). Climate-change as a global environmental consequence of human-driven Green House Gases (GHGs) loadings of biomass and fossil-fuel combustion, along with decline in ecological assimilative capacities is impending concern for human’s own security and well-being in long run and has close linkages with hydro-meterological disasters. International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) established by UNEP has been pointing out through its various core group reports about the likely serious consequences of increasing greenhouse gas emissions coupled with regional level environmental degenerations including issues of land-use and cover-change (LUCC),

Hydro-meteorological disasters and c

Volcanic eruptions

2%

Windstorms

28%

Forest/scrub fires

5%

decreasing sink-potentials, and longecosystems. Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate change has come up with a seriereports clearly indicating thatvulnerability and increase the risk of disasters.

Fig. 1: Increasing number of natural disasters over the past five and half decades (Data from UN/ISDR

http://www.unisdr.org/dis

Fig. 2: Global Distribution of Natural Hazards (1993

climate change: Anil K. Gupta et al.

Windstorms

28%

Floods

37%

Extreme

Temperature

5%

Earthquakes

8%

Droughts and

famines

9%

Avalanches and

landslides

6%

potentials, and long-term irreversible alteration in the natGovernmental Panel on Climate change has come up with a serie

indicating that global warming and climate change will exacerbate human vulnerability and increase the risk of disasters.

Increasing number of natural disasters over the past five and half decades (Data from UN/ISDR – “Disaster Statistics”

http://www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/occourence-trends-century.htm

Global Distribution of Natural Hazards (1993-2002) (Source: WMO).

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Extreme

Temperature

5%

Earthquakes

term irreversible alteration in the natural functions of Governmental Panel on Climate change has come up with a series of

will exacerbate human

Increasing number of natural disasters over the past five and half decades

century.htm)

(Source: WMO).



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Immediate impacts already being felt includes the increased frequency of climate related hazard events such as storms and floods, increased occurrence of drought, and significant changes in morbidity patterns for some diseases. This in turn may also exacerbate the struggle for access to, or control of, scarce resources that could, in turn, increase the likelihood of migration or even armed conflict. Increase in the level of hazards as a consequence of climate-change impacts, the increase in vulnerability of people is significant concern from the risk-reduction point of view. However, there is rare statistical evidence for validating the climatic projections and their consequences in terms of disaster events and impacts especially at regional and local scales. It is a crucial issue for disaster management.

Observed Climatic Changes for India

Most significant feature of the Indian-subcontinent climate is its Monsoon circulation. The summer (or south-west) monsoon contributes about 80% of the total annual rainfall in a major part of the region. Although the summer monsoon rainfall exhibits a remarkable stability over time - as evidenced by past data of more than a century, displays a variety of temporal and spatial variations. While a large part of the seasonal anomalies in the monsoon is accounted by the inter-annual variability, decadal and longer term changes manifest themselves as changing frequencies of extreme anomalies. Observed changes in climate over India are based on Instrumental records over the past 130 years collected by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) are as follows: • The monsoon rainfall at All India level does not show any trend but there are some

regional patterns. Areas of increasing trend in monsoon rainfall are found along the west coast, north Andhra Pradesh and north-west India, and those of decreasing trend over east Madhya Pradesh and adjoining areas, north-east India and parts of Gujarat and Kerala (-6 to -8% of normal over 100 years).

• A recent study indicates that the intensity and frequency of heavy to very heavy rainfall events is showing an increasing trend during the past 50 years over the region covering parts of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. However, it is not clear if this increasing trend in the heavy rainfall events is attributable to global warming or not.

• Mean annual surface air temperatures show a significant warming of about 0.5 C/100 year during the last century and recent data indicates a substantial acceleration of this warming after the 1990’s. This is comparable to the global warming trends reported.

• The spatial distribution of temperature changes indicated a significant warming trend has been observed along the west coast, central India, and interior Peninsula and over northeast India. However, cooling trend has been observed in northwest and some parts in southern India.

• The year 2006 was the warmest year on record since 1901. The ten warmest years on record are 2006(0.595), 2002(0.59), 1998(0.50), 2004 & 2001(0.47), 2003(0.45), 1958(0.43), 1987 & 1941(0.41), 2005(0.40), 1999(0.39), 1953 & 2000(0.36) and 1980(0.34). Since 1993, annual mean temperature has been consistently above normal.

• Instrumental records over the past 130 years do not show any significant long-term trend in the frequencies of large-scale droughts or floods in the summer monsoon season.

• The total frequency of cyclonic storms that form over Bay Bengal has remained almost constant over the period 1887-1997. Analysis of past tide gauge records for the Indian coastline regions gives an estimate of sea level rise of 1.30 mm/year. Future global projections indicate an average increase of about 4 mm/year.

Hydro-meteorological disasters and climate change: Anil K. Gupta et al.

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• The occurrence of severe cyclonic events is projected to increase along the east coast of India, which along with sea level rise will cause increased flood risks.

• There are evidences that glaciers in Himalayas are receding at a rapid pace.

Future Scenarios of Change for India

Both, global and regional models have been used for producing climate change scenarios for India. The latest version of Hadley Centre Regional Climate Model, PRECIS developed by Hadley Centre has been used to generate the climate for the present (1961-1990) and a future period (2071-2100) under two different scenarios of emissions determined by development paths. Extensive observational data over the past century and also the reanalysis data have been used for model evaluation. • The study results indicate an all-round warming over the Indian subcontinent associated

with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, and also a slight increase in summer monsoon precipitation. It is projected that rainfall will increase by the end of the 21st century by 15-40%, and the mean annual temperature will increase by 3°C to 6°C.

• The warming is more pronounced over land areas, with the maximum increase over northern India. The warming is also relatively greater in winter and post-monsoon seasons.

• Spatial patterns of rainfall change projections indicate maximum increase over northwest India, but the warming is generally widespread over the country.

Climate-Change and Disaster Risks

India is highly disaster prone country and much of the nation’s land mass falls in high risk zones. It is estimated that over 44 million people are affected by natural disasters every year in India. More than 70% of the population occupy 80% of its geographical area that is vulnerable to cyclones, floods, landslides, drought, earthquakes as well as other localized hazards. High Power Committee has identified 12 types of hydro-metrological disasters affecting one on other region of the subcontinent. The vulnerabilities to these disasters are compounded by the low socio-economic conditions of the communities, which significantly increase the losses to lives, livelihoods and property. Further it has been recognized that Climate-change is going to pose impacts on global and regional scales. Rapid changes in climate (Table-1) has already resulted in glacial retreat, global sea level rise, changes in temperature and rainfall patterns and also affecting the natural resources productivity and quality, and also lead to increase in the frequency and intensity of hydro-meteorological disasters like drought, floods, heat and cold waves, desertification and coastal hazards like cyclone, coastal and sea erosion, storm surges and flooding.



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Average Scenario Worst scenario

2050 2100 2050 2100

Total relative sea level rise,

cm

83 340 153 460

Absolute sea level rise, cm 13 200 13 220

Land subsidence, cm 70 70 140 240

Shoreline erosion, Km 1 2 1.5 3

Loss of habitable land, skm 1 26 16 34

Population displaced, % 7 30 13 40

Reduction of Mangrove areas 50 75 79 95

Table-2: Projected scenario of impacts of climate-change

Interrogating, for example of Cyclones, the varying intensity, invariably accompanied by storm surges, creates havoc along the thickly populated coastal areas almost every year. Over the years flood risk has increased both in intensity and frequency. Floods now affect much larger populations due to poor land-use planning and other related development processes. The country has seen increased occurrence of landslides and cloudbursts in the states of West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and almost the entire North-Eastern Region.Climate-change impacts on various primary but important components of global environment and its human dimensions, as projected based on average scenario as well as for worst scenario for the year 2050 and further 2100, has been summarized in Table-2. Disaster risk related changes in climate and weather indicators as observed to be seriously influenced due to climate-change (modified by authors, after IPCC, 2007) is shown in the Table-3:

Table-3: Primary impacts, climatic implications & associated disaster

Geo-physical Climatic Disaster

o Ocean temperature

o Sea level o Snow cover o Mountain

glaciers o Arctic sea-ice

extent o Permafrost

extent o GLOF

o Wind patterns o Air temperature o Precipitation patterns

- Rainy days - Rainfall - Spatial distribution

o Evaporation o Transpiration

o Floods o Heat waves o Tropical cyclones o Cold days and nights

o Hot days and nights

o Hot extremes o Droughts o Desertification

Hydro-meteorological disasters and c

While looking at extreme weather eventsserious. For a country that has more than 70% of its population relying on agriculture directly or indirectly, the impact of extreme weather events is criticaldecade India has been repeatedly battered by successive monsoons, flooding and droughtsFor example, for the last 100 years in the state of Orissa, 49 years have experienced floods, 30 have had droughts, and 11 faced cyclones. These extreme weather events are not mutually exclusive. It is not unusual for a year to have a combination of droucyclones. In addition, the number of villages in India experiencing drought is increasing. For example, in the state of Gujarat, only 2000 villages experienced drought in 1961, but by 1988, over 145,000 villages were affected. With respectvulnerable because of the relatively large percentage of the population living in coastal districts that often lie in the path of cyclones.

Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation Strategi The approach to disaster management especially in the developing countries like India has been much of an adunderstood as synonym to ‘disaster management, and role of environmental disciplines or interdisciplinary sciences has ever been neglected due to poor awarenesproactive will. The paradigm shift from ‘response and relief’ centric approach to ‘proactive – prevention and mitigation’ centric approach has recently been visualized worldwide and therefore also in India. variedly defined and used primarily in ecology, physiology/medical science and now a broader perspective in the sense of ‘adaptation to climateecological adaptation by humankind. Thus, the term "adaptationgenetic make-ups to cope with a specific range of circumstances such as clsupply, habitat, defense and movement.which people reduce the adverse effects of climate on their health and welltake advantage of the opportunities that their climatic environment provides (Olmos, 2001). Adaptive capacity is known as (to alter to better suit) climatic stimuli competency or capacity of a system to adapt to (to alter t

Fig. 3: Sensitivity

Adaptation is often the result of interactions between climatic and other factors: Adaptations vary not only with respect to their climatic stimuli but also winon-climate conditions, sometimes called intervening conditions, which serve to influence the

climate change: Anil K. Gupta et al.

ooking at extreme weather events the case of India appears t has more than 70% of its population relying on agriculture directly

or indirectly, the impact of extreme weather events is critical for its food securitydecade India has been repeatedly battered by successive monsoons, flooding and droughtsFor example, for the last 100 years in the state of Orissa, 49 years have experienced floods, 30 have had droughts, and 11 faced cyclones. These extreme weather events are not mutually exclusive. It is not unusual for a year to have a combination of droucyclones. In addition, the number of villages in India experiencing drought is increasing. For example, in the state of Gujarat, only 2000 villages experienced drought in 1961, but by 1988, over 145,000 villages were affected. With respect to cyclones, India is particularly vulnerable because of the relatively large percentage of the population living in coastal districts that often lie in the path of cyclones.

Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation Strategi

The approach to disaster management especially in the developing countries like India has been much of an ad-hoc type during last century. ‘Relief’ was actually been understood as synonym to ‘disaster management, and role of environmental disciplines r interdisciplinary sciences has ever been neglected due to poor awarenes

The paradigm shift from ‘response and relief’ centric approach to prevention and mitigation’ centric approach has recently been visualized

orldwide and therefore also in India. The word ‘adaptation’ has been widely and and used primarily in ecology, physiology/medical science and now a

broader perspective in the sense of ‘adaptation to climate-change’ as an explaination of ological adaptation by humankind.

adaptation" refers to the ability of different speciesups to cope with a specific range of circumstances such as cl, defense and movement. Adaptation to climate is the process through

which people reduce the adverse effects of climate on their health and wellof the opportunities that their climatic environment provides (Olmos,

is known as the potential or capability of a system t(to alter to better suit) climatic stimuli whereas the ‘Adaptability’ is understood as competency or capacity of a system to adapt to (to alter to better suit) climatic stimuli.

Sensitivity-adaptation framework to climate-change

Adaptation is often the result of interactions between climatic and other factors: Adaptations vary not only with respect to their climatic stimuli but also with respect to other,

climate conditions, sometimes called intervening conditions, which serve to influence the

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appears relatively much t has more than 70% of its population relying on agriculture directly

for its food security. In the last decade India has been repeatedly battered by successive monsoons, flooding and droughts. For example, for the last 100 years in the state of Orissa, 49 years have experienced floods, 30 have had droughts, and 11 faced cyclones. These extreme weather events are not mutually exclusive. It is not unusual for a year to have a combination of droughts, floods and cyclones. In addition, the number of villages in India experiencing drought is increasing. For example, in the state of Gujarat, only 2000 villages experienced drought in 1961, but by

to cyclones, India is particularly vulnerable because of the relatively large percentage of the population living in coastal

Disaster Risk Management and Adaptation Strategies

The approach to disaster management especially in the developing countries like hoc type during last century. ‘Relief’ was actually been

understood as synonym to ‘disaster management, and role of environmental disciplines r interdisciplinary sciences has ever been neglected due to poor awareness and lack of

The paradigm shift from ‘response and relief’ centric approach to prevention and mitigation’ centric approach has recently been visualized

The word ‘adaptation’ has been widely and and used primarily in ecology, physiology/medical science and now a

change’ as an explaination of

species with different ups to cope with a specific range of circumstances such as climate, food

Adaptation to climate is the process through which people reduce the adverse effects of climate on their health and well-being, and

of the opportunities that their climatic environment provides (Olmos, the potential or capability of a system to adapt to

’ is understood as the ability, o better suit) climatic stimuli.

change

Adaptation is often the result of interactions between climatic and other factors: th respect to other,

climate conditions, sometimes called intervening conditions, which serve to influence the



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sensitivity of systems and the nature of their adjustments. For example, a series of droughts may have similar impacts on crop yields in two regions, but differing economic and institutional arrangements in the two regions may well result in quite different impacts on farmers and hence in quite different adaptive responses, both in the short and long terms. (Smit et al. 2000: 235). It is important to highlight that the relationship between a changed climate system (e.g., higher temperatures, altered precipitation regime, etc.) and impacts on human systems is not necessarily linear—as early approaches used in climate impact studies (e.g., crop yields research and various analyses of land and regional production potentials—as applied in studies of agricultural impacts of climate change) seemed to imply. Human agencies and institutions can play a crucial role in minimizing the adverse impacts of—and in seizing opportunities resulting from—climate change. In particular, the role of adaptation (whether reactive or anticipatory, spontaneous or planned, etc.) is crucial for assessments of potential impacts of climate change (Smit et al. 2000). An schematic showing (Fig. 3) examples of sensitivity in terms of environmental resources along their exposure and against their resilience and on the other hand various components of adaptive capacities as a part of disaster mitigation for developing resilience towards climate-change impacts and variability.

Mitigation refers to anthropogenic interventions to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases, and ‘adaptation’ is concerned with addressing the consequences of climate change. Their codependency (e.g. planting trees in urban areas both increases greenhouse gas sinks (mitigation) and acts to cool surrounding areas (adaptation) calls for climate change policies that address the two responses simultaneously. Also, many experts see little utility in isolated climate data if they are not supported by those on socio/economic/natural resources and environment (UNEP, 2008). For example, biodiversity in all its components (e.g. genes, species, ecosystems) increases resilience to changing environmental conditions and stresses. Genetically-diverse populations and species-rich ecosystems have greater potential to adapt to climate change. The selection of crops and cultivars with tolerance to abiotic stresses (e.g. high temperature, drought, flooding, high salt content in soil, pest and disease resistance) allows harnessing genetic variability in new crop varieties if national programmes have the required capacity and long-term support to use them (FAO-UN, 2007). Thus, ‘adaptation’ to climate-change and its implications towards disaster management, aims at developing a set of abilities to sustain in the given complex scenario of influences along human environment. The components of adaptation, therefore, refer to following:

(a) Reducing the risk of occurrence of a hazard event by: (i) hazard prevention (ii) mitigation or (iii) control

(b) Reducing exposure to hazardous event: (i) avoidance/migration (ii) resilience (iii) impact control

(c) Capacity to contain: (i) prevent damages (ii) prevent losses (iii) early normalcy

‘Disaster Resistance’ as a part of climate-change adaptation agenda, and similarly on the other hand ‘climate-change adaptation’ as a core facilitator of ‘disaster risk reduction’ paradigm is the set of focused activities comprising of exposure or impact reduction due to likely hazard event, thus by avoiding, controlling or responding in a prepared and organized ways. ‘Adaptation’ entails to a series of naturally occurring or designed adjustments with the prevailing and upcoming environmental characteristics including resources (agriculture, forestry, soil, animals, industry, health, etc.) lifestyles, practices, socio-economic patterns and overall development. Search for alternatives, whether for example, alternative livelihood options, or alternative crops or alternative cropping patterns, alternative production systems – be it nature or industry, are the indicative features of adaptation regime. Thus, adaptation is aimed towards adjustment for sustainability – environmental, social and also economic. It


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opens up many new and innovative opportunities for growth and productivity, for example search of the suitable economic species that may be grown in usar (waste or dry) lands, suitable agroforestry model(s), or land-water integrated management for year-round water availability and also flood control in the rainy season, alternative foodstuffs with nutritional values, local medicinal knowledge, disaster preparedness, etc. Diversification of livelihood and production systems reduces the risk of damages and losses to a greater extent providing disaster resilience in the communities. Hazard prevention or control actually implies of developing sound awareness and understanding that what (may be due to climate-change impact or) local-regional environmental alternations may result in a hazardous condition that may, in case of occurrence, may result in a disaster, for example, flood, drought, landslide, etc. Thus, reducing the chance of a flood occurring to a certain level of heavy rainfall by improving catchment conditions, channel features, storages, etc. are actually considered as disaster reduction. The following options are containing the disaster event from affecting land-uses and resources. And ultimately, in case of an occurrence of breach of disaster management, reducing the impact by putting in place the coping capacity and response mechanism are the actions to be envisaged within the framework of adaptive capacity.

DRR and DM Planning In India

Many new initiatives have been taken in this direction at local, national, regional and global levels. India, with the enforcement of Disaster Management Act 2005 has established an institutional mechanism at national, state, district and local levels. Like in several other programmes and provision, district is a command unit for managing disaster preparedness and responses. However, the unit for adaptation oriented activities or disaster risk reduction interventions are not strategically clear. A point to understand is the questionable relevance of district as a unit for environmental planning and decisions, alternatives to think are – agro-climatic zones, eco-geographic units, etc. with at least some level of common features in terms of what is to be adapted and similarity of risk regimes. Disaster Management planning at state and district level has been provisioned under the DM Act, however, the procedures are not clear. UNDP-Disaster Risk Management (DRM) project initiatives in India have developed modules for District level Disaster Management Plan (DDMP) with Hazard-Risk, Vulnerability and Capacity (HRVC) Analysis as a pre-requisite. The approach of HRVC is equally important in DRR strategy development at various levels but the care has to be taken for focusing of reducing the risk of conditions having potential of hazardous occurrences. We, as yet do not have control over the climate-change phenomenon, although climate change mitigation separately on go, the DRR focus is to adjust our human environment, resources, lifestyles, economic activities, and governance in a way that either loss events do not take place or the exposure of these are minimum or events contained from posing impacts. Besides this, some level of preparedness to face the challenge of emergencies, but is much effective and organized way, is also required for the result of abrupt variabilities. Thus, DRR centric disaster management when embedded into developmental planning may be called as ‘Sustainable Disaster Management’. The major strategic issues for DRR to develop are following:

• From immediate to long-term: it has to be long-sighted, interdisciplinary, integrated and participatory

• From known to unknown: adapting and adjusting the development for the unknown situations of hazards is the challenge, besides preventing the already visualized conditions

• Project/event to Policy/ strategy: instead of ad-hoc approach or segregated efforts, the strategically planned and assessed programmes on long-term basis

• Imposed Vs. Infused: mainstreaming the adaptation and disaster resistance features as habits in all aspects of living, commerce/trade, industry, environmental practices including resource management, production, services, health, etc.



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Adaptation Environmental

conditions for

disaster risks Risk Reduction (pro-active) Disaster Response

Development Goals

• Desertification

• Drought

• Floods

• Cyclones

• Landslides

• Earthquakes -

effects

• Hazards:

• Fire (Forests/

• Mine/ Residues)

• Biological

• Diseases/

epidemic/

pandemic

• Soil-water management

• erosion

• wasteland reclaimation

• Slope protection & remediation

• Afforestation

• Crop diversification

• Alternative crops & cropping

patterns

• Forestry-produce

• Wetlands

• Fisheries/aquaculture

• Housing designs

• Land-use

• Alternative employment

• Fiscal measures

Emergency

response.

Medical, Response,

Relief/

Rehabilitation

• Agriculture production

and sustainability

• Natural Resources

renewal and

management

• Water resource / supply

• Health & nutrition

• Poverty eradication and

employment

• Housing

• Urban development

• Transport/Roads

• Service sectors

• Industrial development

• Economic/ equity

• Regulatory Vs. Participatory: inculcating the ‘culture of prevention’ has to be the focus of DRR-CCA task at any level, and based on motivational, facilitating, incentives and security based, rather than only command, control or penalization.

Table-4. Potential conditions of hazards, DRR-Adaptation and mainstreaming options

Thus, the DM journey from ‘Disaster Relief’ via ‘Disaster Risk Reduction’ to ‘Sustainable Development’ has to undertake proper interrogations, understanding and evaluations for ‘Planning and Decision Making’ at various stages. Suitable and reliable data, and especially in the desired format is most often crucial for implementing ambitious projects, for example, the challenges faced by UNDP-DRM project in India.

Convergence of CC Adaptation and DRR

In order to implement the sustainable development agenda through policies, programmes or projects, the options of convergence between the programmes of adaptation development and disaster risk reduction have to be understood. In countries like India, and in most of the developing countries, the life, livelihood, occupational environmental and governance, all have inextricable links with the nature and its resources, whether being harvesting, explored, degraded, managed, restored, or whatever, but confirming the development a direct relation with environment. Visualization of CC Adaptation has two major virtues for DRR, i.e. (a) what to adapt for – the conditions or events of hazards, and (b) what is to be adapted – resources, culture, practices, living, etc. Thus, it is clear that the adaptation and DRR programmes may be infused along the programmes of (a) environmental resources and management – agriculture, forestry, land-water, wasteland development, wetland, watershed, drinking water mission, dryland agriculture, coastal zone management, protected areas, river conservation, rainwater harvesting, etc, (b) industry – process, technologies, raw materials, alternative products, storage conditions, etc. (c) lifestyles – waste management, energy conservation, safety culture, accountability, sanitation, participation, etc. and (d) governance and policy making – planning, decisions, financial mechanisms and allocations, recoveries, penalties, incentives, etc. For designing DRR and/or adaptation, the concern of


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regional environmental features including geomorphologic, geographic and developmental features are central for understanding the hazard conditions. For example, in typical mountain areas the conditions may prevail for the disasters like - flash floods, landslides, debris flow, erosion, drought/ water scarcity, earthquake impacts, NRM conflicts, and livelihood loss and socio-political instabilities, displacement, etc. On the other hand, the conditions impending to pose disaster risks are coastal erosion, flooding, drought/ water scarcity, multi-hazard risks including chemical/oil, storms surges, NRM conflicts, livelihood loss, and landslides, many types common but typically different in nature of impacts, exposure and vulnerability. Relationship between natural degeneration, vulnerability and natural disasters have been depicted in Fig 4. United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN-MDGs 2015) are the driving motivation for governments and policies for designing and developing programmes for development and sustainable development at various levels.

Fig. 4. Link between environmental degradation, natural disasters and vulnerability (UN/ISDR, Living with Risk, Figure 2.8)

Data Needs

Well developed tools that can capture and track the dynamics of development, climate change and disaster risk linkages are still not evident. Catastrophic risk models and Climate change models developed so far requires data of 100-200 years or more with higher spatial and temporal accuracy. As of now such data sets are not available for most of the countries in developing world including India. In order to mainstream climate-change adaptation in the disaster management, the key recommendation emerged from various interrogations is the need recognize the distinction between present climate variability and future climate change; the need to adapt to present climate variability as a first step towards addressing future climate change; the need for a risk reduction approach and the need for a multi-sectoral approach to managing climate change implications for disaster management (CDERA, 2002). The Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) are required to support the work related to developing projections and future trends. All ECVs are technically and economically feasible for systematic



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observation. It is these variables for which international exchange may be required for both current and historical observations (UNEP, 2008). The order below is simply for convenience and is not an indicator of relative priority.

1) Atmospheric domain (over land, sea and ice):

a) Surface: Air temperature, Precipitation, Air pressure, Surface radiation budget, Wind speed and direction, Water vapour.

b) Upper-air: Earth radiation budget (including solar irradiance), Upper-air temperature (including MSU radiances), Wind speed and direction, Water vapour, Cloud properties.

c) Composition: Carbon dioxide, Methane, Ozone, Other long-lived greenhouse gases, Aerosol properties.

2) Oceanic domain: a) Surface: Sea-surface temperature, Sea-surface salinity, Sea level, Sea state, Sea ice,

Current, Ocean colour (for biological activity), Carbon dioxide partial pressure. b) Sub-surface: Temperature, Salinity, Current, Nutrients, Carbon, Ocean tracers,

Phytoplankton.

3) Terrestrial domain: River discharge, Water use, Ground water, Lake levels, Snow cover, Glaciers and ice caps, Permafrost and seasonally-frozen ground, Albedo, Land cover (including vegetation type), Fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR), Leaf area index (LAI), Biomass, Fire disturbance, and Soil moisture.

In the absence reliable data on indicators of climate change, hazards and disasters, it is difficult to recognize the pattern and trends of climate change and disasters and its impact, except about major events that caused massive losses and misery. Therefore, the vulnerability reduction activities undertaken by the Government and other partners are based entirely on the perceptions, and the mitigation measures undertaken are without factoring in the interventions where risk is being accumulated because of the existing nature of development being pursued by various actors. For example the Disaster Risk Management Project (2002-2008), National Database on Emergency Management (DOS) , National Emergency Communication Plan (DOS) etc are taking into account of only 169 districts identified as multi hazard prone as per the BMTPC atlas 1997. Later the project has been expanded to more districts in tsunami affected state mainly in Tamil Nadu. Now the atlas has been revised in 2006 and 241 districts are identified as multi-hazard prone. But the focus is on three major hazards and impact on built environment (damageability tables at district level) since BMTPCs mandate is limited to build environment. Hence the potential of using this data/ maps for assessing the climate change and its impacts is very limited.

Risk Assessment and Modeling

In the disaster management parlance (as explained in Living with Risk – ISDR 2002), disaster Risk is the likeliness of a potentially harmful consequences or probable losses resulting from hazards and/or chances that emergency situations arise calling external resources and actions. These consequences would depend on the vulnerable or capable conditions of the area. Normally risk is expressed as a function of hazards and vulnerability/capacity. Vulnerability is a set of conditions and processes resulting from physical, social economical and environmental factors that cause the circumstances of impacts of a disaster. Factors that determine the ability of people and society to resist the lasting impact of disasters and bring in normalcy after an event are collectively considered as Capacities. Hazard is defined as a potential damaging event,


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phenomenon or activity that may cause damage or loss to life, property, society, economy and environment. Both inductive and deductive approaches have been used to determine disaster risk. Inductive approaches use detailed quantification of hazard occurrence probabilities of different levels of magnitude, the elements that would be exposed (population, infrastructure etc.) to the hazards and vulnerable elements in the area of exposure to model the expected disaster risk. These approaches are very useful and rigorous. However, in most situations, this can be very expensive and time consuming, as much of the information /data required will have to be generated and most of the countries lack systems for collection and synthesis of such data especially at disaggregated geo-political levels. Deductive approaches make use of parameters of hazard frequency and physical exposure estimated using systematic geo-referenced inventories of disasters and proxy indicators of vulnerability to model the realized risk (deaths, damage etc) estimated using the disaster inventories. While this approach captures the cumulative disaster risk obtaining at a specific geopolitical unit for the period under observation, the usefulness for prediction of future risk might be limited. Nevertheless this approach might be more feasible compared to the inductive approach given the availability of systematic disaster inventories and other readily available indicator parameters of vulnerability. Many statistical techniques have been developed and applied successfully to landslide susceptibility assessment and mapping in the last ten years using bivariate or multivariate approaches, probabilistic approaches (like Bayesian inference or logistic regression) and artificial neural networks approaches. Applications on field data have shown that in some cases quite good spatial predictions can be made using those models and relatively small number of conditioning variables. Nevertheless these techniques lack the support and skill to evaluate temporal probabilities, transient effects and long-term changes on landslide activity. Flood risk modeling and assessment framework and the type of data needs are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig.6.

Fig. 5: Relations simulated in a physically-based landslide model (Malet, 2003).

e-Journal Earth Science India Vol.2 (II), April, 2009, pp.http://www.earthscienceindia.info/

Fig. 6: Methodological

It has been estimated that around 60% of the worlds population live near the coast and not surprisingly it is here that many problems are being experienced due to unrestricted development and unsustainable uconcern has recently been expressed about the possible effects of climate change on coastal areas. Potential effects such as sea level rise, changes in frequency, intensity and pattern of storm events and associate storm surges and flooding could make the already degraded coastal areas more vulnerable to erosioncoastal vulnerability is the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI). The vulnerability classification based upon the relative contribution and interaction of the six variables (Doukakis, 2005) (i) Coastal slope. (ii) Subsidence (iii)Tidal range. Thus, in nutshell, the data needs for CCAhas varying data requirement at following stages in the field level application of DRmaking and execution. The various stages are (i) (iii)Vulnerability indicators (iii) and early warning (v) Emergency Response Management DSS. Primary and research data for development of prediction models has to be considered a separate need. Quality of dataprimary stage of any disaster management planning is to be revised in its scope to consider climate related hazards. The hazard as conditions of potential disaster event, when related to climate and water, is certainly not to exclude from the core of the addenda, other natural resources viz. land & land-cattle, etc., atmospheric - composition, stability, turbulence and weather and cerhuman component, thus, involving the whole gamut of environmental factors and components that affects each other and in the central human life and wellbeing. data are needed on various components, including vulnerability components tmodels and modeled results in the light of past disaster statistics or data. sensitize the model to give sound predictions. been considered looking into concern the response to dthe paradigm shift has put DSS in use for the range of preexample, hazard level, multidisaster management measures to contaiand of course in operationalizing disaster response, recovery and evaluations. DSS is not only

Vol.2 (II), April, 2009, pp. 117 - 132


ological framework for flood risk assessment (after Tsakiris

It has been estimated that around 60% of the worlds population live near the coast and not surprisingly it is here that many problems are being experienced due to unrestricted development and unsustainable use of coastal resources. In addition to these problems, concern has recently been expressed about the possible effects of climate change on coastal areas. Potential effects such as sea level rise, changes in frequency, intensity and pattern of

and associate storm surges and flooding could make the already degraded coastal areas more vulnerable to erosion. One of the most common methods of assessing coastal vulnerability is the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI). The vulnerability classification based upon the relative contribution and interaction of the six variables (Doukakis, 2005) (i)

Subsidence (iii) Displacement (iv) Geomorphology (v) Thus, in nutshell, the data needs for CCA-DRR convergence and mainstreaming

has varying data requirement at following stages in the field level application of DRThe various stages are (i) Hazard analysis (ii)Validating the models

(iii) Capacity and Resource Mapping (for planning)Emergency Response Management (vi) Development of Integrated

Primary and research data for development of prediction models has to be considered a separate need. Quality of data and confirmation are greater concerns in such cases. primary stage of any disaster management planning is to be revised in its scope to consider climate related hazards. The hazard as conditions of potential disaster event, when related to

and water, is certainly not to exclude from the core of the addenda, other natural -use, vegetation – agriculture, forestry, plantations, animals composition, stability, turbulence and weather and cer

human component, thus, involving the whole gamut of environmental factors and components that affects each other and in the central human life and wellbeing. data are needed on various components, including vulnerability components tmodels and modeled results in the light of past disaster statistics or data. This is important to sensitize the model to give sound predictions. Decision Support System (DSS) has earlier been considered looking into concern the response to disaster impacts. However, worldwide the paradigm shift has put DSS in use for the range of pre-disaster phase decisions, for example, hazard level, multi-hazard complex, choice of prevention vs. control or mitigation, disaster management measures to contain in from affecting the communities and resources, and of course in operationalizing disaster response, recovery and evaluations. DSS is not only

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Tsakiris, 2006)

It has been estimated that around 60% of the worlds population live near the coast and not surprisingly it is here that many problems are being experienced due to unrestricted

se of coastal resources. In addition to these problems, concern has recently been expressed about the possible effects of climate change on coastal areas. Potential effects such as sea level rise, changes in frequency, intensity and pattern of

and associate storm surges and flooding could make the already degraded One of the most common methods of assessing

coastal vulnerability is the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI). The vulnerability classification is based upon the relative contribution and interaction of the six variables (Doukakis, 2005) (i)

Wave height (vi) ce and mainstreaming

has varying data requirement at following stages in the field level application of DRR strategy Validating the models

Resource Mapping (for planning) (iv) Forecasting Development of Integrated

Primary and research data for development of prediction models has to be considered and confirmation are greater concerns in such cases. HRVC a

primary stage of any disaster management planning is to be revised in its scope to consider climate related hazards. The hazard as conditions of potential disaster event, when related to

and water, is certainly not to exclude from the core of the addenda, other natural agriculture, forestry, plantations, animals –

composition, stability, turbulence and weather and certainly the human component, thus, involving the whole gamut of environmental factors and components that affects each other and in the central human life and wellbeing. Field level data are needed on various components, including vulnerability components to validate the

This is important to Decision Support System (DSS) has earlier

isaster impacts. However, worldwide disaster phase decisions, for

hazard complex, choice of prevention vs. control or mitigation, n in from affecting the communities and resources,

and of course in operationalizing disaster response, recovery and evaluations. DSS is not only


130

to draw conclusions but is to draw inferences in participatory and interdisciplinary mode and to channel into communication so as to reach the user level within time.

Data Sets on Development and Vulnerability Indicators

Vulnerability has been widely understood and assessments variedly undertaken worldwide. However, the common parameters for vulnerability, ranking, indices, etc. are somewhat inverse to what parameters are used in Human Development Index. Thus, better human development index is indicative of higher coping capacity and low vulnerability. A framework of concept of vulnerability components has been given in figure 7. At present, the capacities have been developed to be in a position to forecast the time and occurrence of most of natural disasters except earthquake. While the occurrence and intensities of some disasters could be reduced through appropriate long-term interventions on the climate adjustments front and by suitable adaptation strategies, however, there are limitations in controlling all hazards to the fullest extent. Given this scenario the only means to reduce risk is by reducing vulnerabilities. The vulnerability of an element can be expressed as a percentage loss at a given hazard severity level. As the severity of the hazard increases, the level of damage that the element is likely to suffer will increase. Therefore, the underlying mechanisms that cause vulnerability have to be well understood in order to reduce. It needs to be carried out within a developmental context, including influence of physical, social and economic considerations (both short- and long-term), and the extent to which essential services (and traditional and local coping mechanisms) may cope up with the impacts.

Fig-7: Conceptual framework of Vulnerability (Hossain, 2001).



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Acknowledgement: Authors acknowledge various published and un-published documents, reports, view-points, databases and records which have been used in interpretations for the contents of the paper. AKG is thankful to the team – Climate Resilient Development & Adaptation – FSP project (UNDP), including TERI, ISET, Winrock, drafting committee of national strategy on climate-change (Planning commission) where AKG was member. Authors acknowledge the constructive suggestion given by Executive Director, NIDM, Shri P G Dhar Chakrabarti, and Dr. Satish Tripathi, Geological Survey of India, Gangtok Unit, from time to time.

References

Aggarwal, D and Lal, M. (2001) Vulnerability of Indian Coastline to Sea Level Rise. New Delhi, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology.

Andreas Meissner, Thomas Luckenbach, Thomas Risse , Thomas Kirste and Holger Kirchner (2002) Design Challenges for an Integrated Disaster Management Communication and Information System. The First IEEE Workshop on Disaster Recovery Networks (DIREN 2002), June 24, 2002, New York City, co-located with IEEE INFOCOM 2002.

Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (2002) Report of the Brainstorming Workshop on Adaptation to Climate Change in Caribbean Disaster Risk Management, June 6 – 7, 2002, Pommarine Hotel, Barbados

Doukakis, E. (2005). Coastal vulnerability and risk parameters. European Water. 11/12, 3-7.

Food and Agriculture Organization of UN (2007) Adaptation to climate change in agriculture, forestry and fisheries: Perspective, framework and priorities. Interdepartmental working group on climate-change. Rome, Italy.

Heather Tompkins (2002) Climate change and extreme weather events: Is there a connection? Cicerone 3/2002. CICERO from the internship program International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD)

Hossain, S. M. Nazmul (2001) Assessing Human Vulnerability due to Environmental Change: Concepts and Assessment Methodologies. Division of Land and Water Resources, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (Master of Science Degree Thesis).

http://dsc.nrsc.gov.in:14000/DSC/Drought/index.jsp?include1=homelink4_b1.jsp&&include2=homelink4_b2.jsp&&include3=homelink4_b3.jsp (on April 5, 2009).

Malet, J.-P., Remaître, A., Maquaire, O., Ancey, C., Locat, J. (2003) Flow susceptibility of heterogeneous marly formations. Implications for torrent hazard control in the Barcelonnette basin (Alpes-de-Haute Provence, France). Proceedings of the 3rd

International Conference on Debris-Flow Hazard Mitigation, Mechanics, Prediction and Assessment, Davos, Millpress, 1, pp. 351-362.

Olmos Santiago (2001) Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change: Concepts, Issues, Assessment Methods. Climate Change Knowledge Network Foundation Paper, www.cckn.net, Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research—Oslo

Parliamentary Office for Science & Technology (2006) Adapting to Climate Change in Developing Countries. London. www.parliament.uk/post

Smit, B., Burton, I., Klein, R.J.T., and Street, R. (1999) “The Science of Adaptation: a Framework for Assessment.” Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, v.4, pp. 199 – 213.


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Tsakiris G. (2006) Practical Application of Risks and Hazard Concepts in Proactive Planning. Report in the framework of NOE Interreg IIIC (DISMA subproject). DISMA Coordination Meeting, 14-15 Dec. 2006, Athens.

United Nations Environment Programme (2008) Data needs for addressing Climate Change – UNEP’s perspective. UNEP/DEWA scoping paper. UNSD/Statistics Norway Conference on Climate Change & Official Statistics, Oslo, 14-16 April 2008

About the Authors

Dr. Anil K. Gupta is currently working as Associate Professor at National Institute of Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi. Previously he was Reader & Head, Department of. Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Bundelkhand University. Scientist (CSIR) at BBA Central University, Lucknow, Assistant Director, Disaster Management Institute, Bhopal, National Mineral Development Corporation, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, His current areas of work are disaster management planning, multi-hazard risk assessment, mapping, land-water sector, chemical disasters, mining, Urban Flood Management, and Climate-Resilient Development & Adaptation strategies.

Ms. Sreeja S. Nair, is currently working as Assistant Professor at National Institute of Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi. Before joining NIDM she was working with UNDP- GOI Disaster Risk Management Programme and Regional Tsunami Recovery Programme as Information Management Officer, Consultant GIS Specialist with Phelps Dodge – Metdist Exploration, GIS Engineer with the Catastrophic Risk Modeling division of RMSI and as Editorial Correspondent for GIS@ Development Magazine. Her areas of work include applications of Geoinformatics in Multi Hazard Vulnerability and Risk Assessment, Developing Catastrophic Risk Models, Developing Disaster Inventories, Spatial Decision Support Systems and Information/ Knowledge Management for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Prof. Vinay K Sehgal is currently working as Senior Scientist, Division of Agricultural Physics, Indian Agricultural Reserach Institute, New Delhi. He started his professional carreer at Space Applications Centre (ISRO) Ahmedabad working on use of remote sensing data for natural resources management and modelling. He also worked as Professor & founder Head at National Institute of Disaster Management leading a team of faculty on training and research on meteorological, hydrological and agricultural disasters and use of geo-information (RS&GIS) and communication technology in early warning systems. His current areas of specialization are Satellite agro-meteorology, modeling climate change impacts, Vulnerability & Risk mapping.

hydro-meteorological disasters and climate change: conceptual

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