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Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers
Professor Sir John Beddington
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government
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The impact of disasters
• 1.3 million killed in the last 20 years
• Droughts, earthquakes and storms have caused most mortality in past 40 years
• $2 trillion damage in past 20 years > total overseas development spend
• Long term and indirect effects poorly captured
Data source: Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters
3
The HERR and SHED report
• The 2011 HERR recommended better use of science to improve disaster anticipation
• The GO Science SHED report has delivered:1.
Risk expert group on emerging international risks
2.
Database of experts to provide emergency advice
3.
Procedures for Humanitarian Emergency Expert Group to provide immediate advice in emergencies
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Reducing Risks of Future Disasters
• Foresight Project looks out to 2040
• Lead Expert Group of academic, industry and humanitarian experts
• Evidence base:• 18 independently peer
reviewed papers• High level international
stakeholder summit• Several expert
workshops• Final report peer reviewed by
experts and stakeholders
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Without action disaster risk will increase
• Growing concentrations of people exposed to hazards
• 65 million more people a year in cities in less developed regions
• Many more vulnerable people• Number of people over 65 in less
developed countries set to triple from 2010 to 2040
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As climate change occurs, variability in weather increases
Source: Hansen et al (2012) www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1205276109, courtesy of Tim Benton
The mean is moving, but the distribution is getting wider >2x faster
Science for disaster risk forecasts
Professor Angela McLean
8
Science and disaster risk
• This framework is used in many sectors for addressing risk:
• Identify risk• Decide how to respond to
risk• Act to address risk• Monitor outcomes
• For disaster risk, science plays an important role at each stage
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Ability to forecast hazards
• To identity future disaster risk first need to be able to forecast future hazards
• Where?• When?• How severe?
• Science can do this well for some hazards
• Improvements are expected by 2040
• Some gaps will remain
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What is a reliable hazard forecast?
• Forecasts of hazards are inherently probabilistic, not deterministic• Reliability is the indicator of quality: does the hazard happen as
often as the forecast says that it will• Decision makers need to see track records of reliability so they
know which forecasts to trust
11
Hydrometeorological hazards
• Storms, floods and droughts could all be fairly reliably forecast by 2040
• This relies on improvements in technology:
• Higher resolution modelling powered by faster supercomputers
• Next generation of satellites for earth observation
• More integration between models
Source: Argonne National Laboratory
Source: Foresight
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Geophysical hazards
• Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tsunami will remain hard to forecast even in 2040
• Improvements are possible, from similar sources as for hydrometerological:
• Next generation of satellites for earth observation
• More integration between models
• Forensic analysis of past events
Source: Foresight
13
Biological hazards
• Ability to forecast disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants is variable, and will improve gradually
• Novel approaches show promise:
• Aviation patterns• Satellite sensing• Social media• Data mining
14
Pooling of resources for science infrastructure
• Improvements in forecasting hazards of all types rely on new science infrastructure:
• Satellites• Supercomputers• Sensors
• International collaboration on the next generation of infrastructure could make improvements affordable
Source: CERN
Swinburne Astronomy Productions for SKA Project Development Office
15
From hazard to risk
• Disaster risk is not just hazard risk• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience determine whether a hazard
becomes a disaster• Measuring and mapping these is difficult but important
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Exposure, vulnerability and risk
Source: Josef Muellek | Dreamstime.comSource: UNICEF 2012
• Exposure, vulnerability and resilience depend on local context• Need locally specific measurements• “Bottom up” approaches will be needed
• Local decision makers can take the same hazard forecast and then overlay measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience that
matter to them
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The path to integrated risk forecasts
• Improved single hazard forecasts• Drawing on new technology• Pooling resources for expensive infrastructure• Track records of reliability
• Better interfacing between hazard models• Outputs of one model can be inputs of another• May need interfacing software
• User friendly outputs of hazard models• So that local measures of exposure, vulnerability and resilience
can
be overlaid on them
• By 2040, it should be possible to have a family of disaster risk models that give local decision makers the information they need
Using science to tackle disaster risk
Brendan Gormley
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Global imperatives to act now
Source: UNISDR, http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa
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Acting on disaster risk
• Decision makers must decide how to address disaster risk
• As with all risks, options are: • Transfer risk• Avoid risk• Reduce risk• Accept risk
• Need to know what works and what does not to be able to decide
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Transfer risk
Source: Foresight
• To address disaster risk in developing countries, neither formal
nor informal mechanisms work well in isolation
• Much potential to expand both formal and informal mechanisms
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Avoid risk
Source: Esoko
• Early warnings can work well if make use of both communities and technology
• Migration can increase as well as avoid risk
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Reduce risk: Infrastructure and cities
• Over the next 30 years, many cities will build major infrastructure for the first time
• Resilient infrastructure design can reduce disaster risk
• Need to understand what designs perform well
• May require a degree of redundancy and flexibility
• One of the biggest opportunities to determine future disaster risk
Source: UNICEF 2012
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Reduce risk: Ecosystem management
• Healthy ecosystems can mean large reductions in disaster impacts
• Even if reduction of disaster risk does not justify protection, other benefits often result
• As with all actions, need to know what reduces risk and what does not
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Foresight, compiled from other sources
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Accept risk
• If the costs of action outweigh the benefits, accepting the risk may be the right option
• But weighing up is not easy
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Evidence base to support decisions
• Decision makers need to know what forecasts are reliable, and what actions actually reduce disaster risk
• Need to build up a trusted repository of evidence
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The need for culture change
• Disaster risk is not a problem that can be dealt with by disaster specialists alone
• Many other decisions (infrastructure, ecosystems, mobile phones,
satellites) impact on future disaster risk• And many of the solutions are in the hands of others (across
government, business, development NGOs, communities, funders)
• All those who care about sustainable development should care about disaster risk and factor it into their decisions
• Otherwise the benefits of development will be put at risk
Thank you: -
DFID comments
-
ODI comments - Q & A
Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers
Tweeting with #DRR
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work/policy-futures/disasters