Highlight 39/2024: Human responses to natural disasters: Assessing preparedness and recovery in urban and rural areas
Roselyn Doe, 4 November 2024
A well-maintained car can provide safe transportation, but when neglected, it becomes hazardous. As such, scientists agree that human-imposed changes to Earth’s atmosphere and oceans have made our planet more hazardous to life and have led to more frequent and intense natural disasters.
Recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of natural disasters, which result in more damage than can be absorbed by governments and community systems. These disasters have resulted in immense physical damage to societies and environments by destroying buildings and infrastructure, as well as causing severe health issues and mental trauma. This analysis seeks to examine preparedness and recovery in both rural and urban communities.
The concept of disaster resilience has gained media attention recently, but practical measures for increasing resilience are limited. Research into urban resilience far surpasses our understanding of disaster resilience in rural areas. Addressing the differences between urban and rural communities when facing catastrophic events is crucial. Despite these catastrophic events being a part of human history, we envision a world where disasters no longer threaten people’s well-being and our planet’s future. Governments, international organizations, and NGOs work towards implementing preparatory measures to reduce the impact on communities, as well as recovery measures for these events.
Faced with such consequences, ignoring warnings seems unreasonable, but people are in denial which contributes largely to the problem. Whether ignoring a storm warning and not evacuating low-lying areas, driving through rising water, or leaving shelter during a tornado warning, people often fail to heed public health disaster messages. Ignoring these warnings can lead to death, harm, and loss, but despite the dire consequences, many still choose to ignore them.
For instance, in the 2003 Southern California wildfires, about 750,000 acres were enveloped, about 3,670 houses and businesses and 24 human deaths occurred. In this event, some people only stayed in the evacuation zones, and after warnings of fines and misdemeanours, they were evicted in order to prevent the loss of lives. Such negligence not only puts the lives of those who ignored advisories at risk but also endangers first responders, slows down and even hinders the responses as well as the recovery processes.
Reconstruction of damaged housing in both the urban and rural contexts requires effective recovery since catastrophic events are inherently unpredictable and can be of varying severity. However, insufficient funding, logistical constraints and the complications of compliance are prevalent challenges that stand in the way. The sooner these barriers are identified, the more efficiently resources can be applied, and the scaled impact of the disaster can be minimized when it comes to post-disaster recovery in all communities, regardless of size. Minimizing the sources of vulnerability, enhancing resilience, and strengthening the sustainability of recovery processes require critical attention. They must be addressed by policymakers and disaster management agencies as a core business.
Barriers to recovery efforts need to be identified early in order to effectively allocate resources and improve the outcomes of post-disaster housing in the reconstruction of rural and urban settings. To improve the recovery efforts, decision-makers should identify these barriers.
Roselyn Doe, Highlight 39/2024 – Human responses to natural disasters: Assessing preparedness and recovery in urban and rural areas, 4 November 2024, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the authors and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.