THE FACE OF DISASTERS 2019 REPORT
20, Apr 2019

Prelims level : Disaster Management
Mains level : The Face of Disasters 2019 Report
Why in News?
- The Face of Disasters 2019 report was recently published by Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS).
Highlights:
- The ‘Face of Disasters 2019’ report released by SEEDS as part of its 25th anniversary, analyses past trends, looking at disasters from a broader perspective to capture their varied facts
- The report talks about the need to look at disaster vulnerabilities that lie under the radar, waiting to strike
- Eight key areas have emerged that will be critical to consider as we look ahead:
- Water and the changing nature of disaster risk: A ‘new normal’ of rainfall variability is bringing challenges of too much and too little water, often in parallel.
- No disaster is ‘natural’: Risks lurking under the radar slip through the cracks because they don’t meet the idea of a ‘natural disaster’.
- The silent events: The disasters that go unseen leave those affected at even greater risk
- Land becomes water (and water becomes land): Changes to the coastline are already affecting livelihood sources and will be hotspots for vulnerability in the future
- The complexity of disaster impact: Beyond official ‘damages’, the long-term and uncaptured disaster impacts have life-changing consequences for affected everyone
- The urban imperative: Risk is rapidly urbanising and will affect
- Transformations in the third pole: Himalayan glaciers are melting, with serious implications for the whole region
- Planning for what you can’t see: Earthquake risk is looming large under the radar, but are we prepared?
Significance of the report:
- Analysis of past trends shows us that 2019 will see unusual flooding, as well as heatwaves and drought that are already ongoing
- The complexity of disasters today requires a proactive and multi-pronged
- A single mega-disaster can wipe out hard-won development gains and recurrent small- scale stresses keep vulnerable families in a cycle of
- While this multiple event pattern is repeated every year, only a few really capture the public attention. Other risks continue to intensify under the poverty
Way Forward:
- Current trends are reinforcing that disasters have multiple facets and complexities
- In 2018, India witnessed nearly every type of natural hazard, except a major earthquake and related events
- Floods, droughts, heat and cold waves, lightning strikes, cyclones and even hailstorms, a wide range of disasters impacted most of the Countries
- This poses some critical questions and issues and also points to risks that lie ahead. At the core is the idea that disasters cannot be seen in isolation anymore
- There is a clear need for comprehensive understanding of risks, and hyper-localised plans and allocation of resources to reduce them
Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS):
- SEEDS, a non-profit voluntary organization, is a collective endeavor of young professionals drawn from development related fields
- It originated as an informal group of likeminded persons, getting together for the purpose of creative research projects of academic intrest
- The group was later formalized in early 1994 and has been active in the field ever since
- It is involved in research activities in Community Development, Disaster Management, Environmental Planning, Transport Planning, and Urban and Regional Planing
- Activities are carried out on behalf of government, semi – government and international development agencies. Independent programs on vital issues are also taken up