Asia-Pacific trains for disruptions in climate

Business World Online: The US government is setting up a course to train officials in the Asia-Pacific region in the basics of preparing and financing projects to help communities weather climate change, experts from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Friday.

Private citizens and military personnel join hands as they volunteer to re-pack relief goods composed of food clothing and other basic necessities at the Department of Social Welfare and development headquarters in Pasay, Philippines November 18, 2013

Financing needs for climate change adaptation -- efforts to adjust to extreme weather and rising seas -- are estimated at tens of billions of dollars per year in developing countries. But in 2013, only $25 billion in public resources went to adaptation around the world. Rich countries have promised to mobilize an annual $100 billion by 2020 to help poor nations adapt to climate change and develop their economies on a low-carbon path.

The key challenge is channelling money from large donors to small, poor communities that are hardest hit by climate-related disasters, experts said in an online discussion supported by the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network.

Most international funders cannot lend directly to smaller communities, and have to go through national agencies, such as finance ministries, said Peter King who works on USAID’s Bangkok-based Adapt Asia-Pacific project. “Not only do (local authorities) have problems in implementing projects,” Mr. King said. “In our experience they have difficulty in designing projects too.”...

Typhoon Bolaven in Okinawa, 2012, US Marine Corps photo

South Africa braces for looming drought

Ayanda Mkhwanazi in AllAfrica.com via Health-e:
South Africa is facing a looming water shortage and experts warn we may not see it coming. "We don't know when it will happen, but we are overdue for it (drought) so we need to start planning for the worst and hope for the best," said Dr Ronnie McKenzie, managing director of the engineering company Water Resource Planning.

"The government is aware of this looming drought," he told Health-e News. "The funny part about a drought is that you don't see it coming, - you only realise it when we are two years into it. For all we know it might have already begun," said McKenzie speaking at the launch of a new government website aimed at tracking the country's water resources.

The website draws from as yet unreleased 2012 study conducted by the Water Research Commission and the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS). The study's full results are due to be released in April.

...According to DWS Deputy Director General Deborah Mochothli, in the meantime the website should help policymakers plan as demands on water grow....

Animals of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa, shot by Peter Thomas, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International license

Storm-weary New York City needs to adapt faster to climate change

Jim Hall in the Guardian (UK): ...In 2007 [New York City] embarked on a programme to address changing climate, population growth and ageing infrastructure, as well as improve residents’ quality of life. It covers investment in green infrastructure, including energy, transport and housing, up to 2030.

New York City has also been working to tackle the realities of flooding and offer solutions that keep the city moving in spite of its storms. After flooding in 2007 a weakness was identified with the subway network in Queens and other low-lying areas. Storm water had repeatedly gushed through street-level ventilation grates into the subway network below, flooding numerous stations throughout the borough and paralysing portions of the city’s transport network. Responding, the MTA raised the subway grates up off the ground and double-purposing them as street benches and other outdoor furniture. Not only does this enhance resilience to flooding, but enables residents to go about their lives even during heavy storms.

In response to Sandy and its devastation to the north east of the US, the federal government awarded $335m last year to the City of New York to build the first stage of what is being called “The Big U” project. Essentially a large storm protection berm around lower Manhattan, it will extend for 10 miles, and aims to protect an incredibly dense, vibrant and low-lying urban area. The proposed system will not only shield the city against floods and storm water, but also aims to provide social and environmental benefits to the community..

New York City’s approach to climate change adaptation was one of the first in the US that not only considered how one policy area affects another, but also how agencies can work together effectively.

However, despite its plans, our research at the Institution of Civil Engineers suggests that the city itself has built comparatively few resilience projects. It is important to get decisions right, so time spent on analysis and design is time well spent. But impending sea level rise, hurricanes and storms warrant action sooner rather than to later....

The Queens Midtown Tunnel flooded during Hurricane Sandy. Shot by the MTA, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Sub-Saharan African countries are failing to plan for climate change

Lindsey Jones in the Guardian (UK): Communities around the world are feeling the impacts of climate change already, but many of the most severe effects will be felt in the decades to come, particularly from mid-century onwards. Nowhere is this more apparent than in sub-Saharan Africa which will be one of the hardest hit regions of the world.

Right now, African countries are busy investing in infrastructure and development to help support current economic growth. Many of these long-lived investments – such as ports, large dams, and social infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools – will most likely last well beyond 2050. But by then, Africa’s climate may look quite different to what it does today. Factoring climate change into long-term investments and planning decisions is essential for supporting climate-resilient development – but it’s not happening.

New research, coordinated by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), shows that governments and businesses across sub-Saharan Africa are failing to consider long-term climate information in their investments and planning decisions. This includes studies from Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Ghana and Mozambique. The worst case scenario is that poor use of climate information could lock societies into patterns that make them highly vulnerable to droughts, floods, high temperatures or sea-level rise in the future.

Why do decision-makers have this blind
spot? First and most importantly, other challenges such as eradicating poverty and promoting access to primary and secondary education are extremely pressing, forcing decision-makers to think and act in short time frames.

Secondly, long-term climate information is often ill-suited to informing local economic, social and environmental contexts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Close-up aerial photo of Zambezi River at the junction of Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Shot by Brian McMorrow, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

The White House: A new flood standard for federal investments will help communities weather climate change, extreme storms

John Podesta and Craig Fugate in the White House blog: When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, the storm sent water cascading into the South Ferry subway station, pouring into the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, inundating neighborhoods from Staten Island to Queens. At Battery Park in lower Manhattan, water reached more than 9 feet above the average high-tide line.

One factor fueling the surge -- New York Harbor, where waters have risen about a foot since 1900. We know that rising sea levels, higher average temperatures, higher ocean temperatures, and other effects of climate change will make extreme weather events more frequent and more severe. And the climate is changing -- earlier this month, NASA and NOAA announced that 2014 was the hottest year on record globally, meaning that 14 of the 15 hottest years in recorded history have happened this century.

That’s why when we invested billions to help communities rebuild from Sandy, we also committed to “build back better” -- to rebuild infrastructure to a higher standard so it can withstand the increased risks posed by sea level rise and other climate impacts.

Today, the White House is building on that experience by releasing a new flood risk management standard for new and rebuilt federally funded structures in and around floodplains. This new resilience standard will help ensure taxpayer dollars are well spent on infrastructure that can better withstand the impacts of flooding.

Agencies will have the flexibility to choose among different approaches to apply the resilience standard -- by using the best methods informed by the best available, actionable climate science; by building two or three feet, depending on how critical the structure is, above the 100-year flood level; or by building above the 500-year flood level.

...The standard announced today leverages the experience gained through the Hurricane Sandy recovery and closely tracks flood elevation requirements already adopted in at least 350 jurisdictions across the country. It does not alter flood standards for levees and will not affect the standards or rates of the National Flood Insurance Program. On behalf of the federal government, FEMA will solicit public input prior to the implementation of the new standard for 60 days online and through a series of public meetings in flood-prone areas around the country....

Hurrcane Sandy damage to the New Jersey coast, US Air Force photo

Lives of danger, poverty on Philippines' typhoon coast

Terra Daily via AFP: Life is a constant throw of the dice for farmer Nilo Dilao and other residents of the Philippine island of Samar, the ground zero for many of East Asia's deadliest storms. Homes, boats, crops, livestock and jobs are all on the line each time the monster winds roar in from the Pacific Ocean, leaving survivors to mourn their dead and pick up the broken pieces, year in and year out.

"Life is a struggle here," Dilao, 43, told AFP a few days after Typhoon Hagupit destroyed his shanty and killed more than 20 people this month. He likened the plight of local people to those of stray chickens. "We're scratching at the soil non-stop in hopes of finding a scrap to eat," he said.

Hagupit came a year after Super Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest ever storm recorded on land, killed 7,350 people on Samar and neighbouring islands.

Samar, about half the size of Belgium, is often the first major Asian landmass hit by the more than 20 tropical storms or typhoons that are born in the Pacific Ocean each year.

With much of the mountainous island stripped by deforestation, most of its 1.8 million residents live on narrow, sea-level strips along the coast, at the mercy of the storms' ferocious winds and tsunami-like ocean surges....

In Samar, after 2013's Typhoon Haiyan. US Department of Defense photo

From Haiyan to Hagupit - what changed?

IRIN: On the second full day of operations responding to what entered the Philippines as Typhoon Hagupit - since downgraded to a tropical storm - national officials say disaster coordination has improved since last year’s Super Typhoon Haiyan.  Tacloban, the city that bore the bulk of the estimated 6,000-plus fatalities 13 months ago, has reported no casualties thus far.

“We evacuated sooner this year. People need longer than one to two days to evacuate,” Tacloban’s mayor Alfred Romualdez told IRIN, admitting he broke rules to suspend classes before the storm had even entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility. “People need three to four days to evacuate. You cannot force evacuation. Before they can think about evacuating, they need to borrow money from their employer. Then it takes at least one day to return home to provinces.”

More than one million people were transferred to 3,640 evacuation centres, as reported by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) on 8 December. Eight of the country’s 17 administration regions were affected.

In Tacloban, some 50,000 people were evacuated ahead of the storm, almost all of whom were already displaced from last year’s Typhoon Haiyan. Romualdez estimated at most 6,000 newly displaced. Almost all have returned to their residences.

Rather than waiting until damage assessments were in to request additional military presence, Romualdez requested military reinforcements four days before the typhoon hit, allowing the city to prepare relief goods and “custom-fit” disaster risk reduction to Tacloban’s needs, he said.

....Assistant-Secretary Camilo Gudmalin, who oversees for DSWD the region of Western Visayas, parts of which were still emerging from last year’s super typhoon when they were hit again in the latest calamity, said coordination between national and international responders has improved....

NASA image of Hagupit, December 5, 2014

Indian anti-cyclone actions slash extreme-weather risks

Gareth Willmer at SciDev.net: Developing nations should build resilience to extreme-weather events by learning from previous disasters and introducing technology such as early warning systems, says a report by UK-based scientific academy the Royal Society.  

As an example, the researchers highlight Cyclone Phailin, which hit the east Indian state of Odisha in October 2013. It was the area’s strongest storm since Cyclone 05B struck in 1999, killing almost 9,000 people and leaving more than 1.5 million homeless. Yet just 44 people were killed in Odisha by the 2013 cyclone and related flash floods.  

While last year’s storm still caused significant destruction, the researchers say the vastly reduced human cost shows “the effectiveness of building resilience through preparedness, early warnings, political commitment and technology”. They highlight how Odisha has pumped major investment this millennium into early-warning systems, infrastructure improvements, evacuation planning and shelters.  

And such measures could be key in coming years as developing nations face a “significant and increasing” risk from extreme weather due to their growing populations and climate change, they say. Maps in the report illustrate that the impact of floods, heatwaves and droughts will grow in many areas worldwide, but the risk will be amplified in regions such as South Asia, South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa because of their patterns of population rise and urbanisation....

NASA image of Cyclone Phailin, October 11, 2013

Corps of Engineers embraces uncertainty of climate change

A press release from the US Army Corps of Engineers: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is adapting the way it operates to accommodate climate changes that could cause floods and droughts. "During the past 50 years, much of the U.S. has seen an increase in periods of high temperature and severe floods and heavy downpours and droughts," said Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, commanding general, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "We all have observed changes to the frequency and the severity of these events."

In April and May of 2011, he said, residents in the Mississippi basin experienced some of the worst flooding seen since 1927. The next year, in 2012, droughts in the same region impacted navigation along the same river, which required "a significant response effort" to get traffic moving again on the river.

"That is what the nation, and the world, is experiencing," Bostick said. "These changes are increasing the risk and the vulnerability of operations, missions and infrastructure; effective climate change preparation and resilience are important to the corps. Adaptation and preparation is not an optional thing for the Corps of Engineers. It's something we feel we have to do."

During a press conference Thursday, at the Corps of Engineers headquarters here, Bostick explained that the corps is aware of climate change, and is changing the way it operates to accommodate changes due to climate.

"We're translating science into policy, we are adapting new infrastructure to withstand changes in climate, and we are looking at our existing infrastructure to see where it is vulnerable to changing climate and the steps we must take to make it more resilient," Bostick said. "We are also looking at how all of this fits into a systems approach."...

US Army Corps of Engineers photo of a dam at Burnsville Lake in West Virginia

Nepal disaster preparedness needs to go local

IRIN: Mid-summer monsoon rains in Nepal triggered over three dozen floods and landslides, killing over 200 people and displacing tens of thousands. Experts say this highlights preparedness and response challenges and the urgent need for these to be prioritized in development plans and at local government level.

"There was nothing unpredictable about this summer's events in Nepal," Moira Reddick, coordinator at Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium (NRRC), a coalition of humanitarian, development, financial and government bodies, told IRIN.

"Until we see investments effectively risk managed and centred into development planning across all sectors of government and international community, we won't start to see the kind of revolution we need in terms of disaster management, risk-proofing and effective preparedness," she said.

Nepal's Ministry of Home Affairs put the number of people dead between June and September due to floods and landslides at 265, with 256 missing and 157 injured. A landslide on 2 August was the deadliest in the country's history. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), monsoon disasters in 2014 affected over 200,000 people across Nepal and displaced more than 34,000.

Humanitarians point to a 2008 flood in the River Koshi, which killed several hundred and displaced nearly 60,000 families, as a turning point for Nepal's disaster mitigation and response work....

A 2013 flood in the Darchula district of Nepal, shot by Krish Dulal, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licens

First-of-its-kind report ranks US insurance companies on climate change responses

A press release from Ceres: Amid growing evidence that climate change is having wide-ranging global impacts that will worsen in the years ahead, a new report from Ceres ranks the nation's 330 largest insurance companies on what they are saying and doing to respond to escalating climate risks. The report found strong leadership among fewer than a dozen companies but generally poor responses among the vast majority.

The report, Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey Report & Scorecard: 2014 Findings & Recommendations, ranks property & casualty, health and life & annuity insurers that represent about 87 percent of the total US insurance market. The companies were ranked on a half-dozen climate related indicators, including governance, risk management, investment strategies, greenhouse gas management and public engagement (such as their climate policy positions.) The report is based on company disclosures last year in response to a climate risk survey developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).

“Despite being on the 'front line' of climate risks, most of the company responses show a profound lack of preparedness in addressing climate-related risks and opportunities,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy group. “A big positive in the report's findings is the strong leadership among a small number of property & casualty insurers – a trend that needs to become far more mainstream if the industry is to accelerate global responses to this colossal threat.”

The companies were ranked on a four-tier scoring system, based on a 100-point scale, that included "Leading," "Developing," "Beginning" and "Minimal" grades. Nine of the 330 companies – three percent overall – received the “Leading” rank, including ACE, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Allianz, Prudential, XL Group, The Hartford, Sompo Japan and Zurich. The Hartford and Prudential are the only U.S.-headquartered insurers among the nine firms.

The vast majority of the insurers – 276 of the 330 companies – earned “Beginning” or “Minimal” ratings. The heath and life & annuity insurers had especially weak responses, with 89 percent and 80 percent, respectively, receiving the lowest “Minimal” rating....

“As key regulators of this sector, we strongly encourage insurance industry leaders and investors who own these companies to take this challenge far more seriously,” said Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who wrote the report foreword and chairs the NAIC’s Climate Change and Global Warming Working Group. “The insurance industry is uniquely positioned as the bearer of risk to make adjustments now to lessen dramatic impacts we know are coming. This is not a partisan issue, it’s a financial solvency issue and a consumer protection issue.”

The 2007 flooding of the Kishwaukee River in DeKalb, Illinois, shot by IvoShandor, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Nepal's disaster preparedness woefully inadequate

Om Astha Rai in My Republica: Nepal has put in place plenty of plans, strategies and mechanisms to deal with disasters in the last five years.  But, is Nepal now well-prepared to manage disasters?  The answer is a big NO. In the aftermath of the recent Sunkoshi landslide and other devastating floods, particularly in the plains of the midwestern region, it seems that Nepal´s disaster preparedness is almost non-existent.

Government officials often dub 2009 as a landmark year in the field of disaster risk management. On October 11 that year, the government approved a national strategy for disaster risk management, outlining top five priority areas.  In the years since 2009, several mechanisms, as envisioned by the national strategy, have been formed to manage disasters.

...So, despite all this preparedness, why did the recent floods cause so much damage in the mid-western region? According to the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), floods and landslides have killed 123 people, injured 67 people and left 126 people missing in several parts of the country since August 14.

..."Perhaps, our disaster preparedness is far from adequate," says Ramesh Shrestha, an early warning system officer at Mercy Corps Nepal, an NGO working in disaster management sector. Shrestha believes that there is no gap in disaster management policies and strategies but their implementation is far from satisfactory. "This is why disasters continue to cause so much destruction every year," says Shrestha....

A highway next to the Sunkoshi River, shot by Rajesh2044, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

How to adapt disaster management to an urban context

Lean Alfred Santos in Devex: When we think about cities, we consider  high-rise buildings, highway roads, public services including schools and hospitals, and — arguably — progress and development. But when a natural or man-made disaster strikes, do most urban communities, given their perceived “progress and development,” fare better than their rural counterparts, especially in rapidly urbanizing Asia-Pacific?

Given recent natural catastrophes in the region, the simple — albeit hasty — answer is no. Every community can prove to be equally vulnerable to the negative effects of natural calamities if stakeholders do not formulate and implement appropriate disaster management strategies, and this was precisely the theme of a workshop conducted this week in Manila by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“There is a growing concern worldwide that rapid urbanization, changing patterns in vulnerability and the increased intensity and frequency in weather-related disasters, poses new challenges for risk reduction and effective response [including the region],” IFRC stated in the pre-event report obtained by Devex.

While emergency response and disaster risk management is not a new development discussion, especially in Asia-Pacific, many of the strategies and best practices currently available in the international development landscape pertain to frameworks focused on rural contexts — a gap that needs to be bridged to have a comprehensive disaster management strategy.

“Most disaster risk reduction [and management] programs were designed for rural communities or adopted from rural experiences,” Jerome Zayas, technical manager at international scientific group Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative, said during the panel discussion, adding that urban communities face different challenges than rural ones including informal settlers and livelihoods, among others.

Zayas added that while existing rural-focused strategies can be seen as slightly inappropriate when implemented in urban settings, these documents, however, can be a springboard — and foundation — for the formulation of a separate urban disaster management strategy especially on the lessons learned and recommendations....

2012 flooding in Manila, shot by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Nigeria and UNDP launch national digital flood model

AllAfrica.com via Leadership (Abuja): The Federal Ministry of Environment, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, has launched a National Digital Flood Model for better forecasting and monitoring of flooding nationwide.

The Minister of Environment, Mrs Laurentia Mallam, said this at the public presentation and launch of the instrument in Abuja. Represented by Mrs Rabi Jimeta, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mallam said that it would ensure effective environmental governance and prompt response to impending flood disaster.

She said that the model permits interaction between predicted hydro-metrological data and earth surface conditions such as land use and soil type. However, she said that the major challenge to the use of the model was for it to be adopted in flood management service delivery in the country.

According to her, the forum was organised forum to discuss ways to create awareness among stakeholders on the adoption of the model in flood management. The minister said the launch and public presentation of the model was organised to facilitate interaction among stakeholders on the operations and success of the Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) and the National Digital Flood Model in the monitoring and management of flood in Nigeria....

Senate asks Nigerian government to avert flooding, ocean surge in coastal states

Omololu Ogunmade and Adebiyi Adedapo in AllAfrica.com via This Day (Nigeria):  As the world enters into the rainy season, the Senate yesterday asked the federal government to ensure judicious use of ecological funds by putting in place measures aimed at bringing a lasting solution to the recurrent problem of ocean surge along coastal lines in different parts of the country.

The parliament also tasked the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to send relief materials to Nigerians who have already been displaced by ocean surge in coastal areas.

The call followed a motion by Senator Emmanuel Paulker (Bayelsa Central) in which he expressed the plights of Nigerians residing in coastal communities in Bayelsa and Delta States whom he said were recently displaced by an ocean surge which submerged their communities and destroyed their source of livelihood.

According to Paulker, the surge displaced and washed away many lives in Koluama I, Koluama II, Foropa and many other communities in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State last week. He said the communities which blamed the flood on the "unmitigated impact" of an explosion and fire from Chevron's oil rig, lamented how it washed away their markets as well as properties worth billions of naira and consequently put them in a state of anguish.

The senator said the surge was caused by the failure to address Chevron's oil rig explosion and fire which he said occurred in Koluama in January 2012, recalling that such under water explosions and vibrations triggered the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which claimed 290,000 lives and affected about 14 countries along the ocean coast....

A thunderstorm brews in the Bight of Bonny off the Nigerian coast, oil rig in the foreground, shot by Swandau, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Was Saskatchewan prepared enough for the flood of 2014?

Bruce Johnstone in the Star-Phoenix (Saskatchewan): With the Flood of 2014 barely over and the clean up just begun, it's far too early to be pointing fingers of blame at government or anyone else for failing to predict the magnitude of the flooding or prevent it from happening.

However, it's not too early to ask some pointed questions about the extent of our preparedness for these types of disasters, whether our response was adequate and, more importantly, whether we can expect these events to occur more frequently in the future.

...But Wall added we've learned a lot from the 2011 experience. "We've just purchased more equipment. We have better knowledge, better expertise by our response team.' More pumps and temporary barriers were acquired, while forest firefighting crews and resources were repurposed to help mitigate the flood damage in the soggy southeast and east-central portions of the province. The Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP), which provides coverage against flood damage not covered by insurance, has been approved for 37 municipalities, including Regina and Melville.

And the province has set aside $500 million in its (aptly named) "rainy day' fund that will be used to cover its share of its PDAP costs, which amounted to $163 million in 2011. (Ottawa picked up the other $200 million.)

...So what more could have been done to prevent this flood or better prepare for it? Manitobans have complained for years that unauthorized drainage projects in Saskatchewan have contributed to flooding on the Manitoba side of the border. Wall himself has suggested that agricultural drainage may be partly to blame for exacerbating, if not causing, the widespread flooding that seems to be occurring more frequently in recent years....

2009 flooding in Manitoba, shot by Shawn, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Banjul disaster hot spots tackled ahead of rainy season

AllAfrica.com via the Daily Observer (Banjul): The Banjul City Disaster Committee are putting in efforts to intensify measures to prevent the occurrence of flash floods that continued to cause havoc in the disaster hot spot areas of the capital city.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Observer, the Banjul City Disaster Management coordinator Hudul EN Colley pointed out that, in preparation for this year's rains, the government is currently rehabilitating the Bund Ponder station. He added that BCC is working closely with the National Roads Authority (NRA) and the National Disaster Management Agency, to install the pumping machine.

According to him, government has engaged the National Roads Authority to fill the portholes in all the disaster hot spot areas, along Tobacco Road.

He went on to reveal that the Banjul City Council has supported in the excavation of the drainage outlets, in order to allow water to flow into the ring canal; and also in the demolition of the dilapidated buildings in the city....

A view of Banjul, shot by Atamari, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Asia can show the way in building disaster resilience

Margarete Wahlstrom at the Thomson Reuters Foundation via UNISDR: Next week, 2,500 delegates from more than 39 countries in Asia and the Pacific are expected in Bangkok, Thailand, for the Sixth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, to shape future efforts to build more resilient communities and nations.

The outcome of the meeting will have long-term significance for the world at large, as the recommendations will feed into a new global agreement on disaster risk reduction which will replace the current Hyogo Framework for Action, adopted in 2005 by all U.N. member States following the Indian Ocean tsunami.

When Asia speaks on disaster risk management, the rest of the world listens. The region suffers more than 80 percent of the world’s disaster events. Nine of the world’s 10 most significant disaster events last year by fatalities occurred in the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Japan and China. Some 14,500 lives were lost in tropical cyclones, floods, heat waves, cold waves and earthquakes.

...The learning from the last nine years of implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action across the region tells us that while much progress has been made when it comes to reducing the risk of fatalities in the event of a disaster, countries still struggle when it comes to tackling the causes of risk creation and economic losses.

Many countries are forced to spend far too much of their budgets on disaster response, meeting the emergency needs of affected people and, in the longer term,  repairing roads, schools, health facilities and critical infrastructure which should have been disaster-proof in the first place.

If a percentage of response and recovery money were invested wisely in urban planning and land use to reduce the population’s exposure to risk, then the long-term savings would be significant. For every $1 invested in disaster risk reduction, the long-term savings are at least $4 to $8 - more money that can be spent on education, health and job creation....

NASA image of Cyclone Phailin in the Bay of Bengal, October 11, 2013

Students help California coastal communities brace for climate change

UC Irvine News: UC Irvine undergraduates Tristan Lanza and Enrique Uribe have been catching the bus regularly from campus down to Newport Beach to knock on doors. Lanza, 21, noticed the first time they neared the coast right where flooding would likely begin.

Back in UCI’s Engineering Tower, graduate student Adam Luke, 23, pores over computerized hydraulic models that he has spent weeks constructing of the Tijuana River estuary straddling the U.S.-Mexico border. This is where flooding would hit hardest, he thinks, gazing at a destitute Mexican canyon community. And here, he notes, taking stock of Imperial Beach on the U.S. side, is where higher king tides combined with fiercer storms could swamp several streets.

Two hours south, social ecology doctoral student Kristen Goodrich, 30,is at the wheel of a white van, driving carefully up a rutted street in one of Tijuana’s poorest neighborhoods. She snaps a photo of ramshackle homes accessed by rickety footbridges. “How would these people get out if water washed out those bridges?” she wonders.

Students of all levels and from many disciplines of UC Irvine are participating in the Flood-Resilient Infrastructure & Sustainable Environments – or FloodRISE – project, a $2.8 million, four-year interdisciplinary effort funded by the National Science Foundation. The aim is to help communities along the California coast and Tijuana River Estuary
better understand and cope with rising waters and stronger storms from climate change. They and their professors are sitting at strangers’ kitchen tables, crawling through culverts and using low-flying plane data to tackle the task.

“Climate change is the biggest challenge of my lifetime, and there’s a lot that needs to done besides reducing emissions,” says Uribe, 22, a senior graduating this week with a bachelor’s degree in political science. “This project is going to have very significant impacts, helping people in communities who are most at risk.”....

Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, CA Photo: Kurt Roblek/USFWS, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Frustrated Thais work on flood management in legislative vacuum

Thin Lei Win at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: On a blistering May afternoon, consultants hired by the Thai government unveil the next phase of a scheme aimed at preventing a repeat of Thailand’s 2011 floods, its worst in half a century. Yet the snazzy presentation fails to persuade local leaders and villagers from provinces west of the capital Bangkok.

They are unhappy with plans to dredge canals, as well as the focus on large infrastructure projects. What’s more, construction work that’s already finished was done without their knowledge or consent, they complain.

By the end of the four-hour session at the Nakhon Pathom office of the government’s irrigation department, which oversees water management in Thailand, the two dozen community representatives are frustrated and distrustful. “If water overflows into farm land, what happens? If there’s damage, who will be responsible?” asks one community leader, voicing widespread scepticism in the room over the scheme’s effectiveness. Questions about flooding are on the mind of many as the monsoon season approaches.

Adding to the worry, Thailand’s political paralysis - following an army coup last month – has left in limbo a law that could help address water management problems exposed by the 2011 floods, such as the lack of a central agency to handle water resources.

Memories of those floods - which killed 800 people, affected nearly 14 million and disrupted global supply chains - loom large at the irrigation department meeting.

....The integrated water law is now stuck with the Law Reform Commission of Thailand. Under the previous constitution, the final draft of the law could be proposed either to the government or parliament....

2011 flooding near Bangkok, shot by DANIEL JULIE, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license