DP&PM Unit - 1

 UNIT - I: Introduction - Concepts and
definitions: disaster, hazard, vulnerability,

resilience, risks severity, frequency and details,
capacity, impact, prevention, mitigation.
 Desastre - French word - 'des' meaning bad and 'aster' meaning star.
 An event, natural or human made sudden or progressive, which impacts with such
severity that the affected community has to respond by taking exceptional measures
Or
 A serious disruption in the functioning of the community or a society causing wide spread
material, economical, society to cope using its own resources
Or
 As per DISASTER MANAGEMENT ACT, 2005 “ A catastrophe, mishap, calamity or
grave occurrence in any are, arising from natural or manmade causes, or by
accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering
or damage to, and destruction of, property or damage to, or degradation of,
environment, and is of such a natural or magnitude as to be beyond the coping
capacity of community of the affected area”
Or
 The United Nations defines disaster as “the occurrence of sudden or major
misfortune which disrupts the basic fabric and normal functioning of the society
or community”
Disasters are as old as human history but the dramatic increase and the damage caused by
them in the recent past have become a cause of national & international concern.
Over the past decade, the number of natural & man-made disasters have climbed
inexorably.
Reported disasters average from 1994 to 1998, was 428/ yr
1999 to 2003 , was707 /yr
Increase of about 60% over the previous years.
Nearly 90% of disaster-related deaths and 98% of people affected by disasters were
in developing nations
Disasters are not new to mankind, they have been the constant through inconvenient,
companions of the human beings since time immemorial.
NATURAL DISASTERS
floods, draught, cyclones, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunami, landslides, coastal erosion, soil
erosion, forest fires
MAN MADE DISASTERS
industrial pollution, artificial flooding in urban areas, nuclear radiation, chemical spills,
transportation accidents, terrorist strikes
HASARD - French
Hazards are defined as physical phenomena that pose a threat to the

people structures or economic asserts and which may cause a
disaster.”
Or
Hazard may be defined as “A dangerous condition or event that threat
ot have the potential for causing injury to life or damage to property
or the evniroment”
The extent to which a
community structure,
services or geographic
area is likely to be
damaged or disrupted
by the impact of
particular hazard, on
account of their
nature, construction
and proximity to
hazardous terrains or a
disaster prone area
 Resilire – latin word – bounce back
 Engineering Resilience : time taken by a system to bounce-
back from shocks
 Ecological Resilience – the extent of disturbance a system can
take without undergoing structural change
 Disaster Resilience is the ability of individuals, communities,
organizations and states to adapt to and recover from
hazards, shocks or stresses without compromising long-term
prospects for development.
 The probability of harmful consequences or expected losses
resulting from interaction between natural or human induced
hazards and vulnerable conditions
or
 Measure of the expected losses due to a hazard event
occurring in a given area over a specific time period. Risk is a
function of the probability of particular hazardous event &
losses each would cause
 The resources of individuals, households and communities to
cope with a threat or resist the impact of a hazard
Or
 Resources, means and strengths which exist in households
and communities and which enable them to cope with,
withstand, prepare for, prevent, mitigate or quickly recover
from a disaster
 Activities to avoid the adverse impact of hazards and means
to check from turning into disasters
 Mitigation means measures aimed at reducing the risk, impact

or effects of a disaster or threatening disaster situation.
 Measures taken in advance of a disaster aimed at reducing its
impact on society and the environment.
Death toll
Sl.no Event Location Date
(Highest estimate)
1. 4,000,000 1931 China floods July 1931

2. 2,000,000 1887 Yellow River flood September 1887
China
3. 830,000 1556 Shaanxi earthquake January 23, 1556
4. 655,000 1976 Tangshan earthquake July 28, 1976
5. 500,000+ 1970 Bhola cyclone East Pakistan November 13, 1970

(now Bangladesh)
6. 316,000 2010 Haiti earthquake Haiti January 12, 2010
7. 300,000+ 526 Antioch earthquake Byzantine Empire May 526

(now Turkey)
8. 300,000 1839 India Cyclone Andhra Pradesh, India November 25, 1839
9. 273,400 1920 Haiyuan earthquake December 16, 1920
China
10. 229,000 Typhoon Nina August 7, 1975
Death toll
Sl.no Event Location Date
(Highest estimate)
1. 5,700 plus Uttarakhand Flash Floods Uttarakhand 2013

2. 1,287 Bihar flood disaster Bihar 2007
3. 2,30,000 The Indian Ocean Tsunami Southern India & Andaman 2004
4. 20,000 Gujarat Earthquake Gujarat 2001
5. 15,000 Super Cyclone, Odisha Odisha 1999
6. 1 crore Great Bengal Famine West Bengal 1770
7. 3,787 Bhopal gas tragedy Madhya Pradesh 1984
8. 300,000 India Cyclone Andhra Pradesh, India November 25, 1839

Physical Vulnerability:
 It includes notions of who and what may be damaged or destroyed by natural hazard such as earth-
quakes or floods.
 It is location based, on the physical condition of people and elements at risk, such as buildings,
infrastructure etc; and their proximity and nature of the hazard.
 It also relates to the technical capability of building and structures to resist the forces acting upon
them during a hazard event.
Socio-economic Vulnerability:
 The degree to which population is affected by a hazard will not merely lie in the physical components
of vulnerability but also on the socio-economic conditions.
 The socio-economic condition of the people also determines the intensity of the impact.
 For example, people who are poor and living in the sea coast don’t have the money to construct
strong concrete houses.
 They are generally at risk and loose their shelters whenever there is strong wind or cyclone. Because
of their poverty they too are not able to rebuild their houses.
 India is vulnerable, in varying degrees, to a large number of disasters.
 More than 58.6 percent of the land mass is prone to earthquakes of moderate to very high
intensity;
 Over 40 million hectares(12%) of its land is prone to floods and river erosion;
 Close to 5,700kms, out of the 7,516kms long coastline is prone to cyclones and tsunamis;
 68% of its cultivable area is vulnerable to droughts; and, its hilly areas are at risk from
landslides and avalanches.
 More over, India is also vulnerable to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN)
emergencies and other man-made disasters.
Multi-dimensional : physical, social, economic,
environmental, institutional, and human factors define
vulnerability
Dynamic : vulnerability changes over time;
Scale-dependent : vulnerability can be expressed at

different scales from human to household to
community to country resolution
Site-specific : changes with location

 Frequency :The frequency of a natural hazard event is the number of times it occurs
within a specified time interval.
 Magnitude: The magnitude of a natural hazard event is related to the energy
released by the event.
 It is distinguished from intensity which is related to the effects at a specific location
or area.
 The magnitude of a natural hazard event varies in its frequency of occurrence over
time in an inverse power relationship.
 The relationship is often depicted as log-normal where the magnitude increases
linearly (e.g.,1,2,3,…) where as the frequency decreases as an inverse power
function(e.g.,1/3,1/9,1/81) with increasing magnitude.
 In other words, the larger and the more energetic the event, the rarer it is in time.
 The magnitude and frequency of natural hazards are generally inversely related-
the larger the magnitude, the less frequent the event.
 The impact is not directly related to the magnitude of the natural event but is
also closely linked to human factors.
 Majority of hazards have return periods on a human time-scale. Examples are
five-year flood, fifty-year flood and a hundred year flood. This reflects a
statistical measure of how often a hazard event of a given magnitude and
intensity will occur. The frequency is measured in terms of a hazard’s recurrence
interval.
 For example, a recurrence interval of 100 years for a flood suggests that in any
year, a flood of that magnitude has a 1% chance of occurring.
 Such extreme events have very low frequencies but very high magnitudes in
terms of destructive capacity. This means that an event considered being a
hundred year flood would cause severe damage compared to a five-year flood.

DP&PM Unit - 1

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 UNIT - I: Introduction - Concepts and

definitions: disaster, hazard, vulnerability,

Hazards are defined as physical phenomena that pose a threat to the

 Mitigation means measures aimed at reducing the risk, impact

1. 4,000,000 1931 China floods July 1931

5. 500,000+ 1970 Bhola cyclone East Pakistan November 13, 1970

7. 300,000+ 526 Antioch earthquake Byzantine Empire May 526

1. 5,700 plus Uttarakhand Flash Floods Uttarakhand 2013

5. 15,000 Super Cyclone, Odisha Odisha 1999

6. 1 crore Great Bengal Famine West Bengal 1770

7. 3,787 Bhopal gas tragedy Madhya Pradesh 1984

8. 300,000 India Cyclone Andhra Pradesh, India November 25, 1839

Dynamic : vulnerability changes over time;

Scale-dependent : vulnerability can be expressed at

Site-specific : changes with location

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