Blue Planet: Humans fuel natural disaster

Poor planning and limited government regulation have made significant contributions to the harm caused by such destructive events such as floods, hurricanes, fires and earthquakes in the past decade.

In the past 15 years, these events have killed 560,000 people, including about 275,000 from flooding, with earthquakes and volcanoes killing 170,000 and windstorms 85,000.

In the past 10 years, $600 billion in damage has been done a greater loss than the entire previous 40 years combined even when adjusted for inflation. The data comes from Munich Re, an insurance company.

Poor planning and minimal regulation by many governments are two factors. Settlements in unsafe areas, poor forestry and agricultural practices, failure to develop and enforce adequate earthquake codes and crushing debt burdens in developing countries also are causative elements.

Globally, increasing population and the rapid expansion of cities have put more people near coastlines, where many disasters occur. About 2 billion people now live within 65 miles of a coastline and 13 of the world's largest 19 cities, those with populations of more than 10 million, are located in costal zones. Increasingly severe storms in these areas will lead to more heavy losses, may experts believe.

According to a United Nations draft document obtained by United Press International, worldwide efforts aimed at environmental protection and poverty reduction cannot be successful without taking into account the risk of natural hazards.

"Can the planet afford to take the increasing costs and losses due to natural disasters? The short answer is, no," the document, "Natural disasters and sustainable development," states.

In the yet unpublished report, Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, says adequate preparations to help prevent catastrophes would even help prevent war.

"Funds currently spent on intervention and relief could be devoted to enhancing equitable and sustainable development instead, which would further reduce the risk for war and disaster," he says.

According to Annan, "More effective prevention strategies would save not only tens of billions of dollars, but save tens of thousands of lives."

But Annan notes: "Building a culture of prevention is not easy. While the costs of prevention have to be paid in the present, its benefits lie in a distant future. Moreover, the benefits are not tangible; they are the disasters that did not happen."

Helena Molin Valdes, an international coordinator at the United Nations Secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Geneva, told UPI, the main challenge ahead in disaster reduction is to promote sustainable development.

"Disaster reduction is very much linked to development practices ... If disaster reduction concerns are taken into account when designing and implementing development projects, the vulnerability to hazards and the escalation of new disasters can be prevented or reduced," Valdes said.

As an example, Valdes mentioned projects in Manizales and Medellin in Colombia, where coordinated efforts by the city government, universities, businesses and community groups have greatly reduced deaths and economic damage from floods and mudslides. Reforestation, planting vegetation on slopes, improved drainage systems and some engineering works, including relocation of some houses all have contributed to the improvement.

James Lee Witt, who was the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for eight years during the Clinton administration, echoed some of the thinking going on at the U.N. "If we take care of our natural resources, then our natural resources will take care of us," Witt told UPI. He cited development in harm's way as well as degradation of wetlands and clear cutting practices as major contributors to recent flooding disasters in the United States.

During the Mississippi River flooding of 1993, while he was FEMA director, 500 counties in nine states were inundated. Witt said land usage patterns changed as the Mississippi River levee system was built up over an 80-year period.

"Because of the levee system, people thought that they would never be flooded again. Over the years they developed and built, with over-development and shopping malls and parking lots. Trusting the levees, they built in areas that were 100-flood plains and actually they didn't have flood maps at that time."

The 1993 Mississippi River flood was equivalent to a once every 500 year flood. More than 1,000 levees failed, out of 1,300, although some major cites were protected by flood walls. Seventy thousand people were displaced, 12,000 square miles of farm land were affected. Damage costs

ran between $15 billion to $20 billion. "Because of the over-development in some of these areas the water ran off much faster and enhanced the flooding situation and rivers rose much faster," Witt said.

Programs facilitated and managed by FEMA have been involved in turning developed land back into greenspace, Witt said, and this has been helpful in reducing some flooding impacts. The approach has helped restore some ecosystems and helped the quality of water, in some cases he added.

But Witt said we have a ways to go yet. "I've seen areas where the timber has been clear- cut. ... When the storm came in it had no buffers. It just came down. It silted-in the creeks and caused some severe flooding. I've seen mudslides from clear cutting land on top of mountains. It just really was devastating."

A new study by Janet N. Abramovitz, "Unnatural Disasters," published last month by Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, supports both the U.N. and Witt's views. According to Abramovitz, preserving natural elements of the environment will reduce the occurrence of flooding from rainfall and coastal storms.

"Dunes, barrier islands, mangrove forests and coastal wetlands are natural shock absorbers that protect against coastal storms. Forest, flood plains and wetlands are sponges that absorb flood waters, nature provides these services for free and we should take advantage of them rather than undermining them," Abramovitz said.

A survey done by Oklahoma City-based World Neighbors, and cited by Abramovitz, of 2,000 farms in the aftermath of hurricane Mitch in November 1998, showed farmers who had used sustainable practices emphasizing soil and water conservation fared much better than those using conventional approaches. Those with sustainable practices had less soil erosion and less loss of top soil.

In spite of the large social and economic forces that often cause development and settlements in harm's way, some experts believe it is realistic to expect that these patterns can be changed.

Abramovitz told UPI: "It is very realistic that we can expect these patterns to be changed ... When we're considering new construction, new development we can plan that more rationally.

And where we had existing infrastructure, existing cities, we can take measurers to make them less vulnerable to the hazards that they face."

Abramovitz believes, for example, earthquake building standards can be adapted to countries where there is less money available to build earthquake resistant structures. After the earthquakes in India and Turkey, the rebuilding has incorporated some earthquake resistant standards, Abramovitz said.

In January of this year, an earthquake of 7.7 Richter scale magnitude in India killed 20,000 people and in 1999 a 7.4 earthquake in Turkey killed 17,000. Most died in building collapses.

"A dollar in mitigation can forestall about $7 in recovery costs," Abramovitz said, a figure former FEMA director Witt agreed is probably accurate on a global scale.

Witt said as far as expenditures in the United States are concerned, the amount saved would probably be closer to $3 for every dollar invested.

If the trend of increasing damage and death from natural events is to be reversed, elected officials will need to put a lot more money into planning, regulation and prevention while at the same time listening to the conservation message that has been coming out of the environmental community for decades.