Natural Hazards Observer
| March 2006 | Volume XXX | Number 4 |
Urban Risk Reduction’s Role in
Sustainable Development
When asked how sustainability applies to urban risk reduction, Alejandro Linayo, who teaches in a graduate disaster reduction degree program in Venezuela, said that the question needs to be reversed. In Linayo’s view, it is more appropriate to ask how urban risk reduction applies to sustainability. With sustainable development being an end state that benefits society, urban risk reduction becomes a set of actions that supports sustainability. This article adopts Linayo’s construct and explores urban risk reduction’s potential contribution to our present understanding of sustainability. It argues that risk reduction can be an effective tool to help sustain cities and to aid positive future development. Some evidence supporting this argument will be provided here in brief case examples.
To be effective, risk reduction should be viewed holistically (by public, private, and civil society sectors) and integrated into public and private practices at all spatial and organizational levels. This is in keeping with the notion of incorporating sustainability and public risk management into comprehensive emergency management to broaden its impact and its applications to social betterment.(1)
There is ongoing discussion around the globally accepted definition of sustainability: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.(2) However, an emerging consensus by European Union scholars posits that sustainable urban development has four components: ecological integrity (the ability to maintain various levels of ecological balance), equity (encompassing social and economic concerns), public participation (in the decision making process and in establishing social preference for means of improvement), and futurity (the capacity to sustain desired levels of urban development at given resource use rates over time).(3) This second model is appropriate to use here as it focuses on the city as well as the role that populations play in sustainability practices.
In practical terms, sustainability actions occur as both formal and informal processes. Formal processes reflect institutional adoption through laws, programs, and operations, and the informal processes reflect social practice in everyday lives. An example of a formal process is EDUPLAN hemisférico, an Organization of American States-supported hemispheric plan of action for the reduction of vulnerability to natural hazards in the education sector. The plan is divided into three areas: physical infrastructure, citizen participation, and academic aspects. Successful plan implementation means educational buildings are adequate and safe, citizens are educated and trained, and students of all ages are empowered with the knowledge to make their homes and communities safer places to live.
Sustainable development can be most beneficial in countries where large populations of urban poor are subject to high levels of vulnerability. Thus, this article has greater applicability to countries with large urban poor populations. Nevertheless, the reader should find some parallels and benefits for all countries. Using Alan Lavell’s dual risk construct, we begin to understand that the poor face high levels of “everyday” risk (getting enough food, drinking water, transport to work) as well as hazards risk.(4) To provide the poor with sustainable urban development benefits, both types of risks must be addressed. Improving public health and providing low-polluting transport, for example, will improve the capacity of the poor to cope with everyday risk and to better confront hazards risk. This leads to a policy position that addresses the sustainable development equity component: the most productive way for urban risk reduction to contribute to sustainability is to address present identified risks through structural and nonstructural actions while lessening vulnerability to future hazards events through other appropriate means.
Case Examples
To show the importance of participation, here are examples of risk reduction and sustainable development in practice.
In the Aguán River Valley in Honduras, communities use self-administered early warning systems to monitor river flooding. They have chosen to rely on community network building, focusing on strong horizontal relations (internal to the community) with secondary linkages to national weather information services. Responsibilities are clear and enforced by tradition and custom. River gauges are monitored by teams trained by local emergency management councils and when the water rises, signals are sent to an appointed villager who rings a bell to alert residents of the need to evacuate or take protective actions. This collective protection practice is appropriate and sustainable and requires the local populace to adequately understand risk and its consequences.
The community of José Cecilio del Valle in San Salvador, El Salvador, an irregular settlement (occupation of nontitled land) of working poor families, is on the edge of a deep ravine and is subject to earthquakes, floods, and landslides. Since they are near the city’s employment center, the people do not wish to move: a common attitude in poor countries. Collectively, the community chose to engage in risk reduction. Youth brigades are used on new construction, hazard mitigation drainage works are integrated into lot building construction, technical capacity is increased via strong ties with an international nongovernmental organization, and families in extreme risk areas in the ravine are relocated to reconstituted sites on the ridge. The residents became part of the process rather than simply taking part in a process designed by others. These actions contribute to ecology integrity, equity, and safety. José Cecilio del Valle is more sustainable now as a result of these efforts.
The town of Ocotal in Nicaragua was hit hard by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Its response was to rebuild lost housing in an area already identified in the town plan as less risk-prone. The new houses were constructed of adobe block made in a city-owned factory. The use of renewable building materials and local labor contributed to the community sustainability effort. A key success factor was the relationship that existed prior to the hurricane between the municipality and decentralizedinternational cooperation organizations. Communication and trust had been built that supported a sustainable recovery process. The Ocotal experience is an example of renewable resource use, equity, institutional guidance for sustainable recovery, and sustainable development based on local control.
Marikina , a city near Manilla in the Philippines, has adopted a sustainability approach in its Safety Plan, which is designed to make the city more secure for economic development through urban risk reduction. As the local culture does not like the word disaster, the word safety is used as a symbolic and functionally inclusive term that civil society understands and supports. In the Safety Plan, risk reduction is an objective for all municipal departments, which serves the overall objective of sustainable development in this area of high seismic and flood risks. The plan was assembled through an intensive process of citizen involvement that built awareness of risk reduction and support for the restriction of growth of irregular settlements in high-risk locations. The Marikina case supports the United Nations’ position that disaster risk management is not an independent discipline. It is multisectorial in nature, requiring support from all sectors of society.
The City of Berkeley, California, is an example of what Paul Farmer, executive director of the American Planning Association, calls “making self-interest a common interest.” Berkeley has become more sustainable by investing in retrofitting urban facilities as well as private residences. The majority of the public buildings that would be needed in a disaster have been upgraded along with 65 percent of the city’s individual residences. The city is flexible and creative in waiving fees, providing subsidies to those in need, and adjusting administrative procedures to promote citizen involvement and participation by low-income households. Of course, this is an expensive process, but it represents long-term support and involvement of the electorate and local government agencies in reducing risk and making the city more sustainable. As in José Cecilio del Valle, the citizens of Berkeley became part of the process, not mere participants, and this has proved to be a positive experience.
Lessons Learned
Keeping people out of harm’s way is a difficult task. Urban risk reduction can play a part by adopting flexible practices and supporting the four components of sustainability: ecological integrity, equity, public participation, and futurity. Taking action to help the poor lower their everyday risk is the best form of “self-interest becoming common interest.” The case examples show that it is not always laws or governments that encourage adoption of risk reduction practices. A certain level of engagement between sectors that are able and willing to take action is needed. If replicated at scales from the neighborhood to the regional, this engagement of commonly held beliefs joined by adequate resources will yield many societal benefits. Engagement becomes the thread that ties diverse stakeholders together, each accepting responsibility to use and share resources in some aspect of sustainable urban development.
William Siembieda (wsiembie@calpoly.edu)
City and Regional Planning Department
California Polytechnic State University–San Luis Obispo
(1) Britton, N.R. 1998. Safeguarding New Zealand’s future: Emergency management’s role in shaping the nation. http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN019477.pdf.
(2) Miletti, D.S. 1999. Disasters by design. Washington, DC: John Henry Press.
(3) Curwell, A., M. Deakin, M. Symes, eds. 2005. Sustainable urban development: Volume 1: The framework and protocols for environmental assessment. London: Routledge.
(4) Lavell, A. 2003. Sustainable development and risk reduction in the Lower Lempa Valley, El Salvador: Experiences with local participation. http://www.desenredando.org/public/articulos/2003/sdrrllv-sa/sdrrllv-sa_abr-24-2003.pdf.