Disaster Management and Disaster Response
Urban Planning 232
Spring 2015
Thursday 9:00-11:50
Instructor: Stephen Commins
PPB 4371
Office Hours: W 9-11; Th 2-4
Office: PPB 5361
Phone: 310-666-0991;
E-Mail: scommins@gmail.com
Course Description:
Natural disasters are often described as a sudden and often severe interruption of the
basic livelihoods, the social fabric, physical infrastructure, and in poor countries, the very
core of the ‘development processes. Lives are lost; social networks are disrupted; and
capital investments are damaged or destroyed. When development funds are
programmed, after a disaster occurs, development funds are often diverted to emergency
responses. In reality, disasters are more complex: some are ‘slow onset’ (famines); some
have regularity (seasonal floods); and some are more obviously the result of human
action or inaction.
Following a disaster, additional resources (either domestic or external aid) are directed to
relief and reconstruction needs to get the communities affected ‘back on track’ towards a
‘normal’ path of economic growth and development. These are some aspects of the
connections between disasters and various factors involved in longer term development.
Understanding the linkages is important given the costs of disasters, especially to low
income and highly disaster prone countries.
Disaster losses include not only the direct impacts that are immediately visible, such as
the loss of life, housing and infrastructure, but also indirect impacts such as foregone
production in utility services, transport, supplies and markets. Secondary losses include
impacts on such macroeconomic variables as economic growth, public spending, balance
of payments, and inflation. While there are similarities between impacts on developing
and developed countries, natural disasters impact developing countries---especially those
with weak or deteriorating public institutions----in ways more severe than in developed
countries.
In international aid systems, there has generally been a simple design of programming
that sets out a three stage approach of emergency relief, rehabilitation and return to
development. In reality, the “development continuum” is highly flawed---it separates the
processes of disaster reduction from development programming; it presumes a single path
of ‘development’; and it has tended to be externally driven, with little local input from
affected communities.
The past few years have seen notable changes in the approach to disasters. In the area of
complex humanitarian emergencies (i.e. Rwanda, Bosnia, Eastern DRC), which are not
the focus of this course, the deeply political nature of these emergencies has been
increasingly addressed, though with major problems. In the area of ‘natural disasters’, a
number of changes have emerged. This has included significant attention to the
accountability of aid providers to communities, the attention given to the long term
affects of climate change, and the beginnings of programs that focus on ‘disaster risk
reduction’. The recent earthquake in Haiti provides a stark example of the combination
of disasters and fragility.
This course will look primarily at developing country experiences, and will explore how
risk reduction relates to poverty, vulnerability and political voice. It will consider some of
the relationships between poverty, politics and disasters, as in many cases, the losses
from ‘natural’ events are as much the result of political and economic factors, as an ‘act
of nature’. The course will explore new tools of disaster management, including new
analysis and response frameworks, and the centrality of politics in humanitarian action.
Course Outline:
April 2: Introduction (slow and rapid onset; locale; seasonality; scale and micro-hazards;
famines, floods, etc.)
April 9: Disaster Responses and Prevention
Readings: Bolin and Stanford; Perry and Lindell; Winchester; Datt and Hoogeveen;
Christopolous, Mitchell and Liljelund; Rashid
April 16: National and International Disaster systems
Readings: Walker and Purdin; Luna; HPG; Fawcett and Oliveira; ALNAP; Harvey;
April 23 (tbd): Livelihoods and Service Delivery
Readings: IUCN; Practical Action; SDC; Cannon;
April 30: Tsunami and Katrina; Pakistan, Bangladesh and Haiti case studies
Readings: Beck; Matin and Taher; Winchester; Tsunami Evaluation Coalition; GAO;
Waugh; Burby; Uscher-Pines; DARA
May 7: Nature Pleads Not Guilty
Readings: Fordham; Flores, Khwaja & White; Boyce; Enarson; PREM Notes
May 14: Politics and Disasters;
Readings: Morris and Wodon; Wisner; DFID; Birkman; Darcy; Brown and Crawford
May 21: Urbanization and Disasters
Readings: Bankoff; Sanderson; CLACC; Rayos Co; Southeast Asia Disasters (Cities)
May 28: Climate change; Social Protection
Heltberg, et. al., Few et. al, Satterthwaite; IIED; Mateo and Lagdameo; Kelman
June 4: Changing Global Context and “Hazardscapes”/Connecting Development and
Disasters
Readings: ProVention; O’Brien; Kaiser; Moore;: ODI; Skoufias
Course Requirements:
Lead session of class discussions on weekly readings (questions for discussion and then
subsequently provide short, written summary of key issues in the reading and seminar)
Thematic essay with topical and geographic focus: students are encouraged to work in
teams for their final paper
Course Readings:
ALNAP, State of the Humanitarian System
George Bankoff: Constructing Vulnerability: The Historical, Natural and Social
Generation of Flooding in Metropolitan Manila
Tony Beck, Learning the Lessons from Disaster Recovery: The Case of Bangladesh
Jorn Birkman, Assessing Vulnerability Before, During and After a Natural Disaster in
Fragile Regions
Robert Bolin and Lois Stanford, The Northridge Earthquake: Community-based
Approaches to Unmet Recovery Needs
James Boyce, Let Them Eat Risk? Wealth, Rights and Disaster Vulnerability
Brown and Crawford, Climate Change and Security in Africa
Raymond Burby, Hurricane Katrina and the Paradoxes of Government Disaster Policy
Cannon, Twigg and Rowell, Social Vulnerability, Sustainable Livelihoods and Disasters
Christopolous, Mitchell and Liljelund, Re-Framing Risk: The Changing Context of
Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness
CLACC, Climate Change and the Urban Poor
DARA, Pakistan: Lessons from the Flood
Darcy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Action
Garuv Datt and Hans Hoogeveen, El Nino or El Peso? Crisis, Poverty and Income
Distribution in the Philippines
DFID, Why We Need to Work More Effectively in Fragile States
Elaine Enarson, Through Women’s Eyes: A Gendered Research Agenda for Disaster
Social Science
William Fawcett and Carlos Sousa Oliveira, Casualty Treatment After Earthquake
Disasters: Development of a Regional Simulation Model
Roger Few, Mike Ahern, Franziska Matthies and Sari Kovats, Floods, Health and
Climate Change: A Strategic Review
Margarita Flores, Yasmeen Khwaja and Philip White, Food Security in Protracted
Crises: Building More Effective Policy Frameworks
Maureen Fordham, Making Women Visible in Disasters
GAO, Hurricane Katrina
GFDRR/UNDP: Typhoon Yolanda Ongoing Recovery
Paul Harvey, Towards Good Humanitarian government
Heltberg, Siegel and Jorgensen, Addressing Human Vulnerability to Climate Change:
Towards a ‘No-Regrets’ Approach
HPG, The Changing Role of Official Donors in Humanitarian Action: A Review of
the Trends and Issues
IIED, Climate Change in Urban Areas
IUCN, Ecosystems and Livelihoods Post-Disaster
Kaiser, Spiegel, Henderson and Gerber, The Application of Geographic Information
Systems and Global Positioning Systems in Humanitarian Emergencies
Kelman, Gallard and Mercer, Climate Chante in Disaster Risk Reductions Future
Mateo and Lagdameo, Building Resilience to Climate Change Locally: The Case of
Valenzuela City, Metro Manila
Nilufar Matin and Muhammed Taher, The Changing Emphasis of Disasters in
Bangladesh NGOs
Moore, Eng and Daniel, International NGOs and the Role of Network Centrality in
Humanitarian Aid Operations
Morris and Wodon, The Allocation of Natural Disaster Relief Funds: Hurricane Mitch in
Honduras
O’Brien, et. al., Climate Change and Disaster Management
ODI Briefing Paper: Aftershocks: Natural Disaster Risk and Economic Development
Policy
PREM Notes, Hurricane Mitch: the gender effects of coping and crises
Ronald Perry and Michael Lindell, Preparedness for Emergency Response: Guidelines
for the Emergency Planning Process
Practical Action, The Livelihoods-Centred Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction
ProVention, Natural Disaster Hotspots
Mamanur Rashid, Practicing Gender and Social Inclusion
Jason Christoper Rayos Co, Community Driven Disaster Intervention
Jose Luis Rocha and Ian Christopolous, Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness on the
Nicaraguan Post-Mitch Agenda
David Sanderson, Cities, Disasters and Livelihoods
Satterthwaite, Huq, Pelling, Reid and Lankao, Adapting to Climate Change in Urban
Areas
SDC, Protection of Lives and Livelihoods
Emmanuel Skoufias, Economic Crises and Natural Disasters
South Asia Disasters Net, Successful Community Based Adaptation in India
South Asia Disasters Net, Children, Disasters and Cities in India
Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, TEC Synthesis Report
Lori Uscher-Pines, Health Effects of Relocation Following a Disaster
Peter Walker and Susan Purdin, Birthing Sphere
Christine Wamsler, Mainstreaming Risk Reduction in Urban Planning and Housing
William Waugh, The Political Costs of Failure in the Katrina and Rita Disasters
Peter Winchester, Cyclone Mitigation, Resource Allocation and Post-Disaster
Reconstruction in South India
Ben Wisner, Risk and the Neoliberal State