23/06/2009
The European Commission congratulates Development Workshop France (DWF) and Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FHA) for receiving the prestigious United Nations' Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction. DWF received the Certificate of Distinction and FHA the Certificate of Merit.
Both are longstanding partners of the Commission's Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) working with local communities in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and helping them to protect themselves against such disasters. Both are honoured for their comprehensive work in disaster risk reduction.
This work includes, for example, Commission-funded and DWF-run preparedness projects in Vietnam demonstrating that preventive strengthening of buildings is cost-effective and efficient.
Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "I warmly congratulate Development Workshop France and Focus Humanitarian Assistance on winning this prestigious award. Better than just waiting for the next tragedy, the Commission is committed to supporting disaster risk reduction work. We are glad to have highly professional and dedicated partner organisations like DWF and FHA to help us improve the capacity of communities in developing countries at risk from natural disasters".
In 2008, Development Workshop France won the UN Habitat Award for its work preventing typhoon damage to housing in central Vietnam.
Focus Humanitarian Assistance is an affiliate of the Aga Khan Development Network. It received the Certificate of Merit for its disaster p revention, mitigation and preparedness activities to reduce the vulnerability of over half a million people living in the mountainous northern areas of Pakistan.
The UN Sasakawa award for disaster reduction was established in 1986 by founding chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Mr Ryoichi Sasakawa. The award has three elements: the Laureate as well as a Certificate of Distinction and a Certificate of Merit. Previous laureates include, among others, the Global Fire Monitoring Center in Germany and Dr. Ian Davis from the UK.
See also: IP/09/924
For further information: http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm 20/06/2009The Global Platform ended today with participants from more than 300 regional/national organizations and governments urging political leaders to implement measures to halve the number of deaths from natural hazards by 2015.
In the Chair’s Summary at the close of the Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Chair of the ISDR partnership recognised the way in which the process of DRR was being driven from the local level with the leadership increasingly coming from the global south.
Specific targets were also identified – reflecting the conference’s deliberations – as catalysts for cutting deaths and economic losses brought on by disasters, including:
• By 2010, establishment of clear national and international financial commitments to DRR, for example to allocate a minimum of 10% of all humanitarian and reconstruction funding, at least 1% of development funding, and at least 30% of climate change adaptation funding to DRR.
• By 2011, a global structural evaluation of all schools and hospitals and by 2015 firm action plans for safer schools and hospitals developed and implemented in all disaster prone countries with DRR included in all school curricula by the same year.
• By 2015, all major cities in disaster prone areas to include and enforce DRR measures in their building and land use codes.
“Achieving targets like these is challenging but it can be done. Even now, some of the world’s poorest countries are reducing the impact of disasters. There is no excuse for failing to act. What we need is the collective will to invest and act now,” Holmes commented later.
In his Summary, Holmes reviewed the findings and recommendations from four days of intense dialogue and debate drawn from plenary and informal plenary sessions, five high-level panels, five round-tables and over 40 special events.
He highlighted particularly the rising threat of climate change which, he said, is recognized as a source of great risk but at the same time offers the potential for a ‘triple win’ – adaptation, DRR and poverty reduction.
“The overwhelming view of the Global Platform is that DRR must be a concrete part of the deal on climate change that is sealed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009,” he stressed, adding that national disaster risk and climate change adaptation authorities needed to ‘act quickly’ on policy harmonization and identifying collaborative programs for the post-Copenhagen era.
Expanding on the main Platform theme – Invest Today for a Safer Tomorrow – Holmes stressed: “At present the scope of activities to reduce disaster risks is often simply too small and suffers from limited institutional capacities, lack of skills and established tools and small budgets.
“Put bluntly, many countries must dedicate more funds from national budgets – or suffer the consequences. This is also a must for the international community”
Holmes also urged Governments to show leadership and responsibility in the upcoming mid-term review of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, which will scrutinize implementation progress to date.
Concluding the Summary, he said: “We know how to move ahead. We can close the gaps and engage those who most need it; we can make our schools and hospitals safe, and we can help address the climate change issue.
“With strong advocacy and stronger commitment, greater public awareness and support, and appropriate funds, we can substantially reduce the losses from disasters as well as contributing to resilient social and economic development.”
The Global Platform, attended this year by some 1,800 participants from more than 300 Governments and Organizations, is the premier gathering for the worldwide DRR community, including political leaders and their policy advisors, UN agencies, international organizations, and scientific/academic institutions.
Said Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction: “It is clear that participants are leaving the Global Platform today with high expectations. The targets specified this morning are simply a first step – delivery must follow rapidly.”
She also welcomed a joint statement from the six members of the ISDR management oversight board, delivered during the closing ceremony, inviting Governments to make 2010 ‘the year of investment and action’.
18/06/2009
John Norton, President of DWF, receives the Award from John Holmes, UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Chair of the Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Geneva, on the 16th June.
(Updated 6/18/2009 GMT+7)
17/06/2009
GENEVA, 16 June (IFRC) – "The rising dangers of climate change require a response from governments equivalent to the one made to address the global financial crisis," according to the chief executive of the world's Red Cross and Red Crescent body.
Launching the new 2009 edition of World Disasters Report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the organization's secretary general, Bekele Geleta, said disaster-relief agencies must focus on cost-effective prevention measures, rather than expensive response operations.
With aid budgets, at best uncertain, amidst the global downturn, a relatively new approach to relief work called "early warning, early action" will save more lives per dollar, says the report, published every year since 1993.
"The evidence we have is that public money buys about four times as much humanitarian 'impact' if spent on preparation before disaster strikes than on expensive response," according to Geleta.
"With global GDP forecast to decline for the first time since the Second World War," he added, "as well as the ever-growing challenge of climate change, we must increase preventive activities as the most effective way of saving lives and preserving development gains."
Earlier this year, Geleta recalled, the World Bank – in the run up to the G20 meetings – said that falling growth would "sharply slow" reductions in infant mortality in the developing world, and that there might be up to 400,000 more deaths a year than would be without a crisis of this type.
The International Federation is increasingly using its own Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) – now worth more than US$ 15 million a year – for preemptive action.
"Hydrometeorological" events linked to climate change – floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts – together accounted for nearly 60 per cent of DREF grants in 2008, according to the new World Disasters Report.
In July 2008, the IFRC launched its first wholly preemptive appeal (for US$ 750,000) for flood preparedness, based on seasonal forecasts for the West African monsoon that were to prove highly accurate.
In Haiti, meanwhile, although the human toll from the Caribbean storms – Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike that battered the country in 2008 - was considerable, it would have been higher still but for "early warning, early action". Haitian Red Cross volunteers, mostly forewarned, worked round the clock before and after the storms hit, carrying out evacuations, search and rescue, first aid and relief, but many lacked equipment to disseminate warnings.
Mohammed Omer Mukhier, IFRC head of disaster policy and preparedness, says early warning, early action is as much a "mindset" as an operational framework.
"It emphasizes the crucial importance of prevention," he says. "We can do better if we seek out risks before they happen."
"It means capitalizing on existing know-how and resources to refocus 'disaster response' onto prevention."
"If we engage with communities before – not after – crisis or disaster strikes, we can help them take action to minimize human and economic losses."
Maarten Van Aalst, associate director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in The Hague and a contributor to the 2009 report, writes that donors have to be persuaded to "support continuous revision of contingency plans and updates of emergency stocks in strategic locations," based on early-warning information.
World Disasters Report, however, cautions that early action is not always an option.
In Myanmar, for example, where Cyclone Nargis claimed some 138,000 lives last year, unfavourable topography and an almost complete lack of logistics and communications combined, in effect, to rule out evacuation as a life-saving measure.
And while it is possible to prepare communities for earthquakes like the one that killed nearly 88,000 people in China's Sichuan province last May, "sudden-onset" seismic disasters are far harder to predict.
Between them, Nargis and the Sichuan quake accounted for 93 per cent of the global total of disaster deaths last year, according to figures quoted in World Disasters Report.
The Sichuan earthquake affected around 46 million people; a major US flood 11 million; and drought in Thailand 10 million.
But there were fewer disasters worldwide in 2008 than in any other year of the preceding decade: 326 natural and 259 technological disasters.
World Disasters Report 2009: Focus on Early Warning, Early Action
Early warning and early action: An essential partnership to prevent disasters
In terms of natural hazards and their impact, 2008 was one of the most devastating years. While hazards are largely unavoidable, especially with the growing threat of climate change, they only become disasters when communities' coping mechanisms are exceeded and they are unable to manage their impacts. The world's poorest and most vulnerable people are those most at risk.
This year's World Disasters Report focuses on two key aspects of disaster risk reduction: early warning and early action. The decline in injuries, loss of livelihoods and deaths from disasters over the past 30 years is, in part, due to the establishment and improvement of early warning systems. Advances in science and technology, in forecasting techniques and the dissemination of information are major contributors. However, the development of a more people-centred approach is clearly essential to ensure that the warnings captured by satellites, computer modelling and other technologies reach at-risk communities and are then acted upon.
The 2004 tsunami focused the world's attention on early warning systems because no such system was in place in the Indian Ocean. Thousands of lives were lost – although tsunamis are relatively rare events. There are many outstanding examples of early warning systems for more frequent hazards. Two notable ones are those for tropical storms in Bangladesh and Cuba where community-based early warning leads to prompt evacuation and has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction opens in Geneva
Daily coverage at http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/gpdr2/
Leaders and representatives from some 165 Governments gathering here today for the 2009 Global Platform on Disaster Reduction will be urged to ‘invest today for a safer tomorrow’ – or face much harder decisions in the years to come.
In a world increasingly affected by climate change, ‘the time is long overdue to move disaster risk reduction to the centre of the development agenda’, says John Holmes, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Convener of the Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, taking place in Geneva from 16 through 19 June 2009.
Global disaster statistics and trends are ‘of grave concern’, stresses Holmes:
• Last year, 236,000 people lost their lives in over 300 disasters – in earthquakes, floods, storms, landslides and other destructive events. More than 200 million people were directly affected, and damages exceeded 180 billion US dollars.
• The world’s combined disaster management mechanisms can assist at most 100 million people at any one time, while the projected need is three times that figure.
• Between 1980 and 2007, nearly 8,400 disasters caused by natural hazards have taken the lives of over two million people and produced economic losses over 1.5 million US dollars. Of this total, around 90 per cent of the events, and over 70 per cent of casualties and 75 per cent of economic losses were caused by weather-, climate- or water-related extremes such as droughts, floods, windstorms, tropical cyclones and storm surges, extreme temperatures, or by wild fires, health epidemics and insect infestations, which are directly linked to meteorological and hydrological conditions.
• While no individual event is, by itself, evidence of climate change, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report indicates that changing frequencies of a number of extreme events can be expected in a warming world. Oman – where even weak tropical cyclones are practically unknown – was struck by a Category 5 incident in 2007; while Brazil was hit by a similar event three years earlier, the first ever in the South Atlantic.
“We now know that disasters are increasing in most regions of the world,” adds Holmes. “Losses are rising. Poor urban governance, vulnerable rural livelihoods and declining ecosystems are key drivers of growing disaster risks, magnified by climate change. Disasters lead to poverty and poverty leads to disasters, with developing countries disproportionately affected.”
Attended by more than 1,800 delegates drawn from over 300 Governments and regional/national organisations, the Platform will conclude on Friday (19 June). The aim is to reach a common understanding on a series of measurable and sustainable disaster risk reduction (DRR) actions – covering early warning systems, disaster-proofing public buildings and minimum levels of development funding directed towards disaster risk reduction.
The Platform is expected to focus on four vital areas of the DRR imperative:
• Increased investment in DRR – ‘a fundamental requirement’;
• Integration of DRR into climate change adaptation and development planning;
• Acceleration of community resilience and livelihood protection;
• A programme to accelerate disaster-proofing of public buildings – especially schools and hospitals.
“Put plainly, disaster risk reduction is not an option. It is an absolute pre-requisite for a safer future,” states Holmes, who is also the Chair of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) partnership.
ISDR partners actively involved in the Platform are also expressing strong support for the event’s overall objectives.
"It is vital that we invest more in disaster risk reduction so as to protect health," says Dr Eric Laroche, World Health Organization Assistant Director-General for Health Action in Crises. "A greater emphasis on reducing the risks posed by disasters will save more lives and reduce injuries, disease, disabilities and psychosocial impacts that result from them. Hospitals, for example, should not be victims of disasters."
According to a recent WMO survey, nearly 60% of some 140 participating countries require strengthening of their observing networks and infrastructure, technical and institutional capacities, and operational partnerships among their agencies, to establish effective early warning systems to warn the population against disasters, particularly in the most vulnerable territories.
“WMO’s 188 Members are attaching high priority to the integration of early warning systems into emergency management and response,” says the Organization’s Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “The objective is, by 2019, to reduce by 50 per cent the associated 10-year average fatality of the period 1994-2003 for weather-, climate- and water-related disasters.”
Concludes Margareta Wahlström, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction: “Government leaders and their advisors will be leaving this conference with one very clear path to follow: invest in sound and sustainable DRR measures today to provide a safer tomorrow for existing and future generations. The alternative is to face some much harder decisions on climate change adaptation and vulnerability a few years hence, when any practical choices will be far more limited.”
The 2009 laureate for the Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction is geologist Dr Eko Teguh Paripurno. He receives the award for his lifetime contribution and his outstanding commitment to reduce disaster risk and building capacity at the community level in Indonesia, one of the countries most vulnerable to multiple hazards. Additionally, five organizations actively involved in disaster reduction are awarded Certificates / two Certificates of Distinction - DWF (France) & JEMED (Niger) -, three Certificates of Merit - TDMMO (Iran), FHA (Pakistan), CIIDEM (Ecuador). The UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction is together with the WHO Sasakawa Health Prize and the UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize one of three prestigious prizes established by the Nippon Foundation in Japan in 1986.
Laureate
Dr. Eko Teguh Paripurno, Indonesia
Nominated by: Mr. Shehal Soneji, Acting Country Director, Oxfam Great Britain
Certificates of Distinction
Development Workshop France, France
Nominated by: Ian Davis, Cranfield, Oxford Brookes and Kyoto University (Former Laureate)
Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement (JEMED), Niger
Nominated by: Caroline Kassell, West Africa Team, Tearfund
Certificates of Merit
Tehran Disaster and Mitigation Management Organization (TDMMO), Iran
Nominated by: Ali A. Mojtahed Shabestari, Head of UNOCHA, Tehran
Focus Humanitarian Assistance, Pakistan
Nominated by: Mohammad Zafar Iqbal, Assistant Resident Representative, UNDP, Pakistan
International Research Centre on El Nino (CIIFEN), Ecuador
Nominated by: Claudio Providas, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP, Ecuador
Laureate 2009
Dr. Eko Teguh Paripurno, Indonesia
Dr. Eko Teguh Paripurno was selected as this year’s laureate for the Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction. Dr Paripurno is the Director of the Research Center for Disaster Management of the University of National Development in Yogyakarta and consultant to local and national governments as well as to various civil society organizations. In these roles, Dr Paripurno is significantly contributing to reduce disaster risk in Indonesia, one of the countries most vulnerable to multiples hazards. The recommendation for the Award followed the jury’s assessment of his lifetime contribution and his outstanding commitment to reduce disaster risk and build capacity at the community level in Indonesia, one of the countries most vulnerable to multiple hazards.
Dr Paripurno is both scientist and practitioner, and has hence opened new paths in an outstanding career combining sound science and its application for public safety, appropriate technology and advocacy for mobilizing resources. He has worked in the area of science, technology and society without losing touch with the community. Dr Paripurno demonstrates life long learning and ties together technical and community level experiences in risk reduction. He has contributed to legislation, and has helped to establish policies which guide the development of strategies and good practice. This work has been put into operation in Indonesia where it supports disaster risk reduction for a number of different hazards, reaching from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to floods. He has played an active role in awareness raising and advocacy with strong support for the commitment to public education and media involvement.
Examples of his work include a deep involvement in actions taken in the aftermath of the Yogyakarta earthquake of 2006, which killed nearly 6000 people. Moreover, he has been with working with communities located near the Merapi Volcano, Egon Volcano and Kelud Volcano. Dr Paripurno has worked consistently in the field of community based disaster risk management in Indonesia for more than fifteen years. He has contributed directly to capacity building through his involvement in more than 750 local disaster risk management projects in 20 provinces in Indonesia and has indirectly reached thousands of people.
Dr Paripurno has demonstrated a deep personal commitment and enthusiasm throughout his life, steadily broadening his own expertise and expanding his influence to meet the needs of communities and of his country for improved Disaster Risk Reduction.
Certificates of Distinction
Development Workshop France (DWF), France
The French Non-Governmental Organization Development Workshop France, active in Central and South-East Asia and Africa, is one of the awardees of the Certificate of Distinction. DWF was founded 35 years ago and can look back on a long history of Disaster Risk Reduction. Earthquake resistant construction techniques have been disseminated since the very beginnings of DWF, and since the late 1980s the organization has worked on cyclone resistant reconstruction. Experiences gained and strategies developed in Vietnam were applied to develop the ‘Safe House’ programme together with the British Red Cross in Aceh, Indonesia addressing long term community-based safe construction needs. After the cyclone Nargis disaster in 2008, DWF has most recently devised and implemented the ‘Safer Schools’ programme in partnership with Save the Children in Myanmar. Activities of this programme include strengthening of school buildings as well as raising awareness for safer schools and homes by educating school children, their families and the communities at large. Furthermore, technical skills amongst community builders are being developed.
Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement (JEMED), Niger
Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement (JEMED), a Non-Governmental Organization in Niger, was selected for one of the Certificates of Distinction. Since its establishment in 1989, JEMED has focused on assisting pastoral communities in Northern Niger to maintain a semi-nomadic way of life and adapt to their increasingly challenging environment. Climate change, resulting in a growing number of droughts, and increased environmental degradation have led to worsened food insecurity and severe threats to the livelihoods of the pastoralists. By means of a participatory approach, JEMED is empowering the pastoral communities on risk reduction and educates them on sustainable ways of adapting to the impacts of climate changes. Initiatives reach from providing water resources by digging wells, via cereal and animal fodder banks to health and nutrition education. These approaches bore fruit during the 2004/5 drought and food crisis in Niger: beneficiary communities had 30-50% lower animal loss than non-beneficiary communities and were able to recover from the crisis much quicker. JEMED cooperates with local governments and the Government of Niger and is currently working in a consortium with other NGOs on a country wide Disaster Risk Reduction programme.
Certificates of Merit
Tehran Disaster and Mitigation Management Organization (TDMMO), Iran
TDMMO, established in 2005 and affiliated to Tehran Municipalities the Government of Iran, focuses on Disaster Risk Reduction in the megacity of Tehran. TDMMO’s projects include the preparation of groups of volunteers by providing training and equipment in order to respond with basic technical and medical first aid to the community within their neighbourhoods after disasters such as major earthquakes. Numerous volunteer groups have been set up so far and all important mechanisms and procedures have been put in place in order to increase the disaster response capacity of the entire city.
Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), Pakistan
Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), an affiliate agency of the Aga Khan Development Network, specializes in community-based search, rescue and disaster response and has trained more than 34,000 community volunteers. In the wake of the 2005 earthquake in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, its search and rescue as well as assessment and response teams actively and successfully participated in the post-earthquake operations.
International Research Centre on El Niño (CIIFEN), Ecuador
The interagency mechanism CIIFEN has been operating since 2003 and devotes its work to climate modeling to improve early warning with respect to the El Niño phenomenon, the building of information systems and the training of scientists and industry experts. CIIFEN’s products are used by decision-makers in planning, prevention and preparedness activities in order to reduce climate risks and are also valuable for capacity building and education.
The Jury wishes to commend the candidates, many of whom demonstrated dedication, innovative approaches and it was particularly pleased to see the many instances where outreach, extension and networking initiatives were being actively and aggressively pursued in spite of significant resource (and governance) challenges and constraints. UNISDR sincerely hope that these awards will stimulate further efforts in the field and most importantly contribute to the full implementation of the Hyogo Framework and mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction. 16/06/2009MEKONG DELTA, Vietnam, Jun 13 (IPS) - When they got out of bed one morning in April this year, the residents of Vi Thanh City here in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta were surprised to find that their water had become salty.
During the night, seawater had intruded into the Xa No canal, the main source of water for the city of 200,000 people.
"Never in my life have I seen the water at Vi Thanh become that salty," said 76 year-old Nguyen Duc Bon, who was born in the city. "Our running water has become so salty that we could not use it for cooking or for washing."
For daily use, inhabitants now have to buy fresh water supplied from the nearby regional centre of Can Tho at high prices.
A dam is being built to prevent the penetration of saltwater, but it will not be finished until 2011.
The area’s farmers also worry that their 37,000 hectares of paddies and aquaculture could be totally destroyed by the seawater intrusion.
Many factors are being blamed for the change in water quality - hydropower construction upstream on the Mekong River, global warming, and, ironically, the network of small dams build by local farmers themselves to protect their crops and aquaculture products.
There are two seasons in the Mekong Delta, the dry season, usually taking place from May to November; and the rainy season, from December to April.
During the dry season, the water level of the Mekong is very low, enabling the intrusion of saltwater.
During the rainy season, the Mekong overflows, flooding the delta but also washing out the areas recently invaded by seawater.
To fight these floods, local farmers have built a network of dams to protect their crops and aquaculture products - a method that in previous years was acclaimed as an innovation because it helped farmers continue producing even in the rainy season. Now, however, these dams have turned out to be one of the causes of saline intrusion.
"Because of these closed dams, the overwhelming quantity of flooding water is not retained [in the soil] and thus runs out into the sea," said Le Van Banh, president of the Mekong Delta Institute of Rice. "When the dry season comes, the small quantity of underground water that remains is not enough to stem the invading seawater."
With global warming, April and May have become the hottest months of the dry season -at a time when the Mekong’s level of water is at its lowest.
This has resulted in further seawater intrusion into the dried-out regions of the Delta.
According to experts, seawater intruded up to 70 kilometres into some parts of the Delta during the 2009 dry season - the farthest distance in the last 20 years. More than 20,000 hectares of crops throughout the Delta have been immersed in saltwater.
"The areas covered by sea water extend year by year," Vu Anh Phap, of the Institute for the Development of the Mekong Delta, told Radio France International in an interview. "The salinity is also increasing."
Phap said that due to intensive irrigation in the Mekong region in the past few years, especially by farmers in upstream countries like Laos and Cambodia, the water level downstream has gone lower and lower and allowed greater penetration of seawater.
Increasing dam construction projects upstream is also widely viewed as another major cause of the water shortages downstream.
"These dams have reduced the water flow of the Mekong significantly," said Ky Quang Vinh, head of the Centre for Natural Resources and Environment in Can Tho.
"Water shortage has already occurred this year and will be more critical in the coming years," added Vinh. "Even in time of floods, the water flow of the Mekong in downstream has also been reduced."
In October, he said, it fell from 40,000 cubic metres a second to 28,000 cubic metres a second.
The shortage of water in the Mekong emerged as a matter of significant public concern in Vietnam in late May after the newspaper ‘Tuoi Tre’ cited a United Nations report saying that dams built by China on the upper reaches of the Mekong could have significant implications for Vietnam.
The report stated: "China’s extremely ambitious plan to build a massive cascade of eight dams on the upper half of the Mekong River, as it tumbles through the high gorges of Yunnan Province, may pose the single greatest threat to the river." It went on to say the impacts of the proposed dam development could include "changes in river flow volume and timing, water quality, deterioration and loss of biodiversity."
These dam developments include the recently completed Xiaowan dam, which at 292 metres is the world’s tallest and has a reservoir storage capacity equal to all the other Southeast Asia reservoirs combined.
It is part of China’s long-term plan to direct water for irrigation and hydropower to dry areas of the country.
"Dams are already big at heights of 15 metres, and 292 metres is unbelievable," Vinh told ‘Tuoi Tre’.
"[Chinese] dam construction now joins hands with climate change to worsen droughts, salinity intrusion, landslides and land erosion," Ngo Dinh Tuan, chair of the scientific council of the South-east Asia Institute of Water Resource and Environment, told ‘Tuoi Tre’.
"The Vietnamese government must create a national strategy for protecting the river downstream, not only for the Mekong but the Red River [in Vietnam’s north], as China has started to build dams on it as well," Tuan added.
The U.N. report also found increasingly low water levels at several river basins such as Tonle Sap in Cambodia, Nam Khan in Laos and Sekong-Sesan in Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction (DRR) opening in Geneva, Switzerland tomorrow (Tuesday) will hear details of the world’s safest places and those most threatened by sudden onset hazard.
The information is drawn from a new Mortality Risk Index (MRI) to be outlined at the conference attended by some 1,800 participants comprising Government leaders and risk reduction specialists from around the world, representing more than 300 governments and regional/national DRR organizations.
The MRI itself is the product of a massive database which underpins the Global Assessment Report: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate, a landmark document launched in Bahrain last month by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In essence, it lists some 200 countries and territories within 10 sudden onset risk categories, ranging from extreme (six territories) through to negligible (11). The categories with the highest number of entries are ‘medium’ and ‘medium low’ with a combined total of 118 – more than half the listing.
Using the Index, it is also possible to identify multi/combined, relative and absolute risk by territory, covering four sudden onset hazards which form the bulk of natural hazard events – tropical cyclones, earthquakes, floods and landslides. Compiling the Index has entailed a complex two-year modeling of hazard mapping, exposure calculations and vulnerability analysis, calibrated by each territory’s disaster history over more than three decades, to provide a state-of-the-art global profile of sudden onset hazard mortality.
The Index reveals, for instance, that Bahrain itself, like a number of the Gulf States is, for now, among the safest places on earth from sudden onset hazard among a grouping which includes Denmark, Estonia, Greenland, Latvia, Qatar, Seychelles and the United Arab Emirates.
“In today’s world, no location can be considered as safe from sudden onset or weather-related hazard,” stresses Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. “Greenland, for instance is already significantly affected by climate change, while the Seychelles was struck by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and rising sea levels are a growing concern for Bahrain.
“The clock is ticking and it is more essential than ever before for Governments to devise and implement real and sustainable risk reduction solutions – such as investing in disaster proofing of schools and hospitals – at both national and community levels.”
Predictably, four large population countries – Bangladesh, China, India and Indonesia – occupy the ‘extreme’ category for average numbers of citizens at risk, followed by Colombia, Myanmar and Pakistan (‘major’) with the next listing (‘very high’) including: Afghanistan, Algeria, Congo (DR), Guatemala, Iran, Japan, Peru, Philippines, Romania and Uzbekistan.
However, when the risk relative to population is analyzed, a different scenario emerges and territories topping the scale are: Colombia, Comoros, Dominica, Guatemala, Myanmar and Vanuatu. Significantly various small island states – Fiji, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Sao Tome and Principe, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia – feature prominently in the subsequent (‘high’) category.
Adds Wahlstrom: “It is hardly surprising that the world’s two most populated countries, China and India, have large numbers of their citizens at risk from sudden onset hazard. The solid risk reduction work already undertaken by both these Governments in particular, must continue.
“But even more worrying are the trends in middle and low income countries and small island developing states where a rising proportion of communities are caught in the disaster risk-climate change continuum, driving a cycle of deprivation and vulnerability in which more and more people become trapped.
“Fortunately, public awareness of disaster risk reduction issues and initiatives is intensifying and more questions are being asked of governments. The Global Platform will be a pivotal conference, not only in setting the disaster risk reduction agenda for the coming two years and beyond, but also in the run up to sealing a deal on climate change adaptation in Copenhagen this December.”
Explains Pascal Peduzzi – Scientific Adviser for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction – who coordinated a team of 20 leading scientists to develop the ground-breaking database: “Risk is made of three components: hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Each component varies with different parameters: hazard can vary in frequency, strength, exposure in number and vulnerability is shaped by poverty, remoteness, quality of governance, rapidity of urban growth and other contextual parameters.
‘But knowing where hazard strikes and who is exposed is not enough. We need to understand why separate populations – broadly similar in size and demographics – that are affected by a comparable strength of events suffer a different proportion of losses? This leads to the question of measuring vulnerability.
“The research from which the MRI has emerged is founded on an innovative methodology which allows vulnerability parameters, to be gauged through in-depth scrutiny – for calibration purposes – of every relevant hazardous event since the mid-1970s. It is then possible to reapply the vulnerabilities into the current context and overlay this with the exposure and severity of the different hazards to obtain the risk.
“The next challenge is to expand the Index to reflect the exigencies of drought. The absence of this input to the current Index means that the information on Africa, especially, is unbalanced since many countries in this region are affected by slow onset disaster, for which we were not able to devise a suitable model for this project.”
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