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CHAPTER 6

Coming Game-Changers? Burgeoning Cities, Climate Change, and Climate-Induced Catastrophes

uture disaster risks (a combination of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) may change as a result of two powerful trends: burgeoning cities and a changing

climate. The latest United Nations (UN) estimates suggest that, globally, the urban population exceeded the rural for the first time in 2008 (UN Populations Division 2008). In less developed regions, this threshold is expected to be reached by around 2020. How will changing distributions of population and income in the context of growing cities change our exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards? How will the incidence of climate and weather extremes affect future economies and well-being? For example, widespread migration to coastal regions may greatly increase risk even if the climate were to remain constant, while increasing prosperity may work to reduce risk, even if the climate hazards themselves are increasing or intensifying. And what about climate-induced catastrophes, defined here to mean disasters that

occur on a global scale and are likely to be irreversible over any realistic time frame for decision-making? For example, the melting of the ice sheet on Greenland, as a consequence of climate change, could raise sea levels by seven meters, and the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet could raise them by five meters, flooding many major coastal areas. The chapter starts with a discussion on cities, whose growth, especially in the

developing world, substantially changes exposure and vulnerability. It then analyzes how climate change could affect hazards such as tropical cyclones, with a glimpse of the science behind the projections. Note that the focus is on the additional hazards induced by climate change, distinguishing them from changes in hazards without future climate change. Moreover, the focus on hazards means that the analysis does not address all the effects of climate change.1

The risks and costs of climate-induced catastrophes, whose global scale and persistence differentiate them from disasters on a more local and regional scale, are examined last. Institutions are the common thread linking the three possible game-changers. They

need to adapt to all risks—not just those from urbanization, climate change, and catastrophe—and function municipally, nationally, and globally. There are no ready recipes to create them, but much can be done to foster them.

The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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Cities: Rising exposure Cities are economic powerhouses: they occupy only 1.5 percent of the world’s land area but produce half the world’s GDP. And prosperous cities are economic magnets, attracting people and investments. Their prosperity arises from the division of labor that the density of people and assets allows, and from the lower cost of acquiring productivity-increasing information and technology (“know-how”). There are now 26 megacities (with more than 10 million people), up from eight in 1950. The 2009 World Development Report examined these issues in economic geography and concluded that governments should not try to prevent or divert urbanization but should instead better support cities and provide needed services to both urban and rural areas (each has a different set of challenges). Building on the 2009 WDR’s framework, this section begins by outlining how and why cities grow and why exposure to hazards may rise but vulnerability may fall in the aggregate as densities and incomes increase.

Cities grow faster than countries

Historically, output has grown by about 1 to 2 percentage points more than population, so per capita income has risen almost everywhere. Much of the growth has been in cities, where per capita income is higher. Among 150 of the world’s largest cities, per capita output is about 1.8 times the average national output. And urban per capita income is on average twice the rural.2 This is not new: cities have long brought prosperity. Cities’ population is also growing. The UN estimates the world urban population’s share will rise to 70 percent by 2050.3 About half this growth is “natural” (owing to the fertility of urban dwellers) (Montgomery 2009), and the remainder is due to expansion (when adjoining villages grow to meet) and migration (map 6.1). Many cities are outgrowing the capacity of roads, water supply, and sewage

disposal systems to serve their inhabitants. Services have not kept pace largely because cities have not invested enough in infrastructure—even in the vaunted homes of high-tech industries like Bangalore, India. The reasons differ, but many can be traced to institutions that do not allow city administrations to respond to people’s needs: for example, the financing arrangements of Indian cities could be faulted (Bahl and Martinez-Vazquez 2008). Congestion, pollution, and frustration may eventually choke the continuing growth of such cities, but their people are exposed to natural hazards today. These are the cities where dangers may be unnecessarily high.

Map 6.1 Cities projected to have more than 100,000 people by the year 2050

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Source: Brecht and others 2010.

City growth will increase exposure

Cities are largely founded at transport intersections—such as ports, or at the first bridge on a river upstream. Some natural harbors reflect active tectonics. Flat land close to the water was at a premium, reflecting unconsolidated recent sediments, often reclaimed for its value. Such land is vulnerable to both flooding and ground motion amplification. For example, San Francisco was originally a city built of wooden buildings, largely destroyed in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake. The debris from that earthquake was then pushed into the sea to create more reclaimed land on which the Marina District was constructed, only to suffer high levels of damage and ground settlement in the 1989 earthquake. Such growth increases exposure and vulnerability to hazards unless people take conscious measures to prevent them. City-specific population projections to 20504 for this report are combined with

geographic patterns of hazard events representative of the 1975–2007 period. The projected number of people exposed to tropical cyclones and earthquakes in large cities in 2050 more than doubles, rising from 310 million in 2000 to 680 million in 2050 for tropical cyclones, and from 370 million to 870 million for earthquakes (map 6.2).

Map 6.2 Exposure to cyclones and earthquakes in large cities rises from 680 million people in 2000 to 1.5 billion people by 2050

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Source: Brecht and others 2010.

The growing exposure continues to vary by region. By 2050, there will be 246 million city dwellers in cyclone-prone areas in South Asia, but 160 million each in the OECD and in East Asia. Although East Asia has fewer exposed people, the urban population exposed to cyclones is expected to grow at 2.2 percent a year, similar to South Asia’s. Sub-Saharan Africa’s exposure growth at 3.5 percent is even higher, reaching 21 million urban dwellers by 2050. Exposure to earthquakes will likely remain the bane of East Asia: 267 million in

2050, up from 83 million in 2000. It is also high in Latin America and the Caribbean (150 million in 2050) and OECD countries (129 million in 2050). But the fastest exposure growth is in South Asia (3.5 percent), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (2.7 percent). The density of people and economic activity not only changes the risk equation—it

can also change the economics of disaster risk reduction strategies. And what applies to population applies even more to economic assets and output. Cities are engines of growth, and firms prefer to locate in urban centers with good access to labor. Each unit of area therefore generates far more output and hosts a larger stock of economic assets. This reflects the concentration and greater economic value of productive assets—as well as public infrastructure and private assets such as homes —in cities. The exposure of economic assets to natural hazards in cities will thus be considerably higher than in rural areas. But greater exposure need not increase vulnerability: much depends on how cities are managed.

City management will determine vulnerability

A core task for cities is to provide, coordinate, and disseminate information so that land, housing, and insurance markets can operate efficiently. Data on hazard probabilities and the vulnerability of structures and people feed into comprehensive risk assessments. These should be made accessible to all. Such information allows

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residents to make informed location choices and markets to price hazard risk appropriately. It also provides the basis for the emergence of private insurance markets. And it serves as a sound basis for transparent zoning decisions and other land use restrictions. And while hazard mapping has been performed for many decades, new technologies allow constant updating of information at a fairly low cost. Making these technologies accessible to cities—not only the largest, but also smaller and medium-sized cities with limited local capacity—should be a priority. For large-scale collective hazard risk reduction investments, the costs and benefits

depend in large part on the dynamics of the urban economy, particularly on the value of land. In dynamically growing cities, where land is scarce, large investments to make land habitable or reduce significant risk may well be justified. An example is large-scale land reclamation in Hong Kong SAR, China, and Singapore. Limited expansion options in the vicinity of high economic density raise the value of land significantly. This shifts the cost-benefit ratio in favor of large protective investments. A strict test is whether a developer would, in principle, be willing to pay a price for the reclaimed or protected land that reflects the cost of the intervention. All cities are not equal, and the viability of large-scale disaster reduction

infrastructure will be different in cities with stagnant economies and little or no population growth. Today, this is a phenomenon in mature economies with demographic declines or in countries with strong geographic shifts in economic and population centers (Pallagst 2008). Examples are the former socialist countries in Europe but also parts of Scandinavia and the Mediterranean countries, as well as the old industrial core of the U.S. midwest. Over time, given demographic trends in many middle-income countries, “shrinking cities” may also emerge in some of today’s emerging economies, such as those in East Asia. Public investments in the wake of Hurricane Katrina sparked debate over large-

scale protective investments to encourage the rebuilding of New Orleans within the pre-Katrina city limits. More than $200 billion of federal money will be used to rebuild the city. Some have argued for providing residents of areas behind massive flood control infrastructure with checks or vouchers, and letting them make their own decisions about how to spend that money—including the decision about where to locate or relocate. The choice is between spending $200 billion on infrastructure for residents or giving each resident a check for more than $200,000—in a place where annual per capita income is less than $20,000 and which reached its peak of economic importance in 1840.5 There are, of course, political, cultural, and social factors that have to be considered in the decision whether to reconstruct, but this example nonetheless shows the difficult tradeoffs that shrinking cities face. Reducing urban hazard risk through large-scale infrastructure must consider the

dynamics of city demand. In some developing countries, infrastructure investment— long-lived capital stock—is likely to peak in the coming few decades. These tasks are

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perhaps more daunting than in the past, given cities’ emergence in countries where power is increasingly federal. The challenge is at all levels of government—from federal to urban development ministries to small-town mayors. But the payoffs in saved lives and avoided damages will be high.

Climate change: Changing hazards, changing damages Climate-related hazards (“extreme events”) have resulted in an average of $59 billion a year in global damages (EMDAT 2009) from 1990 through 2008, or 0.1 percent of world product in 2008. Tropical cyclones account for 44 percent, and floods 33 percent. Even without climate change, economic development and population growth are

expected to increase the baseline damages from extreme events over the next century (figure 6.1). If there is no conscious change in adaptation policies to extreme events, baseline damages without climate change are expected to triple to $185 billion a year from economic and population growth alone. Floods and tropical cyclones are expected to continue to be the prominent sources. But heat waves are expected to become more prominent. There is widespread concern that climate change could increase future damages

from extreme events (IPCC 2007a, IPCC 2007b, World Bank 2009). Earlier studies projected increased tropical cyclone activity alone might result in additional annual damages in the United States of $100 to $800 million6 and global annual damages by $630 million (Pearce and others 1996). More recent studies suggest that a doubling of greenhouse gas concentrations could increase tropical cyclone damage by 54 percent to 100 percent in the United States and double tropical cyclone damage globally.7 Some studies of historic trends of extreme event insurance claims find that extreme events are rising at a rapid and even exponential rate (Swiss Re 2006; Stern 2007). However, these trend line analyses do not separate changes in the exposed population and changes in the extreme events themselves (Pielke and Downton 2000; Pielke and others 2008). Analysis commissioned for this report uses an integrated assessment model

combining science and economics to estimate the additional damage from hazards as a result of climate change.8 While the analysis attempted to estimate the additional damage from all hazards, the analysis of potential changes in the location, frequency, and intensity of future tropical cyclones is the most complete. Box 6.1 explains the methodology used for tropical cyclones.

Figure 6.1 Current (2008) and projected (2100) damages from extreme events without climate change

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Note: Damages without climate change are projected to increase because of income and population growth. Source: Mendelsohn and Saher 2010.

A few caveats:

Aspects of the science remain uncertain. Although all climate models agree the planet will warm, they do not agree on the magnitude of the changes and how they will be distributed across the planet: the results are quite different across the climate models tested (box figure 6.1). The analysis does not measure all the impacts of climate change, just those of climate-related hazards.9

The study reports only the direct damages from climate-related hazards. For example, the impacts on ecosystems are not measured. There are other indirect effects of disasters, which are difficult to measure, as discussed in chapter 2. The analysis does not address possible interactions with other effects from climate change. For example, although the tropical cyclone analysis does take into account storm surge, it does not consider the interaction between storm surge and sea level rise. Whether the interaction between a rise in sea level and storm surge is “additive” or “super additive” would depend on the assumptions about adaptation to sea level (for example, building sea walls where permissible or locating people out of harm’s way). Such interactions are an important area for future work.

Box 6.1 Estimating additional damages from climate change-induced tropical cyclones

The analysis begins with the A1B emission scenario that assumes a moderate mitigation program will stabilize concentrations at 720 ppm. Four climate models are then used to predict changes in climate by 2100. Because highly damaging tropical cyclones are so infrequent, it might take hundreds of years of actual data to be able to detect robust and statistically meaningful changes in the distributions of storm frequency and intensity from climate change. So for each climate scenario, tropical cyclones are predicted based on a specialized tropical cyclone model that simulates the creation, development, movement, and termination of storms (Emanuel, Sundararajan, and Williams 2008). Tens of thousands of storms are simulated so that even small changes in the damage distribution can be detected. Most of the simulated cyclone “seedlings” (potential storms) never

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become tropical cyclones. The remaining events constitute the tropical cyclone climatology associated with the projections of each particular global circulation model. Climate change is predicted to have very different impacts on tropical cyclones across the globe. The

intensity, frequency, and tracks of tropical cyclones are sensitive to a number of environmental conditions, not all of which change in the same direction when climate changes. For example, an increase in temperature increases tropical cyclone intensity, other things being equal, but wind shear can inhibit storm formation and development. Intensities and frequencies therefore change across the different climate models. Box figure 6.1 shows the percentage change of coastal power dissipation, a measure of the potential destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the four models and five ocean basins. For most of the climate models, the cyclone simulation indicates a small increase in the intensity of storms in the Atlantic and Northwest Pacific Oceans. One climate model predicts an increase in intensity at landfall in the North Indian Ocean and Southern Hemisphere Ocean but most of the models predict a decrease in intensity in these oceans or no effect at all. Note that increases (decreases) in storm intensity imply climate change causes damages (benefits).

Box figure 6.1 Intensity of tropical cyclones will vary over the five ocean basins by 2100

Note: CNRM, ECHAM, GFDL, and MIROC are the climate models used for the projections. Source: World Bank staff, based on Emanuel, Sundararajan, and Williams 2008.

The damage function is estimated using an international data set of global hazard damages from 1960 to 2008 (EMDAT 2009). Damages per event are regressed on income per capita and population density to determine the sensitivity in different locations. The damage response to the intensity of a tropical cyclone was estimated using US data from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Future damages (without climate change) are projected using predictions of future income and population. The estimate of climate change damage is the difference between the damage caused by all tropical storms in the future climate minus the damage caused by tropical cyclones in the current climate. Note that the fact that future baselines predict more people and capital will be in harm’s way implies that climate change will have larger effects. Empirical results described below reveal that cyclone damages are a highly nonlinear function of storm intensity. A 1.1 percent decline in minimum atmospheric pressure at sea level doubles the damages from tropical cyclones.

The analysis makes certain assumptions of what the world will look like in 100 years. Economic and population growth may be quite different. Relevant policies that would affect adaptation may also change. For example, policies that encourage (discourage) risky development in hazardous areas would increase (decrease) overall damages. International reporting of extreme events and damages remains uneven. As data sets improve, it will be possible to improve predictions of international

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damages.

With these qualifications in mind, the key findings are as follows.

Damages are expected to increase

Without climate change, expected tropical cyclone damages increase from $26 billion today to $55 billion by 2100 because of the growth in income and population.10 Climate change could add about $54 billion worth of tropical cyclone damages each year, doubling future baseline damage. The estimated increase in damages from climate change varies across climate models between $28 and $68 billion (or 51 to 124 percent of the future baseline). These estimates are sensitive to the elasticity between damages and income. If the income elasticity of damages were unitary (instead of 0.41, as estimated), future baseline damages become $195 billion and climate change adds about $178 billion––almost double the baseline damages.

Averages mask extremes

The estimates of the above damages are in “expected value” terms per year. But the damages are not expected to come in a steady stream. Even with the current climate, 10 percent of tropical cyclones are responsible for 90 percent of the expected damages. Even if climate does not change, damages will vary a great deal from year to year and decade to decade. Climate change is expected to skew the damage distribution of tropical cyclones and is likely to cause rare—but very powerful —tropical cyclones to become more common. With a warmed climate, the 10 percent of tropical cyclones that cause the most damage will be responsible for 93 percent of the expected damages. Climate change “fattens the tail” of the tropical cyclone damage distribution. For the

United States, destructive storms that would come every 38 to 480 years given the current climate, would come every 18 to 89 years with future climate change. Figure 6.2 illustrates this for one specific climate model (MIROC).11 Most of the cyclones with and without climate change involve damages in the tens of billions of dollars or less. These storms may become even less frequent with climate change. But, very rarely, a very powerful storm will strike a very vulnerable location causing damages up to a trillion dollars. This seemingly small shift in the tail of the distribution is shown as “return years,” which show how many years would elapse, on average, between occurrences of a storm causing a specific level of damage (figure 6.2). Even though very rare and damaging storms are part of today’s climate, they will become more frequent in a warmer climate. For example, using the future baseline, a $100 billion storm is estimated to happen once in a hundred years in the United States given the current climate. With a future warmed climate, it is expected to happen once in about 56 years.

Figure 6.2 Climate change shortens the return period of large storms The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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Note: The figure shows the return period for tropical cyclones of different intensity in the United States for one specific climate model (MIROC). A $100 billion storm is estimated to happen once in a 100 years in the United States given the current climate. With a future warmed climate, it is expected to happen once in about 56 years. Source: Mendelsohn, Emanuel, and Chonabayashi 2010a.

Damages will vary across locations and within-country variation in damages is likely

The bulk of the tropical cyclone damages from climate change falls on North America ($30 billion) and Asia ($21 billion). Three countries bear 90 percent of global damages: the United States ($30 billion), Japan ($10 billion) and China ($9 billion). However, when damages are scaled by GDP, the Caribbean islands are among the worst hit. The global tropical cyclone analysis is based on national data sets so that it is not

possible to show how effects vary within most countries. However, for the United States, detailed data at state and county levels are available concerning tropical cyclone damages, intensities, and frequencies, allowing spatially detailed analysis to be conducted. Box 6.2 describes these results. At least for the United States, there is a wide range of effects within the country. It is likely that for large countries at least, there will be substantial intracountry variation.

Box 6.2 Within country effects: The case of the United States The climate change study of tropical cyclones in the United States used information about the counties that each tropical cyclone struck. The spatial scale of the analysis was much finer than the country scale for the global analysis, permitting large intracountry variations in damages to be seen (box figure 6.2). Most of the damages from tropical cyclones in the United States occur in the Gulf states and Florida (87 percent). The damages fall quite rapidly as one moves north along the Atlantic seaboard. At least in large countries, there will be significant intracountry variation in extreme event damages. The estimated damages also vary a great deal across climate models. The GFDL and MIROC models predict much larger damages than does the CNRM model.

Box figure 6.2 Tropical cyclone damages in the United States are concentrated in the Gulf Coast and Florida

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Note: Damages are in billions $/yr for 2100. Source: Mendelsohn, Emanuel, and Chonabayashi 2010b.

These results provide insight into adaptation to tropical cyclones. The preponderance of damages from tropical cyclones is caused by rare and very powerful storms. To adapt, one may be tempted to build extensive sea walls along the coast as one might against sea level rise. However, very powerful storms are likely to overwhelm such measures making them ineffective. Building higher fortified sea walls in selected places of high value and population density (cities) may be justified but the costs have to be weighed against the damages. Further, in some locations it will be difficult to build sufficiently high sea walls. In this case, retreat may be the only option. In places that cannot be defended, land use rules could be developed to encourage robust land uses, such as open space and agriculture, which can survive occasional storms. Further research into efficient adaptation to such events is a high priority. The analysis also attempted to estimate additional damages from other (non-

tropical cyclone) extreme events (box 6.3). For reasons explained below, estimating such damages is inherently more challenging and uncertain. Consequently, this part of the analysis provides a point of departure for further work on learning about the likely direction and extent of the damages from these events.

Box 6.3 Estimating additional damages from climate change-induced extreme events (other than tropical cyclones)

The analysis for the non-tropical cyclone extreme events (floods, droughts, heat waves, and cold events) follows a similar though not identical approach. It is more uncertain because the link between climate change and these extreme events is more difficult to discern (Mendelsohn and Saher 2010). For the SRES A1B emission scenario (IPCC 2000), three climate models (CNRM, ECHAM, and GFDL) are used to estimate changes in future temperature and precipitation means and variances. The link between damages from these events and these climate measures is then measured using international data from 1960 through 2008. The climate forecasts are then combined with the coefficients from the damage function to predict future damages in 2100. Damages from climate change were calculated as the difference between damages in 2100 in the warmed climate and damages in 2100 with the current climate, while controlling for income and population growth. Changes in tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hail are assumed to increase in frequency in the same proportion as found in a climate change study of thunderstorms in the US (Trapp and others 2007).

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Following this approach (and related assumptions detailed in the background paper), baseline damages (without climate change) from such extreme events are expected to increase from their current level of $28 billion to about $113 billion a year in 2100. Climate change is then expected to add between $11 billion and $16 billion a year of damages by 2100. The estimates presented in this analysis are inherently uncertain. The scientific results for thunderstorms in the United States may not hold in other locations nor may they apply to hail and tornadoes. The damage function linking damages to climate variables may underestimate damages because the available data are at a national level whereas many of these extreme events occur at a finer spatial scale. For example, flash floods depend on precipitation in sometimes small areas, which are poorly measured by variance estimates across much larger areas. Floods depend on local hydrological conditions that are only crudely accounted for in a global analysis. These uncertainties are over and above other uncertainties inherent in any climate projections. Much more work is needed to generate precise damages from such events, and it is important not to place much weight on the specific numbers.

Source: World Bank staff, based on Mendelsohn and Saher 2010.

Estimating impacts of climate change–induced extreme events is relatively new. Continued research will improve our understanding and ability to estimate the impacts. Better data will also likely help. Disasters are poorly measured even under current climatic conditions. Several countries do not even report damages, and the global damage data sets do not report event intensity. Even the very largest extreme events, tropical cyclones, are poorly measured on a global scale. Although the number of storms has been well documented since the advent of satellites, the intensity of these storms is still not measured globally. More accurate and global measurements of both storms and damages will likely lead to better understanding of how climate change leads to damages from hazards. Finally, there is the question of scale. It is likely that sub-national analysis would provide even more accurate estimates.

Climate-related catastrophes: Deep-future disasters with a global footprint The usual final event of a tragedy is a catastrophe (from the Greek katastrephein, to overturn). We define a catastrophe here as an event that is fairly to extremely rare, that severely affects broad swaths of the world, and that is likely to be irreversible over any realistic time frame: examples include a virulent pandemic, a nuclear war, or an asteroid collision. Climate-related catastrophes differ in three ways: they unfold more slowly, providing a potential opportunity to prepare; they result from a cause that the public may not so readily grasp; and numerous actors are responsible. The occurrence of nuclear war, perhaps the greatest threat in the last half of the 20th century, rested on the decision of a few people. So this was analyzed in a game theoretic setting with different degrees of cooperation. The result was deterrence— mutually assured destruction, with the appropriate acronym MAD. In contrast, climate catastrophes result from the conscious self-interested behavior of billions of people in several countries living in different circumstances, so effective international agreements are more difficult.12

The scientific community has identified several catastrophes that climate change The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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might trigger. It is also possible that catastrophes could be triggered when several smaller or more localized impacts cascade, though this remains only a theory. Consider four types of catastrophe:

Drastic sea level rise. Satellite and tide gauge measurements show that sea level rise has accelerated at about 3.4 millimeters per year since satellite measurements began in 1993. The 2007 IPCC report projects a gradual rise of 0.2 to 0.6 meters over the 21st century from thermal expansion of the oceans. But the dislodging and melting of the West Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets eventually could raise sea levels by 5–7 meters each. The speed of such a massive increase in sea level is a subject of current research. It might take centuries for an impact of this scale to unfold fully, though it is likely that a meter of sea level rise could occur in this century, with a probable upper limit of about two meters (Rahmstorf 2007). In either case, the emissions to trigger large-scale sea level rises could be generated in this century alone. Such rises would flood large inhabited areas and dramatically change human activity. For example, a five-meter rise would require mass migrations of coastal populations and total evacuation of low-lying islands. Although human society could adapt, this change would be extremely difficult and costly. Disruption of ocean currents. Large-scale melting of polar ice sheets would increase freshwater in the cold North Atlantic Ocean, weakening the flow of warm currents from lower latitudes. This diminution of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (THC) could affect the climate of much of northern Europe.13

Large-scale disruptions to the global ecosystem. The impacts of even gradual climate change could suddenly disrupt a variety of ecosystem services. These could include reduced biodiversity, reduced access to water in the current locations of significant populations, acidification of oceans, and rapid changes in land cover on a large scale. The social, economic, and environmental consequences of these losses, not known, could be very large. Accelerated climate change from large releases of trapped methane. Warming beyond a certain point could release into the atmosphere large quantities of methane in oceans and permafrost. This possibility is an example of a “tipping point,” when large and possibly irreversible changes in the climate might result from exceeding a poorly understood threshold. Because methane resides in the atmosphere for only a few decades, the direct effect would be a temporary if powerful acceleration of temperature increase. But such a large and rapid increase in temperature could in itself lead to severe and irreversible consequences. Rapid melting of Arctic sea ice is already happening, and large and rapid warming could set in motion other

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factors (such as accelerating melting of heat-reflecting snow cover) that cause a further acceleration in climate change.

A second concern is that multiple smaller hardships or disruptions from climate change over a shorter period could combine to create a cumulative effect worse than the sum of the independent hazards. For example, a worsening of droughts and damages to ecosystems in many areas over a short period could lead to economic and social disruption for large numbers of people from the direct effects of the more localized impacts. But it could also lead to forced migration, armed conflict, and widespread failures of institutions. Gradual or cascading, much is still being discovered and debated. Sea level rise

estimates are the most concrete indication of the potential for catastrophic impacts from climate change. But even sea level rise scenarios involve uncertainties about vulnerability and adaptation.14 The size of losses will depend on the speed of change in sea level rise as well, on the degree of exposure relative to current conditions, and on measures that can be taken to reduce the impacts. The potential magnitudes and likelihoods of other worrisome catastrophe risks, such as abrupt changes in land and ocean ecosystems or the potential for “runaway” acceleration of climate change from methane releases, are difficult to gauge.

A decision framework for catastrophes

The triggers or thresholds that could set off catastrophes are uncertain, as are the probabilities of occurrence and the consequences, though recent scientific assessments indicate that the risks of climate change generally look worse today than some years ago (Smith and others 2009). Expert judgments must be brought to bear in the absence of more concrete information. How then should policymakers weigh the costs and benefits of alternative policy responses? Standard cost-benefit analyses can be extended to incorporate risks with known or

subjectively specified probabilities, but both probabilities and types of potential outcomes are unknown for climate catastrophes. The possibility of catastrophic climate change is characterized by deep structural uncertainties in the science coupled with an economic inability to evaluate meaningfully the welfare losses from high temperatures. (Analyzing the most recent available climate models, Weitzman (2009) concludes that the future holds about a 5 percent chance that temperatures will rise by about 10 degrees Celsius—a world difficult to imagine.) The costs of mitigation also are uncertain, as they depend on the pace of future technological change and the way policies and regulations operate across countries. Nevertheless, some weighing of options by balancing pros and cons is desirable and uncertainty does not justify inaction. But arguing for too rapid and aggressive interventions could lead to measures that are very costly relative to the potential reductions in risk. While uncertainty cannot justify inaction, it has implications for how decision making

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is undertaken. Posner (2004) suggests a tolerable-windows approach: a range of plausible estimates are established to ascertain a level of risk-reduction effort where the benefits clearly exceed the costs and a level where costs clearly exceed benefits. Policies then can be adopted that fall within this window. When costs are incurred well before the benefits, as in taking measures to mitigate

the potential for climate change catastrophes, the selection of a discount rate to compare earlier costs with later benefits is a focus of uncertainty and debate. The 2010 WDR notes there is no consensus on the “correct” discount rate for climate change evaluation (and may never be). But decisions about responses to climate change catastrophe risks involve the present generation making altruistic choices on behalf of future generations. The choice of a lower discount rate for valuing reduced long-term climate change hazards involves current generations reducing their well- being for the benefit of future generations. This is also true for other investments that improve the prospective well-being of future generations.

A portfolio of responses

Dealing with catastrophic threats hinges on policies for dealing with “fat tail” risks. Climate change is expected to worsen the distribution of damages from tropical cyclones and this shift will take place in the extreme right hand tail of the damage probability distribution function, fattening the tail. Policies to address tail risks depend in part on society’s willingness to devote resources to reduce the probability and likely impact of the risk, relative to benefits from other uses of those resources. Such a comparison is very difficult to quantify, especially when confronted with well-known behavioral biases for catastrophic events and when there are competing catastrophic risks. Without such estimations, prudence in responding to catastrophic threats calls for a portfolio of measures that emphasizes learning and mid-course corrections (noting however the tremendous inertia that exists in the climate system, the built environment, as well as in institutions and behaviors, WDR 2010). A broader portfolio of measures is desirable because of the uncertainties surrounding the costs and potential effectiveness of individual measures. Thus, incorporating several distinct measures makes the resulting set of policy options more robust. The portfolio should include:

Rapid emissions reduction to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at some level low enough to achieve a desired reduction in the perceived risk of catastrophe. Different technological paths could be followed to accomplish this, and it is virtually certain that no single approach would be successful. Rapid scaling up of renewable energy certainly would be part of the response. But given continuing uncertainties about the future cost and physical availability of different types of renewables and our ability to store energy to offset the inherent intermittency of most renewables, this response

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also would require addressing expanded nuclear power and introducing carbon capture and geological storage on a very large or even global scale. Various large scale adaptation measures implemented across the world over the medium term, beyond efforts by individuals and single governments, to anticipate and significantly reduce the potential impacts of a climate catastrophe. Priority measures would include extensive changes in land use policies and practices to limit further increases in coastal area vulnerability and to expand and fortify protected areas to safeguard critical ecosystems. The adaptation measures could even include large-scale anticipatory relocations of especially vulnerable populations, such as those vulnerable to anticipated sea level rises and increases in storm surges. With such relocation would come the need to rebuild infrastructure and other fixed capital.

These two categories of actions may not be enough to satisfactorily lower the chance of catastrophes, particularly if the world cannot come to an agreement about sharing the burden of mitigation efforts. It is therefore also necessary to consider geoengineering as another potential measure to reduce the risk of catastrophe (box 6.4). Dealing with the threat of catastrophic climate change is an exercise in reducing

uncertainty with only a limited ability to assess the results. Considerations in developing a portfolio of responses include the costs of the various measures, the lead times needed (particularly important when some uncertainties may decline as science and technology improve but inertia remains very large), and the information about their prospective effectiveness. The portfolio can change over time as more is learned about the nature of catastrophe risks and the costs and effectiveness of different responses. Since no climate catastrophe has been experienced in recorded memory, people may underestimate or overestimate this “virgin risk” (Kousky and Zeckhauser 2010).

Box 6.4 Geoengineering’s potential and pitfalls

Some effects of a doubling in CO2 concentration could in principle be offset by blocking a small percentage of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. The most commonly discussed option for reducing absorbed solar radiation involves seeding the upper atmosphere with particulate matter to reflect sunlight. Other approaches include increasing the reflectivity of the earth (massive rooftop retro-fits), changing cloud cover, and even building mirrors in space as a planetary “sunshade.” Other types of geoengineering include increased absorption of CO2 by oceans or giant machines to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. All these measures have known side effects, some of which would induce unknown but possibly large changes in the climate system. Geoengineering could arrest or potentially avert catastrophes induced by climate change. But adjusting the

earth’s temperature by reflecting sunlight may adversely affect other climate variables, such as precipitation. One clear pitfall of geoengineering is technological. Launching reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to increase the earth’s reflectivity would need to be carefully controlled for two reasons. First, the particles remain

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in the atmosphere only briefly, so once initiated the method would need to be sustained indefinitely. And if stopped, the effects of manmade global warming would be felt, essentially, all at once. The effect of experiencing accumulated impacts all at once is unknown. Even more fundamental is the current uncertainty about negative side effects, including potential alteration of the hydrologic cycle and ocean acidification. Based on current knowledge, there is no way to know if geoengineering could be carefully controlled to the extent necessary to provide some protection from further warming while effectively limiting any side effects. A second reason comes from the strong incentives to deploy such technologies unilaterally. The problem of

international cooperation in managing geoengineering is the inverse of achieving international coordination for drastic mitigation. With mitigation, the incentives for acting unilaterally are extremely weak because of the strong incentive to free-ride. With geoengineering, given a potential for low direct costs and fairly immediate direct benefits of implementation, incentives to act unilaterally could be very strong—especially in the face of severe threats from climate change.16 So, it may be impossible for countries to credibly commit to abstaining from geoengineering. Also, how might potentially beneficial uses of geoengineering be distinguished from hostile measures to inflict harm on other countries? Moreover, how would potential conflicts among countries over the implementation of geoengineering be resolved? For example, suppose that country A seeks to locally cool its climate and stimulate rain in an effort to protect its harvest and stave off famine. But what if country A’s application of geoengineering had side effects that threatened crops or water supplies in country B? This question is particularly troubling if country B abuts A, and is a historical rival or enemy. For these reasons, it would be preferable to undertake internationally funded and coordinated research on geoengineering precisely so that its potential applicability and risks can be widely understood.

Source: World Bank staff.

Examining current and potential costs of alternative measures and considering their effectiveness can help protect against possible biases. The potential for catastrophe certainly makes aggressive action more desirable, but how much more remains uncertain. Postponing sound measures to curtail the growth of greenhouse gas concentrations will reduce the effectiveness of “crash” emissions abatement and massively increase costs.15 Similarly, postponing stronger land use measures to limit growth of coastal settlements will greatly increase the cost of later adaptation through relocation. Any portfolio for addressing catastrophe risk will need to be adjusted over time.

One robust conclusion from the comparison of response options is that a significant investment in reducing the cost of implementation and increasing the effectiveness of each option should be a high priority. Efforts to improve understanding of the potential of geoengineering and to lower the costs and potential risks of very rapid mitigation options are a high priority. Given the likely high costs of large-scale anticipatory adaptation measures, a more cautious approach would focus first on increasing the prospects for the survival of critical ecosystems and placing some limits on the growth of settlements in more at-risk areas.

Connecting the three Cs: Cities, climate, catastrophes The future is always uncertain, yet it seems clear that cities will grow and that climate will change, although disparately. Well managed cities can reduce their vulnerability even in a warmer world with stronger storms. Catastrophes are possible, but their

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likelihood can be reduced with appropriate actions now and preparations for contingency actions later. Climate change poses a troubling risk of increased conflicts: armed struggles have historically been associated with droughts and desertification in Africa, for example. But squabbling over resources leads to conflict when competing claims cannot be peacefully resolved and when institutions to resolve conflicting claims are inadequate. There is thus a large premium on strengthening institutions for resolving tomorrow’s resource-related conflicts more peacefully. These outcomes require much. Urbanization shifts the balance of prevention from

individual measures to collective action. Although governments will have a larger role, they must harness the market in better ways, with greater sensitivity to when and how prices get distorted. For collective prevention to be effective, national governments and cities must deliver better services, including prevention. They must design, build, and maintain infrastructure and be more aware of—and responsive to— what individuals can and cannot do: providing detailed seismic maps of fault lines, for example, but allowing developers and people who live in buildings to decide how to construct safe structures. Knowledge and know-how are needed more than funds; without them, the funds would be poorly allocated. Global institutions could also spread word of what can be done and help governments in their tasks. While there are good reasons for hope, there are also instances of concern. Take

Jakarta, where individual prevention measures depend on whether the government, in part, provides adequate water and drainage. If climate change will worsen Jakarta’s inundations, should infrastructure and city management be improved today? Greater Jakarta is a coastal urban area with 24 million people and a catchment

area rimmed by volcanoes. Some 13 rivers flow into Jakarta bay, and the city is in the lowest part of the basin. About 40 percent of the city is already below sea level, and floods follow intense rains between November and April (annual rainfall is 15–25 meters a year and up to 4 meters upstream). Major floods hit in 1996, 2002, and then in February 2007, the worst in its history, when heavy rains coincided with a peak in the astronomic tidal cycle that recurs every 18.6 years. Yet, tidal surges and rainfall alone do not explain the floods’ severity. A recent study found little difference in total precipitation across five meteorological stations along the Ciliwung River (Jakarta’s main river) in 1996, 2002, and 2007 (Texier 2008). How susceptible is an increasingly urbanizing Jakarta to rains and a sea level rise? See figure 6.3. As in many major cities, public services have not kept pace with population growth.

Greater Jakarta’s population, doubling from 11.9 million to 23.6 million between 1980 and 2005, is projected to exceed 35 million by 2020. Upstream, numerous secondary residences have been built over the past 50 years. Tea plantations replaced forests on the volcanoes’ slopes, reducing the capacity to absorb and store rainwater, increasing peak runoff flows and sedimentation in rivers. Downstream, uncontrolled residential and commercial developments in lakes and reservoirs, which once

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absorbed the storm water flows into the city, increased flood levels while excessive abstraction of groundwater due to the limited supply of piped water caused rapid land subsidence. In just 15 years, a water absorbing area in Kelapa Gading, a subdistrict in Northeast Jakarta, became a booming commercial and residential area that floods every year (figure 6.4). Climate change is likely to raise sea levels and increase both the frequency and

intensity of storms that will flood Jakarta. People may eventually have to move from Jakarta; so should efforts to improve the city be redirected? A tough question, but framed incorrectly. Moving should be an individual choice, not an excuse for collective coercion. People

now living in Jakarta should not be forced to move, whether by compulsion or by neglecting infrastructure and public services to residents. Investments in Jakarta’s infrastructure should continue if they pass the cost-benefit hurdle, and large benefits in the immediate future would weigh heavily in the decision. But it is equally important for investment in and management of other cities to also improve because their growth could accommodate more people and commerce.

Figure 6.3 Greater Jakarta area orographic map with rainfall regime

Source: Gunawan 2008.

Climate change will not adversely affect all cities, and while ports may be important, it is difficult to predict which will thrive. In the 18th century, few thought that New York, which then ranked well behind Boston and Charleston, would become America’s largest and richest city, especially since Baltimore and Philadelphia had better ports. Jakarta’s prosperity may well continue (it contributes 25 percent of national non-oil GDP). And if it does, it would be in the same situation as Rotterdam today: having to consider expensive measures to protect its people and assets from floods and sea surges. But such choices would be less stark, and ultimately less wasteful, if other Indonesian cities in safer locations grew. Jakarta is not unique; Mexico City, Mumbai, and many others are similar.

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Figure 6.4 Fifteen years of urbanization in Jakarta, before and after

Source: Hahm and Fisher 2010.

Cities, climate, and pending catastrophes are altering the disaster prevention landscape. While hazards will always be with us, disasters show that something has failed. But determining what has failed and deciding on the corrective measures are not always obvious. And debating whether Hurricane Katrina or Cyclone Nargis was a result of climate change detracts attention from policies that continue to misprice risk, subsidize exposure, reduce individuals’ incentives to reduce risk, and promote risky behavior in the long run. People rise out of poverty through better technology, greater market access, and

more investment in activities that spill benefits from one set of economic actors to others through greater interdependence, higher productivity, and stronger institutions. Living in cities facing serious risks of inundation is undesirable, but a failure to reduce poverty would be even more undesirable. Fortunately, neither is inherently necessary. People acting individually and through responsive governments can prosper and survive. That, after all, is the basis of sustainable development.

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MEMORANDUM TO A CONCERNED CITIZEN

Subject: Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention

e hope you found the report helpful. We cannot presume to tell you anything specific: you know what is best for you and your family. We sought to bring to

your attention the experiences of others that are embedded in the statistics and studies. You may also be interested in hearing directly from two of our colleagues who

recently survived harrowing disasters. These are deeply personal narratives, difficult for them to write. We kept them in the first person. A short section following their experience pulls together some common threads.

Reflections as a Gujarat earthquake survivor and humanitarian worker

January 26, 2001. I was a university student and a part-time employee with the state government’s remote sensing and communication center in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) when the earthquake struck in 2001. It was a little past 8:30 in the morning, and I was still asleep in the flat that I shared with three friends. I remember their shouting through the door to wake me up and the swaying as we took the stairs down four floors. Some things from that day are hazy, but other details are etched permanently in my memory. It was the Republic Day holiday. The ground was still shaking when we emerged

from the flat and I could see the tall telecom tower swaying. I tried to remember what I knew about earthquakes, and it was precious little. Immediately after realizing that I had survived a deadly disaster, and assuming that the earthquake had struck just Ahmedabad, I realized that my parents, who lived in the city of Bhuj some 400 kilometers away, would be worried when they got news of the earthquake, especially because I was not reachable through the mostly disabled phone system. Meanwhile, the damage in Ahmedabad was becoming apparent: people went about

on scooters and motorcycles to make sure that their relatives and friends were safe. As we were unsure of the safety of our multistory building, a close friend visited to check up on me. He took me and my roommates to his uncle’s ground floor home, which was rapidly becoming an emergency shelter for others in the neighboring high- rise buildings. News of the size and scope of the earthquake slowly began trickling in through

transistor radios. I learned later in the evening that Delhi and Mumbai had felt the The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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quake too, and only then did I realize that its “epicenter” (we were all learning these terms) was in Bhuj, where my parents were. The tremor we had experienced was of much lower intensity. My concern immediately switched from telling my parents that I was safe to worrying if they had survived, so I decided to leave for Bhuj. Day 2. I hopped on a private bus for Bhuj early the next day. Drivers slowed to ask

others (some in cars, others on foot and carts) about the condition of roads and the towns they came from, and the news was disturbing. People spoke of “all being destroyed,” and this was how news spread. I witnessed the destruction first hand, and I had a strange feeling when I saw the many government buildings destroyed, including police quarters. This was strange because I always thought of the sarkar (government) as invincible, so it was unnerving to see it as equally vulnerable and incapacitated as the rest of us. In contrast, I was overwhelmed by trucks that stopped to give people bottled water and packets of food, and realized that volunteers were already organizing relief. Someone threw me a bottle of water, and I was about to hand it back when I realized that I should just accept it. The normal 6 to 8 hour journey took 12 hours. Even though I was used to seeing

Bhuj without electricity, it was pitch dark like never before. When I reached my home, to my utmost relief, I found my parents and neighbors assembling a makeshift tarpaulin shelter on the street. They told me what happened: my father was praying indoors and my mother was in the kitchen when they felt the shaking. Instinctively, they ran outdoors from the back door to the garden where they held on to a papaya tree until the violent shaking subsided. My father had the house built well under his supervision just before I was born, and

it withstood the quake but a cantilevered overhang came crashing down. Had they escaped from the front door, the overhang would have hurt them. The quake cracked the walls and had destroyed all electronics and crockery. I also found out then that because power and phone lines were down, my father had the presence of mind to go to the intercity bus terminal and give slips of paper with my name and phone number and that of other relatives to strangers fleeing the city, asking them to call and convey his well-being. Several of these messages got through in coming days to our relatives in various cities. Day 3. Exhausted physically and emotionally, about 30 of us slept outside that

night. Despite the chilly winter night, nobody was willing to enter their homes. Early next morning, we were awakened by an aftershock, only to see an electric pole hanging by the wires just above our tarpaulin. I suppose we were doubly lucky: to have survived the initial quake and then to have survived possible injuries from this aftershock. We realized that such aftershocks would continue for several days, so we decided to lock up our Bhuj home and move to our ancestral home in Rajkot (some 240 kilometers away). It seemed unaffected by the quake, and we monitored the media and got news from friends about the scale of the devastation.

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Two weeks later. Grateful for having survived, we were ever more eager to help those affected. We knew that the city of Anjar, around 50 kilometers from Bhuj, was one of the worst affected areas, and our family friend and former neighbor Mr. Kathiwala had relocated there a few months before to help his son set up a business. After several inquiries, we found him, fully bandaged from the waist down at a private hospital in Rajkot. His wife and son survived with minor injuries from their collapsed home, but his 14-year-old daughter never made it out of the bedroom. Mr. Kathiwala was buried under the overhead tank for hours before neighbors rescued him. Even in the midst of such misfortune and the risk of losing a leg, Mr. Kathiwala

recounted how grateful he was to the Daudi Vohra community—a closely knit group of prosperous traders that he belonged to. When Daudi Vohra members in other towns heard of the dire situation in Anjar, they

hired trucks to bring first aid. They transported the injured to hospitals and the more severely hurt to larger cities with better care. In addition to providing for medical treatment, accommodation, meals, and basic household necessities, the Daudi Vohra raised funds to pay for the best available medical care. They also gave families Rs. 5,000 in cash for incidental expenses. This humane support greatly alleviated the trauma of the earthquake. Three weeks later. Life had to go on, and I eventually returned to Ahmedabad for

the scheduled examinations—only to find a notice that they were postponed by three months because of the damaged university building. I stayed with a friend because our fourth floor flat was not considered safe. I came to know one day that the UN disaster management team was seeking volunteers to work in areas ravaged by the disaster, and I joined them exactly three weeks after the earthquake. Helping with post-disaster assistance enabled me to see things from a different

perspective. Statistics cannot fully capture what happened. The poorest suffered most and took longest to recover. In many towns there was little damage in wealthy areas with well-built bungalow-style houses, but the poorly built structures of those less well off mostly collapsed. It was amazing how quickly the government restored life-line services in the worst affected districts. It embarked on a huge reconstruction program, and an efficient model for community-based recovery and reconstruction evolved. Not all that I saw and heard was this inspiring. The old walled city of Bhuj was

largely destroyed, and I heard tales that in soni bazaar, where goldsmiths ply their trade, the survived shop owners offered passers-by money to recover the gold ornaments and strong boxes from inside the teetering buildings. I also heard that the foreign food packets were not serving their purpose because the largely vegetarian population was averse to consuming food in wrappers with an undecipherable foreign language. While many volunteers were tirelessly helping with relief and recovery, a few seemed interested only in taking photographs and being “disaster tourists.”

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Eight years later. Now, after eight years of working in post-disaster and post- conflict situations, not just in India but later in Afghanistan and Sudan, I am struck by several things. Communities respond first in the midst of chaos because people care for others: but with limited resources at their hand, everyone helps their communities and friends first—and only then any others. The Gujarat earthquake was pivotal in the paradigm shift from emergency response to risk reduction and preparedness. Many who believed that natural disasters like earthquakes cannot be prevented are now actively helping reducing the disaster risks in their own lives and around them.

The longest 45 minutes in Aceh

December 26, 2004. It was Sunday morning around 8 a.m. My parents were about to leave for the Hajj that week, expecting friends and relatives to say goodbye. My father was in the shower, and my sister and a cousin were in the kitchen washing dishes. Then, the earthquake struck—big and long. Maybe it was one of God’s ways to remind us of our insignificance in the larger scheme of things. We ran outside. Outside. The shaking finally stopped. But having experienced earthquakes before,

we knew there would be aftershocks and waited outside. Then, five minutes later, as expected, another earthquake, this time smaller but longer. More crying. I silently recited my prayers, trusted that God would take care of this, tawakkal—that’s what we say in Islam. It relaxes us slightly. With the third quake, people started to cry and scream even more. Then all of a sudden, we saw our neighbors running toward us, screaming “RUN…

RUN…TO THE MOSQUE.” Without knowing why, we all started to run. Some people tried to lock their houses before running. None knew what was in store. We then heard a horrible, helicopter-like sound, but much louder. While running I looked behind and there it was. Dark brown, high, a monster wave 3–4 meters high! And it was approaching fast. We made it to the mosque, which was not far from our house. The men quickly

asked all the women and children to go upstairs (the mosque had two floors). The mosque was big and had many pillars with no walls so the water could just flow in easily. My dad insisted that he would stay downstairs, and the rest of the family insisted equally that we would not go upstairs. It was a very difficult moment. The water, there already, had risen to my waist. We had to make a quick decision. Then, we compromised. Since she was

physically stronger than both me and my mom, my sister stayed downstairs with my dad while my mom and I went up. We hugged and kissed and cried. The water was now up to my chest and the earth was still shaking. The mosque could have collapsed but we really had no option. Upstairs. I saw many of my neighbors, crying and praying. Though my heart was

full of pain, I did not cry at all. One tearful neighbor told me she didn’t know where her The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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son and husband were. They had left early in the morning to go to the beach: it is part of Acehnese tradition to go to the beach on Sunday morning. I felt relieved in my heart, and thanked God quickly because my family was supposed to be on the beach as well. But my little brother, who was studying in Jakarta and supposed to fly back to Aceh that weekend, canceled his plans. So, we decided to cancel our beach picnic that Sunday. Waiting. I desperately wanted to go downstairs to see how my father and sister

were. But my mom stopped me. All we could do was to wait. Then suddenly, a few men appeared upstairs carrying bodies in their hands—my neighbors. More and more bodies were brought up. The upstairs was full of dead bodies. I could not stop thinking that the next one might be my dad or my sister. I just hugged my mom tight. She kept her composure, comforted us, and reminded us to recite God’s name. Downstairs. Someone finally yelled that the water had subsided. We slowly

stepped down the stairs. The scene was unimaginable. Water everywhere. Bodies covered with mud. I was expecting the worst. Then I saw my dad and sister, clinging to one of the mosque’s pillars, alive. Finally the tears came. Never before had I cried so much. But the men in my

neighborhood were amazing. They worked hand in hand right away to evacuate all the bodies. In less than an hour the mosque up and down was covered with the dead bodies. I came across a neighbor, a 17-year-old girl, I knew well. We found her with no

clothes, entangled in the mud and electricity wires from outside the mosque. She had swallowed dirt water and could not breathe properly. Both her legs were broken. Her head was on my lap, and she kept asking whether we had seen her family. Sadly, her entire family had perished. But we lied to her to motivate her to keep on breathing and it worked. Our plan was to take to her to a nearby hospital. Some men found a volunteer with a car who had come to help. I left for the hospital without having a chance to inform my parents. Outside. Nearby hospitals—full of mud and water—were not functioning. We finally

found a small community health clinic but there was no doctor, only one nurse with no medical supplies left. It was frustrating to think we had come all the way for nothing. We gave my neighbor some water and cookies, while a friend left to find some other help. Knowing this was the best I could do for her, I wanted to go back to the mosque to inform my parents that I was safe. It was 4 p.m. already. But there was no transportation so I decided to walk. It must have been 100 degrees that day, and I had no slippers on. Thank God I found a guy passing by on a motorcycle. He dropped me off at a family friend’s place. They got me a pair of slippers, and I resumed walking. Some other neighbors passing by in a truck picked me up but told me my parents

were no longer in the mosque. They had searched for me and eventually went to a The, World Bank, Bank World, and Nations (UN) United. Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters, edited by World Bank The, et al., World Bank Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=606027. Created from apus on 2017-04-10 14:40:31.

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relative’s place. I somehow reached there around Maghrib (sunset) time. My parents were upset but relieved. I told them the story and they understood. The night. No electricity that night. None of us could sleep; with at least 100

quakes. We kept running outside almost every 5 minutes—so depressing. I kept on hearing sounds. Helicopters or water? Not clear. I felt deeply guilty for leaving my friend in the clinic and prayed that she survived. Later that week I found out that she didn’t make it. Better, perhaps, since everybody in her family had also died. The assistance. We had to ration our food supplies. Fuel was scarce. My mom—

so strong throughout—broke down when she found out that her only sister had passed away. She just sat in the corner, praying every day. She had only one dress to wear—the one that she had run in. My sister and I could at least borrow some of the girls’ clothes. Underwear was a big issue for all of us. I don’t need to explain it further. We heard rumors that assistance had arrived but was piled up in the airports.

Roads remained blocked, so only helicopters could get to people. All we could do was to be patient and tighten our belts. A few days later, my brother and uncle came with a car full of food. They had flown

to Medan—the closest city to Banda Aceh—and driven home. It took them 14 hours. They also brought some clothes, clean underwear, and cash. Later, we received more cash and other types of humanitarian assistance from

many friends from foreign countries. Each day, random people came to the house and brought us assistance. We will never forget that. Indonesian volunteers, national and foreign soldiers, local and international NGOs, religious groups, name it. I would say the Red Cross, volunteers, and soldiers were crucial in removing debris to restore road links. Things were a lot better after the second week. Among the assistance we

received, the only things I disliked were the fortified biscuits from WFP. We stayed in the house for about a month. It had two small bedrooms but somehow we managed, along with many others who came as well for shelter. We wanted to rent another place to lessen the burden but couldn’t find anything affordable. It’s amazing how rental prices had soared so high. People would rent their homes only to UN and NGO offices. A medium-size house was around 100 dollars a day. Home? Back home to check the damage, we found out we had lost several walls.

Two dead bodies were floating in the kitchen—one of a 5-year-old girl and the other of a man. The house looked scary and dark—full of trees, garbage, and water. I looked at my dad with all his gray hair with water up his waist trying to salvage our belongings. My father is a civil servant about to retire in two years, and my mom is a teacher. We were not poor, but we were not rich either. That was our only home, and my parents had put their life savings into it. Everything they had worked for seemed

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gone in 45 minutes. It was hard for me to see the future that day. There was no way for him to collect enough money to rebuild. But these are only material things, he told me. I was wrong, he was right. Some reflections. I was reborn again, even though I do not believe in reincarnation.

I see the world differently now. Life is short and unpredictable. My dad says: “You pray hard, you work hard, you rest hard, and you socialize hard—otherwise you will never be happy.” I trust him! One could never tell exactly when God wants to take us. In some ways, I consider myself very lucky to have gone through this. I was deeply touched by all the care that came from all over the world. I just knew

that everybody from Banda Aceh or outside was trying their best. I am forever grateful for that, even though I have a different opinion about the reconstruction phase in Banda Aceh. Indonesia, including Aceh, is highly prone to almost all types of natural hazards:

tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, droughts, volcanic eruptions, you name it. The tsunami should be a wake-up call for authorities and communities to reduce these very real risks. I wish I had known more about tsunamis. Perhaps my aunt would be alive now if we had an early warning. The importance of building disaster-resilient infrastructure should also be conveyed to contractors and construction workers. After all, they are the ones who implement policy. Sometimes, the problem is not always the building codes or the institutional framework, but the ignorance of workers who feel that it is acceptable to reduce the amount of cement or concrete or steel to cut down the price. We need to remember that local engagements tend to work better than paper regulations. We need to ensure that policies, regulations, and knowledge arrive where people live.

Common threads

No two disasters unfold the same way, and no two people are exactly alike. But the two narratives reveal common threads. Family, friends, and neighbors are the first to help. Aid, though useful, comes much later. Knowing the hazards and being prepared (knowing what to expect and do) are really up to you. You can also ask more of your government: not more spending, but more effective

prevention measures and more information about hazards, such as maps of fault lines and flood plains. Making it readily accessible would help. And when disasters expose weaknesses, make sure your representatives look into the underlying causes and tell you what is being done to prevent it from happening again.

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