Disaster Management

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies III:

• Disaster as a Non-traditional security and safety challenge, disaster mitigation and management.

The official line frames disaster as a non-traditional security challenge: a threat to people's lives and livelihoods that does not come from an armed enemy. Concepts, institutions and the cycle of mitigation and response are all needed.

Topics in detail

Concepts

• Hazard, vulnerability, exposure, capacity and risk; disaster as risk realised
• Traditional and non-traditional security; human security
• Classification: geological (earthquake, landslide, tsunami), hydro-meteorological (flood, cyclone, drought, heat wave, cold wave, lightning, cloudburst), biological (epidemics, pandemics), and human-made (industrial, chemical, nuclear, fire, stampede)
• Disasters, climate change and development: how poverty raises vulnerability

India's vulnerability

• Seismic zoning of India by the Bureau of Indian Standards and earthquake risk in the Himalaya
• Flood-prone basins of the Ganga and Brahmaputra; cyclones on the east coast; drought-prone regions
• Urban flooding, heat waves and lightning as growing risks
• Industrial disasters: the Bhopal gas tragedy (1984)

Institutions and law

• Disaster Management Act, 2005: the National Disaster Management Authority (chaired by the Prime Minister), State Authorities (Chief Ministers) and District Authorities (headed by the Collector or District Magistrate); the National Executive Committee
• National Disaster Response Force; State Disaster Response Forces; the National Institute of Disaster Management
• National Policy on Disaster Management (2009) and the National Disaster Management Plan (2016)
• Funding: national and State disaster response and mitigation funds, Finance Commission allocations
• Early warning: India Meteorological Department, Central Water Commission flood forecasts, INCOIS tsunami warnings
• Use of the Disaster Management Act during the COVID-19 pandemic

Mitigation and management

• The disaster management cycle: mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery and reconstruction
• Structural measures: embankments, cyclone shelters, earthquake-resistant buildings and building codes
• Non-structural measures: land-use zoning, insurance, awareness, drills, community-based disaster management, Aapda Mitra volunteers
• Heat action plans, lightning safety, school and hospital safety
• Build back better in recovery

Hazard by hazard

• Floods: forecasting, embankments and their limits, flood plain zoning, flood insurance
• Droughts: monitoring, drought declaration, contingency crop plans, water conservation, employment programmes
• Cyclones: early warning, evacuation, cyclone shelters, mangroves and shelterbelts
• Earthquakes: seismic zoning, building codes and retrofitting, preparedness drills
• Landslides and cloudbursts in hill areas; glacial lake outburst floods
• Heat waves, cold waves and lightning: warnings and simple protective measures
• Epidemics and pandemics: surveillance, health system capacity, the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897
• Chemical, industrial and nuclear disasters: on-site and off-site emergency plans

International frameworks

• Hyogo Framework (2005-2015) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030): four priorities and seven targets
• Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (2019)
• India's role in disaster relief in the neighbourhood

Lessons from major disasters

• Odisha super cyclone (1999) and the later fall in cyclone deaths
• Gujarat earthquake (2001), Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), Uttarakhand floods (2013), Kerala floods (2018)

Overlaps

• General Studies V: law and order and civil defence in Uttar Pradesh.
• General Studies VI: climate change and weather forecasting issues in Uttar Pradesh.