Disaster Management

Abstract

Natural disasters, whether of meteorological origin such as cyclones , floods , tornadoes and droughts or of having geological nature such as earthquakes and volcanoes , are well known for their devastating impacts on human life, economy and environment, and are also formidable physical constraints in our overall efforts to develop and utilize the natural resources on a sustainable basis. Indeed, disasters have been known to hit hard as seen from the floods of 2010–2011 in Pakistan and Australia, the sludge flow in Hungary in 2010, and the landslide in Brazil in 2011, events which had environmental catastrophe. Disaster trends reveal that the most vulnerable and hardest hit are normally the poorest people, most of who live in developing countries. With tropical climate and unstable land forms, coupled with high population density, poverty, illiteracy and lack of infrastructure development, developing countries are more vulnerable to suffer from the damaging potential of such disasters. For example, the year 2004 was witness to one of the greatest tragedies of humankind, the great tsunami that wiped out civilization in many parts of south-east Asia. Thousands were rendered homeless, and many lost their loved ones.

The greatest exploiter for all of us are floods today, droughts tomorrow, earthquake some times and all of these multiply our trauma of deprivation, pains of poverty and hunger. These disasters take away not only our crops, shelters, lives of our families, friends tattles, but also destroy our hopes and dreams of the future. Is there any event comparable to these, which causes so much human sufferings and injustice?—This is the cry in bewilderness of a common farmer of Koshi River basin, Bihar (India) in the midst of recurrent floods and droughts (Jayaraman et al. 1997). Indeed, the role pinpoint accuracy of positioning plays in the disaster discussed above may seem inconsequential at a first glance, but the truth is that GNSS and GIS are becoming more and more important—not just in the wake of disaster, when, for instance, relief efforts might call for quicker generated maps of flooded areas, for helicopters to navigate through thick smoke, or for the exact location of people buried alive—but in planning and preparatory phases of emergency management (Steede-Terry2000). To this effect, the availability of real-time GNSS information will have important impacts on how scientists and societies prepare for and cope with natural disasters. Hammond et al. (2011).