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Disaster Reduction in Developing Countries - Urban Poverty and Earthquake Vulnerability in Slums

Khudair, Zainab (2012)
Programmes in Helesingborg
Abstract
The urban population in developing countries was, in 2005, more than 2.3 billion people, which forms an increase by 7 times comparing to the situation in 1950. This is expected to increase even more, until it reaches 3.9 billion by 2030. A parallel urban growth results in high density cities and informal settlements and the creation of urban slums. Naturally, it is the urban poor who are not able to afford formal settlements, and consequently they are forced to settle in the peripheries of cities or in densely built areas where they are abandoned by the authorities and suffer from the lack of basic services. The United Nations have achieved some progress with their eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were adopted in September... (More)
The urban population in developing countries was, in 2005, more than 2.3 billion people, which forms an increase by 7 times comparing to the situation in 1950. This is expected to increase even more, until it reaches 3.9 billion by 2030. A parallel urban growth results in high density cities and informal settlements and the creation of urban slums. Naturally, it is the urban poor who are not able to afford formal settlements, and consequently they are forced to settle in the peripheries of cities or in densely built areas where they are abandoned by the authorities and suffer from the lack of basic services. The United Nations have achieved some progress with their eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were adopted in September 2000 but still there is a lot of work to be done. The rapid growth of cities has been contributing to the global warming and in turn, the increase of natural disasters – the catastrophic disasters. The chronic disasters due to poor housing, lack of basic services and infrastructure, etc., are associated with the catastrophic to make the urban slums even more vulnerable for natural disasters, particularly earthquakes since a big proportion of the world’s population is living in seismically active areas. Earthquakes are the least predictable of all natural hazards, the interval between threat and occurrence is also very short which puts them on the top of the list of natural disasters as they cause immediate mortality and destruction of built environment. It is impossible to make a building completely earthquake-resistant, even well-planned buildings are badly affected when a strong earthquake strikes. However, we are able to list the main objectives while designing an earthquake-resistant building to reduce the damages, both human and economic ones. These objectives are avoiding collapse or serious damages in a situation of unusual ground shaking, mitigating construction damages and minimizing non-structural damages in a light ground shaking. Simplicity, symmetric plan, low density materials, short scope, low height and uniform floor heights are preferable when designing such buildings. This thesis has concluded that disaster management is crucial for saving the lives of the urban poor in slums around the world. Generally, the disaster management tends to have some common goals for all types of natural disasters; to reduce or avoid losses from hazards, to assure rapid assistance to victims and to achieve an effective recovery. Risk reducing actions can be divided into five phases; the pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness and post-disaster response, recovery and reconstruction. Each of these phases includes integrated actions like strategies and policy-making to reduce the likelihood of the disaster occurrence as well as reconstruction approaches. One of the most essential goals is the action of providing safe shelters and housing units. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Khudair, Zainab
organization
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
developing countries, vulnerability, hazard, earthquake, disaster management
language
English
id
2797814
date added to LUP
2012-06-15 00:00:00
date last changed
2018-10-18 10:21:03
@misc{2797814,
  abstract     = {{The urban population in developing countries was, in 2005, more than 2.3 billion people, which forms an increase by 7 times comparing to the situation in 1950. This is expected to increase even more, until it reaches 3.9 billion by 2030. A parallel urban growth results in high density cities and informal settlements and the creation of urban slums. Naturally, it is the urban poor who are not able to afford formal settlements, and consequently they are forced to settle in the peripheries of cities or in densely built areas where they are abandoned by the authorities and suffer from the lack of basic services. The United Nations have achieved some progress with their eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were adopted in September 2000 but still there is a lot of work to be done. The rapid growth of cities has been contributing to the global warming and in turn, the increase of natural disasters – the catastrophic disasters. The chronic disasters due to poor housing, lack of basic services and infrastructure, etc., are associated with the catastrophic to make the urban slums even more vulnerable for natural disasters, particularly earthquakes since a big proportion of the world’s population is living in seismically active areas. Earthquakes are the least predictable of all natural hazards, the interval between threat and occurrence is also very short which puts them on the top of the list of natural disasters as they cause immediate mortality and destruction of built environment. It is impossible to make a building completely earthquake-resistant, even well-planned buildings are badly affected when a strong earthquake strikes. However, we are able to list the main objectives while designing an earthquake-resistant building to reduce the damages, both human and economic ones. These objectives are avoiding collapse or serious damages in a situation of unusual ground shaking, mitigating construction damages and minimizing non-structural damages in a light ground shaking. Simplicity, symmetric plan, low density materials, short scope, low height and uniform floor heights are preferable when designing such buildings. This thesis has concluded that disaster management is crucial for saving the lives of the urban poor in slums around the world. Generally, the disaster management tends to have some common goals for all types of natural disasters; to reduce or avoid losses from hazards, to assure rapid assistance to victims and to achieve an effective recovery. Risk reducing actions can be divided into five phases; the pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness and post-disaster response, recovery and reconstruction. Each of these phases includes integrated actions like strategies and policy-making to reduce the likelihood of the disaster occurrence as well as reconstruction approaches. One of the most essential goals is the action of providing safe shelters and housing units.}},
  author       = {{Khudair, Zainab}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Disaster Reduction in Developing Countries - Urban Poverty and Earthquake Vulnerability in Slums}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}