From l.belbase at gmail.com Fri Aug 8 00:23:46 2008 From: l.belbase at gmail.com (Laxman Belbase) Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 11:08:46 +0545 Subject: [DIPECHO Network] Climate Resilient Cities: A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Climate Change Impacts and Strengthening Disaster Risk Management in East Asian Cities Message-ID: Dear all, Please find below the executive summary of the *"Climate Resilient Cities: A primer on reducing Vulnerabilities to Climate Change Impacts and Strengthening Disaster Risk Management in East Asian Cities"*. This Primer is a tool for city governments in the East Asia Region to better understand how to plan for climate change impacts and impending natural disasters through sound urban planning to reduce vulnerabilities. The full report can be downloaded from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/0,,contentMDK:21845641~pagePK:146736~piPK:226340~theSitePK:226301,00.html My apology for crossposting Yours Laxman ******************************************************************************************************************************************************* * Climate Resilient Cities: A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Climate Change Impacts and Strengthening Disaster Risk Management in East Asian Cities* is prepared as a guide for local governments in the East Asia Region to better understand the concepts and consequences of climate change; how climate change consequences contribute to urban vulnerabilities; and what is being done by city governments in East Asia and around the world to actively engage in learning, capacity building, and capital investment programs for building sustainable, resilient communities. The Primer is applicable to a range of cities ? from those starting to build awareness on climate change to those with climate change strategies and institutions already in place. An accompanying CD-ROM of City Profiles is included to assist cities to understand in more detail what other cities are doing today. It is now undeniably evident that the global climate is changing as a result of humaninduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Increased levels of heat trapped in the atmosphere have set off a process that is modifying weather patterns, which in turn affect temperatures, sea levels, and storm frequencies. This will impact cities and other urban areas, especially those in coastal zones. Asia already experiences the greatest number of flood events worldwide. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Asia has experienced more than 550 floods affecting over 850 million people.2 Out of China's estimated urban population of 400 million, 130 million live in coastal cities that are vulnerable to sea-level rise.3 The high incidence of hydro-meteorological and other disasters affecting urban areas, particularly in vulnerable regions, is a challenge to local officials and their communities in being prepared and proactive in reducing their GHG emissions and in addressing increasingly frequent and extreme climate change events. The world is at a unique moment in time. Three major movements are coming together: urbanization, decentralization and the rise of domestic capital markets. The way cities are managed to deal with their growth and the increase of their vulnerabilities is very important in this context. Many East Asian cities are also experiencing very rapid urbanization and increasing decentralization. In 2004, for example, 40 percent of the world's cement and 27 percent of its steel went primarily to build China's cities.4 Most East Asian cities therefore have much greater responsibility for their increasing populations to prepare them for the consequences of climate change, offer mitigation alternatives to current levels of GHG emissions, and devise the capital improvement projects necessary for resilient cities. The traditional sources of finance to cities from national government grants and allocations for budget support are insufficient and inefficient. Due to their increasing decentralization and increasing populations, most East Asian cities have much greater responsibility with limited traditional financial resources, but with unprecedented opportunity for domestic capital markets to make cities less dependent on national government for financial support. The access of funds through capital markets has begun to be recognized as an important adaptation initiative. The most adverse impacts of climate change are likely to be in urban areas where people, resources, and infrastructure are concentrated. "In absolute numbers, Asia is the epicenter of the current urbanization surge. China will add at least 342 million people to its cities by 2030? and Indonesia, 80 million."5 An estimated 46 million people living in cities are at risk yearly from flooding from storm surges in the East Asia Region.6 The responsibility of responding to climate change impacts and consequences will fall to city governments and their communities.Therefore a strong local commitment and organization is required to deal with behavior and technological change to reduce carbon emissions and the disasters climate change consequences and regional threats represent. The response to climate change impacts are in their essence urban governance and management issues. Immediate action to reduce emissions will reduce future impacts but will not eliminate those already initiated. There are important linkages between sustainable development, climate change impacts, and disaster risk management issues each city confronts. Dealing with climate change has initially focused on national or regional plans to reduce the contributions to global warming. But reducing GHG emissions is only one of the important efforts cities must understand. Disasters that result from and/or can be made worse by climate change can undermine decades of growth through a single catastrophic event. Management of urban areas and their growth and spatial planning requires the consideration of disaster risk management and the climate change agenda as essential components of urban development. Climate change will increase the frequency of disasters in cities. Effective disaster risk management is an important component of climate change adaptation. Climate change will require concerted actions by local governments and their partners to manage a changing and more invasive environment. The need to promote changes in technologies, citizen participation, and urban growth patterns are equally important parts of the behavior of the urban populations that contribute to global warming and create vulnerabilities to disasters. Mainstreaming these issues into policy and practice leads to a holistic rather than sectoral engagement in climate change. Climate change and disaster risk management require concerted international cooperation and city partnerships. Indeed, this Primer reflects joint cooperation between three international agencies ? the World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. This team hopes the Primer increases awareness, highlights successful practices that can be adapted to East Asian cities, and initiates a dialogue for action. The World Bank and its partners stand ready to assist client countries and their cities with technical and financial assistance as they move toward creating institutions, strategies, and infrastructure to combat climate change and natural disasters. *********************************************************************************************************************************************************** -- -------------- ? Save a tree...please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to. From mshrestha at icimod.org Wed Aug 27 05:02:31 2008 From: mshrestha at icimod.org (Mandira Shrestha) Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:47:31 +0545 Subject: [DIPECHO Network] Koshi Flood report:27 August 27 Message-ID: <7B713375AA078140B421656337ADD2E91C29345D81@exchange.icimod.org> Dear All, Many parts of Eastern Terai region of Nepal and Bihar, India have been inundated due to a breach of an embankment on the Koshi River. The Koshi river is the largest river system in Nepal originating from the Tibetan plateau of China and draining an area of more than 60,000 square km. A brief report has been prepared by ICIMOD based on situation and media reports made available by different agencies. This report also provides a rainfall outlook from various sources for the next few days showing the likelihood of more rain in the region which may hamper relief and rescue operation. You may download the report from: http://southasianfloods.icimod.org/viewdoc.php?link_id=9a82b307cb4cf92dc1473e48cd69c339 or http://tinyurl.com/6mt7c2 Regards Mandira Ms. Mandira Shrestha, Water Resources Specialist Integrated Water and Hazard Management International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development Khumaltar, Lalitpur GPO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal Fax : 977-1-5003299 Tel : 977-1-5003222 E-mail: mshrestha at icimod.org URL: http://www.icimod.org From savethehills at gmail.com Thu Aug 28 08:05:49 2008 From: savethehills at gmail.com (praful rao) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:35:49 +0530 Subject: [DIPECHO Network] landslide hazard in Darjeeling Himalaya Message-ID: <91c8c56f0808280605w3988feb5t5f6a4739fae45c9a@mail.gmail.com> Sir, By way of a brief introduction, I am Wg Cdr Praful Rao (retd) and I belong to Kalimpong, (dist Darjeeling). In the first week of Sept 2007, we living in sub Himalayan West Bengal (and Sikkim) suffered a near disaster due to torrential and unabated rains. It stopped raining on the 08Sep2007 and just as well, other wise we would have suffered large scale loss of life and property. This incident led us to forming SaveTheHills (STH), which as of now is a group of citizens working towards raising awareness about a natural disaster which is endemic to but proliferating rapidly in the mountains but which is still largely unknown to most. We also firmly believe that sustained action must be taken to prevent and mitigate this hazard if we are to continue living in these mountains since the consequences of ignoring years of human callousness in these mountains will, in the future, be devastating. In the year of so that STH has been in existence we have done a lot of work much of which is documented in our blog http://www.savethehills.blogspot.com May I request you to kindly peruse thru the blog? I would be glad to receive a reply from you since sharing experiences may be one of the best ways to spread awareness amongst our peoples about a common hazard. with regards Praful Rao From list-moderator at disasterpreparedness.icimod.org Fri Aug 29 04:53:55 2008 From: list-moderator at disasterpreparedness.icimod.org (List Moderator [ICIMOD-DIPECHO Network]) Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:38:55 +0545 Subject: [DIPECHO Network] FW: Announcing New Publication: Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction Message-ID: <002c01c909bd$27dd1900$77974b00$@icimod.org> Message from Abhilash Panda.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Abhilash Panda [mailto:pandaa at un.org] Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 9:02 AM To: list-moderator at disasterpreparedness.icimod.org; ENDRR-L at groups.preventionweb.net; se-drm at solutionexchange-un.net.in; PPPDRR-L at groups.preventionweb.net; drm-asia at groups.undp.org Subject: Announcing New Publication:: Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction Importance: High Dear Colleagues, Announcing a new publication Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction: Good Practices and lessons Learned from Experiences in the Asia-Pacific Region 2008 http://www.unisdr.org/indigenous_knowledge-drr "Even before we came up with high technology based early warning systems, or standard operating procedures for response, numerous local communities worldwide have prepared, operated, acted, and responded to natural disasters using indigenous methods passed on from one generation to the next. The publication "Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction: Good Practices and Lessons Learned from experiences in the Asia-pacific Region", produced with the assistance of the European Union, aims to build awareness for indigenous knowledge as an effective tool for reducing risk from natural disasters. By improving the understanding of indigenous knowledge and providing concrete examples of how it can be successfully used, this publication can help all practitioners and policy makers to consider the knowledge hold by local communities and act to integrate this wealth of knowledge into future disaster-related work. " Regards Abhilash Panda From list-moderator at disasterpreparedness.icimod.org Sun Aug 31 03:49:18 2008 From: list-moderator at disasterpreparedness.icimod.org (List Moderator [ICIMOD-DIPECHO Network]) Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:34:18 +0545 Subject: [DIPECHO Network] Earthquake news_6.1 magnitude earthquake leaves 22 dead in China Message-ID: <000001c90b46$766c11e0$634435a0$@icimod.org> FYI. List Moderator 6.1 magnitude earthquake leaves 22 dead in China Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gBr_dOzJ9Pnc_U9gSgtTgE-cR-KwD92T2Q4O0 By GILLIAN WONG - 3 hours ago BEIJING (AP) - A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck China's southwestern Sichuan province Saturday, killing 22 people and injuring more than 100, state media said. Rescue teams were headed to the quake-hit area but heavy rains and the region's rugged terrain hampered their efforts, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The quake killed 17 people in Sichuan and five others in the neighboring province of Yunnan, Xinhua said. The agency said about 100 people in Sichuan and 35 in Yunnan were injured. The quake hit 31 miles southeast of Panzhihua city in the southwestern corner of Sichuan on Saturday afternoon. Nearly 1,000 houses were destroyed in Panzhihua, and it was not known how many people were buried in the rubble, the report said. The China Earthquake Administration sent teams and seismic experts while the Yunnan provincial civil affairs bureau and the Yunnan Red Cross Society sent 3,400 tents and 2,000 quilts, Xinhua said. Also Saturday, an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale struck the northwestern region of Xinjiang, Xinhua said in a separate report. No casualties were reported from the quake which hit the sparsely inhabited Tianshan mountains, it said. On May 12, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in northern Sichuan killed nearly 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless. The region has been hit by scores of aftershocks, keeping people there on edge. For other disaster related news, please visit: http://www.disasterpreparedness.icimod.org/articles.php?id=19