Assessing Risk and Social Vulnerability in Environmental Hazards Context
Assessing
Risk and Social Vulnerability in Environmental Hazards Context
The relevance and
connections of the research to a wider academic context
In Senegal, every year an
increasing number of people[1] suffer from
water-related hazards (coastal erosion and floods). Related risks are insufficiently studied,
because they are complex and intertwined. They indeed jeopardize survival in
these habitats that grapple with many other problems.
This is the context
that triggered my desire to develop a wide research which attempts to analysis the
Risk and Social Vulnerability in Environmental Hazards Context. In effect, the
question is insufficiently studied in Africa and in Senegal
The dilemma of floods, in rainy
season, is a disaster affecting more and more localities[2],
year after year. Indeed, populations are displaced and losses are huge and
difficult to assess, leading to some vulnerabilities. When disasters taking the
form of floods are experienced regularly, they end up pushing populations, generally
very poor, in a kind of vicious circle that further exacerbates their problems,
leaving them in a situation of chronicle
poverty.
Perceptions must be
appreciated with a good method of analysis and assessment. These relate to governance of disasters and violence which could result from them
when it is not well managed. Demonstration should not solely focus on risk and
vulnerability. Both situations stem from poverty and its impacts. The depth of
poverty dictates how to get out of poverty. This raises the largely jeopardized
issue of resilience.
As a weak segment, populations
could be exposed to other risks in their search for individual solutions. This
shows how vulnerable they are. The internal migration that leads to the
occupation of sites unfit for habitation is an evidence of poverty. Inhabited
and flooded sites correspond with illegally occupied areas where some districts
concentrate densities above 2000 inhabitants per square kilometre!
Conceptually…
The study discussion take
further the notion of risk and vulnerability, and work out a Social Vulnerability Assessment. The approach
wishes to draw from systems of analysis elaborated in the European Institutes,
in the form of an analytical and critical replication, the reason being that,
contexts are too different. In effect, moving from one approach using developed
country parameters, to other approach using developing country parameters,
should be considered. These are mostly paradigmatic discussions which are little studied in
poor countries, particularly in Africa. Any approach should l put emphasis on
the share of social constructions in the form of multiple vulnerabilities in
relation to the context of environmental changes, whose many crises culminate
in disasters.
As far as we know, scientific
literature does not refer to the development of Assessment of Social
Vulnerability for Africa, particularly for Senegal
Risks and vulnerability factors
are insufficiently analysed, all the more risk and vulnerability. I aim for a
conceptual strengthening, following the emergence of these paradigms. Practically
achieving a Social Vulnerability method of development and analysis drawing
from the model developed by some ‘’Vulnerability Research Institutes’’ or other
institutes involved in the formulation of these indexes.
- Risk Perception
In view of showing how these
indicators can contribute to an improved understanding of a person’s
vulnerability, I wish to use this approach and target risk perception through a
survey form taking into consideration a series of data. Data describing
vulnerability is often absent, because individual vulnerability is difficult to
describe. Targeted individuals give their opinions on mentioned indicators in
case of disaster as elements which help cope, whether successfully or not?
These last years, I have been
working on ‘’Human Dimension of Global Environmental Change issues’’[4]
and is achieving a book untitled ‘’Flood Syndrome in Senegal[5]’’.
This is the reason why, my schedule work focus on some aspect developed in the
book like particularly these issues:
Victims and Poverty -
Victims of their position: the poor occupy sites unfit for
habitation, especially in depressions: low topography; erosions on watersides
and floods from the ocean, rivers and particularly variable runoff waters
during climate seasons (rains and drainage during hot and cold periods).
Victims of their social conditions: we can find very high demographic densities in risk sites (2000 inhabitants / ha). These sites had been occupied after hard-won strategic fights (embankments, more or less legal appropriation). Indeed, some rural and even urban populations came and settled on the outskirts of cities, after periods of drought prior or subsequent to the modernization of many sites in some secondary cities. The brutal passage of those local areas from the status of villages to that of towns in a poor country, with the lack of basic infrastructures, hampers the development of the basic conditions required in a city.
Victims of their economic conditions: with the low or absence of regular incomes (extreme poverty level, even for survival, and far from it. Here we do not talk about risk insurance as it happens sometime in European countries or other early warning systems (EWS, there exists a traditional forecasting system in Senegal which is loudly echoed today by modern media and communications technicians). Disasters increase populations’ vulnerability to the level of a real tragedy, while depriving them of everything.
These conditions or 'victimization' factors maintain people in a system that can be labeled ‘risk and poverty vicious circle’, as they are obliged to move according to dry or relatively rainy periods. The habitat, built with precarious materials, exposes these economically poor populations to a higher vulnerability, regarding environmental risks. The geology and soils of the host sites are more favorable to rainfalls, thus bringing about floods. These are all the more dramatic as they regularly occur and accumulate year by year. As a consequence, people are compelled to move out, which jeopardizes family structures or social and community groups. These floods create amphibious ghost cities in former beautiful landscapes, Thiam M.D, 1999, 2007. When disaster strikes, displacement becomes inevitable and poorly organized, not only because of the lack of foresight, but also because of policy programs that inadequately address the management of assistance. The Disaster Contingency Plan (DCP) is a culture of interventionism (IHDP report, 1999, ihdp.org). It accommodates victims in schools, and if not, in tents. And recently in the
Victims because they are poor; poor because disaster victims. The demonstration can be confusing as it sounds like a tautology. The hierarchy of the spiral is complex ''Complex syndrome': (risk, vulnerability, disaster, poverty, loss, disaster, etc.). And yet, the deepening of the approach, at both theoretical (conceptual) and practical (statistics and demonstration) levels is necessary. The socio-spatial and economic contexts are intimately intertwined. So much so that vulnerability includes a set of factors that range according to different levels that must be analyzed for a statement of policy actions to be undertaken as responses to an important social demand.
Interdisciplinary dimension
Early warning Systems, for
intervention: what has been done? Studies are insufficient and particular
emphasis should be taken regarding this question.
Analytical spatial model, in
fact of their absence, should inspire the Social Vulnerability Analysis in
progress as test phase methodology, when considering hazardous context. I wish
to answer at following questions from an interdisciplinary approach.
- The Social aspect,
it is important to mention the context of suburbs
with indescribable demography and densities which reach records. Field work
identifies spatial strategies of occupation and culture of disorder shown with
very stretches pathways or roads, which are sometime unusable.
The absence of water
collecting system and an interventionism action witness the culture of
emergency, aid and for support.
The economic
aspect, the very dynamic process of impoverishment is intertwined to natural
disasters. It must be analysed from this fact. To that is added the losses
economy which has a stretched relationship with disasters. The commons benefits
which are expected in results target a term (time to be mastered) by knowledge
for preparedness, anticipation, action in case of catastrophic events. This is
the price which can help to realize benefits from different scales,
particularly for poor countries. The originality is retrieved, otherwise, in
marginalised areas which are components, particularly in cities which grow
indefinitely.
The political
dimension is
overturned by the brutality of the events manifestation as hazards like floods.
Is it possible to be surprised, if anticipation policy is practised? What
suppose knowledge and preventing definition, reactions and actions to be
conducted in consideration of available means, which are also insufficient?
I wish to collaborate with scholars
who study population affected by hazards and displacement in its relationship
with rapid, brutal hydro-climatic changes. Specialists of social questions are
desired as collaborators, with an approach which puts emphasis on sociological
risk, or environment threat in terms of catastrophic events, which also act
surprisingly. This dimension covers today risk in relation with different
societies (divided between poor and rich populations).
[1] - About 500000
victims were recorded in 2009; 70% from Dakar
[2] - Mali , Burkina Faso ,
Niger , Mauritania , Senegal
[3] - Human Development Index.
[5] - Book edited ‘’Le Syndrome des Inondations au Sénégal”.
[6] - In a Senegal Slum, a Building Material Both Plentiful and
Perilous by Adam
Nossiter (New York Times)
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