Disaster Prevention and Mitigation

Disaster prevention and mitigation are used as synonyms. Prevention is to ensure that human action or natural phenomena do not result in disaster or emergency. Preventive activities are aimed at trying to prevent future disasters, such as planting trees on slopes to prevent landslides or a dam from controlling flooding. Prevention measures are employed to eliminate or reduce the incidence of severity. Few such measures include land use planning, preventing habitation in risk zones, disasterresistant buildings, finding ways to reduce risk even before the disaster strikes and community awareness and education.

Mitigation along the same lines also means reducing the severity of the human and material damage caused by the disaster. It consists of efforts directed toward preventing hazardous conditions from becoming disasters or minimising their effects in the event of a disaster. Some steps generally taken under the mitigation phase include preparing building codes, demarcating hazardous zones, public awareness, and vulnerability assessment. Measures to reduce or eliminate disaster risk are the focus of the mitigation phase. There are various types of mitigation activities:

Structural Mitigation: 

• Various physical changes can be made to a structure to help mitigate structural hazards. It involves building such infrastructure which can minimise the probability of occurrence or at least reduce the intensity of the disaster when it occurs. Various measures may include reducing erosion caused by runoff, controlling sedimentations, building earthquake and wind-resistant houses, and building sandbag barriers to provide flood protection. Life and property are protected by these empirical measures.
• Structures must be prepared for the expected stresses that may result from the hazard before mitigation measures can be applied. Building a strong structure that is capable of surviving hazards is essential.

Non-Structural Mitigation:

• The non-structural mitigation measures include carrying out non-physical activities (mostly policies and practices) to raise knowledge about the hazard.
• Such measures are directed towards mental preparedness, training, insurance, planning, discussion, etc. By reducing disasters’ effects indirectly, all of these measures reduce their impact. Global mitigation measures include the following tools, according to the Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC): Hazard management and vulnerability reduction, Economic diversification, Political intervention, Public awareness.

Activities for disaster mitigation should measure and evaluate the changing risk environment. The development of thorough, proactive tools that assist in choosing where to concentrate resources and efforts on risk reduction may be one of the activities.