Building Resilience in an Urban World

Abhas K. JhaProgram Leader,

Disaster Risk ManagementEast Asia PacificThe World Bank

Santa Fe Institute Trustee and Business Network Symposium,November 2, 2012

I am going to talk about 3 things today….

1. The rising trend in disasters and what are the key drivers behind it.

2. How is the World Bank addressing this issue.

3. Some emerging future directions.

3 Main Messages

1. The growth of people and assets in harm’s way, due to rapid urbanization will be, by far, the biggest driver of disaster risk over the next few decades.

2. The deep uncertainties from climate change implies the need for “robust” solutions-that work (“good enough”)across a wide range of scenarios.

3. The risks of disasters cannot be completely eliminated:a) Preparing for “graceful” failureb) Getting the balance right between structural and non-structural

measures

1. Trends

Rome Wasn’t Built in Day..

China Does it in Two Weeks!

Where is this urbanization happening?

Africa, Indian Sub-Continent and China

25%

25%

15%

Small and Medium Towns

Growth in population by city scales. Source: based on Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision.

Increasing Trend of Disasters

Source: MunichRe

The Major Takeaway from the IPCC SREX

“Long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”

-IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

Source: Pielke and Landseahttp://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/lanina/figures.html#fig2

Source: Ranger and Garbett-Shiels, 2011

Cascading failures, fragile networks“Networks that are efficient are often not resilient, because resilient networks have inefficient redundancies. Resilience is a public good, created by the right kind of redundancy.”

-Michael Spence

Japanese mining and manufacturing production in March: -15.5% (the biggest drop in history)

Japanese export in April: -12%

The major disaster area in Tohoku(Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima)

National population share 4.5%National GDP share 4%

:

Source: Prof. Masahisa Fujita

Complex, Cascading, Non-linear

March 11, 2011: The Headline You Did Not Read

Prevention pays but design systems that “fail gracefully”.

Risk Tolerance= F (Affordability)ALARP Principle

ALARP Principle

2. Examples

A Quick Word on the World Bank

PACIFIC RISK INFORMATION

SYSTEM

Integration of Climate Change projections

Urban Planning and Infrastructure Design

Professional and Institutional

Capacity Development

Rapid Disaster Impact Estimation

Macroeconomic Planning & Disaster

Risk Financing

Source SOPAC

Satellite imagery

Administrative Boundaries

Population Census

Agricultural Census

Surface Geology Topographic maps Surface soil Bathymetry

Geodetic and Fault Data Infrastructure References

Source: SOPAC

Creating Robust Risk Information

Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Risk Financing in association with SPC/SOPAC and the ADB

Hazard

Risk

Exposure/Vulnerability

PortMoresby

Lae

155° E

155° E

150° E

150° E

145° E

145° E

5° S

5° S

10°

S

10°

S

Papua New Guinea

0 200 400100

Kilometers

AAL / Asset Value

0% - 0.05%

0.05% - 0.1%

0.1% - 0.15%

0.15% - 0.2%

0.2% - 0.3%

0.3% - 0.4%

0.4% - 0.5%

0.5% - 1.15%

Risk Assessment

PolicyConditions

EventGeneration

ExposureInformation

DamageEstimation

LossCalculation

Mitigation / PolicyConditions

Limit

Deductible

IntensityCalculation

Source: SOPAC

Country risk profilesAn Illustration with Solomon Islands

Acting collectively for cost-effective financial solutions against major disasters

Adding more countries increases risk diversification benefits

Adding more perils increases risk diversification benefits

Note: Impact of risk diversification on 150yr loss

Geonodes: Sharing Information for Resilience

Participatory Mapping: OpenStreetMap

DKI Jakarta:

100% coverage

Over 6000 structures digitized

2,658 RW mapped

InaSAFE Impact analysis

Click

PDF

Jakarta flood prone areas and hospitals lo

Exact location of potentially flooded hospitals

Building the Open Source Community SAFE CodeSprint: Pavia Italy. November 12-16, 2012

Metro Manila and Can Tho: Getting the Balance Right Between ‘Structural and Non-structural Measures

Hard engineered• Flood conveyance• Flood storage• Urban drainage systems• Ground water management• Flood resilient building design• Flood defenses

Eco-system management• Utilizing wetlands• Creating environmental buffers

Increased preparedness• Awareness campaigns• Urban management

Flood avoidance• Land use planning• Resettlement

Emergency planning & management• Early warning systems and evacuation• Critical infrastructure

Speeding up recovery• Building back smarter• Risk insurance

Keeping the water away from the people

Keeping the people away from the water

Components:• Protection to an appropriate return frequency,

determined by predictions using historical data and non-stationary analysis

• Adaptation to cope with extreme events that surpasses design criteria

• Retreat, which means restoring space for water to adapt to long-term climate changes.

Ho Chi Minh City Developing an Integrated Flood Risk Management StrategyUrban growth in the periphery of the city had as a result newly-urbanized districts arising in sites at flood risk. Hard engineering or structural measures to minimize flood risk might be unsustainable under large hydrological, land subsidence and urbanization uncertainties.

Ho

Long

Phi

Robust Decision Making (RDM) Helps Inform Good Decisions Without Reliable Predictions

Robust Decision Making (RDM) Helps Inform Good Decisions Without Reliable Predictions

RDM follows “Deliberation with Analysis” decision support process

VulnerabilitiesRobust Strategy

3.Estimate Performance of Strategy in Many Futures

Case GenerationTradeoff Analysis

5.Display and Evaluate Tradeoffs Among Strateg(ies)

Deliberation

Analysis

Deliberation with Analysis

Participatory Scoping1.Define Goals, Uncertainties, and

Strategies2.Choose Candidate Strategy

Scenario Exploration and Discovery

4.Characterize Strategy’s Vulnerabilities

Key idea:• Start with strategy

• Use analytics to identify scenarios where strategy fail to meet its goals

• Use these scenarios to identify and evaluate responses

Source: Rob Lempert, RAND

Factors Potentially Considered in Our Analysis

X: Exogenous uncertainties L: Policy levers

• Extreme precipitation (X mm/3 hrs)• Mean sea level• Subsidence rate• Infrastructure performance• Delays in implementing flood control plans• Rate and patterns of economic and

population growth• Effectiveness of policies• Costs of implementing policies

• System described in 2001 JICA Master Plan• Adaptation options include:

• Elevating buildings• Small scale pumps• Public awareness

• Retreat options include:• Restrictions/appropriate land use

• Adaptive decision strategies• Signposts• Responses

R: Relationships M: Measures of merit

• SWMM Model• ArcGIS for calculating RI and DI

• RI: Risk exposure (population/housing)• DI: Damage exposure (economic)

Source: Rob Lempert, RAND

01020

3040506070

8090

100

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Probable Maximum Loss

Transfer

Retention

• Reserves/Calamity funds

• Contingent lines of credit• Loans (Standard or Emergency)• Budget reallocations

• Catastrophe Bonds• Parametric Insurance• Traditional insurance

Risk Layering: A Balance-Sheet Approach to Risk Finance

3. Emerging Directions

Emerging Directions1. Recognizing, measuring and responding to

complexity (CCN for networks?).2. Cognitive limitations, Communicating

uncertainty3. Beyond cost-benefit (fat tails), evidence based

DRM, Value-for-Money4. The economics (and politics!) of open data for

resilience.5. Decision-making in data-scarce environments,

Big data, Simulations, Serious Gaming

Ultimately it boils down to….• INVESTMENTS: What concrete actions can we

take to build resilience into our program?• INSTRUMENTS: What instruments do we need

to support our clients to mainstream resilience ? (Data, metrics, analytical work etc.)

• INCENTIVES: Institutionally why is this not happening, even for events that we know that are bound to take place? (Changing incentives)

EAP DRM KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTS

Thank you!

Abhas K. Jha www.worldbank.org/eapdisasters@abhaskjha