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Monday, September 12, 2005
Oledan: Frontline
By Radzini Oledan
Spice of Life
DISASTERS come every now and then. Credit it to our myopic insights of economic gain, which almost always compromises our environment.
Recent disasters have destroyed properties, crops and human lives. Often, these affect large areas but it is at the local level that the impact is greatest.
Residents of the stricken area bear the brunt of a hazard's destructive force. They are those who perform survival acts and coping methods to roll with or escape the effects of a disaster while it is venting its fury.
Disasters, both natural and man-made that victimize large numbers of people and cause significant social and economic losses, urgently demand special attention. Drastic improvements to decrease damage can be done.
In areas where active people organizations or groups can be tapped to complement a local government's lack or limitation, their participation has been proven to ensure the community's welfare in face of disaster risks.
Local government units (LGUs) are the frontline entity, which first delivers assistance and supports disaster victims. Ideally, then, the capability of the local authorities should be equal to the demands of disaster management concerns.
But it could only be done through the involvement of the public in disaster management that has enabled families in various disaster prone areas to better cope with the impact of a hazard.
Their participation is an imperative in comprehensive disaster management. It is one that considers the stakeholders in the identification of needs, assessment of risks and planning of risk reduction measures.
As a hazard strikes a community, the degree of preparedness of the local populace and the local authorities sometimes spell the difference between the occurrence of a disastrous event or not.
In areas where a hazard regularly "visits", the populace builds coping methods albeit in an unorganized way. The demand for survival forces people to "invent" way to withstand a disaster.
Skills and resources to undertake measures for risk reduction have to be strengthened. Pro-active efforts on the ground to complement the over-all goals of disaster management have to be sustained.
This endeavor poses significant challenges in disaster management that should look into the data collection, data management, translation, integration and communication. In short, geo-information plays a critical role in disaster management.
The major problem in disaster management is not lack of technology or the existence of relevant information, but lack of information management.
Typically, disaster management depends on large volumes of accurate, relevant, on-time geo-information that various organizations systematically create and maintain.
Knowledge bases must be available and maintained with the pre-analyses geo-information technology needs of the different tasks for different contexts. In case of emergencies or disasters this knowledge can be applied (semi-) automatically in order to be able to provide effective support.
There will always be disasters. The key is to tackle disaster management problems in their entirety by positioning communication and information management in the grassroots. This can be done. The community is our frontline.
(September 12, 2005 issue)
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