Table of Contents
What You Will Do
- Learn to recognize disaster risk by identifying natural and human made hazards, exposure to hazards, and the coping ability and vulnerability of people and property.
- Develop a disaster profile for your design site.
- Use ecological ethics and principles to guide design decisions related to safety, and to design a general emergency plan.
Chaos and catastrophe: how can you creatively use and respond to change?
This section by Pippa Buchanan
Ecological design can help you create a system that is resilient at a general level. By drawing on your sector analysis and considering hazards such as fires, storms or floods, you can develop risk assessments for your site and household. These will help you to strengthen your system design by considering potential extremes and emergencies.
Our ethics, especially people care, are essential when designing to avoid potential disasters. That means working with your local community to support people who are less able to cope and helping to make broader changes that reduce inequality. We’ll also consider the importance of social and behavioural aspects of disaster risk reduction and emergency response.
In this module you’ll work to identify the two most significant natural disasters for your design site and to complete a disaster profile. This will help you to identify design priorities at both a landscape and social level.
Hi! I’m Pippa, and I live in Australia. I hold a Master’s Degree in Sustainability and Climate Change Adaptation and in addition to completing two PDC’s, I’ve studied teaching with Rosemary Morrow, an experience which led me to explore responses to disasters for my Master’s research.
I’m lucky enough to have never been negatively affected by a natural disaster, but as a child, we evacuated our rural home in the Adelaide hills because of the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires. Across Australia, seventy-five people died, over two thousand five hundred houses were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of native animals and livestock died. The insurance payments alone were billions of dollars in today’s money.
Now, maybe it’s one of those constructed memories, but as we drove back a day later, I remember seeing blackened tree stumps across the hillside, some with pocket fires still smoldering. This image has stayed with me as I traveled the same route to and fro on the school bus wondering if a fire like that were to happen again and how would we be able to respond.
Prior to European colonization, Indigenous Australians actively managed the land and used fire as one of their farming tools. Fast forward the two hundred and thirty years since European colonization, and radically different land management approaches means that large tracks of bushland with built-up fuel loads are in close proximity to settlements and urban areas.
Wherever you live, it is important that you can learn from old stories and traditional land management in order to understand potential risks and develop strategies to respond. Indigenous Australians continue to help people to survive events such as tsunami, but also provide researchers with a better understanding of the impact of previous disaster events.
The contemporary situation means that while we need to acknowledge and work with natural wisdom and history to better understand the land and reduce risk, we also need to draw on disciplines such as engineering in order to develop resilient, functional human-made systems.
Strengthen your system design by analysing potential disasters and emergencies
A long-term perspective means that our systems need to be adaptable to change and resilient enough to deal with emergencies. This idea is communicated through the principle of Creatively Use and Respond to Change. Designing for change and emergencies is as much a part of a personal and social ecology as is the landscape.
In order to cope with a potential threat such as a severe flood, a bushfire or even a family medical emergency, it is useful to know your own capacity for dealing with change and stressful situations. Think about what you learned about your inner landscape in earlier modules. Being familiar with your own patterns can help you to understand what has helped in the past and to identify coping strategies.
Societies that prioritize short term solutions and annual food plants don’t consider long term resilience. Ecological design encourages slow and emergent systems, such as perennial food and timber crops which are planted for ongoing yields years, decades, or centuries into the future. These types of investments need to be resilient enough to withstand repeated conditions, such as storms or years of drought.
We live in a dynamic world, and change, whether slow or sudden, is inevitable. It arrives, bringing opportunities as well as challenges. How people respond to events, such as a personal crisis, a storm, or a fire determines the impact these events have on individuals and communities. In the natural world, disturbances such as wildfires and hurricanes felled trees and helped pioneer species to emerge. Volcanoes bring mineral deposits to the surface that weather into rich soil, and floods deliver nutrients and water across the plains and into inland regions allowing dormant animals and plants to burst into life.
In the tarot, the Tower card represents disaster, symbolizing the destruction of the existing order and some chaos, bringing forth something totally new. In Art of Hosting, a facilitation approach, the chaotic path pattern describes group work moving through webs of complex discussion, connection of different concepts and emergent learning. This results in the birthing of new ideas and processes.
Just a note: some people find the discussion of disasters to be challenging. Understand this. These are scary topics. However, as people working with natural system, our focus is on identifying solutions to problems. With that said, if you are having a rough day or are feeling overwhelmed about the world, you might want to practice some self-care. So make a cup of tea, be with the discomfort, and continue when you feel ready.
Disaster risk: hazards, exposure and vulnerability
Rather than being overwhelmed by the idea of potential catastrophes, we can better understand risk and identify ways to minimise that.
In 2010, when the World Bank published a report called “Natural Hazards are Natural Disasters”, which stressed that while natural hazards such as hurricanes or tsunamis occur as the result of natural forces, the impact on societies, the environment, and the economy is human-made and the result of poor decisions. Those which have been made without care or understanding for people, the Earth, or the future conditions.
The risk of a disaster event is determined by the type of hazard, such as a flood or a pollution event, who or what is exposed, and the vulnerability of the population affected. So for example, if you are in debt and you live in town renting and living in a poorly built house in a low lying area, the risk from a flood event is higher than if you were living in an equally poor building on a hill.
In this situation, the exposure to the flood is the only thing that changes. The hazard of flood remains the same, as does your vulnerability of your ability to cope due to the lack of social connections or savings that would help you respond both prior to and after the flood.
While disasters can be calculated in potential mortality or loss of human life, it is most often discussed in terms of economic impact through the need to rebuild houses and infrastructure and the loss of potential earnings. While protecting property such as buildings, crops and livestock are an important part of our design considerations, keeping people safe is our primary goal.
Disaster risk is compounded by drivers such as climate change, changes to the built environment such as high-density urban centers, reduced urban drainage, or poor quality housing. Urbanization, inequality, and climate change are the most significant drivers for disasters no matter where in the world they take place.
People at the household and community level have the ability to actively reduce disaster risk through a number of design-based approaches. By observing and recording a sector analysis, we can make appropriate design decisions, such as citing a property above the one hundred year flood level or using a reed bed water system as a wet barrier against a fire sector.
Good design works to reduce the vulnerability of ourselves and our communities by increasing our ability to cope with the impact of disasters and emergencies. Coping capacity is increased by becoming closer with our local community, living a healthier more active life, producing our own food, learning to build and repair things, and dealing with financial systems and governance in new ways.
The systems thinking approach in community involvement helps us to identify potential disaster drivers and start making positive, influential changes in our lives. Working to reduce inequality, limit climate change and its effects, supporting smarter city design are all ways in which we can support our communities and regions to limit the risk of future disasters.
These broader considerations about community involvement and designing a better world are part of the broader context in which we reduce disasters and are worth keeping in mind.
However, the major output of this module is future developed disaster risk profiles for the two most likely hazards that will directly affect your property and the local area and to use them to guide your design decisions.
We don’t need to do any math here, but the equation illustrated here can help us understand the risk of potential disasters. Disaster risk is calculated by considering a hazard, multiplying it by exposure and vulnerability, and then dividing by our capacity to cope.
A flood caused by high rainfall is a good example of a hazard. Depending on where a building is situated in a watercourse determines the potential exposure to the hazard. Living in a building constructed out of mud bricks* with a poor foundation and in the path of flood water, makes someone vulnerable. Often factors such as living in poverty or being old can mean someone becomes more vulnerable. Your coping capacity depends on things such as how healthy you are, your skills, knowledge and social connections. All of these aspects of disasters will be influenced in the future by drivers such as climate change, economic changes or poorly designed cities.
Understanding the idea of disaster risk in more detail lets us see where ecological design and practice can support us in mitigating risk. We can design our properties and cities to reduce our exposure to hazards and to make our houses and lives less vulnerable. Becoming more connected with our local community, growing our own food and learning new skills all increase our capacity to cope with potential emergency situations.
Resisting, enduring and avoiding: designing mitigation approaches for different types of disasters
Observe and interact, use and value renewable resources.
My goal here is to a starting point from which to approach designing resilience and risk reduction into your system.
While this topic’s focus is on designing a safe space for humans, your disaster profiles and the information below will help you to design strategies so that each sub-system, such as a forest garden or chicken system, is also best protected.
Heat waves.
Heat waves are the topic that first drew me into thinking and researching about how we can think about and design for disasters. How could low energy cooling systems that don’t rely on air conditioning be incorporated into our designs? How would a system built with redundancy in mind function when heat waves cause power to go out across a city?
You should consider both extreme heat and cool in your design at a more general level, particularly with regard to climate change. How can passive design techniques be used to keep your home or workplaces at a comfortable temperature? How can you use microclimates to design safe environments to raise livestock and delicate plants?
Storms.
Extreme storms including cyclones and hurricanes can be considered in your design through the use of well engineered structures and windbreaks. Resilience of systems such as energy and water are important as, while often passing quickly, the damage from severe weather can endure for weeks or months.
Floods.
Appropriately siting your structures is essential to developing a flood resilient design. Consider how earthworks are designed so that they are best able to deal with heavy downfalls of rain.
Drought.
By default, if you are designing a garden you need to consider drought conditions. But what does that mean for your home and the people who live within it?
Geophysical hazards: earthquakes, tsunami and volcanoes.
Building a structurally sound house is the best approach for earthquake activity, but some threats like tsunamis and volcanoes mean that you would need to evacuate. Design skills such as map reading can help you identify safe places to evacuate.
Fire.
In Australia, fire hazards are probably one of the most well-explored areas of resilient design. This is a lengthy video, but worth watching, as fire can affect your property whether you live in a city or a rural area.
Incorporating fire protection into your zone specific designs is a great approach to make your home safer against fire.
How can productive systems such as aquaponics or vegetable gardens also act as barriers against fire?
How can you use microclimates, sector analysis, or even hügelkultur to better prepare your site for other disasters as well?
General emergency preparedness
Each element should serve multiple functions.
How can you use your ecological designer’s mind to create an emergency kit for your family?
Generally, applying the redundancy principles of multiple components for a single function and multiple functions for a single component means that in the event of an emergency you should still be able to drink clean water, heat food and safely dispose of waste.
People care: removing vulnerability to disasters
We have to consider people care at the heart of our designs for resilience. One of the most important factors in recovering from disaster is having a strong community around you.
How can you use ecological approaches to design a stronger and more equitable community where you live? In this video I ask you to think about those who are less able to cope, the elderly or ill, the homeless and disenfranchised. How can you incorporate assisting them into your designs for disaster?
There’s no guarantee that living an ecological life will totally protect you from hazards and make you immune to threats like flood, epidemic, hurricane, or fire. However, designing your lifestyle so you live more like a forest by becoming involved in your local community, will make you less vulnerable and more resilient, that is, able to adapt to change.
Careful observation, analysis, and thoughtful design will make your systems less exposed to hazards such as fire, flood, or storm. identifying drivers of disasters, such as climate change, social and economic inequality, and poor building construction will help you identify pressure points along which to create transformative change in your communities so that they are more resilient.
Homework
Questions for Review
- Which ecological principles do you think provide useful starting points for thinking about safety and resilience in your designs?
- Are there any vulnerable people in your community who would be significantly affected by a potential disaster? Will you include layers in your design that could help them, if needed?
- Referring to your sector analysis, think about which hazards are most likely to affect your site. List them in order of importance, and brainstorm ideas you have which can help to mitigate.
- Take a moment to write a mind map about a major challenge which happened in your life. This could be a natural disaster you experienced, an emergency you assisted on, or a personal crisis. What were the most difficult aspects of that situation? What were the attitudes, skills, and qualities that helped you to recover and start afresh? Given this same situation, what would you do differently? And, what were the positive new things that emerged from this difficult time?
Recommended Hands-On
Completing disaster profiles: observe and interact, creatively use and respond to change.
This exercise will help you better understand the potential threat to your site, and to develop appropriate design and behavioural strategies. I’ve provided a worksheet below and in this video I discuss the questions that are prompted by the worksheet topics. The information you gather for your disaster profiles will help you build on and expand your sector analysis. You should use general observation skills as well as asking questions of neighbours and local elders. Designing for potential events means you need to think about the future of your site and your own life. It’s time to at least try to predict these possible events and changes, so you can alter your design accordingly.
Download this site disaster profile worksheet and use it to complete the exercise outlined in this video.
Step one:
Complete the disaster profiles for your project, and complete the worksheet questions below. These will help you to develop a strong design which incorporates disaster resilience from its initial stages.
Step two:
Take a walk around your design site or property, including your home and any outbuildings. By now you should have some idea of what risks you should be trying to mitigate, and ways in which you can increase coping capacity and reduce your vulnerability. You may also want to schedule a time to talk with your neighbours and identify anyone who might need your help or who might be able to help you through a skills swap.
Step three:
Write or mind-map a list of 5-10 actions that you could take in the short, medium and long term to make your property safer. Are there any actions you could do in the next day, such as check your first aid kit, replace batteries in your smoke alarm or check in with your neighbours and ensure you have emergency contacts for each?
More hands-on activities to try
- Visit your neighbours or meet them for the first time and check on their emergency needs and plans. Having strong social networks is one of the most important aspects of developing a resilient and abundant lifestyle both for you and your local community. By checking in with your neighbours you may be able to develop a shared plan (e.g. for fire risk reduction). You may connect with neighbours who need your help in an emergency due to age or a physical condition.
- Ask whether your local government can provide you with regional climate change predictions and a local adaptation plan that responds to these scenarios. Adaptation plans include climate change related disaster preparedness, flood and coastal changes and emergency planning. If your local government do not have this information to hand, request that it be discussed at the next council meeting.
- Contact your local Red Cross or Red Crescent society for more information about disaster preparedness in your community. Your local fire department should also be able to connect you with appropriate information. This is also a great time to find out about updating or completing a First Aid Certificate or sign up to take a course about psychosocial first aid. I refer to the Red Cross here as it is an organisation that is present all over the world with a strong focus on emergency preparedness and humanitarian response. You may have a local organisation that can also support you with local emergency planning.
- Work with the people in your household to prepare and document a general emergency plan for the people, animals and services on your property. Make sure it is stored in an accessible, yet secure place. Place a reminder in your calendar to review this in a year’s time. The Australian Red Cross’ “Your Emergency RediPlan” is a freely available workbook that walks you through preparing a general emergency plan. The exercises the Red Cross shares, for example, Get In The Know, Get Connected, Get Organised and Get Packing will help you develop a better understanding of your household’s needs, so that you can use ecological principles and design tools to develop an appropriate response.
- Design an emergency/evacuation kit for you and your household. Can you make it low waste? Which elements serve more than one function? You might find it useful to think about how this kit would help you if you were camping. A camping stove can help in an emergency and be useful for recreation, just make sure to keep a full gas canister! Include a first aid kit, spare clothes, herbal and prescription medicines, basic tools and water and non-perishable food for 72 hours (3 litres of drinking water per person, per day). If you live in an area where government or NGO help may be slow to arrive, ensure you have at least 10 days of food available and resources to collect and purify water.
- Join my Disaster Risk Reduction mailing list. Get involved and support our working group’s effort to develop excellent learning resources, including advanced courses about community based disaster risk reduction. In the longer term we hope to support communities wanting to grow back better after disasters by providing training and materials.
