Planning and managing earthquake and flood prone towns

Abstract

Before commencement of any planning and management activities, to mitigate the disastrous consequences of man-made and natural disasters, it is necessary to analyze the potential hazard underlying in the area and work out consequences of disasters. Disasters can result in failed development, but failures in development planning can also lead to disaster risk, which is the case in most of the cities which are disaster prone in developing countries. The researcher has tried to respond to the unique challenge presented by the Indian cities which are earthquake and flood prone, by developing earthquake and flood damage scenario by utilizing—appropriate damage assessment criteria after studying the literature survey, building and infrastructure inventories, topographical information, demographical data and other relevant facts and figures to propose an urban planning model to minimize the damages. The developed planning model has to be inserted into master plan for future development of the area. The master plan should be integrated with the Disaster Management Plan. In the present study, the organizational structure existing in the Hoshangabad district for Disaster Management is studied along with the incident command system (ICS) a standardized method of managing disasters. In view of the multifarious and multi jurisdictional functions involved, the ICS with appropriate modifications can be adopted here as a management tool hence District Headquarters Team for Hoshangabad has been proposed. A conceptual model has been proposed based on the methodology of the research work which can be utilized for similar towns.