ABSTRACT
As population continue to rise and climate changes continue to occur, natural and other disasters are seeing a rise in severity. Various disasters such as floods, fires, storms, earthquakes, and pandemics etc., cause havoc resulting in loss of life, resources and assets (Bahinipati, 2016). It is estimated that about 90% percent of disasters are caused by natural hazards and are inevitable in most cases. The impact of these disaster is worst experienced by developing countries like India due the presence of largely dense populations (Slettebak, 2013). A 2013 United Nations Development Programme report suggests that poorer minorities and people belonging to low income groups are far more vulnerable to disasters. Depending on the type of disaster, there are various mitigation strategies that a government can implement to encourage timely response to disasters and can significantly reduce the impact of disasters. These strategies, if implemented systematically, can help in enhancing resilience, timely evacuation, and support and recovery operations in disaster prone areas. Different types of disasters mitigation process involve different approaches and therefore it is important for the government to clearly identify which disaster mitigation and management strategy to be prioritised. For this study, a brainstorming session was organised with the experts in the field of disaster management to understand the various required strategies that can be implemented for disaster management and mitigation in developing countries like India. Some of the identified strategies are increasing public awareness, mitigation infrastructure development, human capacity development for locals, better equipment, developing standard operating procedures in disaster relief, coordination between various agencies, etc. After these strategies were identified, a survey was conducted where two group, comprising of 27 experts or people related to disaster management (providers) and 34 people from general public (users) living in a vulnerable environment and with the potential of being affected by disasters were chosen. These groups were provided with the identified strategies to be prioritized and all the responders were asked to set the identified strategies in a decreasing order of priority to identify which strategy needed maximum attention according to the respective responders’ perspective. Based on the result of the survey, rank correlation was calculated to understand the similarities and dissimilarities in priorities set by the two identified groups and a significant similarity was observed between the priorities set by the experts and users. Hence, this study provides a milestone to understand the point of view of potential disaster victims and will assist the government in preparation of strategies for disaster management. This study comprised of only 61 respondents and therefore it is difficult to generalize the result with accuracy and thus provides future opportunity for similar study on a larger scale.
