Colliding Emergencies
End of 2019 and beginning of 2020 saw an abbreviation become a buzz word. A topic for discussions at every gathering, every interaction and every conversation.Though COVID has become one of the largest challenges humanity has faced, it is not the only problem we will be facing in the times to come. What COVID situation has made very clear is the fact that the entire disaster management apparatus that we as humanity have developed is gravely under equipped to handle disasters of our age. It has also made clear that our urban areas have been developed in the most unsustainable fashion imaginable and we lack the resources to tackle with disaster hitting our urban areas.
“Though COVID has become one of the largest challenges humanity has faced, it is not the only problem we will be facing in the times to come”
2019 saw a great deal of increased forest fires, bush fires, flooding events and extreme rainfall events. Property damage, crop loss, loss of bio-diversity and even human life loss was seen. With just the natural disasters that are on the rise, aggravated further by effects of climate change and population explosion, our systems are strained. To top it all now we are faced with a global pandemic, which does not seem to kill as many, but definitely spreads faster than a wild fire (literally). COVID situation is such that the world has never witnessed before and none has an idea what would be a final stopping point of such an outbreak. It is safe to say with the current outbreak data and the growth rate of infections that this situation is definitely here to stay. In the meantime it is hardly going to be a situation that other natural calamities are going to take a pity and ease off. We are just exploring the physical aspects of a compounded disaster and have not even scratched the surface of the socioeconomic disruption the world is going to face in the coming time.
“COVID situation is such that the world has never witnessed before and none has an idea what would be a final stopping point of such an outbreak”
The Curious Case of America:
Why does a compounded disaster become an important factor to consider? Take the United States for example, which is now the new epicenter of COVID outbreak, has now also entered the tornado season and the hurricane season is just around the corner. Weather data and live meteorological models indicate a severe flooding threat for the Mississippi valley and heavy to very heavy rainfall for the areas surrounding.
(Source: https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/ohio/weather-radar)
End of March, also saw an example of this when a tornado hit the eastern parts of state of Arkansas, largely damaging a mall and nearby airport in the city of Jonesboro. What could have been a major event of human damage was averted as the mall was shut given the COVID lock down.
(Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/arkansas-tornado-rips-through-mall-empty-because-of-coronavirus-blessing-in-disguise)
In a normal situation, we would see authorities asking people to take shelter in community centers, schools, or any other type of temporary shelters. This becomes tricky with the social distancing that is preferred for minimizing probability of exposure to the COVID virus. With the pandemic situation upon us where are the people affected by extreme climate to go. Along with shelter, there also remains the problem of having a minimum emergency resources stock piled.
A major problem to be handled in extreme conditions during the collision of calamities is the medical system which includes hospitals, medical supplies, medical professionals, resources. With an already strained system handling a natural calamity as well as virus outbreak will overwhelm the entire system.
The lessons:
The virus pandemic has shown us that delaying action or pretending it can’t happen isn’t the right approach — the time to start planning for these events is now. After analyzing large amount of data of the pandemic outbreak, local conditions that are adding the problems and the current mitigation capacity that is deployed, allocations and action plans also need to be in place if a similar collision of disasters occur. India will soon be in peak of summers followed by monsoons, which lead to almost inevitable flooding in the northern and north-eastern regions. It is predicted that monsoons will arrive as early as May and will be active till end of September. Recently released prediction based on uncalibrated models of the IBM Weather Company suggests a wetter than normal monsoon.
This would mean that all stake holders need to get ready, in terms of safety, disaster mitigation plans, vulnerability indices and even planning for crop harvests, safety of livestock etc. The spectrum of readiness is really very vast and varied. We are already looking at a global pandemic that is not peaking yet and we don’t even know when the peak will arrive. In this situation another adverse weather situation will only worsen the problems. With a densely populated country like India, colliding emergencies will have tremendously amplifies effects on every aspect of life.
What can be done:
Data will play an important role in understanding trends, vulnerable areas, vulnerable communities and overall risks, so that small interventions can be made immediately which will avert or assist any future situation. Agencies will have no choice but to address the current emergency while planning for potential disasters in the future.
There are multiple streams of data related to weather patterns, expected behavior, and predictions available even in the open source. One of the initial actions that can be taken with help of experts is to create baselines of what has transpired in the past and create predictions based on historical learning. Let us for example consider monsoons and flooding situations in India.
The above image shows changes in surface water presences. Using the available Landsat imagery data, this analysis has been built using Google Earth Engine. Red color represents areas, where water is not present currently, or is very seasonal but used to be present in the past, while the green represents presence of water during mostly the entire year. While black represents unchanged situation. This analysis can be used to understand areas that are most vulnerable to submergence in case of flood situation. Observations during the 2019 floods of Begusarai district in Bihar and Barpeta district in Assam prove a very strong co-relation between vulnerable areas and submergence on ground.
Such efforts are just few pieces of the larger puzzle. Analysis needs to be done on many different levels for getting better prepared. In series of blogs that we start with this, we will attempt to answer a few critical questions with respect to the data that will be required for preparing best for the on-coming seasons and situation at hand. We will explore floods and droughts especially for India and the readiness we need to keep during the times of social distancing.
