International Journal of Social Science Tomorrow
Vol. 1 No. 8
Can India Build The Disaster Resilient Communities?
A Case of Andhra Pradesh
Mr.N.Mareswara Rao, PhD, Research Scholar, Department of Political & Public Administration, Andhra
University
Abstract
According to Maplocroft Report (2012) says that the “Natural Hazards Relative Economic Exposure
Index” showed that the emerging economies particularly India and Philippines are the most vulnerable situation
among the top ten countries which face the greatest financial risk from natural disasters. The Maplocrift analysis
also showed that among 197 countries India had fifth rank and that it is at high risk such as huge areas of floods,
droughts, earthquakes and cyclones in the country are undergoing sustained drought, which is having a
significant impact on agricultural outputs. With this background, the paper has attempted to examine that can
India build the disaster resilience communities towards natural hazards preparedness, awareness, coping with
that the clear indicators at the local level in the context of natural disasters.
Keywords: Natural Hazards, Economic Exposure Index, Financial Risks, Disaster Resilience Community,
Preparedness
1. Introduction
In the 21 century Natural disasters are becoming more frequent worldwide and became serious concerns,
because earthquakes, floods, droughts, and other cause tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of
injuries, loss of lives and public property and bringing untold misery to the people, especially those in the rural
areas. Floods are considered as a recurrent phenomenon in many parts of the world, there is a larger economic
impact such as billions of dollars in economic losses, human losses of every each year and as they derail
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economic activities, thus affecting growth around the world (Planning Commission , 2011) . The experiences
gained through recent disasters (Bam Earthquake 2003, Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004, Kashmir Earthquake 2005
and Haiti Earthquake 2009 etc.), and challenges faced by the national and local governments, donors and many
other are thinking about disaster management principles and practices in order to minimize the associated
disaster impacts(Dr. Amnat Barlee)2
According to (Maplaecroft, 2012) 3 Report says that the “Natural Hazards Relative Economic Exposure
Index” says that the emerging economies in Asia, including India and the Philippines are among the top ten
countries which face the greatest financial risk from natural disasters, a new study has claimed. The analysis
showed that among 197 countries India had fifth rank and that it is at risk as huge areas of floods, droughts,
earthquakes and cyclones in the country are undergoing sustained drought, which is having a significant impact
on agricultural outputs. With this background, the paper has attempted to examine that can India build the
disaster resilience communities towards natural hazards preparedness, awareness, coping with explicit indicators
at the local level in the context of natural disasters.
2. Impact of Natural Disasters
According to a study by the United Nations Report( (Heilig, 2012)4, almost 890 million people across the globe
live in cities that are at risk from at least one major natural disaster, including floods, droughts, cyclones, or
earthquakes. Among the 450 urban areas with a population of at least one million in 2011, almost 60% are
exposed to the risk of a natural disaster. Mainly in the large populated areas destroying earthquakes in densely
populated areas and a large number of natural disasters across the world made 2011 the costliest year ever for
natural catastrophes. Last year was deemed to be the most costly 12 months on record for natural disasters,
costing US $380bn (£242bn). The main reason for the spike was the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in
March 2011, which was estimated to have cost US$210bn (Gyananalytics, 2012) 5 .An overview of natural
disaster occurred since 2001 to 2011 chart 1.1
.Chart: 1.1 Natural Disaster Occurrence by Disaster category during 2001-2011
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
363
284
175
138
104
79
1616 2830 2211
2001-10
66
12 4
2011
Sources: Gyananalytics Report (2012)
3. What Makes People and Places Vulnerable?
By the natural Hazarders human being become more vulnerable in the ecosystem. The most obvious factor
contributing to community vulnerability is location or proximity to hazard-prone areas such as coasts,
floodplains, seismic zones, potential contamination sites, and so forth. The physical exposure, described by the
1
Planning Commission . (2011). Report of Working Group on Flood Management and Region Specific Issues for XII Plan.
New Delhi: Planning Commission
2
Dr. Amnat Barlee Public Private Partnership for Disaster Resilience, International workshop held in Austrial,2010
3
Maplaecroft. (2012, August 15). Natural Hazards Risk Atlas. Retrieved September 15, 2012, from http://maplecroft.com:
http://maplecroft.com/about/news/nha_2012.html
4
Heilig, G. K. (2012). World Urbanization Prospects The 2011 Revision. Washington, DC: United Nations, Department of
Economic and Social Affairs
5
Gyananalytics. (2012). Global Natural Disaster Analysis and Economic Impact - 2012. New Delhi: Gyan Research and
Analytics Pvt. Ltd
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characteristics of the initiating event (magnitude, duration, frequency, impact, rapidity of onset), defines the
physical vulnerability of places. For example, communities on barrier islands are more physically vulnerable to
flooding and hurricane-related damages than those inland (Susan L. Cutter, 2008) 6 . Considerable research
efforts within the hazards and disasters community have focused on the delineation and probability of physical
exposure using a combination of statistical and GIS-based modeling approaches (Ramsey, 2001) 7 . Plume
exposure models for hazardous contaminants, storm surge models, numerically based hurricane wind
forecasting, and probabilistic as well as deterministic seismic risk approaches also represent advances in our
understanding of physical process contributing to vulnerability and likely exposure (Hill, 2001)8.
4. The Resilience Approach
The concept of resilience was also applied within ecology, said by (Holling C., 1973)9, when it describe the
ability of an ecosystem to absorb and adapt to change and maintain its existing state of functioning. In the late
1980s, the ecological concept of resilience was applied to understand interactions between people and the
environment (Bureau of Rural Sciences, 2008)10. In this context, the resilience concept was used to recognise
the complexity of community-environment interactions, and the complexity of change. More recently, work on
resilience has also included the social dimensions of change (Janssen & Ostrom, 2006)11.
Resilience is the focus of a large and growing body of research. This work has sought to understand what the
properties are that make a country, community or household resilient, to establish the principles and processes
which strengthen resilience and to build the evidence for what projects and programmes really make people
better able to withstand and recover from disasters. There are many researchers argued that a number of
relevant definitions in the context of natural hazards and disasters (Aditya V. Bahadur, 2010)12
5. Definitions of Disaster Resilience
According to DIFD “Disaster Resilience is the ability of countries, communities and households to manage
change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses - such as earthquakes,
drought or violent conflict - without compromising their long-term prospects” (DFID, 2012)13.
Resilience Definitions

United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction “The ability of a system, community or
society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a
timely and efficient manner”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “The ability of a social or ecological system to absorb
disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for selforganisation, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change”

The Resilience Alliance “The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while
undergoing change”
6. How Resilient is a Country, Community or Household?
The DFID has development that the determining levels of resilience is an important part of understanding the
concept. And most definitions of resilience share four common elements which can be used to do this: context;
disturbance; capacity; and reaction. Together these elements form a resilience framework (see below) which
can be used to examine different kinds of resilience (for example, of growth or of governance systems) and help
determine the level of resilience that exists. The Below figure 1.1 explains
6
Susan L. Cutter, *. L. (2008). Community and Regional Resilience: Perspectives from Hazards, Disasters, and Emergency
Management. Columbia, South Carolina: Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, Department of
Geography,University of South Carolina
7
Ramsey, E. W. (2001). Forest impact estimated with NOAA AVHRR and Landsat TM data related to a predicted hurricane
windfield distribution. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 279–292
8
Hill, A. A. (2001). Methods for determining disaster proneness. In American Hazardscapes:The regionalization of hazards
and disasters. The Joseph Henry Press, 23-25
9
Holling C. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4: 1-23.,
4:1-23
10
Bureau of Rural Sciences. (2008). Assessing a community’s capacity to manage change: A resilience approach to social
assessment. Canberra, ACT 2601 : The Australian Government: Bureau of Rural Sciences
11
Janssen & Ostrom. (2006). Editorial: Resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation: a cross Editorial: Resilience, vulnerability,
and adaptation: a cross Environmental Change. Global Environmental Change, 16: 237-9
12
Aditya V. Bahadur, M. I. (2010). The resilience renaissance? Unpacking of resilience for tackling climate change and
disasters. Brighton BN1 9RE, UK: Institute of Development Studies.
13
DFID. (2012). Defining Disaster Resilience: A DFID Approach Paper. U.K: Department for International Development.
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Figure: 6.1 The Four Elements of a Resilience Framework
Source: Defining Disaster Resilience: A DFID Approach Paper, DFID 2012
The framework above is a simplified representation of the elements to be considered when examining
resilience. In practice the picture is more complex: the response curve could be slow and uneven due to, for
example, the political context, secondary shocks or lack of information. Stresses can be cumulative, building
slowly to become a shock, and both shocks and stresses may result in a number of different reactions14.
7. Literature Review
(Mayunga, 2011)15 explained that importance in his article that the Indian Tsunami in 2004 is the worldwide
evidence of global warming illustrate that communities and people are increasingly becoming more vulnerable
to natural hazards, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005) report estimated that in the last ten years, disasters
affected more than 3 billion people, killed over 750,000 people, and cost more than US$600 billion (Birkmann,
2006)16. This trend of loss of human lives and property damage suggests that our communities are not resilient
enough to natural disasters. Over the past decade, many authors have underscored the need to accommodate the
concept of resilience in research, policy, and disaster risk reduction arenas
(ASHLESHA DATAR, 2011)17 Research report says that “In recent events of 2009, 335 natural disasters were
reported worldwide, killing over 10,000 people and causing damages totaling over 41 billion USD”. They can
result in large-scale death, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that registered a death toll of
well over 150,000 (Liu, 2005)18, and are frequently followed by epidemics (Watson, 2007)19 (Watson, Gayer,
and Connolly, 2007). It is likely that such disasters also result in more indirect, long-term health effects, in
particular on children when they are exposed during critical growth phases. Indeed, adverse conditions in
childhood have been consistently shown to have significant impact on long-term outcomes (Victora, 2008)20
14
Ibid…
Mayunga, J. S. (2011). Understanding and Applying the Concept of Community Disaster Resilience: A capital-based
approach . TX, 77843-3137, USA: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Hazard Reduction &
Recovery Center, Texas A&M University, College
16
Birkmann, J. (2006). Measuring vulnerability to natural hazards: Towards resilience societies. New York: United Nations
University
17
ASHLESHA DATAR, J. L. (2011). The Impact of Natural Disasters on Child Health and Investments in Rural India. Los
Angele, U.S.A: RAND Labor and Population Research Center, University of California
18
Liu, P. (2005). “Observations by the International Tsunami Survey Team in Sri Lanka,”. Science 308(5728), 1595
19
Watson, J. G. (2007). “Epidemics after Natural Disasters,”. Emerging Infectious Diseases 1, 13(1), 1-5
20
Victora, C. G. (2008). “Maternal and child undernutrition: consequences for adult health and human capital,”. Lancet
371(9609), 340–357
15
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7.1 India Disaster Context Analysis
India, due to its physio- geographic conditions, land characteristics and climatic conditions, is one of the most
disaster prone countries in the world, exposed to different kinds of natural hazards. India has witnessed a
number of disasters which claimed several thousands of human lives, rendering millions of people homeless and
causing immense loss to properties of the people India has witnessed a number of disasters which claimed
several thousands of human lives, rendering millions of people homeless and causing immense loss to properties
of the people (Habitaindia, 2011)21. An overview the impact of disaster table no 7.1
Table: 7.1 Natural Disasters from 1980 – 2010 S.NoDisaster Happened place
Years
1 Uttarkashi Earthquake
1991
2 Killani Earthquake
1993
3 Latur Earthquake in Maharashtra 1993
4 Koyama Earthquake
1997
5 Chamoli Earthquake in Uttarakhand 1999
6 Super Cyclone in Orissa
1999
7 Bhuj Earthquake
2001
8 Indian Ocean Tsunami
2004
9 Kashmir Earthquake
2005
10 Barmer Floods in Rajasthan
2006
11 Kosi Floods in Bihar
2008
12 Cyclone Aila in West Bengal
2009
13 Cyclone Alaila in Andhra Pradesh 2009
14 Cloudburst in Leh in
2010
15 Thane cyclne in Tamil Nadu
2011
16 Pondicherry
2011
Sources: Habitaindia Report 2011
Table:7.2 Major Disasters that struck the country in the recent decades:
S.No
Particulars
Impact
1
No times
431
2
No of people killed
143,039
3
Average killed per year
143,039
4
No of people affected
1,521,726,127
5
Average affected per year
49,087,940
6
Economic Damages(US $X 1,000
48,063,830
7
Economic Damage for Year(US $ 1,000)
1,550,446
Sources: Habitaindia Report 2011
8. Indian Disaster Policy
India has also shown the path to the world for starting disaster management education from middle and high
school. This generation of middle and high school students will make probably near revolution in community
based disaster management, which is the only proven method of disaster management; and it is hoped that India
would be world leader in disaster management. Probably casting legal duty on citizens for providing help during
disasters would also make India leading the way.
There is paradigm shift in India from reactive approach of responding and calamity relief after the disaster to
proactive approach of disaster prevention, preparedness, and mitigation. The enactment of Disaster Management
Act, 2005, establishment of National Disaster Management Authority with the Prime Minister as its
Chairperson, and disaster management training by the National Institute of Disaster Management along with the
Disaster Management Cells of the state Administrative Training Institutes will help in India becoming disaster
resilient. The India Disaster Report (Parsuraman and Unikrishnan 2000) 22 provides the nature of disaster
response by the government of India. It identifies key issues with respect to the availability of and access to
disaster-related information and its quality, the absence of coherent disaster preparedness and response policy,
21
Habitaindia. (2011, May 17). Disasters in India. Retrieved from http://habitatindia.in: http://habitatindia.in/disasterresponse/disaster-in-india/
22
Parasuraman, S and P. V. Unnikrishnan (Eds.). 2000. India Disaster Report: Towards A Policy Initiative. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press
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and urgent actions and interventions needed. It shows that significant advances in health and social and
economic development have been repeatedly interrupted and reversed by disasters.
India has been following five year national plans, although they are not on a rolling basis. The earlier five year
plans did not mention disaster management. The Tenth Five-Year Plan 2002-2007 for the first time had a
detailed chapter entitled Disaster Management: The Development Perspective. The plan emphasized the fact
that development cannot be sustainable without mitigation being built into the development process. Disaster
mitigation and prevention were adopted as essential component of the development strategy.
9. Methodology
Research methodology into the characteristics of a safe and resilient community is based on both secondary and
primary data sources. Qualitative research methods included participatory methods (PRA) involving focus group
discussions and key informants at village level trough direct observations among community members. The key
informants are village presidents, women Self-Help Group heads of communities, farmer group, ward members,
and other opinion leaders. These informants are privileged to know the communities very well. The information
collected was to ascertain the present status of disaster preparedness and the traditional disaster practiced and its
continuation, people’s perception about climate change issues etc. Considerable time was devoted on assessing
the potential of traditional practices to adapt to climatic risks.
A thorough study of the available literature were done from the books, research papers, journals, governmental
organization report and other international agencies working in disaster related issues. From the study, a number
of articles and paper were collected which were relevant to the work being done for the study.
9.1 Sample Design
The purpose of the study is to assess how India building the resilient communities is prepared for managing the
disaster. In order to obtain the representative information from the effected coastal area communities, a survey
was done. For the study, the researcher selected 15 coastal villages selected with 200 households and conducted
focus group discussions in the communities across costal flooding areas in East Godavari and of Andhra
Pradesh. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection and has several components, social resilience,
economic resilience, physical resilience and institutional resilience with direct relevance to measure the
vulnerability as well as resilience. These communities were purposively selected because to be representative of
the diversity across the AP.
9.3 Target Group
In this study the researcher divided into groups and collects the information on capacity building for disaster
preparedness through a common questionnaire to measures for addressing those problems through in-depth
discussions.
The selection of groups was as follows:

Village Presidents

Self-Help-Group in those villages

Village Farmer Groups

Village community leaders(caste wise)
10. Objectives





To examine the general definitional issues of the concept of resilience with a focus on community disaster
resilience.
To reviews the frameworks that are currently used to measure community resilience.
to review the existing resilient community programmes in India
To evaluates the existing methods that are used to develop resilience indices in Andhra Pradesh
To identifying gaps in knowledge to help shape future research and improve Resilient Community
programmes in Andhra Pradesh
11. Andhra Pradesh Situation Analysis
11.1 Major Issues
Major Climate Change issues for the Andhra Pradesh arise in the agriculture sector and for the long coastline.
Agriculture is severely affected by variability in rainfall and temperature patterns, while rising sea levels and
extreme events of marine origin, such as cyclones pose problems for the coastal areas. Besides these, other
critical areas of concern are food security, increasing number of climate vulnerable habitats (like slums or
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village dwellings) and climate vulnerable infrastructure (like roads and bridges which may be washed away by
floods).
11.2 Coastal Area
Andhra Pradesh is one of the six States/ U.Ts of India adjoining the Bay of Bengal with a coastline of 974 km
and continental shelf area of 33,227 sq. km. The average width of the productive continental shelf area is 32 km
with rich pelagic and demersal fisheries. The continental shelf area narrows from north to south. Critical sectoral
concerns related to climate change in coastal region are identified below:




More than 103 cyclones have affected AP this century, of which 31 were severe cyclones. Scientific
prediction says that both frequency and severity of cyclones will go up due to CC.
East Coast is considered to be one of the most cyclone prone areas of the world. An analysis of A.P the
frequencies of cyclones on the East and West coasts of India during 1891- 1990 shows that nearly 262
cyclones occurred (92 severe) in a 50 km wide strip on the East Coast.
In coastal Andhra Pradesh, huge requirement of water for aquaculture and lack of irrigation facilities have
caused dependence on groundwater, reportedly resulting in seawater intrusion.
Out of 31.57 million people from coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, approximately 2.9 million are
vulnerable to cyclones. According to an estimate by the Department of Disaster Management,
Government of Andhra Pradesh, about 44 percent of the State is vulnerable to tropical storms and related
hazards.
There is an increase in average earth temperature and corresponding increased sea-surface temperature, resulting
in further volumetric expansion of sea surface leading to build up of more frequent and intensified cyclonic
activity and associated storm surges in the coastal zone (A.P Government, 2011)23. The following table provides
the record of maximum height of storm surges experienced by various coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh.
1. Cyclones: Along Andhra Pradesh coast, the section between Nizampatnam and Machilipatnam is most
prone to storm surges. Andhra Pradesh coast between Ongole and Machilipatnam is recognized as vulnerable to
high surges among the segments of the east coast. The severity of the cyclone and storm surge is expected to
increase as a consequence of climate change.
An analysis of the frequencies of cyclones on the East of India during 1891- 1990 shows that nearly 262
cyclones occurred (92 severe) in a 50 km wide strip on the East Coast the recorded frequency of cyclones per
year along the Bay of Bengal is four and inevitably one of the four transforms into a severe cyclone causing
human and property losses Severe cyclones have become common events occurring every two to three years.
Out of 31.57 million people living in the coastal districts of AP, approximately 2.9 million are vulnerable to
cyclones, Loss of lives and livestock is compounded by the loss of agricultural crops. While the nine coastal
districts of Andhra Pradesh are severely vulnerable to cyclonic storms and damages resulting due to cyclones,
agricultural crop losses could be devastating.
2. Floods: Floods by nature depend on several factors; one being incessant rains, cyclonic rains in a short
period of time crippling natural drainage. However, other factors such as nature of the collecting basin, nature of
the streams, type of soil, natural and man-made vegetation, amount of rainfall etc. determine the type and extent
of floods. The Godavari and the Krishna rivers have well-defined stable courses; their natural and manmade
banks are capable of carrying flood discharges with the exception of their delta areas. Floods often caused by
unplanned growth, improper upkeep of drainage systems and mismanagement of discharges from dams though
they are erroneously thought to be always of natural origin 24.
23
A.P Government. (2011). State Action Plan on Climate Change for Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad: Government of Andhra
Pradesh
24
Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Andhra Pradesh and C.S.O., New Delhi
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Graph: 11.1 Flood hazard map of the State
Source: A.P State Report on Climate Change
3. Droughts: Revenue (Relief) Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh defines drought as a condition
arising out of scarce rainfall. Central Water Commission defines drought as a situation occurring when the
annual rainfall is less than 75% of the normal (defined over 30 years average). Drought is a normal, recurrent
feature of climate. It occurs in virtually all climatic zones, but its characteristics vary significantly from one
region to another. Andhra Pradesh has historically been prone to drought like conditions especially in
Rayalaseema, Telangana, parts of Andhra region and has been third highest drought prone State after Rajasthan
and Karnataka55 says Andhra Pradesh revenue Department,2010.
.
4. Heat Waves: A heat wave is a climatologically extreme event involving abnormally higher temperature
relative to normal during the months of April-June. During the year 2003 (between May and June) heat wave
conditions in Andhra Pradesh claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Graph: 11.2 Vulnerability Maps
Coastal Vulnerability Index and risk levels of different segments of AP coast
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12. Implementing Disaster Resilience programmes in Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh wants to build a disaster resilient state by taking a holistic proactive policy and would like to
involve all agencies government, non-government as well as the community. From the point of view of
preparedness, the state has got a fairly good institutional set up at various levels. Early warning and
dissemination system is in place. There are contingency plans for various disasters at various levels, and there is
prevention and mitigation infrastructure in the development plan and a lot of emphasis has been laid on capacity
building. The high power committee headed by the Chief Secretary reviews the preparedness twice a year, once
before the Southwest monsoon and another time before the North-East monsoon as well as before the primary
month for cyclones i.e. November. Similar exercise is being done at the district, regional and the mandal level
(A.P Government, 2011)25.
12.1 Dissemination Information
A hundred digital cyclone warning dissemination systems have been installed in the nine coastal districts. Here,
satellite phones are installed and under the community based disaster risk management programme, 180 VHF
sets have also been installed in 180 vulnerable villages. There is a contingency plan for cyclone, flood,
earthquake as well as a handbook for the management of drought. Similarly each department has got cyclone as
well as the flood contingency plan for their respective department.
Talking of infrastructure, 1,136 cyclone shelters have been created and are maintained by the Gram Panchayats.
In the non-cyclone period they are used as schools, anganwadi centres, fair price shops and community centres.
The construction of 163 more cyclone shelters has been proposed. There has been a lot of emphasis on banking
of flood prone areas and also improvement in the drainage system in the Krishna and Godavari delta.
There are four sub-committees on flood, urban floods, cyclone and restructuring of the fire and emergency
department. Guidelines on cyclone and restructuring of the fire and emergency service department have been
prepared. Some of the issues that need to be addressed need proper planning and the planners will have to sit
together. There is a Calamity Relief Fund, 10 per cent of which is used as mitigation relief fund and the rest is
for response fund. There is need to stress more on community participation to Andhra Pradesh a real disaster
resilient state (Nageswara Rao, 2008)26.
13. Data Analysis and Results
The analysis is based on both secondary and primary data. Primary data was collected from the key informants
and community members by conducting focus group discussion through checklists. Those involve in the study
almost had faced problem once in their life’s about disaster. As the place is highly prone to natural disaster due
to its geographical location, the groups were well aware of the natural disaster. The groups feel that the most
likely form of disaster associated with the place is landslide follow by floods, earthquake, and drought.
13.1 Community Resilience in the Context of Disasters
In the present days, community trends were changed that the majority 78 percent of the respondents acting as
an individual, they don’t have collective action, and also due to lack of community relations with village
presidents as well as village community leaders(caste wise), women self-help-groups with farmers groups and
older to younger’s and children to younger’s. Therefore, several capacities of the communities are not in
effective such as economic development, social capital, and community Building community resilience to cope
with change characterized by hazards and disasters.
The researcher came of know that community resilience is the very worst conditions and not able to bounce
back , not able recover using its own resources. The research noticed that resilience is not able to operate at
several independent levels, e.g., individual and community.
The analysis showed that the awareness on disaster management among those category of respondents. Out of
200 sample respondents villages presidents have 53 percent level of awareness on disaster management, while
the least only 10 per cent level of awareness among community leaders(caste wise) and 23 per cent level of
awareness on disaster management among SHGs in those villages, whereas 14 per cent of the awareness on
disaster management among village farmer groups. However, due to lack of awareness majority of the
communities not preparedness and not able copping with floods, earthquake and other natural hazards.
Understand the risk perception behaviors of whose group people in two different villages, which are strikingly
different in seismic behavior. Therefore, the preparedness and copping with earthquake hazards in the research
25
Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Andhra Pradesh and C.S.O., New Delhi
Nageswara Rao, K. S. (2008). Sea-level rise and coastal vulnerability: an assessment of Andhra Pradesh coast, India
through remote sensing and GIS. Vol.12, 195-207
26
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area very risk level. Due to lack of government programmes, due to lack of capacity building towards disaster
resilience.
The researcher found that the communities identified a wide range of different shocks and stresses that affected
them including natural hazards, socio-economic and heath related issues. This highlighted the diversity of
challenges facing communities and the importance of comprehensively understanding these threats when
developing programmes to address safety and resilience.
14. Vulnerability Analysis
The vulnerability has been analyzed both at the community. Most of them don’t have any disaster home plan
and family disaster plan except few of the members of the group. There is lack of knowledge on the group’s
members about the community condition and resident of the community. The groups as a whole have poor
knowledge on the governmental and other services available following a natural disaster and they are not well
prepared to meet disaster in case of it occurs anytime in the locality or community.
The results revealed that the community is vulnerable to earthquake hazards in the future irrespective of the
sectors and the household vulnerability is high in selected area. The descriptive statistics also revealed that both
the social, physical and economic drivers are contributing to the household vulnerability of seismic hazards in
the area.
Those involve in the study almost know about disaster and half of them even experience it also. As the place is
highly prone to natural disaster due to its geographical location, the groups were well aware of the natural
disaster. The groups feel that the most likely form of disaster associated with the place is landslide follow by
earthquake. The groups strongly feels that mock drill is very much essential for making people aware on how to
cope up at the time of disasters. Most of them don’t have any disaster home plan and family disaster plan except
few of the members of the group. There is lack of knowledge on the group’s members about the community
condition and resident of the community. The groups as a whole have poor knowledge on the governmental and
other services available following a natural disaster and they are not well prepared to meet disaster in case of it
occurs anytime in the locality or community which are strikingly different in seismic behavior. The agriculture
farmers, community leaders, and SHGs were mostly not concern about the disaster and they are the people who
suffered most during the disaster.
15. Conclusion
Determining an appropriate analysis for community disaster resilience is critically important but often tricky.
This is because resilience can be measured at all levels such as individual, household, group, community, or
society level. However, it has been argued that the village level analysis should be chosen based on where local
decisions are invested, that is where community mitigation measures and risk reduction strategies are directed.
The village level analysis can also be chosen based on the fact that will provide both meaningful and adequate
disaster resilience information that can influence policy and mitigation measures. Advance planning and
regulation must remain as a continuous and comprehensive plan. Disasters are natural forces difficult to tackle
but awareness and preparedness to face the calamity will help solve the magnitude of the problems. The people
at large must be well aware of the occurrence of disaster. Preparedness for disaster can be the only effective
means.
15.1 Challenges of Disaster Resilience Community
Indian central and state governments are accountable to make preparedness through capacity building for
disaster resilience communities. The alert of international reports, India have to make for free disaster resilience
communities with implementing innovative technological programmes .In the face of climate change, increasing
resource scarcity, and food price volatility, governments can and must do more to build the resilience of their
populations.
16. Suggested Applicable Strategies
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Indian government must focus and give priority and invest in agriculture to improve infrastructure, extend
access to productive resources, and ultimately to increase food production and incomes in rural
communities where hunger is concentrated.
Use of biotechnology in agriculture
Climate related risk management for the agro sector
Access to information
Improved agricultural Irrigation and practices with a special focus on dry land
Increased frequency and intensity of cyclones/ storm or floods
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International Journal of Social Science Tomorrow
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Vol. 1 No. 8
Continuing capacity building on Disaster Resilience
Finally India need to prepare proper plans and adequately budget to adapt that will help to deliver the better
results. For example, improving crop storage can help meet the sustainable production challenge, while
strengthening safety nets and ensuring equitable access to land can help contribute to the equity challenge.
Scaling up social protection systems is another crucial strategy in the government tool box. Cash transfer
programmes, employment guarantee schemes, weather-indexed crop insurance, and social pensions – all can
help vulnerable population’s better cope with shocks. Yet today, 80 per cent of the world’s population lack
access to social protection of any kind – leaving them without a safety net just as risks is multiplying.
Mr.N.Mareswara Rao,
PhD, Research Scholar,
Department of Political & Public Administration,
Andhra University
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