Environmental knowledge for hydro-meteorological disaster management: Capacity development in disaster risk management

Poor understanding of the environment – its structure, function, resources, especially at the level of planners and policy makers, have resulted in increasing frequency and intensity of hazards in nature. Understanding of the environment, its processes and resources are important for the early detection of hydro-meteorological hazards, prediction of disaster risk and scenarios and in evolving mechanisms for effective mitigation and response strategies. Concerns for environmental protection have gained momentum due to their importance in livelihood security, climate-change adaptation, vulnerability reduction, and post-disaster relief, recovery and reconstruction aspects of disaster management.

The recent cooperation of the National Institute of Disaster management and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH under the aegis of the Advisory Services in Environmental Management (ASEM) programme in India, focuses on three main aspects, viz. climate-change, natural resources and land-use changes as drivers  of hydro-meteorological risks and associated vulnerabilities.

The ‘Environmental Knowledge for Disaster Risk Management (ekDRM)’ project aims at capacity development in disaster risk management by advancing environmental knowledge, particularly the use of statistics and space technology including remote sensing & GIS for decision support systems (DSS); spatial planning for Na-tech disasters within the multi-hazard framework of disaster risk management;environmental & natural resource legislation; role of EIA in disaster mitigation and post-disaster recovery; environmental services especially shelter, water & sanitation, waste management; and natural resource management for disaster risk reduction.