Disaster Prevention

Prevention was recently added to the phases of disaster management. Honestly, I was still occasionally baffled also to define whether one action includes in the category of prevention or category of mitigation. I definitely think that the basic difference, mitigation is actions or steps to reduce the impact of disaster/reduce the risk while prevention is for preventing the event to be happened/ how to avoid hazards and related disaster. I expect there may be readers of this paper can provide feedback or criticism to add to our knowledge.

We know that not all disasters, particularly natural disasters can be prevented, but the risk of lost or injury can be reduced with good evacuation plan, environmental planning, etc.

Back to the case of floods in Jakarta-Indonesia occurred in early 2013. We may still remember that at the time, the government of Indonesia in that case, the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB) and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) conducted weather-modification by cloud-seeding efforts. This is an example of prevention of floods, BNPB & BPPT preventing the formation of clouds and rain outside flood-prone areas in Greater Jakarta.

Other example is relocation of local communities from landslide-prone areas. This is considered as prevention action also the government’s efforts to maintain soil structure that does not change in the event of heavy rains or earthquakes by reclamation or hard-tree planting.

Prohibition or regulations of the government to not build a home or residential in disaster-prone areas are also included in the category of prevention.

Our efforts in everyday life, such as not littering, cleaning drains / sewer in our residential area can be considered as prevention of floods and infectious diseases.

Disasters prevention is very important, and should be done continuously and sustained by all of us.

Therefore, in January 2005 during the World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe, Hyogo-Japan, 168 countries agreed to adopt a 10-year global plan for natural disaster risk reduction called the Hyogo Framework for Action. It offers guiding principles, priorities for action, and practical means for achieving disaster resilience for vulnerable communities.

Disaster Mitigation

We have seen before that disaster mitigation is the action or steps taken to reduce the impact of disasters.

We may still remember about floods occurred in Jakarta-Indonesia in early 2013. Water flooded into several Jakarta neighborhoods, even the city center and Presidential Palace complex. Torrential rain has caused West flood canal dike collapse and river overflowed. According to experts, flooding should not occur due to high rainfall intensity. Learned from this experience, the governor of DKI Jakarta has declared and committed to making a “breakthrough” in efforts to tackle the flooding. Actions and commitments which have been taken by the governor of DKI Jakarta called disaster mitigation or we can called as a prevention as well (the terms prevention and mitigation are sometimes used interchangeably in casual cases).

From the above example with the amount of losses, we can see that the mitigation is essential to be done by all respective parties.

Disaster mitigation measures maybe structural (for example: flood dike) and/or non-structural (for example: land use zoning).

Here are some examples of structural disaster mitigation (the terms prevention and mitigation are sometimes used interchangeably in this case because the complete avoidance of losses is not feasible and the task transforms to that of mitigation) :

1. Disaster mitigation for floods includes building flood dikes, infiltration wells, revitalization of the drainage system, river normalization, etc.
2. Disaster mitigation for landslides includes make a surface trench in the ground, concrete diaphragm walls, soil anchors, ground improvement, etc.
3. Disaster mitigation for earthquake includes designing earthquake resistant structures, seismic evaluation of building and its component, improving earthquake resistance of existing buildings and infrastructure facilities, etc.
4. Disaster mitigation for drought includes building dams and their associated reservoirs supply additional water in terms of drought, desalination of sea water for irrigation, building canals or redirecting rivers as attempt at irrigation in drought-prone areas.

Here are some examples of structural disaster mitigation (the terms prevention and mitigation are sometimes used interchangeably in this case because the complete avoidance of losses is not feasible and the task transforms to that of mitigation) :

1. Disaster risks and/or hazard mapping.
2. Enforcement of land use and zoning practices.
3. Disasters mitigation public awareness programs.
4. Developing national data on medical resources, etc.

Mitigasi Bencana

Kita telah melihat sebelumnya bahwa mitigasi bencana adalah tindakan atau langkah-langkah yang dilakukan untuk mengurangi dampak dari bencana.

Mungkin masih segar di ingatan kita akan banjir yang terjadi di Jakarta pada awal tahun 2013. Banjir tersebut cukup merata hampir di seluruh wilayah Jakarta, dari perkampungan hingga kompleks Istana Kepresidenan pun kebanjiran. Curah hujan yang cukup tinggi membuat sungai dan waduk meluap. Tanggul pun jebol karena tak mampu menampung banyaknya air. Menurut para ahli, banjir seharusnya tidak terjadi karena intensitas hujan yang tinggi, lalu pertanyaan adalah kenapa Jakarta menjadi “langganan” banjir? Belajar dari pengalaman banjir tersebut, Gubernur Provinsi DKI Jakarta pun segera mengambil tindakan serta langkah-langkah untuk mengatasi / mengurangi dampak banjir yang “biasanya” selalu terjadi di Jakarta. Yang dilakukan oleh Gubernur DKI Jakarta itulah yang dinamakan dengan mitigasi bencana atau bisa juga dikatakan sebagai tindakan pencegahan.

Dari contoh banjir di atas dengan jumlah kerugian yang dialami, kita bisa menilai bahwa mitigasi sangat penting dilakukan oleh semua pihak yang berkepentingan.

Tindakan atau langkah-langkah mitigasi bencana bisa dilakukan secara struktural (misalnya membuat waduk) atau non-struktural (misalnya penggunaan zonasi lahan).

Berikut adalah beberapa contoh mitigasi bencana (yang dalam beberapa hal bisa juga masuk dalam kategori pencegahan) secara struktural:

1. Mitigasi untuk banjir antara lain dengan membuat waduk, sumur serapan, revitalisasi sistem drainase, normalisasi sungai, dan sebagainya.
2. Mitigasi untuk tanah longsor antara lain membuat parit di permukaan tanah, membuat beton dinding diafragma, membuat jangkar tanah, perbaikan tanah, dan sebagainya.
3. Mitigasi untuk gempa bumi antara lain merancang struktur bangunan yang tahan gempa, evaluasi seismik bangunan dan komponennya, meningkatkan ketahanan gempa untuk bangunan  yang ada serta fasilitas infrastruktur, dan sebagainya.
4. Mitigasi untuk kekeringan antara lain membuat bendungan dan waduk untuk bisa memasok air tambahan pada musim kering, desalinasi air laut, membuat kanal atau mengarahkan air sungai sebagai sumber irigasi di daerah rawan kekeringan, dan sebagainya.

Berikut adalah beberapa contoh mitigasi (dalam beberapa hal bisa masuk juga dalam kategori pencegahan) non-struktural:

1. Pemetaan resiko bencana atau ancaman bahaya.
2. Meningkatkan upaya penggunaan lahan dan zonasi.
3. Program peningkatan kesadaran masyarakat untuk mitigasi bencana.
4. Membuat data nasional tentang sumber daya medis, dan sebagainya.