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Erschienen in:
2014 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel
6. Risk and Vulnerability Assessment: Experience of Nepal
verfasst von : Amod M. Dixit
Erschienen in: Civil Society Organization and Disaster Risk Reduction
Verlag: Springer Japan
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Abstract
Located at the boundary of Indian and Tibetan plates, Nepal faces high level of seismic hazard. Seismic risk of the country is also extremely high because of rapid urbanization, prevalence of non-engineered constructions, poor implementation of building code, low level of earthquake awareness among the creators of vulnerabilities and, a gradual decay of indigenous knowledge and wisdom on earthquake resistant constructions. Kathmandu Valley is estimated to be one of the most at-risk cities in the world in terms of potential human casualty. Unfortunately, the risk is growing. Main source of earthquake risk is poor performance of buildings that are largely non-engineered. Although Nepal had a rich tradition of earthquake resistant constructions evidenced by numerous historic monuments and heritage buildings in the valley, the risk is continuously increasing which fact has become a global concern.
To address the problem, Nepalese professionals and agencies have developed methodologies of earthquake risk assessment and have successfully implemented, in collaboration with international development partners, several initiatives on earthquake risk reduction. School Earthquake Safety Program including seismic retrofitting of school buildings, efforts towards pubic private partnership for earthquake preparedness including promotion of business continuity planning, development of earthquake damage scenarios and corresponding action plan for risk management, and development of risk sensitive land use planning are some of the innovative initiatives being implemented in the country. The results of these initiatives are encouraging, Nepal has witnessed a significant improvement in community awareness and perception of earthquake risk, and the perspective of earthquake risk reduction appears very promising in terms of cost efficiency, and socio-economic and technical feasibilities.
Serious challenges identified are the problem in scaling up of successes and institutionalization of the achievements made so far. Further, ensuring sustainability of the efforts, especially at the local levels, and ensuring comprehensiveness of earthquake risk management actions in order to support the efforts being made towards meeting the development aspirations of the people and betterment of their livelihoods also are the challenges.