Disaster Resilience Through Local Economic Activity - Research Paper Example

Disaster Resilience Through Local Economic Activity Introduction Due to the frequency and intensity of disasters in small and rural airports such as earthquakes and plane crash, majorly natural disasters or anthropogenic disasters, disaster resilience has gained significance as a pivotal conceptual approach in building capacity in such rural economy in order to respond to the disaster and recover from its impacts. Transport economy acknowledges that the society’s core values cannot be wholly protected every time and that various disruptions are likely to occur. Therefore there is an intense and urgent need to learn to manage and adapt to the risks in such a way to minimize their impact and build resilience. In globalizing our airport transport, the environment of rural airports is found to be shaped by a mix of dynamic emerging and continuing opportunities and challenges. Technological innovations have also brought about a wide range of new threats, which inevitably add to the intensity and frequency of freak events of weather. Natural disasters, organized crimes and pandemics make it impossible to address all identified factors that put rural airports, their economy and their community at risk, hence the need for disaster recovery and risk resilience (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2009). Disaster recovery is the procedure, policy or process related to preparation for recovery and technological infrastructure continuation which is significant to an organization after an anthropogenic or natural disaster occurs. It involves keeping all business functioning aspects active in the midst of disruptive events. Technology systems supporting the functions of the business are emphasized to ascertain the continuity of businesses, in this case private airports and small or rural airports. This paper hence seeks to discuss the emergency response effort directed to a major aircraft mishap of local small airports and private airports. Although airports authorities and aerodrome puts in place measures in order to ensure preparedness to emergencies, the measures still remain elusive. This is supported by the fact that most small and rural airports fail to undertake regular drills, have limited stakeholder collaboration, limited participation and community involvement, inadequate resources such as medical aid and marine rescue, and much insufficiencies and inadequacies on regulation adherence. Even though small and private airports are normally prepared for some emergencies in various aspects, they still need to do much. Subsequently, in order to enhance risk resilience and disaster preparedness and recovery, the airports need to allocate more resources, conduct continuous public and staff awareness trainings, undertake regular drills, address staff welfare concerns, strengthen interagency coordination, ensure adherence to set standards and regulations, decentralize decision making, improve navigation, and establish aerodrome owned marine unit (Scalingi, 2007). The primary goal of emergency response efforts in airports is to promote and foster the establishment and development of efficient, safe, environmentally compatible, and dependable air transportation system. However, the multimodal and interconnected systems including aviation are still vulnerable to various natural risks and disasters. For example, it is estimated that there is a 99 percent chance of earthquake experience in California within the next 30 years. It is therefore expected that the airports of such like states play a critical role in disaster recovery and response efforts. Today, majority of transportation disaster planning focus on restoration of surface transport systems, however, the relationship between surface transport and airports is very crucial during disaster recovery phase, this is due the alternate usage by passengers, for example destinations that can be reached via surface transport and air transport, passengers can choose to go by planes or vehicle, hence both systems need adequate disaster recovery systems (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2009). There is no particular coordinated statewide or regional plan of disaster recovery that describes the coordination of air and role of airports in major disaster response. This has brought the obvious need to discuss the disaster recovery in small and rural airports that are prone to experience disasters and ultimate loss of lives. According to the U.S Department of Homeland Security, it is important to ensure resiliency of risks and disaster to the security of the nation, economic vitality, public safety and health, and the way of life. Any particular disaster can disrupt significantly airport transportation and therefore needs to be addressed and treated with urgency. In the business involving airports, one needs to be ready for anything. Channels of communication are very important. Failure of network diversity can lead to an occurrence of disaster, for example when pilots cannot communicate to the navigators at the destination. Small and rural airports all over the world are very vulnerable and susceptible to climatic change impacts. For example, rising temperatures, sea levels and changes in precipitation puts airport operations and infrastructure at risks, for example, cloudy weather may impair vision of the pilots and lead to plane crush. Small airports therefore need to address this fast and urgently and create sustainability benefits in the process. The question therefore is what should be done to make small and rural airports more resilient? As expected, it is recommended that one looks at the problem holistically, and coordinate national, regional and international strategies. One is also expected to look beyond the infrastructure into institutional and information systems and knowledge (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2009). How then can small/ rural and private airports be made resilient? In order to address the risk resilience and disaster recovery in small or rural airports and private airports, the airport authorities need to implement the strategies that are likely to make airports more resilient such as follows: Educating travelers, staff, and the surrounding residents on what should be done during a disaster Communicating effectively to staff and travelers about any extreme event Setting up measures of business continuity and back up plans that support operations of the airports Building up an airport infrastructure design that accounts for potential climate change consequences Having business models that fund the incentivize long term preparedness, planning and prevention of disaster (Scalingi, 2007) Small and private airports have been made ready for disasters in many states. Several programs such as Get Airports Ready for Disaster (GARD) have been established by UNDP and Deutsche Post DHL in 2010 in order to ensure small and rural airports are risk resilient. Such programs are developed to address the challenges that local airport officials face during disaster recovery. The programs help in developing contingency plans in order to accommodate disaster relief operations and coordinate any incoming emergency supply. Local airport officials are trained on disaster recovery measures and emergency response after disaster strikes. The major focus is therefore to build the capacity of rural airports to establish contingency relief plans. Such training programs are based particularly on on-site assessment in order to provide base line knowledge on the capability of airports to handle relief operations of disasters. UNDP and Deutsche Post DHL provide GARD standards to local airports and operation templates and procedures to roll out the training further across the rural and small airports. The major aim of trainings in risk resilience and disaster recovery is to ensure local airports own their plans for disaster management once the local airport officials have been trained. The capability of a local airport to coordinate an effective disaster recovery and response is facilitated if there are contingency disaster plans put in place (Stapelberg, 2009). The private airport sector as well as the rural airport requires effective measures in order to become more resilient and recover from a disaster. An entire society approach is needed because it will help in facilitating and enhancing the disaster resilience of local and private airports. This is important because the society as a whole will be able to benefit from disaster recovery initiatives planned together with the airport authorities. This kind of approach should be based on collaborative partnerships and involvement across all government levels, the civil society organizations and communities, the non-government sector, and business including small and medium enterprises. As such, the development and establishment of involvement and partnerships should be encouraged with the public and private sector in all phases of airport disaster management. Strategic mechanisms, frameworks, and approaches for working with the locals and private sector should be established, developed and strengthened in order to achieve disaster resilience. The primary aim is to facilitate and enhance the capability of both the local airports and the private airports to effectively respond to and recover from risks and disasters. Very crucial to building of disaster resilience include regular information sharing, practical exercises, and emergency planning (Kolluru and Smith, 2009). Managing risks and disasters in small, rural and private airports may not be an easy task, and therefore partnering with the stakeholders and involving the community may be pivotal in building disaster resilience and responses to emergency. The community involvement and local and private partnerships need to be based on clearly assigned roles and shared responsibilities and tasks that have the private airports engaged as a funding source of disaster management, but for use of expertise and core competencies in building community resilience and managing disaster and emergencies in the airports. There should be an enhancement of sharing best practices and platforms for regular dialogue as well as the lessons learned in order to raise further awareness of the potential of community involvement and local private airport partnership, and aid in establishing safe and responsible practices. The already existing programs need to be leveraged, identified, and built upon in order to ensure cost-effectiveness and avoid duplication in the management of disaster recovery and emergency response in rural and private airports. Therefore, the partnership between local airports and private airports that aims at building disaster resilience need to be seen as a long learning journey in which mistakes are inevitable, rectified and learned from. Hence, to ensure effective disaster resilience in both local airports and private airports, the officials of such airports need to be open to innovative and new ways of working as a team, together, in order to allow for flexibility in managing disasters and emergencies as they are anticipated or occur, and thereafter respond to their respective impacts on airport business (Kolluru and Smith, 2009). Small and rural airports are hence encouraged to maximise the opportunities arising from partnerships that are established during a disaster. The best practice is to establish partnership before a disaster and aim to strengthen and build longer term collaborative engagement with such partners in responding to emergencies and building disaster resilience. Risk resilience and disaster recovery requires collaboration that allows the local airports and the private airports to better understand, establish and develop capacities for disaster risk preventions and reduction. The two collaborates need to develop a process for assessing the collaboration effectiveness and both parties agree on the mechanisms of addressing risk resilience and disaster recovery in case of any extreme event, this is important because it brings about harmonizes the interest of both parties. Other small and medium enterprises, nongovernmental organizations and companies should be integrated and encouraged since they play a significant role in building livelihoods of the locals, thus contribute to disaster recovery and risk resilience of local communities. Surprisingly, women play a vital role in disaster recovery. This is due to the fundamental role they play in maintaining and building the ability of community and livelihoods for preparation, mitigations, response and recovery from disasters. Women should therefore be allowed to nurture and build the livelihoods of the communities that are affected by any occurrence of disaster to the nearby residence (Frost, 2008). Small, rural and private airports exist and are located within residential areas. Many people live around such airports and therefore in addressing disaster management, they should be part and parcel of the discussion as they are likely to e affected by any disaster in case of extreme event occurrence. Therefore there is need for community education and to build local capacity as a key element in disaster resilient building. The stakeholders of the local airports as well as the private airports should play an active role in such attempts and efforts. The role of volunteers ad nongovernment organizations as well as the degree to which community and business contribute to building disaster response and resilience, must be recognized and integrated. Such organizations training and educating communities on disaster resilience should be staffed and fully funded, and not rely basically on the personality or good will based leadership. This is because long term success is only established via adequate and consistent funding, dedication of the required resources and staff. This will ensure the community is well aware of the likelihood of disasters and risks, and therefore prepare adequately for any extreme event in their locality (Handmer and Choong, 2006). The local airports and private airports probably have different mechanism and characteristics in handling disasters or building risk resilience because of the differences in their management structures and bureaucracies within their organizations. However, the two should be flexible in their approaches in order to incorporate better the regional risks, opportunities, political situations, and any other unique factor that may be associated with disasters. This enables the local airports and private airports to put focus on the funding and resources where either can make the most effect or impact. Government too has a role to play in risk resilience and disaster recovery in small and rural airports and private airports. The government needs to explore mechanisms of creating incentives in order to leverage the local and private partnerships and community collaborations and involvement in disaster resilience with the private sector engaging in such collaboration as their part of their corporate social responsibility program. The government should therefore work with the private sector in order to ensure the disaster resilience and continuity of essential services and supply chains in the context of potential risks and disasters (Frost, 2008). The solutions not only address the possible disasters and climatic change, but also provide for additional benefits of sustainability. For example, weather proof buildings in the airports not only reduce or minimize the impacts of extreme weather, but also cost efficient and make more energy. This includes ventilation systems, cooling, and especially local airports in deserts. Conclusion In summary, risk resilience and disaster recovery is an important aspect in air transport industry. Small and rural airports and private airports need to ensure they are more risk resilient and well prepared for any disaster and emergency occurrence. When one observes the measures that are taken in the airports to protect the hard infrastructure, there is often a win-win situation. The local airports and private airports should therefore partner with the community around them in order to address effectively the disaster recovery and risk resilience in the local and private airports. References Frost, S. (2008): Chinese bloggers ranking company donations for Sichuan quake. Available at: http://www.csr-asia.com/index.php?id=11810 Handmer and Choong (2006): Disaster resilience through local economic activity in Phuket. The Australian Journal of Emergency Management, Vol. 21 No. 4, pages 23-41 Scalingi, P. L. (2007): Moving beyond critical infrastructure protection to disaster resilience. CIP Program discussion paper series. George Mason University. Stapelberg, R.F. (2009) Infrastructure systems interdependencies and risk informed decision making. 2(3), 26-31 Kolluru, R.; and Smith, M. (2009): Leveraging public-private partnerships to improve community resilience in times of disaster. International journal of physical distribution & logistics management. 39 (5), pp. 343-364. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2009). National infrastructure protection plan partnering to enhance protection and resiliency2009. Available at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NIPP_Plan.pdf Read More