Historias de El Niño: El fenómeno El Niño en Lambayeque: Voces y miradas desde la escuela

Relatos escolares centrados en el tema del Fenómeno El Niño en Lambayeque. Referencia para conocer y valorar los desastres y escenarios de riesgos relacionados con la recurrencia de este fenómeno. Relatos ganadores del concurso "Recuperando vivencias y experiencias de preparación ante el Fenómeno El Niño"

Natural Disasters and Growth: Going beyond the Averages

There has been a steady increase in the occurrence of natural disasters. Yet their effect on economic growthremains unclear, with some studies reporting negative,and others indicating no, or even positive effects. These seemingly contradictory findings can be reconciled by exploring the effects of natural disasters on growth separately by disaster and economic sector. This is consistent with the insights from traditional models of economic growth, where production depends on total factor productivity, the provision of intermediate outputs, and the capital-labor ratio, as well as the existence of important intersector linkages. Applying a dynamic Generalized Method of Moments panel estimator to a 1961û2005 cross-country panel, three major insights emerge. First, disasters affect economic growth - but not always negatively, and differently across disasters and economic sectors. Second, although moderate disasters can have a positive growth effect in some sectors, severe disasters do not.Third, growth in developing countries is more sensitive to natural disastersùmore sectors are affected and the magnitudes are non-trivial.

Impact Estimation of Disasters: A Global Aggregate for 1960 to 2007

This paper aims to estimate the global aggregate of disaster impacts during 1960 to 2007 using Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology. The authors selected 184 major disasters in terms of the size of economic damages, based on the data available from the International Emergency Disasters and MunichRe(NatCat) databases for natural catastrophes. They estimate the losses and total impacts including thehigher-order effects of these disasters using social accounting matrices constructed for this study. Althoughthe aggregate damages based on the data amount to US$742 billion, the aggregate losses and total impacts are estimated at US$360 billion and US$678 billion, respectively. The results show a growing trend ofeconomic impacts over time in absolute value. However, once the data and estimates are normalized using global gross domestic product, the historical trend of total impacts becomes statistically insignificant. The visual observation confirms the inverted æUÆ curve distribution between total impact and income level, while statistical analyses indicate negative linear relationships between them for climatological, geophysical, and especially hydrological events. (AU)

Health Services Responses to Disasters in Numbai Sharing Experiencies

In mass disaster situations, demands frequently exceed the capacity of personnel and facilities. In the last few years, there has been an increased incidence of civil disasters; the spectrum of possible catastrophes has also dramatically increased as a result of an increasingly technologically sophisticated society. During the las 15 years, varied terrorist activities have become increasingly common as expressions of the opinions of extreme political groups, especially in India. In Mumbai itself, we have witnessed disasters such as widespread riots, terrorist bomb blasts, floods, and fires. There have been other disasters in India, such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, as well as tsunamis. Though most of the hospitals in India manage the medical problems associated with these disasters fairly efficiently, an analysis of the situation is presented so that this may from the basis fo future planning in disaster preparedness and provide a template for other communities that may want to implement preparedness protocols. We present our experience with disaster management in Mumbai, India. A successful medical response to multi-injury civilian disaster, either natural or manmade, dictates formulation, dissemination, and periodic assessment of a contingency plan to facilitate the triage and treatment of victims of disaster. (AU)

Evaluation of DIPECHO action plan in Central America (1998 - 2000) / Evaluación de los planes de acción de DIPECHO (Preparación ante Desastres de ECHO) en Centroamérica (1998-2007)

La presente evaluación respresenta para ECHO un trabajo de enorme envergadura por el espacio geográfico que ocupa (Centroamérica), por la multiplicidad de actores involucrados y por el marco temporal que cubre (9 años). Esta evaluación ha fomentado el empoderamiento y el fortalecimiento de las capacidades locales, fue realizada enteramente por DARA y tuvo una duración total de más de 7 meses, a lo largo de los cuales el equipo visitó numerosos proyectos en el terreno ejecutados por ONG´s nacionales e internacionales, así como prácticamente todos los organismos nacionales y regionales que en Centroamérica se ocupan de la Reducción de Riesgo de Desastres. (Fuente: http://www.daraint.org/web_es/documentacion.html)

Enhancing Community-Bases Disaster Preparedness with Information Technology: Community Disaster Information System

A critical component of community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) is a local resource database of suppliers providing physical, information and human resources for use in disaster response. Maintenance of such a database can become a collaborative responsibility among community-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), public, and private organizations in the community. In addition to mobilizing resources, this process raises awareness within the community and aids in assesing local knowledge and resources. This paper presents the results of a pilot study in implementing a community-based resource database through collaboration with local American Red Cross chapters and public and private community organizations. The design of the resource database is described. The resource database is accessible both using the Internet and offline using laptops and handheld PDAs to support disaster reponse. The study concludes that CBDP is strengthened through a combination of appropiate information technology and collaborative relationships between NGOs and community-based organizations. (AU)

Ethical Issues in Resource Triage

Mass-care events, such as pandemic influenza, could reach such devasting proportions that there will be the need to make difficult triage decisions that will ultimately result in the deaths or severe disability of patients in large numbers. The method by wich we determine how triage of scarce health care resources will be performed must be clearly defined prior to a disaster event. This paper will discuss several of the ethical principles that must be weighed in developing a mass-care triage plan, as well as steps to facilite its implementation. Development of triage policies in such an event should be developed in an open and transparent manner, be reasonable in design, include the views of the critial stakeholders, and be responsive to and provide a mechanism for accountability, with a clearly defined goal of the just triage of limited health care resources. Planning failure will result in increased deaths from poor triage processes and substantial mistrust of the health care system and ist practitioners. (AU)