Disaster Management Manual
A manual for practitioners and decision makers!
Disaster Management Manual
A manual for practitioners and decision makers!
Mitigation activities prevent or reduce future emergencies caused by disastrous events and minimize their effects on road function.
Mitigation refers to the activities that prevent emergencies caused by a disastrous event, reduces the likelihood of emergencies occurring, or relieves the impact of unavoidable emergencies on roads. Mitigation is a broad-based, long-term, strategic approach to all potential disasters managed mainly by national and local governments or related agencies. Mitigation activities may be carried out before, during, or after a disaster, but generally refers to pre-disaster activities.
Mitigation is a combination of structural and non-structural measures. Structural measures are any physical construction to reduce or avoid possible impacts of hazards or the application of engineering techniques or technology to achieve hazard resistance and resilience in structures or systems. Non-structural measures are measures not involving physical construction that use knowledge, practice, or agreement to reduce disaster risks and impacts, in particular through policies and laws, raising public awareness, training, and education 1. Measures such as disaster insurance are also part of the non-structural measures. Mitigation approaches by both structural and non-structural measures is key for sustainable development and elimination or reduction of future risks. Mitigation is planned on a long-term basis because it is important to develop road users' expectations and demands for road resilience. It also helps users understand at what level and in what prioritized order national and local governments or related agencies can meet and maintain those expectations and demand with limited resources. It is important to identify and organize resources, assess risks appropriately, identify mitigation measures to reduce the impacts of hazards, and prioritize implementation plans.
In recent years, community disaster management has focused on strengthening social infrastructure, called social capital or community resilience, which refers to the ability of a community or neighborhood to work together to cope with disasters and resume daily life 2. With regard to roads, this is still in the early stages of discussion and is expected to be explored in the future.
Mitigation requires the development of long-term visionary measures with road users and other stakeholders for both structural and non-structural measures.
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