Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

170
Natural and human-made disasters
Figure 7.1
Recorded disaster
events and world urban
population (1950–2006)
Data Sources: EM-DAT, CRED
database, University of
Louvain, Belgium, www.emdat.net;
United Nations, 2005
Number of events/World urban population (10 millions)
500
400
300
200
100
World urban population
Technological disasters
Natural disasters
0
1950
1956 1962 1968 1974 1980 1986 1992 1998 2004
…the 1 billion slum
dwellers worldwide,
who reside in
hazardous locations
within cities… are
perhaps most
vulnerable to the
impacts of disasters
economic assets, cultural heritage, infrastructure, services
and basic life-support systems, industries and other potentially
hazardous establishments in cities further exacerbates
disaster risk and impacts. The growing numbers of the urban
poor, especially the 1 billion slum dwellers worldwide, who
Box 7.2 The urban impacts of Mozambique’s great flood
In February 2000, floods in Mozambique killed at least 700 people,
displaced 650,000 and affected 4.5 million. Arguably, it was
Mozambique’s small but growing urban populations who were
hardest hit, with more than 70 per cent of all flood-related deaths
occurring in urban areas.
Extensive deforestation contributed to flood risk in
Mozambique, where between 1990 and 2000, an average of 50,000
hectares of forested area were depleted annually. Urban land-use
plans and codes in existence prior to the 2000 flood were not
adhered to, often resulting in the spontaneous occupation of plots
and building of roads in unsuitable areas and, in the long term, a
cumulative process of soil erosion. Mozambique’s experience
during the 2000 floods must also be situated in both its circumstances
of significant poverty, debt and post-conflict recovery from
the 16-year civil war. The war internally displaced 3 million people
and destroyed vital infrastructure, while pushing people towards
urban centres.
The urban poor within Maputo, Matola, Xai-Xai and
Chokwe suffered the most from the 2000 flood. Exorbitant pricing
and highly politicized land distribution force many poor urban
residents to live in informal settlements and unregulated slums,
known as barrios, constructed in undesirable and hazardous
locations such as in ravines, slopes susceptible to landslides and
low-lying areas prone to flooding. In addition, the majority of barrios
are constructed with locally accessible materials, such as bamboo
and straw, that easily collapse easily beneath torrential rains and get
washed away in flooding. The lack of drainage infrastructure in
reside in hazardous locations within cities such as industrial
waste sites, floodplains, riverbanks and steep slopes, are
perhaps most vulnerable to the impacts of disasters. As
indicated earlier in Chapter 2, increasing urban poverty and
exclusion also worsen the vulnerability of some urban inhab-
Maputo has also meant that seasonal one-day rain events can result
in flooding that lasts for days, and rain over the course of several
days can cause flooding that will not subside for a month.
The 2000 flood reached disastrous proportions when
torrential rainfall brought on flooding in the Incomati, Umbeluzi
and Limpopo rivers that flow within the Maputo and Gaza
provinces. Accumulated rainfall, as well as Cyclone Eline, which hit
Inhambane and Sofala provinces during the month of February,
caused flooding in the cities of Maputo, Matola, Chokwe and Xai-
Xai. The flooding of the latter two cities within the Limpopo River
basin was responsible for the majority of the fatalities. Post-flood
evaluations revealed that within the urban areas affected, flooding
and rains had damaged the physical infrastructure and production
capabilities of over 1000 shops and wholesalers in the river basins.
The 2000 flood also caused extensive damages to productive
sectors in Maputo, the hub of Mozambique’s industrial
production, and Matola, a major industrial centre and the country’s
primary port. Destruction in Xai-Xai, the capital of Gaza Province
and a coastal city, dealt a blow to fishing and tourism industries.
The destruction of roads linking Maputo to neighbouring countries
not only halted trade, but prevented the distribution of relief
supplies. Across Mozambique’s urban economy, food prices rose
rapidly in response to losses in the countryside.Yet, by incapacitating
Mozambique’s transportation infrastructure, the floods had
wiped out critical linkages to less affected Mozambican areas,
impeding or preventing delivery of available foodstuff to urban
areas that had few other options to secure food sources.
Source: Chege et al, 2007