Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING FOR DEVELOPMENT: APPLICATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTUREernments, the private sector and the different components ofcivil society including scientists, educators, parliamentarians,media, local authorities, youth, women’s organizations andother non-governmental organizations. The global challengeof disaster reduction is a significant engagement on the partof engineers and technicians in an integrated approach to riskmanagement. Enhancing cooperation among all these majorgroups will be imperative.Above all, scientific and technological solutions to the complexproblems of disasters must be rooted in social realities, inthe fullest sense of the term. Without science and technology,and their blending with traditional modes of protection, therecan be no world safe from disasters.6.1.10 Engineering in emergenciesAndrew LambIntroductionThe medical profession has played a role in responding to warssince long before Henri Dunant inverted the red and white ofthe Swiss flag and established the Red Cross movement. Theengineering profession, on the other hand, has long been associatedwith the prosecution of wars. Its technologies – weapons,armaments and defences – have been pivotal to militarycapabilities throughout history, as it is today. It is only reallysince the end of the colonial era following the Second WorldWar that engineers have in significant numbers used technologiesto respond to disasters and conflicts with a humanitarianmotivation; saving lives through the provision of water, shelter,transport, communications and information services. It is animportant but still emerging field.Recent lessonsThe human tragedies of recent disasters has re-emphasized thelife-saving effects of engineering endeavour. The response tothe devastating earthquake in Haiti earlier this year has drawnupon the skills of civil, structural, mechanical, electronic, electricaland software engineers to begin to address the challengeof nothing less than 200,000 fatalities, one million left homelessand a destroyed capital city. The calls to ‘build back better’were immediate. The earthquake in Chile soon after quicklyshowed the world the difference that development makes –that a more developed infrastructure and built environmentmeans that people are much less vulnerable to natural disaster(though the geological and geographic circumstances weredifferent).China’s response to the devastating earthquake in Sichuanprovince highlighted the crucial role of military engineers indisaster relief, which has a long and proud history. The riskof the collapse of major dams, which would have caused furthersubstantial suffering and damage, was averted throughcooperation efforts and high-level engineering expertise. HurricaneKatrina in the USA demonstrated the horrifying effectsthat neglect of major engineering infrastructure can have inthe face of natural hazards, particularly in a society that hasbecome dependent on advanced, and hence at times fragile,technologies. The destruction of New Orleans was in someways the driver for a much greater focus on urban disasters (ordisasters in the engineered environment). The Indian OceanTsunami of 2004 was a catastrophe on a global scale, and veryquickly led to a focus on emergency shelter and transitionalshelter in which engineers now play an important role in takingforward.In 2007 alone, flooding affected 200 million people in China 111 ,displaced thirty million in India 112 , Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan,one million in Mexico 113 , 500,000 in Darfur in Sudan 114 ,300,000 in North Korea 115 , 125,000 in the UK 116 (with the heaviestrains since records began), 40,000 in South Africa 117 andthousands in Australia (the worst flooding for forty years) 118 .In all, about 1.5 billion people were affected by floods thatyear. Flooding, as with earthquakes, very quickly demandsthe services of engineers to redesign flood defences, rebuildbridges and roads, restore power and communications, makesafe the water supply and inform future planning (such asthrough the use of national flood maps made using satellitedata). Earthquakes destroy the infrastructure on which ourlives depend, whereas floods overwhelm that infrastructure.Engineers are learning lessons very quickly as the patterns ofdisasters change.PreparednessDisaster hazards, such as extreme weather events, are increasingin periodicity and intensity. As more and more people livein densely packed cities or are forced to live on the environmentalmargins, the vulnerability of populations towards disasteris also increasing. Technological disasters such as traincrashes and building collapses are the fifth biggest killer, followingdisease, famine, conflict and natural hazards. 119 Earthquakesdestroy infrastructure, but they do not necessarilydestroy life – it is the collapsing buildings that kill.111 China – http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/36072/2007/06/23-140102-1.htm112 www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6941029.stm & www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_South_Asian_floods113 www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2080710.htm?section=world114 www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06723272.htm115 www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SJHG-7649NF?OpenDocument&RSS20=18-P116 ‘Floods’ special feature in New Civil Engineer 31 st January 2008.117 www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=18817118 www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/news/30062007news.shtml119 World Disaster Report 2004.275