Office for Environmental Programs - Theses
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ItemEffectiveness of non-structural measures for mitigating the flood risk: a case study of Bangladesh( 2023)Over the last century, floods severely impacted life and livelihoods around the globe, which resulted in the evolution of risk management from traditional disaster management approaches, switching the focus towards hazard and vulnerability rather than disaster. Deltaic formation and geomorphological circumstances have positioned Bangladesh in a highly vulnerable situation, severely impacting the developing economy. The country gradually shifted from a prevention and relief-based response to a preparedness and resilience approach, popularising non-structural flood control measures. Enhanced focus is given to establishing a risk management framework concentrating on non-structural measures despite critically evaluating their effectiveness in risk mitigation. Based on facts and figures, this research evaluates non-structural measures’ effectiveness in vulnerability reduction. The storyline approach holistically examines the existing risk management framework, comprising structural and non-structural measures. Trendline and cause-effect relationships of the indicators provide evidence of the effectiveness of non-structural measures after their inception from the benchmarking period. Furthermore, early warning, a well-practised non-structural measures efficiency was evaluated based on its responses to improve unsafe conditions. A risk matrix provided the ranking of unsafe conditions, which requires further concentration as the early warning system requires modification to improve the scenario. Finally, top unsafe conditions were analysed with international best practices and their experiences to be integrated into the early warning to appear as a more sustainable solution. Analysis of the storyline approach shows the effectiveness of the existing framework and the influence of non-structural measures on indicators accepted by the Sendai framework. It appears that casualty, loss of economy, agriculture and livestock reduced significantly after the inception of non-structural measures resembling its effectiveness. Moreover, critical evaluation of early warning shows its efficiency in improving most of the unsafe conditions and reducing vulnerability. However, ranking unsafe conditions in the risk matrix signifies the scope of improvement of early warning to become more inclusive regarding demographic factors such as gender, age and income. Finally, in line with global experience, solutions were sourced for disseminating the inclusive early warning message more effectively and efficiently amongst the community. The research provides essential findings of early warning’s effectiveness, which can be replicated to examine for similar other measures and can be incorporated to reform dynamic risk management guidelines.