Climate risk turns focus on need for resilient infrastructure
On May 3, 2019, when Fani, a rare summer cyclone and one of the strongest to hit India in 20 years, came raging down the Odisha coast, the state was prepared. The storm, with wind speeds touching over 200 km per hour, damaged power lines, uprooted trees, blew roofs off buildings and left 64 people dead. But it could have been many times worse — as the 1999 Odisha super-cyclone had shown; that storm had claimed over 9,600 lives and caused damage worth $2.5 billion to the state. Today, the Odisha model of disaster preparedness is globally lauded and emulated.
Preparedness. That, says Kamal Kishore, member secretary, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), is the key word. “When a disaster strikes, the impact and long-term effects are far-reaching. But when a disaster is averted, no one gets to know,” he adds. “For every disaster that strikes us, there are 10 that have been prevented.”
Kishore is speaking with Business Standard ahead of the fourth edition of International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI 2022) to be held in New Delhi from May 4 to 6. ICDRI, the flagship event of the India-headquartered Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), brings together policymakers, researchers and practitioners from across the world to strengthen the global discourse on disaster and climate resilient infrastructure.
CDRI was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019 — the year Fani struck Odisha and the state demonstrated what being prepared could achieve, or avert. CDRI is a multi-stakeholder global partnership of national governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks, the private sector, academic and knowledge institutions.
“It’s time to focus on how we can make transitioning infrastructure systems more resilient to physical and climate disaster risks. And, we need to foster a more people-centric approach to ensure the assets that are built can deliver,” says Kishore, who is also co-chair of the CDRI executive committee.
But what is resilient infrastructure in the context of India, which has a diverse landscape? Kishore says: “If you are building a power transmission line in a cyclone-prone area, we must have the analysis on the maximum wind speed experienced there, and the design standard should be able to accommodate that.” For example, infrastructure like airports, transmission lines, telephone towers that can withstand wind speeds of 150 kmph won’t be able to hold ground if the speed hits 160 kmph. “Hence, the assessment is extremely critical.”
As is a cost-effective analysis before such a project.
“If an area experiences earthquakes of a certain magnitude once in 100 years, we need to study if there is any need to construct buildings to withstand that. We must realise the life of a building is 50-60 years,” he says. “The cost difference in building structures that can withstand earthquakes of the intensity of 10 and of 12 is enormous. Infinite resilience will cost infinite money.”
During the three-day session, officials from 30 participating countries, including the US, Australia, Peru, Chile, Fiji, Bhutan, Bangladesh, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and seven member organisations, including Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, UNDP and UNDRR, will come together and share ideas and studies.