Environmental management and disaster risk reduction
This paper was written by UNEP to introduce a specific session of the Kobe Conference on Disaster Reduction, of January 2005, taking into consideration the increasing frequency and intensity of the disasters the world has faced in the very last years. Many of the losses could have been averted. There is an enormous amount of evidences of the importance of wise environmental management for disaster risk reduction. There are also opportunities to reduce disaster risk, and enhance community resilience. The impacts of disasters have human dimensions, as well as environmental ones. Environmental conditions may exacerbate the impact of a disaster, and disasters have an impact on the environment. There is a clear need to reinforce the importance of environmental concerns in the entire disaster management cycle of prevention, preparedness, assessment, mitigation and response and to integrate environmental concerns into planning for relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development.