This course has been successfully completed.
The course is aimed at improving the capacity of private consultants and mid-career professionals from various public sector agencies/departments, non-governmental organisations at national and international level – to enable the integration of disaster risk reduction in urban practice through planning, design and management.
The course consists of lectures, workshops and practica conducted through field exercise in the urban areas of Okhla in Delhi. At the end of the course, the participants have to make presentations of practica work which would be evaluated by eminent jury.
 Anup has 10 years of experience in development and implementation of risk management projects, programmes related to early warning systems, risk communication, project formulation, and construction technology. He is currently providing technical and managerial support to Disaster Management and Climate change related projects at TARU DRiVE. Prior to TARU, he was involved in providing technical and coordination support to the development of end-to-end early warning system for the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (RIMES) and as Programme Coordinator for – Programme for Hydro-Meteorological Hazard Mitigation in Secondary Cities in Asia (PROMISE) at ADPC Bangkok. He was associated in the capacity of National Project Coordinator with UNDP India towards the implementation of the National Urban Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction Project – an initiative taken across 38 cities falling in seismic zone III, IV and V. Anup also served as a member of the Technical Advisory Group set by the National Disaster Management Division (Govt. of India) and UNDP India. He has also undertaken damage assessment studies as part of the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM). His interests are disaster management policy and institutional analysis, development of early warning systems, risk assessment, public safety, housing & land use planning, business continuity management, community based disaster risk reduction, safer construction techniques, disaster risk reduction and emergency planning. |
 Revi is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi. He is one of South Asia’s leading disaster mitigation and management experts and has led emergency teams to assess, plan and execute recovery and rehabilitation programmes for ten major earthquake, cyclone, surge and flood events affecting over five million people. The experience of these extreme events has provided him deep insight into the behaviour of hyper-stressed social, economic and environmental systems. It has also provided Aromar a strong incentive to examine ‘sustainability’ in both its empirical and theoretical dimensions. He is currently leading the development of India’s first state-level comprehensive multi-hazard vulnerability analysis for the World Bank. This is expected to develop estimates of economic vulnerability and loss due to natural and man-made hazards and climate-change related processes, and underpin the development of appropriate fiduciary risk mitigation instruments. Besides this, he works on economic, environmental, and social change at the global and regional scale. In India Aromar is involved in the improvement of the neglected public-private-community interface in the areas of development, human settlements, water, energy, health, and ICT. He specialises in development planning, urban development, political economy of institutional change, and implementation of multi-sectoral public policy initiatives. |
 B.R. Balachandran is an architect and planner with nearly two decades of professional and academic experience in architecture and urban planning. He established Alchemy Urban Systems Private Limited with other like minded professionals in 2007. Before that he spent nearly a decade with Environmental Planning Collaborative (EPC), Ahmedabad, doing pioneering work in urban planning. Mr. Balachandran is well known in professional planning circles for his contribution (as Executive Director, EPC) to planning the reconstruction of the city of Bhuj in Kutch District of Gujarat after the earthquake of 2001. Mr. Balachandran was the land use and physical planning expert in an international team commissioned by the World Bank to prepare a Post Disaster Housing Reconstruction Handbook. He has also worked on international projects in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Mauritius and Indonesia. |
 Rohit Jigyasu is a conservation architect and risk management consultant from India, currently working as Professor at the Research Center for Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan and is the President of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Risk Preparedness(ICORP). He is also Principal Researcher from India for the joint Research Project ‘Understanding habitats, housing and social changes in post-disaster traditional and relocated rural settlements in India’ being undertaken through collaboration between Chitakara University, Chandigarh and University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. Rohit has been teaching as the visiting faculty at several national and international academic institutions in India and abroad. He has been working for UNESCO and other international organisations such as the World Seismic Safety Initiative (WSSI) for undertaking post earthquake assessments in Gujarat, Kashmir, Indonesia and Bhutan. He brings with him the practical experience of working on risk management plans in the World Heritage sites of Khajuraho Hampi, Konarak and Ajanta & Ellora in India. |
 Prof. Vinod Chandra Menon is an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was formerly the Chief of Emergency in the UNICEF in India and served as a member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India from 2005 to 2010. During his tenure as member of NDMA, Prof. Menon has been instrumental in developing guidelines and policy for disaster risk management in the country. |
DAY I
Session I: Understanding ‘Integrated’ approach for ‘Urban’ Disaster Risk Reduction
The session will focus on understanding the issues of increasing vulnerability of Indian cities to natural and human induced disasters. Underlying reasons for the same would be discussed through examples of various disasters. Existing challenges for Urban Disaster Risk Reduction would be explained to help understand the need for integrated approach towards disaster risk reduction. Further the core principles/framework of this integrated approach would be elaborated.
Session II: Key Terminology for Disaster Risk Management
Key terminology for disaster risk management for cities would be introduced through a workshop.
DAY II
Session I: Analysing Physical Vulnerabilities and Capacities of Urban Areas
Key issues concerning physical vulnerability as well as strengths/ capacities of existing buildings and infrastructure in urban areas to earthquakes, floods, fires and technological hazards would be discussed during this session. Frameworks, methods and tools for analysing physical vulnerability would be discussed through various case studies such as Gujarat and Jabalpur earthquakes, Mumbai/Surat floods.
Session II: Fire Safety in Buildings
During this session, causes for increasing vulnerability of buildings to fire in dense urban areas would be discussed through site investigations. Practical guidelines for improving fire safety especially in high rise buildings would be introduced to the participants through simulation exercise.
Session III: Learning from Practices
Actual project initiatives to address various challenges of increasing vulnerablity and risk in urban areas through innovative solutions would be introduced to the participants by the managers of these projects.
Session IV: Analyzing Socio-Cultural & Economic Vulnerability and Capacities of Urban Areas
Issues and challenges concerning vulnerability as well as capacities of urban areas across various socio-economic groups, economic sectors and cultural heritage properties would be discussed during this session with the help of various case studies such as Latur earthquake. Tools, methods and frameworks for analyzing socio-cultural and economic vulnerablity would also be introduced in this session.
Workshop I: Integrated Vulnerability/Capacity and Disaster Risk Analysis of Urban Areas
In this session interlinkages between physical, soco-cultural and economic vulnerablity would be drawn through a specially designed workshop that seeks to look at various indicators for integrated vulnerability/capacity analysis. Further, methodology and tools for multi-hazard vulnerability and risk assessment would be explained based on the pioneering work on Composite Risk Atlas for Gujarat.
DAY III
Course Practica
The course is centred on a Practica to expose the participants to the ground issues of vulnerability and risk to various hazards in rapidly urbanizing settlements. Okhla area in Delhi is chosen as the site for practica. Theory and methodology learnt during various lectures would be applied through this Practica for formulating disaster risk assessment and reduction strategies for Okhla.
Practica will be divided into two small exercises which will enable participants to work on the ground to understand the varying physical and social vulnerabilities and look at the larger policy and governance constructs that exist.
DAY IV
Session I: Policies and Planning for IUDRR : Strategies, Methods and Tools
Disaster mitigation strategies for cities with a multi-hazard and vulnerability perspective can be undertaken through appropriate public policies and urban planning processes based on comprehensive vulnerabilty and risk assessment. Various innovative strategies, methods and tools for formulating these would be illustrated through examples from India and abroad.
Session II: Governance & Institutional Systems for IUDRR
Effective implementation of urban disaster risk reduction policies and planning strategies require appropriate institutional systems and governance. In this session, existing policies and institutional systems for disaster risk reduction in India would be explained to identify existing gaps and challenges as well as opportunities for effective implementation of disaster risk reduction policies and planning in Indian context.
DAY V
Final Presentations and Conclusions
