The Guide

The Regional Disaster Information Center (CRID for its Spanish acronym) is an organization sponsored by six organizations that decided to join efforts to ensure the compilation and dissemination of disaster-related information in Latin America and the Caribbean. The author of this paper begins the discussion of hazard assessment maps with several questions:
1. Can the hazards be successfully mapped? This is to say, can they be represented by simply images in one layout?
2. What will be represented by the map? Will more than one hazard be shown?

Hazard maps should include the following elements:
* Specific physical hazards (e.g. flooding, mudflow, ashfall, slope failure)
- Determined by Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- Why do this: To provide information that is both a result of such systems and can be used as additional input for these systems.
* Socio-natural and anthropic hazards (e.g. man-made structures that could possibly fail)
* Perceived hazards (e.g. not all community members may agree on what dangers exist)
- Determined by: Hazard perception surveys in conjunction with participatory research procedures.
- Why do this: To represent the attributes of hazards based on the subjective perceptions predominant in the population.
* Vulnerability assessments (e.g. who is at risk, where, and from what)
- Determined by: Participatory research, or sample - or census - based surveys supplemented by field records, secondary sources, etc.
- Why do this: To represent the differential vulnerability of a community through the "objective" analysis off actors that are considered significant as well as the level of risk awareness of its members.

La Red

Community Hazard Mapping: "Mapeo Comunitario del Riesgo"⁵

Step 1: With community members, determine the location of the community on a topographic map.

Step 2: Discuss expectations of the map; what are important elements in the map; cover scale, direction, symbology.

Step 3: Create a table or other visualization of the region; what rivers exist, what mountains, where are houses and roads?

Step 4: Transfer features to your map and discuss each one.

Step 5: Integrate the history of the community; draw from the historical memory of emergencies and disasters.

Step 6: Review the map and discuss why disasters occur. Cover the concepts of risk, vulnerability, and strategies.

Peace Corps Methods

From: Trainee Handout: Field Work: Practice Hazard Analysis and Mapping Steps⁹

1. Introduce yourself to community elders or leaders. Describe what you are learning about

disaster management and ask their permission to talk with community members so that you

can draw a risk map. Get their suggestions of who to meet with.

2. The Trainee meets with representatives from the community and with the institutions

involved with disaster preparedness and responses to assess human resources. Other

community groups that might be involved—although not represented here—include women’s

groups and faith–based groups.

3. The Volunteer determines whether a community map (community map bounded village

unit; hunting areas, fields, and kinship networks may be far away) with hazards identified or a

hazard inventory exists. If a hazard map or hazard inventory exists, then the Volunteer

acquires it; if not, the Volunteer proceeds with Step 5.

4. With the help of community members, if possible, the Trainee sketches a map showing the

vulnerabilities and resources.

5. Volunteer acquires other appropriate maps of the area.

UNESCO Project, Vanuatu

Participatory hazard mapping at Ambae Island, Vanuatu⁷

After a team of scientists (Shane J. Cronin, David R. Gaylord, and others) surveyed the residents of 2 large villages on the island, the original volcanic hazard map was revised. Primary changes are as follows:

– All geological mapping details have been removed.
– All expected hazard processes (ashfall, gas, surge, and lahar) are contained within three relative hazard zones.
– Three solid colours are used to cover the entire island, whereas the previous map had five, partly overlapping, unfilled ovals or circles for different hazard processes that left parts of the island unzoned.
– A colour system of red (high relative hazard), yellow (medium), and green (low) was adopted.
– Lahar hazards are highlighted by thick red lines that follow all major drainage channels from the central caldera (emulating the village map emphasis).
– The text is in Bislama and is reduced to the important message of relative hazard levels, replacing the lengthy French/English volcanic descriptions.
– The activity of the central crater is the primary consideration.

"The map that resulted is not sufficiently precise for land-use planning or determining hazards on a settlement-by-settlement basis, but it represents both scientific and traditional views of the relative levels of hazard on Ambae. The main use of this map is in public education, and as a focal point for encouraging volcanic hazard mitigation and response planning." (Cronin et al)

The World Bank

The World Bank devised a "Project Cycle" that marks progress through 8 steps. As the Bank lends billions of dollars each year to countries and projects around the world, they need a systematic way to develop and implement their projects. The steps emphasize large-scale projects, advisory services, policymaking, and multiple stages of approval:

Step 1: Country Assistance Strategy
* The Bank prepares lending and advisory services, based on the selectivity framework and areas of comparative advantage, targeted to country poverty reduction efforts.

Step 2: Identification
* Projects are identified that support strategies and that are financially, economically, socially, and environmentally sound. Development strategies are analyzed.

Step 3: Preparation
* The Bank provides policy and project advice along with financial assistance. Clients conduct studies and prepare final product documentation.

Step 4: Appraisal
* The Bank assesses the economic, technical, institutional, financial, environmental, and social aspects of the project. The project appraisal document and draft legal documents are prepared.

Step 5: Negotiations and Board Approval
* The Bank and borrower agree on loan or credit agreement and the project is presented to the Board for approval.

Step 6: Implementation and Supervision
* The Borrower implements the project. The Bank ensures that the loan proceeds are used for the loan purposes with due regard for economy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Step 7: Implementation and Completion
* The Implementation Completion Report is prepared to evaluate the performance of both the Bank and the borrower.

Step 8: Evaluation
* The Bank’s independent Operations Evaluation Department prepares an audit report and evaluates the project. Analysis is used for future project design.

¤ Pros and Cons of these Methods

Agency	Key Points
CRID - Regional Disaster Information Center	The suggestions from this organization emphasize GIS technology. While GIS might not be an available tool in most communities, CRID offers many helpful suggestions. They begin by warning us that depicting risks will actually show more than one issue at a time. Because of this, they suggest clarifying the purposes and the steps that will be made to create the map before actually representing anything. They emphasize that the user’s perspective will have to be carefully considered when defining the qualities of the map (symbols used, distances measured, and so on).
La Red - The Net	The 6 steps include important aspects of education in the assessment process. Without determining whether or not the community understands how a map of the area represents familiar features, the process of hazard mapping cannot take place. What La Red has not included in the steps is the data-collection aspect. It is important to give a context for the details entered into the table or represented by symbols on the map. Community members should be involved in field investigations.
Peace Corps - Volunteer Training Manual	The training manual only explains the beginning of the hazard assessment process. The 5 steps focus on gathering resources and communicating with members of the community but the mapping itself is not explained.
UNESCO Project, Vanuatu - Bulletin of Volcanology Paper	Aside from simplifying the hazard map, this group used participatory methods to determine what changes needed to be made. The project was successful because it was conducted with culturally sensitive techniques. The researchers visited the communities after already gaining a sense of the society and with a knowledge of the specific groups within the communities. Despite how well-planned this project was, the researchers did not involve the people in field identification before completing the map.
World Bank - Project Cycle	The 8 steps proposed by the Bank are developed for their specific needs. Far more policies exist for money-lending than for community hazard projects. The amount of "Supervision" in this cycle also reflects that specialization; while conducting Community Hazard Assessments, it is important to promote and loosely guide the discussions rather than supervising. Also, the "cycle" they have developed is very formal and suggests that the process can be followed like a simple recipe. This kind of simplification should be treated cautiously; specific needs or issues within communities might not allow straightforward plans.

¤ Integrated Approach
After reviewing several approaches to hazard mitigation and project design, I suggest integrating these methods and using The Guide that follows for developing a hazard map with a community. Drawing primarily from the Peace Corps steps as well as La Red's suggested method, I have integrated the Participatory Action Research process. While using the guide that follows, you might find it is simpler to rely on a generalization developed by the World Bank. I have removed specific steps that relate specifically to financial policy:

The Project Cycle above offers a simple, but very generalized approach to developing and implementing a project. A smooth cycle should not be expected; if the following Guide was represented as a series of arrows, we would see whirlpools instead of a cogwheels.

The Guide:

1. Introduce yourself to community elders or leaders. Describe what you are learning about disaster management and ask their permission to talk with community members. Get their suggestions of who to meet with.

2. Meet with representatives from the community and with the institutions involved with disaster preparedness and responses to assess human resources. Other community groups that might be involved—although not represented here—include women’s groups and faith–based groups.

3. Determine whether a community map (community map bounded village unit; hunting areas, fields, and kinship networks may be far away) with hazards identified or a hazard inventory exists. If not, find a suitable basemap of the area - ideally a topographic map on the scale of 1:15000

4. Throw a party- invite community members to visit, look at the map, and determine the location of the community. Also, use this time to plan a traverse, walks through the area in order to understand what hazards exist. Invite people to walk with you.

5. Go on walks. This is especially important if you have just arrived at your assigned site, but multitask and ask the people to explain the land to you. Learn what their views of local natural hazards are.

6. Go on more walks and this time, make it an activity. Bring paper and draw as you go; if you are combining your Master's Thesis research with Peace Corps projects, this may be a good time to start collecting samples, making observations, or assessing the area. But make sure these walks are interactive; even put kids to work if they can collect samples or observe features with you.

7. Call a meeting to discuss local natural hazards; make this a community meeting that allows discussion about the nature of hazards and what priorities the people have. Ask for history of the community and spur discussions about past emergencies or natural disasters. Direct the discussions toward creating a map.

8. If there is controversy over what hazards are more important than others, make a point of inviting people to walk with you as you explore the community.

9. Call another meeting. Now that people have decided what hazards exist and now that they are thinking about how a map will help them, discuss the elements that will go into the map; cover scale, directions, symbology. Give maps to groups to sketch what features they believe should go on the map; either divide up the people in the meeting or hold separate meetings. Guide this process.

10. Assemble another meeting (party?) and collect all maps; bring them together and transfer all of the important features to one copy.

11. Assemble another meeting; review the map and discuss why disasters occur; cover the concepts of risk, vulnerability, and what preparedness means in practice. This is a good time to spur conversations about evacuation routes and plans.
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Note: During the final meetings, instigate conversations about the utility of the map. Consider the following questions:⁶

1. Does the map/product help to analyze the major decisions that the community faces?
2. Does the map cover all the important variables that are part of the decisions, whether implicitly or by choice?
3. Is the product sufficiently detailed to be useful in decision-making (e.g., residential size, type, and location) and yet not so detailed that it requires an enormous amount of new data and analysis?
4. Does the map reduce the time required to make a decision and give the local leaders greater flexibility without any loss of quality?
5. Can the community demonstrate proven success in terms of usefulness and benefit gained from the design, based on experience elsewhere?

Answering these questions by yourself and with the group should give a positive direction to map-making as well as helping to focus ideas about how useful the hazard assessment is.

¤ Question
Are all 11 steps necessary?
That is for you to decide. Each community will have different needs, social structure, and unique perceptions of their hazards. Use this guide as a reference and be prepared to change its order, to repeat or skip steps, or to check off one-by-one. Many community assessments and projects fail because they are too general and with this in mind I have developed The Guide with the built-in need for personalizing the process of assessment.