Disaster risk preparedness

Abstract

This study examines, discusses and provides insights into tsunami risk resilience through an analysis of systems of governance, their architecture, and actor-agent perspectives, concentrating on the development of a Tsunami Early Warning System (TEWS) in Indonesia.<br /> The key problem is that so far, little attention has been paid to the cross-cutting issues of governance and institutions involved in such an Early Warning System (EWS). There is also no integrated and comprehensive framework to enquire into and analyse the role of multi-level and cross-scale governance and institutions in the context of EWSs. Institutional analyses have focused on investigating the governance of natural resources and applications in new institutional economics and internal relations. In addition, current efforts are focused on building tsunami resilience based on either the four phase EWS model or the disaster management cycle only, and do not pay adequate attention to socio-ecological resilience attributes such as adapting and fitting systems according to ecological challenges. The main argument of this study is that an effective and sustainable EWS depends on multi-level governance, institutional arrangements, and frameworks that draw on attributes of resilience capacities of managing the uncertain tsunami hazard risk and its interaction with social-ecological systems.<br /> Therefore, a comprehensive integrated framework is developed and employed to structure inquiry, and analyse governance and institutions in the context of the TEWS. The study employs a system-architecture-actor-oriented approach based on institutional analyses. It is mainly based on qualitative methodologies and data collected in Jakarta, Bali and Padang, Indonesia during the development of the TEWS in Indonesia.<br /> The key findings of this research highlight the underlying conditions that caused the coping capacity to be severely exceeded in the 26^th December 2004 tsunami disaster in Indonesia. It argues and outlines the hindering and driving factors for institutional change in disaster risk management and points out the challenges in implementing and sustaining an effective TEWS based on prevailing systems of governance in Indonesia. On the other hand, it shows the emerging TEWS-related architecture in terms of the new TEWS design, supporting multi-institutional arrangements, frameworks and structures.<br /> The actors’ interaction with the TEWS architecture from the national to the local level underlines the highly debated and negotiated issues and improving good governance attributes centred on the creation of hazard-risk maps for further evacuation, spatial planning and development and preparedness versus response financing. The study outlines the key contrast in rooting TEWS in Padang and Bali based on demographic differences.<br /> ESG (2009) defines agency as the capacity to act in the face of earth system transformation or to produce effects that ultimately shape natural processes. This study also identifies and shows how agency for effective governance was exercised beyond the state in relation to the TEWS in Indonesia. The study explores the issues of TEWS effectiveness to this end and identifies the main unsatisfactory outcome and proposes multi-level incentive mechanisms beyond systems of governance and state agency to motivate change at operational and policy level to sustain an effective TEWS in Indonesia.<br /> The findings suggest that the developing polycentric and multi-layered institutions and structures synchronized according to the decentralized political-administrative system are ideal governance architectures for improved performance and for building national resilience to local and trans-boundary multi-hazard risks and disaster in Indonesia. However, it is argued that such a polycentric multilayered architecture and top-down technocratic TEWS is not completely adequate for dealing with local field earthquake generated tsunami risks due to problems of fit, adaptability, institutional diversity and norms in Indonesia. Tensions constantly emerge and are contested about the actual primary mode of TEWS governance. Hence, a theoretical basis of an effective and sustainable TEWS process and framework is proposed, drawing on the theoretical concepts, observations, experiences and empirical findings in Indonesia. It is a mixture model of the EWS process consisting of the local people-centred-adaptive approach and the national technocratic system approach to address the challenging issues of tsunami resilience in Indonesia. Other specific recommendations are also put forward to help improve the TEWS in Indonesia.<br /> Key limitations of the research such as deeper analysis of internal institutional capacities, and institutional performances are also highlighted.<br /> To conclude, the role of risk governance, multi-institutional arrangements and polycentric frameworks in the context of the TEWS has strengthened the tsunami resilience capacities of Indonesia; but are strongly affected by institutional path dependencies. The future of INATEWS should settle on system and people-centred approaches, improved coastal city planning and governance to build effective and sustained resilience to uncertain tsunami risks.