Managing Disaster Risk In Mexico

Disaster Risk Management Series. Since 1980, Mexico has suffered from 79 disaster events. Over half of these disasters were weather related, such as hurricanes or flooding. One fourth of them were geology related, that is, volcanic eruptions, landslides, or earthquakes. The rest of them were instigated by humans in the form of industrial accidents, chemical and oil spills, explosions, and structural fires. Mexico was chosen for the first appraisal mission due to its experience with natural disaster losses, and because it is considering significant public policy changes in the realm of insurance regulations. The World Bank established the Disaster Management Facility in July 1999 to provide proactive leadership in coordinating efforts to introduce disaster prevention and mitigation practices in development-related activities. This report synthesizes the findings of a World Bank mission to Mexico on disaster management, mitigation, and financing, which was followed up by a workshop to discuss those findings. The scope of this study is quite broad and examines the following issues: -- Mexico's experience with disasters of all kinds; -- how risk and vulnerability are assessed and can be assessed as a means toward greater mitigation, that is, better planning and construction standards; -- disaster mitigation in practice; -- the specific contribution that the insurance industry can make to disaster mitigation in Mexico, and why this industry is so underutilized at present; and, -- the government's role in risk transfer as a way of enhancing mitigation especially through the operation of its Natural Disaster Fund, FONDEN.

This book recognizes Mexico's effects and challenges in a natural disaster and offers empirical risk-reduction methods in critical cases. The proposals considered here include real and detailed analysis, a set of models, frameworks, strategies, and findings in the three stages of the disaster (before–during–after). This book: describes the methodology to find secure locations for the Regional Humanitarian Response Depot; offers recommendations for the sites and creation of an Export Logistics Cluster; shows how to use available technology and information to locate volunteers in the right spots describes mathematical models to help to allocate procedure of resources for restoring the affected community and proposes actions to create resilience in the country's main economic sectors, including agriculture and industry. The processes applied at recent disasters such as the 19S earthquake and their results are used as case studies, identifying possibilities for further improvement. The book also describes new trends for Mexico due to climate change and makes suggestions for mitigating future disasters. The proposals are also replicable to other highly populated societies with similar socio-economic structures. Finally, this book is the basis for generating more innovative recommendations by researchers, graduate students, academics, professionals, and practitioners to obtain better planning and better collaboration between all the humanitarian chain actors. This book intends to be of interest as a fundamental tool for decision-makers, governments, non-governmental organizations, and enterprises.

This review of Mexico's civil protection system looks at the coordination of central government, public and private industries, and state and local governments for the effective management of hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.

In 1999 natural catastrophes and man-made disasters claimed more than 105,000 lives, 95 percent of them in the developing world, and caused economic losses of around US$100 billion. In 1998 the twin disasters of the Yangtze and Hurrican Mitch accounted for two-thirds of the US$65 billion loss. The geographical areas affected may vary, but one constant is that the per capita burden of catastrophic losses is dramatically higher in developing countries. To respond to an increased demand to assist disaster rcovery programmes, the World Bank set up the Disaster Management Facility in 1998, to help provide the Bank with a more rapid and strategic response to disaster emergencies. The DMF focuses on risk identification, risk reduction, and risk sharing/transfer, the three major topics in this volume. The DMF also promotes strategic alliances with key private, government, multilateral and nongovernmental organisations to ensure the inclusion of disaster risk reduction as a central value of development. The most important of these partnerships is the ProVention Consortium, launched in February 2000, based on the premise that we must all take responsibility for making the new millennium a safer one.

The focuses are on the study of risk management of natural disasters from the perspective of complex systems, using the example of Mexico. It develops the theory of an arrival process taking into account an early warning system and we use it to create appropriate actuarial models. Then, it formulates a stochastic optimization problem to find an investment strategy for the management of a fund from the perspective of a risk-averse government. The solution is given with the use of the Föllmer-Schweizer strategy.

This work responds to the increasing global need of measuring and analyzing impacts, vulnerabilities and coping capacity of countries, regions and communities regarding climate change, extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and institutional constraints. The case of Mexico, analyzed in this work, provides lessons for further developing countries to assess natural disasters vulnerability, for making informed adaptation decisions and to optimize resources for reducing country and community vulnerability. This book's analyses contribute to the current debate of the long-term economic impact of natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.), as well as offer an integral methodology combining natural and social sciences for studies of country and community level vulnerability to climate change. The lessons derived from this analysis provide useful elements for the design and improvement of governmental policies concerning social and economic development as well. In addition, the desegregation of this analysis has the advantage of facilitating the design and evaluation of governmental projects at municipal, sub-national and national level, as well as provides conceptual-empirical elements for international cooperation in matters of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, rural development and poverty reduction.

This work responds to the increasing global need of measuring and analyzing impacts, vulnerabilities and coping capacity of countries, regions and communities regarding climate change, extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and institutional constraints. The case of Mexico, analyzed in this work, provides lessons for further developing countries to assess natural disasters vulnerability, for making informed adaptation decisions and to optimize resources for reducing country and community vulnerability. This book’s analyses contribute to the current debate of the long-term economic impact of natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.), as well as offer an integral methodology combining natural and social sciences for studies of country and community level vulnerability to climate change. The lessons derived from this analysis provide useful elements for the design and improvement of governmental policies concerning social and economic development as well. In addition, the desegregation of this analysis has the advantage of facilitating the design and evaluation of governmental projects at municipal, sub-national and national level, as well as provides conceptual-empirical elements for international cooperation in matters of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, rural development and poverty reduction.