TRIVHUVAN
UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTE
OF ENGINEERING
PULCHOWK
CAMPUS
PULCHOWK,
LALITPUR
ESSAY
ON
PLANNING THEORY IN
THE CONTEXT OF DISASTER MANAGEMENTS
BY
SUBODH SHARMA GAUTAM
(068/MSU/217)
UNDER
THE GUIDENCE OF
MR. SANJAYA UPRETY
LECTURER, DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECUTURE AND
URBAN PLANNING
3rd March, 2012
PLANNING THEORY IN THE CONTEXT OF DISASTER MANAGEMENTS
Subodh Sharma
Gautam (068/MSU/217)
Abstract
How different types
of disasters appear? How disasters could be mitigating through different
planning approaches? What are the subtasks of a single planning process? How
each task in planning could persuade the better plan? These all types of query
strike in my mind when I attempt to write an essay. Thus this essay is
presented here on the periphery of these questions where I have try to define
the different planning approaches; incremental planning, transactive planning,
communicative planning and strategic planning with their relevancies in
different planning tasks; philosophical task, adaptation task and the
translation task. Each of these tasks has distinctly presented here to make a
general understanding the planning task with few examples. The better
approaches to cope with the uncertainty in case of disasters management’s
planning are thoroughly presented in this essay. This essay dealt only about
the preplanning before the actual disastrous events happenings. This essay is
delimited to the boundary of prevention rather than care of the scene after the
disaster happened.
Key Words: Disaster, theory, planning, incremental planning,
transactive planning, communicative planning and strategic planning.
Disaster is the
sudden, calamitous event bringing great damage, loss and destruction and
devastation to life and property. Concept of disaster, for managing it, however
needed prior to applying any planning practices and planning theories is
presented by author. The end result of deaths, injuries, illness and property
damage cannot be effectively managed with routine procedures or usual
resources. The emergency of severity could be defined as an event just after a
disaster. These events can be seen due to natural causes or manmade activities.
Disaster poses a number of unique problems not faced in the regular activities.
The author tries to depict the concept of disaster with its nature and type. I supposed
my major task while producing this essay is to assess the relevancy of incremental planning, transactive planning,
communicative planning and strategic
planning in disastrous scenario. In other word, this is an attempt to seek
how different planning theories contributed in disaster management in order to identify
more reliable planning theory in the disaster management woks. This article has
been produce for the sake of understanding the theories in planning which are
relevant in prevention of disasters along with mitigation measures through
effective and efficient planning.
Nepal, being a developing country it has already
faced large number of natural calamities and numerous manmade disasters as well
in its long history. We are still worried about the probable disasters in forth
coming future due to fear of its tremendous hazards which we don’t want to still
remember again. The past disaster events were horror one which still make us
almost speechless. We have learned many lessons from past history of our
country but we are still using those histories as matter of speech only rather
making a plan and its implementation. I hope this essay might help to carry out
the discourses about disasters and its management planning procedure. I believe
on longer discourses which could produced a better result through consensus
building among the stakeholders. This essay is not expected more than a matter
of discourses about the management of the disasters among the stakeholders. When
we talk about the disaster, earthquake, volcano, flood, landslide, fires, droughts
and deforestation etc will come in our mind. Only these disasters are depicted
in this essay for author’s convenience. Beside these we could listen about some
other types of disasters like chemical pollution, storm, food poisoning,
industrial crisis, environmental pollution, traffic accidents etc in the news
and talk programs.
Earthquake is an unexpected and rapid shaking of earth
due to the breakage and shifting of underneath layers of Earth. Earthquake
strikes all of a sudden at any time of day or night and quite violently. It
gives no prior warning. If it happens in a populated area, the earthquake can
cause great loss to human life and property. Volcano is a mountain that has an opening downwards to the
reservoir of molten rock towards the surface of earth. Volcanoes are caused by
the accrual of igneous products. As the pressure caused by gases in the molted
rock becomes intense, the eruption takes place. The volcanic eruption can be of
two kinds, quiet or volatile. The aftermaths of a volcano include flowing lava,
flat landscapes, poisonous gases and fleeing ashes and rocks. Flood is also one of the most common
hazards in our country and other parts of the world. The effects of a flood can
be local to a neighborhood or community. It can cast a larger impact, the whole
river basin and multiple states could get affected. Landslide is another kind of disasters which seem to occur
naturally rather artificial one. Actually the movement of mass of the earth
along the sloped surface due to rain water is what we called a landslide. Wild
forest areas catching fire is a very
big problem for the people who live around these areas. The dry conditions
caused several times in the year can increase the possibility for wildfires. If
we are well prepared in advance and know how to protect the buildings in our area,
we can reduce much of the damage caused by wildfire or forest fire. Due to
exploitation of natural resources at higher degree the meteorological and
hydrological cycles have been affected and effects could be realize by
evaluating the drought area in some part of our country. If a particular area has no rainfall or less rain than
normal for a long period of time is called drought.
It is not only lack of rainfall that causes drought. Hot dry winds, very high
temperature and evaporation of moisture from the ground can result in
conditions of drought. Deforestation
is another major problem in most of the developed countries and some developing
countries like we have. The most of the development activities are founded on
the root of deforestation; consequently the undesirable events will be seen in
the coming future. Unscientific deforestation is that one which creates a lower
benefit from development activities than the cost of deforestation. The
ecological imbalance and the natural disasters like heavy rain and drought in
specific region are the immediate results of the deforestation. There may be
some debate whether the deforestation is a cause of disasters or itself a kind
of disaster. Whatever be the consensus we build about the deforestation I would
like to call it as a kind of disaster.
Whichever be the kind of disasters they are equally prone
to create tremendous hazards in our life. The effects of disaster could be
displayed in terms of squatter settlements, famine, loss of lives and property,
poverty, clashes among the people and ultimately into a social conflicts. Until
and unless we couldn’t able to work out about disasters prior to happen it will
some cumbersome to manage it just after its occurrence. Any kind of disaster
would produce unwanted event in our society if we are not aware. Awareness
among all the people will be best technique in problem solving activities.
Planning what we frequently talk is a kind of problem solving activity. On the
other hand, the problems due to disaster should face by all the people living
in a particular region. Inequality among the people living in a specific
territory is a peculiar feature of that society which encompasses the different
kind of problems faced by each individual. These different experience about
disastrous hazards if try to gather in a single basket it will provides a basis
for planning. “Prevention is better than Care”, in order to prevent any events
that will more likely to happen with uncertainty of time in future, planning is
needed. If, once a planning is critically carried out using a better theory,
those uncertainties could be addressed in some desired degree.
Planning is the prediction about the future events and
phenomena which helps in prevention of the adverse effects of any kind of
disaster. Actually planning is done for the sake of attainment of desired goals
through setting up the standard goals or objectives. Planning is the process of
prediction about the state, objects, scenario, phenomenon and any subject. The theoretical
anticipatory work that if thoughts before the actual happening can be defined
as the planning. Planning process requires some sorts of information. The
information will prove an important basis for the planning about the future
could be from past experience and preliminary symptoms in the ground of present
situations. Planning helps to accept the future events or happening in desired
degree and shape which we let to allow happen readily with no or little
deviation from our early predictions. A plan can take variety of form
including: strategic plans, comprehensive plans, neighborhood plans, regularity
and incentive strategies or historic preservation plans. Planners are often
also responsible for enforcing the chosen policies. Urban planning is a
technical process concerned with the control of the uses of land and design of
the urban environment, including transportation networks, to guide and ensure
the orderly development of settlements and communities. It concerns itself with
research and analysis, strategic thinking, urban design, public consultation,
policy recommendations, implementation and management. The purpose of planning
theory is simply to tell planners what they ought to be doing; such knowledge
depends on an accurate appraisal of the situation in which planners find
themselves (Fainstein 2000, p.144-145). The ordinary and simple plans may not
take a consideration about the natural disasters with greater importance due to
two basic reasons. One of them is due to uncertainty about the natural
disasters and rest is due to excessive cost of plans during implementations.
The uncertainty about the natural disaster includes the intensity of the
disaster or degree or extent of disaster and the time of occurrence of the
disaster. Despite of not having that information about disaster we have to plan
either for extreme severe condition or let to go them without any
interventions. Planning for extreme severe condition due to disaster requires
more and more funds and the plans become an uneconomical. On the other hand if
disaster is left to go it will make senseless planning or become worthless
during the life span of any plan. In fact little plan is better than no plan.
These facts enforce the planners to plan for sustainable development.
There
are theories in planning and no theories of planning; therefore, planning
theories are generally procedural theories. It is meant that planning theory is
generally called procedural because it generally concerns itself with the
process through which planning occurs and whether or not that process is valid.
Theory presents a coherent structure of understanding of a phenomenon. In order
to kiss the peak of satisfactory planning even in the case of disaster we have
to gone through the different theories in planning. The incremental planning is the one which is based on the willingness
of the planner with his expertise to develop any urban settlement in different
stages that is in the incremental basis. Charles E. Lindblom, a chief spokesperson for
incremental planning, has described it as “partisan mutual adjustment” or
“disjoint incrementalism”. According to the Lindblom's theory nature and extent
of action is decided by adding an incremental change in the desired direction
to status quo. Current institutions and the bargaining process often address
planning in this approach. Incrementalism is based not on 'optimization but on
satisfying through successive approximations' and also tries to replace
"planner's values by bargaining process and values of existing institutions”. The key idea behind transactive planning is ‘planning is
to be done with people, not for people’. In transactive planning approach, first the
planner initiates the idea about numerous variables in planning with his
experience and knowledge and after which those variables are analyze in a desk
of community participation for decision making procedure. The basic philosophy of
this planning approach is the inclusion of the people in the decision
making of the planning for whom the plan is being produced. Thus this approach
is based on personal knowledge rather than processed knowledge and aims at
social reconstruction through a process of mutual learning. Transactive
planning is carried out in face-to-face contact with people affected by
planning decisions, as social learning is a newer version of Transactive
planning. This results in decentralized planning process like synoptic approach
towards centralization, and allows beneficiary control over the process. Dislike in transactive planning, the communicative
planning emphasize the believes that community peoples are more knowledgeable
so that they provoke what they actually experienced in the past and what ideas
have in their mind regarding the past events to cope-up in future? Long term
plan with incremental progression based on the fact that phenomena are dynamic
in nature are accounted-for in strategic planning. The key idea behind
strategic planning: In a quickly shifting market and political realities,
strategic rather than comprehensive planning interventions stand a better
chance of success. The idea is to focus on matching organizational capability
with vision of change, set strategic, shorter-term and incremental targets and
lay out a detailed, doable strategy for achieving the target. The author attempts to separate these planning
models with their pros and cons in disaster management activities.
Over population in a city area or town of our
country leads towards exploitation of environmental resources such as river,
forests, clean oxygen and others. The huge impact of the human agencies and
different technologies imposed their effects in the earth as the result of
disturbance in the natural equilibrium position. The unstable position of the
earth accompanies due to loss of equilibrium causes different natural disasters
along with the manmade disasters. Our past experiences indicate us that this
phenomenon has gone through increasing trend. To enter into the major
discussion about different planning approaches through any planning theory it
is better to know the different tasks involved into planning process.
The first task is
to evolve a deeply considered humanist philosophy for planning and to trace its
implications for practice. This is the philosophical task of planning
theory. The second task is to help adapt planning practices to their real-world
constraints with regard to scale, complexity and time. What I have in mind here
are the constraints with which the constant flux of the world presents us,
along with the growing complexity and scale of the urban. This is the task of adaptation.
The third task is to translate concepts and knowledge generated in other fields
into our own domain and to render them accessible and useful for planning and
its practices. I call this the task of translation. (Friedmann, p.5)
In this essay, I will present each of these
tasks by drawing on specific examples from the literatures. Different people
have their own style to tackle against the problems. Peoples by birth they are
differ from each others. The way of thinking, living, acting and their
perceptions towards each object and phenomenon differ from people to people.
Thus formed heterogenic society from these people has no single philosophy to
live their lives in that society. Each and every individual realize their own
society from different angles. Although they live in a single society they have
their own values and status along with their individual efforts to make a
perfect society. If planning is treated as a problem solving activity then each
individual living in a territory wants to impose their problems along with their
willingness to solve the problems. It is really difficult task to make an agreeable
end of the solution, due to long discourses among the citizens. In such case
the planners could acts as a mediator to build a consensus regarding the
specific problems. Two of the leading advocates of the approach define
deliberative democracy “as a form of government in which free and equal
citizens (and their representatives) justify decisions in a process in which
they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally
accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the
present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future. (Gutmann and
Thompson 2004, C.F. Friedmann, p. 11).
This statement is supposed to have superior value in disaster management
works since every participant have their equal rights to share their ideas on
the basis of their problems. If we able to incorporate the human philosophies
in the planning activity then it would easy to implement and those plans are
successful one which are implementable. Christensen stated that “Actual
problems vary in uncertainty over means and ends” (1985, p. 63). Taking two
major variables as means and ends in his article he has classified the works
involving in planning as learning process, bargaining process and part of
search for order in chaos. The means of achieving the goals are similitude with
available technology and the goals are stated as desired ends. In his article,
the planning processes are categorized on the basis of technology and the goals
as known technology- agreed goals, unknown technology-agreed goals, known
technology- no agreed goals and unknown technology-agreed goals. Each of these
conditions seeks a peculiar planning process, based on which each of them are
presented with suitable examples in his article. In the context of disaster,
the ends are generally unpredictable in planning due to which whole planning
process seems to be vague and ineffective. Nevertheless after fixation of datum
line for solving the problems related to the disaster management, we could
somehow rely on the plans and extracts some benefits from earlier planning
practices. The datum line during the planning might be clear distinction of
different natural disaster and manmade disasters. Disaster might be water
induced, fires, earthquakes and volcano, health disasters and hydrological and
meteorological disasters. Once after anticipating the probable disasters we
could draw a tentative plan. To draw a tentative plan it seeks different views
from stakeholders. To incorporate these different ideas and views planners are
more reluctant to impose the rational planning approach rather they try to
share their expertise along with the community wisdom. Going through the
different literature that has been already published it seems to be wise to
adopt the communicative approach for planning and practices but in fact
communicative model itself not a better approach for planning in disaster
management context. At glance the communicative model seems to be playing in
the numerous ideas drawn from the community people along with the planners
where the problems and remedial measures are first pronounced by the community
people. Fainstein in this article ‘New Direction in Planning Theory’ stated
that the communicative model emphasizes the planner’s role in mediating among
stakeholders. Thus in comparison to the ration planning approach, the role of
planners are merely neutral in the communicative planning approach which might
not looks a justice to the planners due to not fairly selling their ideas.
Planning for unknown means and agreed goal, planners work through trial and
error, trying something, receiving feedback from environment and then making
future modification in response until the situation becomes tolerable. This
approach seems the opposite of the classic rational response to condition of
certainty. Instead of trying to predict as many consequences of a potential
action as possible, the planners acts first and then waits to see what
consequences actually occur (Christensen 1985, p. 457). This concept has been
influenced by the incremental planning approach. Another model is the
transactive planning. In transactive planning the ideas are first generated by
the planners and then let that to discuss, modify and some improvements in it
by the community people. Disaster is based on perceptions, and what people
perceive to be devastating to them or a society. In this sense the transactive plans may not
truly hold the rational planning concept and this is the reason due to which
planners should go through the public participations. Effects of extreme events on systems are complex and long
lasting. “When a city or a community encounters the post extreme event
environment, there is no "unitary" decision maker. There are hundreds
or thousands of decision makers, only some of whom are public policy makers” (Sadeghi, 4). This is the fact due to which
public participation is essential in planning related to the disaster
management. The field of planning has not been quick to incorporate
environmental ethics into its theory and practices (Beatley, p.14). This
might be a major cause for the natural disasters. The natural disasters are induced due to imbalance of the environments
and if the environmental ethics have been implemented in the planning field the
uncertain natural calamity could be reduced dramatically. Putting the
perception of all the people from different field of interest like,
environmentalists, technical experts, politicians and common people of the
community will better ensures the implementable plan. This process of listening
views of all to a decision over a disaster management in a single point; this is
what I prefer to call a philosophical task in planning. In this sense
the collective bargaining process is the task of incorporation of different
views of people which is in fact a philosophical task in planning.
In this essay I have made some argument about
the planning theory by dividing the whole task in to three different major
tasks as philosophical task which provides the general path to guide the
planners during courses of action, the adaptation task to enforce the planners
via knowledge of community people and the translation task to translate the
knowledge and concept made in paper into real situation. I have made some
arguments about the suitability of different planning approach in these
individual tasks. I have also tried to show the social and normative values of
the individuals to their rights of safe survival during the disaster time
through better planning. In this essay I have tried to make a rationale about
the planning approaches in three different tasks by picking a suitable argument
made by different expert in their literature. Nevertheless I emphasize on
incremental planning approach for philosophical task, communicative approach of
planning for adaptation and translation task of planning. As disaster is an
uncertain phenomenon which likely happened due to natural imbalances will
result in different worst situation to the people it should be managed properly
by ordering the different infrastructure with least degradation of natural
resources. The natural resources are continuously exploited by the human
agencies and the degree of such exploitation will enhance the natural
imbalances and such imbalances are more liable for disasters. The people to
whom the planning is assessed should be taken as major sources of the
information regarding the plans and they are equally responsible to resources
exploitations.
Reference Articles:
·
John Friedmann. The Uses of Planning Theory: A Bibliographic Essay.
·
Karen S. Christensen.1985. Coping with
Uncertainty in Planning, Contemporary
movement in Planning Theory.
·
Naghmeh Sadeghi.
Strategic Planning in Disaster Management; How
to Face the Unexpected in Natural Disasters, Socio Cultural and Economic
department Socio-Risk Management Research Center, International Institute of
Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), Tehran, Iran
·
Susan S. Fainstein. 2000. New Directions in
Planning Theory: Foundations of the
Planning Enterprise, Rutgers University.
·
Timothy Beatley. Environmental Ethics and the
Field of Planning: Alternative Theories and Middle- Range Principles.
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