Human settlements and natural disasters.

Based on the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) concept that although natural disasters cannot always be prevented, their effects can be reduced through a variety of measures, such as better construction standards, the definition of high-risk areas and activities of high vulnerability, improved land use, and the design of buildings and infrastructure systems to minimize their vulnerability. Examples are given of pre-disaster and post-disaster projects implemented by the Centre, with a view to illustrating some of the measures available to mitigate future disasters. The aim is to foster a greater disaster awareness and to enable disaster-prone countries to learn from each others' experience. The disasters illustrated in this pamphlet point to some of the key issues to be considered in developing strategies for disaster and reconstruction. Some of the examples show clearly that disasters provide an opportunity for governments to use their emergency powers to acquire sites, assemble land, and rationalize land-use patterns. Such programmes can also be used to improve the housing conditions of the poor, by training them in disaster-resistant construction methods. In this way, the effects of the calamity can be changed to an advantage and the disaster can become an agent for a change, leading eventually, to improved human settlements