Principles for reducing the risk of water-related disasters
Fact of the day: more than 90% of the 1,000 major disasters that have occurred in recent years are water-related. The risk increases especially during a pandemic.
The High-level Group of Experts and Leaders on Water and Natural Disasters (HELP Program) has developed and is promoting draft principles for solving water-related disaster risk reduction problems during COVID-19. The principles are aimed at improving the efficiency of national emergency services and water resources management bodies.
The 10 principles provide practical advice and specific guidelines for action, and can also be applied to other types of disasters:
- Raising awareness among leaders about disaster risk reduction in the context of a pandemic.
- Integrating disaster risk management and pandemic risk management actions.
- Ensuring access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene before, during and after a disaster.
- Protecting stakeholders involved in risk management from the threat of COVID-19.
- Protection of limited medical resources from the impact of disasters.
- Protecting people evacuated as a result of disasters from the threat of COVID-19
- Protecting COVID-19 patients from the threat of disasters.
- Development of a specialized evacuation guide for cities and districts, in particular
- which are quarantined in connection with COVID-19.
- Effective financing of DRR measures in the context of COVID-19 in
- avoiding an economic catastrophe.
- Strengthening global solidarity and international cooperation in order to
- solutions to these coexisting problems in order to make our world even better.
To learn more about the principles, follow the link
https://www.wateranddisaster.org/cms310261/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/HELP-Principles-to-address-water-related-DRR-under-COVID19_R.pdf