Monsoon rains cause regular flooding in Bangkok, and the city's underground MRT deploys simple measures for effective flood risk control. However, with expansions planned over the next ten years, concern is emerging over adequate responses to climate change, earthquake risk and rising sea levels. Serious thought now could save millions in retrofitting and damages, not to mention loss of life, as Rowan Fraser describes.
A number of positive civil movements that Haitian authorities could easily engage with to develop a more sustainable and inclusive future for the country.
The 2010 World Disasters Report highlights the "urban risk divide" between wealthy cities like Tokyo and poorer cities like Kathmandu, Manila and Jakarta which would face serious losses in any emergency.
Customs officials blocking supplies, international donors blocking funds, and land owners blocking redevelopment: a wrap-up of international reporting on the stalled reconstruction efforts in Haiti.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has warned that an earthquake preparedness plan it drew up with the MMDA and JICA in 2004 has not been properly implemented, leaving the city vulnerable to the possibility of an earthquake the magnitude of Haiti's.
Rowan Fraser is an urban development and management specialist, focusing on urban resilience. He works in countries across Asia.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
