Waste Management Outlook for Mountain Regions

Damaged bridge from flooding, Pakistan. Photo © Wikimedia/Horace Murray

of authorities to develop and maintain adequate infrastructure, resulting in the development of informal settlements and slum areas which are highly vulnerability to natural hazards (Jeschonnek et al., 2014). Globally, about 56 per cent of all cities are exposed to at least one type of natural hazard – cyclones, floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides or volcano eruptions (Gu et al., 2015). In mountainous regions, people (particularly young men) from small mountain communities, move to large cities in search of better prospects. Due to limited financial resources, they often move to the growing slum areas and informal settlements, which lack even the most basic infrastructure. These tend to be located on steep hillsides around mountain cities and can be particularly vulnerable to landslides triggered by heavy rain and the removal of vegetation. The risks in these areas are often exacerbated by the poor quality of homes and infrastructure which are vulnerable to collapse, and because these areas lack early warning systems and evacuation plans (Jeschonnek et al., 2014). Mitigating urban risk is an urgent priority for national governments as well as urbanmunicipalities, given the continued urbanization projected for the coming decades, particularly in Asia and Africa. This includes obtaining good quality data on shocks, stresses, hazards and vulnerabilities; implementing more stringent construction standards and plans for safer buildings and infrastructure; legalizing and regularizing informal settlements; preserving productive and protective ecosystems (for example through an ecosystem-based adaptation approach); and building local capacity to respond rapidly to disasters. 11

The composition of disaster waste varies both with the type of disaster and the natural and built environment affected. The largest proportion of disaster waste is generally construction and demolition waste, comprised of concrete, steel, wood and other building materials, which can also include asbestos insulation and other hazardous waste. The 2008 earthquake near Chengdu in Sichuan, China, for example generated about 20 million tons of building waste (Boston.com, 2008). Disaster waste is not only generated by the disaster itself but also during the response and recovery phase (Modak, Wilson and Velis, 2015h). Emergency and rebuilding operations generate substantial amounts of waste because of the lack of segregation, and uncontrolled storage and dumping. This waste might, for example, consist of health care products, packaging from basic provisions or demolition waste. Proper management of disaster waste can provide resources to support the recovery effort rather than causing long-term damage. For example, recycling rubble and steel debris into new building materials can reduce the costs of rebuilding affected communities.

Disaster risks in mountain cities

As a result of population growth, rural to urban migration and an increasing shortage of space, cities in developing countries are sprawling outwards, often into hazard-prone areas such as alongside riverbanks or steep hillsides, which were previously devoid of development (Schuster and Highland, 2007; Jeschonnek et al., 2014). The growth of these cities often exceeds the capacity

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