JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD B.Tech III DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND PLANNING MANAGEMENT Previous Question Paper (August - 2022 - R18)

Disaster prevention refers to the outright avoidance of the adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters. It involves measures taken to ensure that a hazard event does not result in a disaster, often by completely eliminating the risk or exposure, such as building dams to prevent flooding or strict land-use planning to avoid building on fault lines.

Disaster mitigation refers to structural and non-structural measures undertaken to limit the adverse impact of natural hazards, environmental degradation, and technological hazards. Unlike prevention, mitigation assumes that a hazard may occur and focuses on reducing its severity, such as retrofitting buildings to be earthquake-resistant or planting mangroves to reduce storm surge impact.

Mitigation is the cornerstone of disaster risk management, focusing on long-term actions to reduce the vulnerability of people and property to future disasters. It is categorized into two main types:

• Structural mitigation: Physical changes to the built environment, such as constructing flood levees, seismic retrofitting of bridges, and installing fire suppression systems.
• Non-structural mitigation: Policies and practices that do not involve physical construction, such as building codes, land-use zoning, insurance programs, and public awareness campaigns to ensure communities are better prepared for hazard impacts.

The primary goal is to break the cycle of disaster damage and reconstruction by creating resilient infrastructure and informed communities.