Climate change and disaster preparedness issues in Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

This article sought to review the literature on the effectiveness of the disaster preparedness plans in two provinces that were struck by climate-induced disasters in South Africa in 2022. Making use of a qualitative desktop study, the effects of urbanisation and infrastructure development on the deadly disasters of April 2022 were examined, using thematic analyses. The review reveals a complex combination of the causes of disaster in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, which included unplanned urbanisation; ineffective warning systems; inadequate infrastructure, and houses being built on floodplains, in wetland, and in coastal areas. The lack of climate knowledge among government officials and communities prone to climate-induced disasters was considered to have led to the severe devastating effects of the April 2022 disasters. These challenges were compounded by the failure of municipal officials to harness learnings from the rich indigenous knowledge systems of the vulnerable groups and to reverse impacts of the disasters. The article summarises the causes, challenges, impacts, and solutions that can be considered to plan for disaster preparedness.


INTRODUCTION
The year 2022 is considered to have been a year of great tragedy, with two coastal provinces in South Africa experiencing catastrophic and unprecedented floods and landslides because of abnormal torrential rains.This left thousands of people displaced and having to live in shelters, with hundreds dead and property damage estimated at R17 billion/US$1.57billion (IOL, 2022: 1).Since 2013, South Africa has been prone to a myriad of disasters, including floods, droughts, and storms that are climate change-induced and that have led to water restrictions in the urban agricultural sector (Climate Analysis Group, 2018: 1; Institute for Security Studies, 2018: 2).Nonjinge (2019: 1) mentions that, since 2018, multiple surveys have been conducted in South Africa to test the views on whether climate-induced disasters such as floods and droughts have worsened over the past decade.Nearly half of the respondents were semi-literate women and rural areas dwellers who stated that they had never heard of climate change.This differed from those who had more education, and who cited the adverse consequences of climate change and the urgent need for it to be halted.The crafting of the National Climate Change Response White Paper in 2011 by the South African Government was the acknowledgement of the climate change realities being regarded as major threats to sustainable development and compromising the country's development goals (DEA, 2011: 6).
Researchers (Chapungu, 2020;Mavhura, 2020;Phiri, Simwanda and Nyirenda, 2022) conducted an evaluation of the South African Weather Service's (SAWS) weather information on tropical cyclone Idai.The cyclone struck three countries (Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique) in 2019, with over 1 500 deaths reported (Bopape et al., 2021: 1).The authors suggest that the weather systems predicted the events in advance and that warnings were issued, but many people did not respond to warnings or were not aware thereof.Model simulations relating to the location of the flood events in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) were underestimated, showing that there were shortcomings in the model.In view of the identified weaknesses in the models, Bopane et al.
(2021) recommended that weather awareness be increased and that disaster risk management systems, including disaster preparedness and risk reduction be developed.
An empirical study by Mthembu and Zwane (2017), which assessed the Ncunjane (Msinga, KZN) farming community's vulnerability and adaptive capacity in response to the drought disasters of 2010 and 2014, yielded interesting results.The high cattle mortalities and low crop productivity increased food costs, reduced household income, and increased agricultural input costs (Mthembu & Zwane, 2017: 1).These authors found that the drought relief provided by the government had hardly any effect on farmers, who had to contend with large herds of cattle, prolonged heat spells, and variability in rainfall.This adversely affected small-scale farmers, with dire impacts on rural farming communities such as Msinga.Meanwhile, women have been severely affected by the impacts of climate change in KZN, with a reduction in harvests, due to devastating droughts.Fishing has also been negatively affected, something that traditionally plays an important role in households' food security (Masinga, Maharaj & Nzima, 2021: 1002).
Accordingly, in the Eastern Cape (EC) province, the three informal settlements without storm waterdrainage systems were selected to assess the factors influencing the structural flooding in such settlements (Dalu, Shackleton & Dalu, 2018).The study found that the patterns of land cover, proximity to water bodies, and increasing slope factor had influenced housing structures in the informal settlements of Grahamstown, Port St Johns, and Port Alfred (Dalu, Shackleton & Dalu, 2018: 481).Chari, Hamandawana and Zhou (2018: 670) studied the Nkonkobe Local Municipality, which is significantly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change (aggravated by high incidences of poverty and inaccessibility to basic services).A quarter of the villages that were sampled by these authors were found to have limited adaptive capacities in responding to the effects of climate change.
In the devastating floods that occurred in 2022, the vulnerable people -mostly those who are marginalised and living in informal settlements -had limited access to warnings from the eThekwini Municipality and the South African Weather Service.There was also an indication that these people did not know what to do with the limited information they received (Singh, 2022: 12).Despite the accurate prediction of the South African Weather Service, Kunguma (2022) opines that this was inadequate.The impacts of disasters are devastating and necessitate other measures such as research informing town planning and adequate maintenance of underground drainage systems to be in place, in order to prepare for disasters.Consequently, a report compiled by the Moses Kotane Institute (2022: 2) revealed that the damage caused by the 2022 floods in Durban were exacerbated by poor town planning, inadequate infrastructure, and houses built in mountainous areas.
In a systematic review of literature by Ryan et al. (2020), the lack of benchmarking exercises for the community to engage in disaster preparedness resulted in the recommendation for face-to-face techniques that support communityled preparedness activities.This could yield positive results as opposed to using mass media campaigns.An empirical study conducted by Abunyewah et al. (2020) in Ghana to examine the role of community participation in improving the effectiveness of disaster preparedness, solicited fascinating findings.These show that the accessibility of information and comprehensively tailored plans to respond to the needs of the public strongly influenced people to prepare for disasters (Abunyewah et al., 2020: 8).
Against this detailed backdrop of climate-induced disasters and its adverse effects, this article reviews the existing literature on the effects of preparedness strategies in mitigating the impacts of disasters that were experienced in two provinces in South Africa in 2022.The article also analyses the effects of urbanisation and infrastructure development on the climate-induced disasters.This study, therefore, questions whether the disaster preparedness plans by different actors and the existing infrastructure was effective in mitigating the impacts of the climate-induced disasters.

METHODS AND REVIEW STRATEGY
A   and Sohn, 2018), the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985), and the Political Systems Theory (Easton, 1953).Kim and Sohn (2018) investigated and provided an understanding of complex and contemporary phenomena such as meteorology, in order to find appropriate countermeasures.This theory's lenses are framed, based on contemporary disasters that have shown the characteristics of complex disasters.These include the 2011 earthquake that struck Japan with 20 000 reported fatalities, and the 2011 devastating flooding in Thailand which resulted in tremendous economic losses.The Complexity Theory has an important characteristic with "emergency", which provides an important lesson for people to understand ways to cope with disasters (Pelling, 2003).The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is applied to assess disaster preparedness, beliefs, and attitudes in shaping accepted and not accepted behaviours.It can create a particular attitude on why certain individuals' attitudes towards disaster preparedness are accepted or not (Zaremohzzabich et al., 2021).However, this overview of the study is underpinned by Easton's Political Systems Theory (1953), which is centred around stakeholder interactions and is influenced by the members of the system's behaviour when playing their roles.This implies that, when the theory is applied, a plethora of risks, crises, and difficulties can be avoided.This theory's environmental behaviour pillars are consistent with the current study's objectives (see Table 1), as they focus on the following constructs:

Conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of the study
• System: Interaction of people in implementing public policies.• Environment: Extra: international political, socio-economic, and cultural systems, sociostructural, and demographics.Intra: social environmentsecological, biological, cultural, and personality.• Response to its environment to adapt to the crisis.• Feedback: On the information and understanding the effects.
This study draws insights from the determinants of this theory, as it dissects the effectiveness of vulnerable communities and government and their preparedness for climate-induced disasters, the effects of urbanisation, and infrastructural development in two South African coastal provinces.

Climate change and vulnerabilities in South Africa
In South Africa, the consequences of climate change were predicted to worsen the impacts of natural disasters (floods, droughts, and storms), and contributed to socioeconomic losses, as observed in the January 2013 flooding of the Limpopo River (Twumasi et al., 2017: 308) (Fatti & Patel, 2013).
It is common that, despite the low level of resilience to disasters, developed areas can easily adapt and build resilience through effective decision-making (Vogel et al., 2007).The underlying issues and priorities such as reducing poverty and creating jobs may increase resilience among vulnerable groups (Koch, Vogel & Patel, 2007).This latter view is supported by Cities Alliance (2009) and Douglas et al. (2008) in that floods translate to disasters with severe and adverse

Insufficient disaster preparedness and vulnerable groups
In  (Cutter et al., 2008).
In developed countries such as Japan, which is severely prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, disaster preparedness at a community and household level are accentuated.Miceli, Sotgiu and Settanni (2008) conducted an empirical study, in a provincial city in Japan, to examine the determinants of disaster preparedness among households.These researchers found insufficient disaster preparedness, with the literate, the elderly, female or married having preparedness plans.People with farming experience and the presence of the elderly in a household meant that households were more prepared for disasters.
Fascinating themes emerged from another research study that aimed to understand the role of education in promoting disaster preparedness (Hoffmann & Muttarak, 2017).Education increased preparedness for those families that had been prone to disasters, as education improves abstract reasoning and anticipation skills.The study clearly concluded that educated households apply preventive measures without first experiencing a disaster (Hoffmann & Muttarak, 2017).These authors further concluded that stockpiling and having an evacuation plan could minimise loss and damage from hazards, even though levels of household disaster preparedness are not prevalent in disaster-prone areas.This has been supported by authors such as Adiyoso and Kanegae (2014) and Kohn et al. (2012)

Capacity development and stakeholders' partnership as panacea to disaster risk reduction
The  , 2005).

Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and disaster management
There has been a concerted effort to encourage both public and private sector organisations to specifically deploy 4IR technologies to manage and be prepared for climate-induced disasters across the spectrum.

Urbanisation, apartheid planning model, and its effects on climate change in South Africa
The rapid and unplanned urbanisation in the Global South  (Tuana, 2019).The extent effect, global warming, and extreme weather conditions.Two predominant disasters have been consistently mentioned -floods and droughtswhich led to widespread devastation and subsequent rescue operations.One of the experts provided this background: "Flooding started when a cut-off low pressure system delivered extremely high rainfall levels of 450 mm in some areas in just 48 hours" (Engelbrecht et al., 2022).The challenges espoused by media reports were a lack of risk awareness and a lack of education programmes for high-risk communities.Absent, outdated, and unreliable information as well as a lack of literacy about geography and climate change have perpetuated the impacts of flood disasters, more especially in KZN.One of the experts, quoted in a media article (Evans, 2022), stated: "Early warning systems on floods are not enough; climate crisis literacy saves lives." Based on the reviewed literature, South Africa is still perceived as the best country in terms of climate change adaptation, despite the severe human, economic, and infrastructural losses that have been recorded over the past two decades.Similarly, in developing countries that are severely prone to climate-induced disasters, their DRR initiatives have yielded positive results.However, the unplanned urbanisation has led to vulnerable of the nature of the effect of climate variations; the vulnerabilities of the displaced persons and refugees (Dawson, 2017); the weak political will and proactive response to the climate crisis have directly affected poor communities (Bond, 2016).Watson (2009: 151) argued that the majority of the Global South towns, which are heavily urbanised in cities/ towns and peri-urban areas, are compounded by a crisis of rapid population growth with the lack of access to infrastructure, proper shelter, and inadequate provision of services to predominantly poor populations.The author further alluded to the factors exacerbating the situation, namely weak governments, environmental issues brought by climate change, food insecurity, and the financial crisis.Watson (2009) hypothesised that urban planning served to exclude the poor, while there is an ongoing application of the older forms of urban planning.He concluded that there are significant shifts and new ideas without ready-made solutions for the Southern urban contexts.An overview paper written by Dodman et al. (2017), reviewing the key features of African urban experiences and the implications associated with such risks, concluded that both urban development and riskreduction actors should engage all the elements of urban development, including urban poverty, provision of services, infrastructure, informality, and local governance management.
A study exploring an association between urbanisation and living conditions in South Africa by Turok and Borel-Sladin (2014) found that the vast majority of people continue to live in informal settlements, as the provision of adequate services has not kept up with household growth.

DISCUSSION
Four major focus areas emerged from the reported online articles on the April disasters in the KZN and EC provinces, which encapsulate the causes, challenges, impacts, and solutions (refer to Figures 1 and 2).A noteworthy finding was a link between the legacy of apartheid urban planning and the catastrophic impacts of flooding in KZN.However, the literature depicts poverty, the scarcity of land, as well as rapid and unplanned urbanisation as adversely impacting on the designated groups.In addition, the economic repercussions on agricultural production, livestock, and infrastructure were severe, especially in the EC province.Finally, the lack of disaster preparedness plans was ascribed to a shortage of staff and resources, preventing municipalities from implementing such programmes.
In view of the above highlights of the study, it is recommended that a holistic investigation by both municipal planners and communities be undertaken to assess the risks, hazards, and effects of each ward and to ascertain what type and extent of disasters may strike these areas.The municipalities should develop, implement, and enforce by-laws that deal with unplanned urbanisation and influence the provincial and national governments to enact legislation to manage sporadic immigration.The shortage of safe land should be countered with the benchmarking of the integrated knowledge management systems applied in other developing countries where communities have built houses on floodplains (Douglas et al., 2008;Price & Vojinovic, 2008) During the disasters of 2022, a number of stakeholders, including NPOs (e.g., UNICEF South Africa, Famine Early Warning Systems team, GroundWork); non-governmental organisations (NGOs); academic institutions (e.g., the University of KwaZulu-Natal), and government officials played different roles.This is in line withWood et al. (2012) that various stakeholders including NGOs and local and national government disaster education programmes partake in disaster response.Concerning the causes of the April 2022 disasters, numerous media commentators and experts have stated that this was attributed to a cut-off low pressure, heavy rainfall, an increased greenhouse 14 4. DISCUSSION Four major focus areas emerged from the reported online articles on the April disasters in the KZN and EC provinces, which encapsulate the causes, challenges, impacts, and solutions (refer to Figures1 and 2).

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Reducing vulnerabilities and strategies to counter floods Source: Author

Table 1 :
Dhiman et al., 2019;Hoffman et al. 2009;uth Africa Frequency of extreme drought events, flooding, and rise in sea level.Dhiman et al., 2019;Hoffman et al. 2009; Twumasi  et al., 2017   Socio-economicLosses of families residing in coastal cities and damage to urban environments.