- The global emergency, disaster, and recovery management sector employs over 2.2 million people, with approximately 97,800 new positions added in the last year alone. India is emerging with developments in this field.
- One of the consequences of the increasing threat of disasters is the evolving workforce that steps in to manage them. Jobs vary based on the vast realm of disaster preparedness — on-ground relief work, the use of technology for warning systems, urban planners, outreach and education, counselling, and so on.
- Going forward AI will play a significant role in prevention strategies.
This story is part of a mini-series on evolving green jobs. It looks at roles in the disaster response and resilience space, a growing area of employment that focuses on helping communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. The first story in this series unpacks what green jobs are and why they matter. The second story explores how people are navigating careers in the green economy and the support that is emerging for them. The upcoming stories will dive into specific sectors driving India’s green workforce and the aligned opportunities that this creates.
At 2 a.m. on July 30, 2024, Kerala was hit by one of the largest landslides in Indian history. Cutting across seven to eight kilometres, it annihilated the villages of Punchirimattam, Chooralmala and Mundakkai with a reported death toll over 231 people.
Praveen S., Manager, Disaster Preparedness and Response at Humane World for Animals India received news from the district administration and an online ‘Inter Agency Network’ that facilitates coordination in the face of calamities. With a team of 10 people, Praveen worked on rescue operations for animals. “Handling animals, especially those in distress is just one aspect that needs trained people to manage disasters. There are also no shelters built for animals in the region yet,” he said, adding that they were building one now. “This is how disasters prepare us for the next one; we learn and fill in the gaps.”
Between 2000 and 2019, India experienced 321 natural disasters, resulting in over 70,000 deaths and affecting approximately one billion people. One of the consequences of the increasing threat of disasters is the evolving workforce that steps in to manage them. The roles vary — prevention and risk, relief and management, post-disaster analysis and future preparedness — but they operate like different parts of a theatre motley cast, stepping in and out with set skills and services around the main act.
According to the Emergency and Disaster Management Market Report 2025, the global emergency, disaster, and recovery management sector employs over 2.2 million people, with approximately 97,800 new positions added in the last year. India is one of the countries leading developments in this field, particularly in research and development in the disaster, recovery, and disaster management sector.
Science is telling us that the climate is changing. Statistics are telling us what to expect as a fallout. And as a workforce, India is gearing up to weather the storm, literal and otherwise.
AI and the era of risk reduction
In the last few years, disaster preparedness has opened new opportunities for the tech sector — for climate emergencies, relief aid, modelling complex data sets using artificial intelligence (AI) and mobilising innovative finance. The use of AI for rescue and evacuations during the Los Angeles wildfires in 2024 is a recent global example.
In India, government agencies like India Meteorological Department (IMD), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services) are steadily increasing the use of AI for cyclone prediction, real-time satellite imagery for flood and fire monitoring, and GIS-based decision-support systems.
There is a push to involve the larger public in awareness and alertness. In April this year, the NDMA rolled out the Sachet mobile application, designed to give nation-wide early warning alerts for disasters as well as geo-tagged information and dos and don’ts in regional languages. The Uttarakhand Forest Department launched the android-based ‘Forest Fire Uttarakhand’ mobile app, designed in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, to give near real time satellite-located fire locations to the forest staff and volunteers.
This intersection between tech and the environment is where possibilities lie.
SEEDS, co-founded in 1994 by Manu Gupta and Anshu Sharma, works on building the resilience of people exposed to disasters and climate change impacts. It received a ‘Microsoft AI for Humanitarian Action grant’ in 2018 to develop platforms designed to enhance risk management and climate resilience. “We built a model that predicts a disaster’s pathway,” explains Gupta. “Then it combines satellite imagery and hyperlocal weather data to create maps of affected areas and calculates risk scores for every home within the area based on the material of its roof. Another programme, named Akshvi, helps communities to self-report their losses, and tracks their progress through digital e-wallets.” The organisation was awarded the Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Award 2021 in Disaster Management.
But it wasn’t always accolades and mobile apps that alert you at your fingertips. Deepshikha Rawat Bhatt works as a subject matter expert on disaster management with the government of Uttarakhand. With 15 years of experience and a Ph.D. in remote sensing in GIS behind her, she sees the upward graph. A decade ago, in the absence of early warnings, she remembers handling the phones at the 24×7 control centres with her team during disasters, coordinating with IMD, initiating response teams and giving information to panicked survivors looking for their families. The job taught her to be mentally strong, alert and available. Now, things are steadily improving. “In the 2021 flash floods in Dehradun, I was able to save precious time with early warnings and activate response teams, resulting in a lower number of casualties. There is a resident SDRF and NDRF team in the state now, which reduces response time. In times of peace, the teams engage in disaster outreach with local schools.”
And we have only just begun to explore the possibilities, according to Priyanka Vadrevu. A freelance researcher, she works in the realm of water resource management, climate adaptation, disaster resilience, and sustainable development across geographies — from mountainous terrains to rural communities. Her work with different organisations — including a consultancy at NDMA, and as a research associate at the Centre for Himalayan Ecology at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) — has given her a multidisciplinary approach. She predicts that the next generation will be able to take monitoring to real-time data management instead of the current practice of past data. “Climate change means a weather pattern that spans a minimum of 30 years. Within a few years we will be faster and match the pace of vulnerability of climate change. And that is a huge workforce opportunity. Software engineers wanting to engage with climate resilience and sustainability need not just limit themselves to regular IT programming or data charts for finance or government organisations. They could think about AI and develop their skill to build models for weather forecasting or now-casting (a short-term forecast which is within two hours).”
The basic principle of AI is that it works on a vast historical data set that goes back, not just a few decades, but 100 years. This information is put into a programme and a model is built to identify specific threats, for example, cyclones. The model will use other parameters to establish the timeline of the warning.
While AI significantly enhances disaster management, it begs the question around data privacy, model transparency, errors and bugs and importantly, equitable access. Not to mention, the irony of massive resource consumption to curb impending disaster. The way forward would need a robust collaboration between NGOs, tech companies and the government, more so in the prioritisation of prevention.
Urban planning and the priority of risk assessment
The August 2024 Disaster Management Amendment Bill does adhere to that. It lays emphasis on prevention, mitigation, and preparedness rather than just rescue and relief through proactive disaster risk reduction strategies. While the bill faced criticism about missed opportunities, it does introduce the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and strengthens urban risk reduction via Urban Disaster Management Authorities (UDMAs).
Priya Chavan, an urban planner from Mumbai, is working on a Ph.D. exploring risk-thinking in the urban planning practice. Her research looks at the diverse ways in which one engages with risk in a city-level plan. She studied architecture from Pune, before getting her Master’s in planning (with housing as her specialisation) from Ahmedabad. Her degree in architecture bolstered her understanding of urban planning and how disasters affect homes. While working on floods in a village in Bihar, Chavan noticed that houses built using traditional technology such as bamboo survived in the flood as opposed to those that used brick and mortar to build “pucca” (permanent) houses, which seem modern but were not as appropriate to the landscape and weather.
Urban areas also grapple with construction, development, roads, railways and so much more. So, how are we assessing the potential hazards? “Our development plans are usually for the next 20-25 years, so there is this forward thinking of what the population will be at that time, the consequent water needs, and what the city-wide infrastructure requirements will be. While floods can be disastrous, so is not having access to water, which further adds to the risk. These are called risk burdens of development.” Working in both rural and urban areas gave Chavan perspective. “Universally, it is the disaster management department that is responsible for post-disaster situations. The difference between larger urban areas and rural ones is that for the former, it is housed in the municipal corporation, while for the latter, in the District Collectorate.”
The study of on-ground disaster work
People management is a vital, not just preferred skill, within the scope of community driven disaster resilience, especially with the varied groups involved – government authorities, local bodies, communities, law enforcement, etc. “I speak to everyone with no preconceived notions, and always try to be calm, respectful and ready to listen and learn,” says Praveen. He studied disaster management from Tata Institute of Social Sciences seven years ago, and realised he didn’t want to ever do anything but this. The course — which was more than theory and classroom techniques — took him to his first field visit to an earthquake-affected area in the Osmanabad district of Maharashtra. Since then, working in multiple disaster sites — the earthquake in Latur, or floods in Kerala, or even working on coastal resilience in Andamans — have taught Praveen the value of interaction, knowledge-swapping and active listening with local communities. “We conducted participatory rural appraisals, involving community mapping, resource mapping, hazard mapping, etc. The village residents draw up their own plan because of their core understanding of their region; we just need to support it. And of course, research is a core part of this education and consequent work profile.”
Wherever the site, Praveen always reaches out to the primary tier of the local body and works his way up the government hierarchy. Then local NGOs, and self-help groups, especially the ones run and managed by women.
Women at the heart of disaster resilience and vulnerability
Women self-help groups are usually incredibly vibrant, active and consist of people taking decisions at a household level. And when disaster strikes, women often become first responders, protecting others while facing heightened risks, including fallouts like trafficking, in the aftermath.
In Kerala, that group is Kudumbashree. “We started something called monsoon preparedness in Wayanad three years ago with the women’s group, district ward members, Jilla Panchayat,” says Praveen. “The local people are engaged in building capacity on basic animal care, first aid and disaster preparedness before the monsoon and mapping temporary shelters where livestock can be safe in lieu of an early warning.” Praveen’s work with Kudumbashree has now reached a professional rapport that efficiently uses the group’s WhatsApp channel to ensure timely information as well as outreach.
The group has now moved to training activities that include hazard mapping of their neighbourhoods with an eye that can zero in on risk areas, anticipate problems and plan for them. “We were trained in dealing with disasters by HSI (now Humane World for Animals),” says Rajitha, of a Community Development Society that works on improving the well-being of a community. She lives in Padinjarethara, Wayanad, and has members working under her in the region. A voluntary member of the group for 15 years now, she is clear about being in the collective as an act of service for society.
The not-so-visible but vital cogs of the disaster management wheel
The consequential trauma of grief, displacement and injury after a disaster is far more than the physical trauma. Mental health counselling is an important but often overlooked part of disaster resilience. Vadrevu remembers the Chamoli disaster in Uttarakhand in February 2021. She was coordinator of the team that managed and formed the national level team to study the impact and causes of the incident for NDMA. She described survivors with severe trauma, most of whom were incoherently babbling upon their return to their houses. “Even after a month or two, they were only managing gibberish. Jaise zinda lashe bol rahi hain. (It was as if the “living dead” were speaking),” she says, referring to the emotionally numb survivors.
A study by Ratan Das after the Kerala landslide describes the psychological devastation survivors went through: “For those who have lost everything, including their loved ones, the path to recovery seems impossible. Sleepless nights and a crippling fear of rain will now be a part of their reality. The Kerala Health Department deployed a 121-member team of psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and counsellors soon after the disaster to provide immediate and long-term mental health support.”
Which is why educational institutions — National Institute of Disaster Management, Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, to name just a few — are also including different skill sets. The Master’s Programme in Disaster Management at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences has faculty from varied backgrounds including counsellors and lawyers. Saumya Kumar, Assistant Professor, is a lawyer who has studied international and comparative law. “As a lawyer, there are two ways to work in this space: one involves policy analysis, where you collect data and research with respect to analysing a policy, not just about disaster management but also social welfare schemes, environmental law. And two, litigation.”
Beyond academic study, outreach, media and advertising can bolster a sector facing complex subjects and rising misinformation with far-reaching ad campaigns (like Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘do boond zindagi ke’ polio campaign in 2002), palatable science communication with influencers and offline events and meetups to make climate information accessible and dare we say, ‘cool’ to consume.
Going forward, the field will need more multidisciplinary tools for effective management. As Vadrevu says, “It will push us to understand the economy, science, commerce, and art behind natural events. That is why we call the environment an ‘ecosystem,’ which includes everything in it.”
Read more: The future of jobs is green, but getting there is a maze
Banner image: Between 2000 and 2019, India experienced 321 natural disasters that led to over 70,000 deaths and affected approximately one billion people. Image by Priyanka Vaderu.
