An Investigation into Emergency Planning Requirements and Challenges of Disaster Management in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

2020). Abstract Every year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is exposed to different natural hazards. However, flash floods have been the most common hazard during the previous few decades. Between 2000 and 2020, over 1,000 people lost their lives from flash floods, resulting in an economic loss amounting to billions of US dollars. By focusing on flash floods, a systematic review of the extracted data was conducted. They were analyzed based on the suitability of their content and data for emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges in the KSA. A total of 104 articles, papers, and plans were reviewed, of which only 18 complete papers met the inclusion criteria, including one plan and the General Directorate of Civil Defense (GDCD) website. The author has concluded that: 1) the essential requirements for emergency planning in the KSA include: conducting studies that show potential natural hazards, their locations, and their implications, and taking appropriate measures that reduce the possible causes of natural hazards; 2) The challenges facing the disaster management in the KSA are: lack of policies; the ambiguity of legislation and plans; poor coordination between stakeholders; lack of databases. This is the first investigation into emergency planning requirements and challenges of disaster management in the KSA. Furthermore, a scientific consensus predicts an increase in the frequency and magnitude of flash floods in the KSA. Therefore, the gaps need to be addressed in order to reduce the impact on inhabitants and infrastructure.

. Effects of Disasters: 1980-1999Compared to 2000 (Mizutori & Guha-Sapir, 2020). 1980-1999 2000-2019 Reported disasters: 4,212 Reported disasters: 7,348 The KSA is exposed to natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, landslides, slope collapses, and flash floods. In mountainous areas of the country, slope collapses -particularly rockfalls -is common (Abualnaja, 2011;Ewing and Synolakis, 2011;Lam et al., 2016). Other common natural hazards in this arid country include drought, erosion, shifting dunes, dust storms, and salinization, which lead to the decline of agricultural areas (Al-Bassam et al., 2014). However, flash floods have been the most common hazard documented in the EM-DAT during the previous few decades (CRED, 2021). Between 2000 and 2020, over 1000 people lost their lives from flash floods, resulting in an economic loss amounting to billions of US dollars (GDCD, 2021).
The literature on emergency planning and disaster management continues to develop. With this in mind, this paper presents an investigation into emergency planning requirements and challenges of disaster management, focusing on flash floods in the KSA.

Research Motivation and Rationale
The emergency planning for disaster management varies significantly from country to country. In the KSA context, the GDCD is responsible for managing and planning disasters and emergencies and protecting lives and properties (GDCD, 2020a;2020b). This can be characterized as 'working from the top-down. While the GDCD has sufficient will in planning for risk and disaster reduction, its policies, legislation, and regulations development concerning emergency planning and disaster management have been a prolonged process (Abosuliman et al., 2013).
Furthermore, according to Almari (2010), the GDCD has struggled to be proactive when planning present risks related to natural hazards and maybe even less prepared for possible future events, so the disaster management approach currently in the KSA being mainly reactive rather than proactive.
The KSA has been subject to much criticism from individuals and local and international societies. The criticism extends to the policies, procedures used in planning flash floods. In order to improve upon the emergency planning and disaster management in the KSA, the emergency planning requirements must be explored, and the challenges are hindering the effectiveness of disaster management.
This investigation aims to understand disaster management's emergency planning requirements and challenges, focusing on flash floods in the KSA. Lessons learnt are also outlined.

Research Strategy
This systematic review (SR) paper was conducted on separate databases such as Google Scholar and Scopus since each database has different functionality. The research was used terms such as: 'disaster management', 'emergency planning', 'emergency management policies and plans', 'emergency training or capability, and 'natural hazards' in the KSA. The full papers or national emergency planning and disaster management documents on natural hazards and management of risks, natural hazards guidance, and emergency policies/decrees were used, 3 whether they were in English or Arabic. The papers were evaluated based on their link with natural hazards and components of disaster management, especially emergency planning for natural hazards.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
The research was limited to English or Arabic publications related to emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges in the KSA from January 2000 to December 2020, which included compound terms such as: 'emergency policy', 'disaster management reforms', or 'natural hazards effects', were analyzed, regardless of the paper's form or content.

Evaluation of Publications
The researcher evaluated the full publication type for each paper on emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges. In order to explore how prepared the KSA's government and emergency authorities are with regard to responding to natural hazards, national emergency plans have been reviewed.
Emergency planning and disaster management papers linked specifically to natural hazards have also been used, except those which did not match the full criteria.

Data Analysis
Microsoft Excel was used to process the data and analyze the themes of the emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges, particularly regarding natural hazards in the KSA.

Results
A total of 104 articles, papers and plans were obtained and reviewed, of which only 18 complete papers met the inclusion criteria, including the GDCD website. They were analyzed based on their content and data suitability for emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges, focusing on natural hazards in the KSA (See Figure 1 below). persons, and many more thousands of damaged properties and economic assets (Alamri, 2010). The city recorded 150mm of torrential rainfall within just four hours, an amount that has not been seen for the past quarter of a century (Almazroui, 2011;Almazroui, 2013;Alkhalaf and Basset, 2013;Haggag and El-Badry, 2013). Furthermore, in 2011, a wave of torrential rain (50mm in four hours) resulted in 10 dead and 114 injured, as well as thousands of damaged buildings, let alone the economic losses that have been estimated at billions of dollars (Almazroui, 2013).
Additionally, in November 2013, the city of Riyadh experienced heavy rainfall of 32.2mm within hours, causing a flash flood that resulted in some deaths and much devastation to many properties located in risk-prone areas of the city (Ledraa and Al-Ghamdi, 2014). Following on from this, in Jeddah in the last week of November 2015, 22mm of torrential rain disrupted life in the city, interrupting businesses, closing schools and universities, and forcing people to stay indoors (Gulf News, 2015). The floods mentioned above -as well as further examples -are displayed in Table 2.  Therefore, flash floods in the KSA will continue to be an important research subject since they are the country's predominant type of natural disaster. Moreover, their occurrences appear to have increased lately at an unprecedented pace. Furthermore, they cause many casualties, whether deaths or injuries. Finally, they also cause both severe devastations to properties and severe disruptions to economic activities. This shows that the emergency planning requirements for these recurring incidents need to be examined, indicating a gap in the current disaster planning strategies in the KSA. So, the following section discusses the requirements for emergency planning.

Emergency Planning Requirements
The planning process is one of the factors for addressing the problem by identifying it, assessing the scenario, creating possible solutions, and reviewing alternatives (Friedmann, 2020). According to Friedmann, the tasks of planners are as follows: monitor situations, recognize potential issues, and gather the details required to determine the main problems; view and evaluate the data to create information; apply expertise in the creation and design of practicable solutions; evaluate options and strategies for decision-makers who want a way to proceed to achieve results; examine the planning findings to produce new data, and follow the steps iteratively starting with the first stage.
The National Plan for Natural Disasters Risk Reduction (GDCD, 2020a) divided the management of disasters into three distinct stages: pre, during, and post. Preparedness lies within pre-disaster management and thus includes response planning. The report establishes six requirements for this: Firstly, conducting studies that show potential disasters, their locations, and their implications. Secondly, taking appropriate measures that reduce the possible causes of disasters or diminish their risks, such as setting laws, legislation, regulations and safety standards for industrial facilities and buildings, and taking adequate measures to ensure implementation of those laws. Thirdly, public awareness through the media of the preventative measures must be taken to reduce the disaster's effects. Fourthly, preparing appropriate emergency plans to deal with disasters that include human capabilities and any available equipment provides the tasks of all parties involved in the implementation. Fifthly, a focus on group and individual training across each level to ensure they carry out their roles when disasters occur, following the plans that have been prepared. Lastly, executing virtual field experiments of the prepared plans, check their effectiveness, performance, the preparedness of the implementing agencies, and the quality of coordination among them in implementing the plans. is also essential that any obstacles or challenges standing in the way of achieving this are removed, and the following section, therefore, discusses the challenges and issues of Disaster Management.

Challenges and Issues in Disaster Management
With a specific focus on those in the KSA, in a recent study Ledraa and Al-Ghamdi (2020) points out that the challenges face emergency planning include: how the authority responsible for dealing with disasters in the KSA is organized; the role assigned to GDCD in such events; poor -and sometimes absent -unreliable hydrological data; lack of information about rainfall and runoff intensity and magnitude; lack of policies for flash flood risk management; inefficient institutional mechanisms to deal with flash flood disasters; and the paucity of coordination among government agencies and stakeholders. Furthermore, Bin Ottai (2017) reveals that the disaster response training programs within the KSA have many shortcomings, and they do not address training needs, especially in flash floods events.
Additionally, study of Momani and Fadil (2010) regarding the flash flood in Jeddah in 2009 highlights a lack of emergency management plans of official bodies, especially the governmental bureaucracy. Furthermore, the lack of an advanced early warning system meant that the city's population were not informed promptly. There were delays in detecting those who were missing, as the use of modern technology was limited. The lessons learnt here dictated more preventative measures and improved mechanisms to report and deal with the disaster on time.
Therefore, policy alteration is essential for developing response planning for future disaster events, especially as the government declared that negligence was a significant factor in the outcome of this disaster.
Moreover, Alharbi (2008) indicates that disaster response planning in the KSA remains inadequate to what is needed due to insufficient general cultural; strategic leadership; the lack of the administrative units required for strategic planning; poor coordination among existing layers in civil defense planning for activation of procedures; and the ineffective control and follow-up systems.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has presented an investigation into emergency planning requirements and disaster management challenges in the KSA to improve and increase the effectiveness of emergency planning and disaster management, especially for natural hazards.
It is clear that the most essential requirements for emergency planning in the KSA include: conducting studies that show potential disasters, their locations, and their implications; taking appropriate measures that reduce the possible causes of disasters or diminish their risks, such as setting laws, legislation, regulations and safety standards for industrial facilities and buildings, and taking adequate measures to ensure the implementation of those laws; public awareness through the media of the preventative measures that must be taken to reduce the disaster's effects; preparing appropriate contingency plans to deal with disasters that include human capabilities and any available equipment, and which provide the tasks of all parties involved in the implementation; a focus on group and individual training across each level to ensure they carry out their roles when disasters occur, in accordance with the plans that have been prepared; and executing virtual field experiments of the prepared plans, to check their effectiveness and performance, the preparedness of the implementing agencies, and the quality of coordination among them in implementing the plans.
The paper also found that there are many challenges facing disaster management in the KSA. For example, lack of policies, the ambiguity of legislation and plans, poor coordination between stakeholders, absence of involvement from all stakeholders, lack of databases for disaster management, and inadequate or non-existent training for such disasters.
It has also been shown that emergency planning and disaster management in the KSA has been well-developed over the past two decades compared to some neighbouring countries. However, the main focus still seems to be handling existing disasters reactively rather than planning for possible future disasters and being proactive.
Emergency planning, therefore, requires a proactive approach -a mixture of the dominant and community-based planning approaches -especially with regards to key priorities such as natural hazard preparedness, early warning systems, response planning, and disaster effects.