Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-25DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105933
Katsuya Tanaka , Tadashi Kito , Kohji Tanaka
This study evaluates public preferences for next-generation disaster preparedness apps using a factorial survey experiment in flood-prone Japanese communities. The analysis first reveals a fundamental heterogeneity in public receptiveness, identifying two distinct segments: a small "receptive" minority (approx. 20 %) willing to consider adoption, and a large "unreceptive" majority (approx. 80 %) that rejects the app regardless of its features or price. Consequently, focusing on the receptive segment, the study estimates the economic value of specific app features. Results show that functions for immediate personal safety and family security—such as Rescue Request and Family Status Confirmation—are most highly prized. These findings lead to the conclusion that a freemium model is the most viable strategy for social implementation, offering a free version with basic features to the unreceptive majority while providing a premium, feature-rich version to the receptive minority at a sustainable price point. This dual approach can maximize public reach while ensuring financial viability.
{"title":"Who pays for preparedness? Valuing disaster app features through a factorial survey experiment in flood-prone communities","authors":"Katsuya Tanaka , Tadashi Kito , Kohji Tanaka","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105933","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105933","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study evaluates public preferences for next-generation disaster preparedness apps using a factorial survey experiment in flood-prone Japanese communities. The analysis first reveals a fundamental heterogeneity in public receptiveness, identifying two distinct segments: a small \"receptive\" minority (approx. 20 %) willing to consider adoption, and a large \"unreceptive\" majority (approx. 80 %) that rejects the app regardless of its features or price. Consequently, focusing on the receptive segment, the study estimates the economic value of specific app features. Results show that functions for immediate personal safety and family security—such as Rescue Request and Family Status Confirmation—are most highly prized. These findings lead to the conclusion that a freemium model is the most viable strategy for social implementation, offering a free version with basic features to the unreceptive majority while providing a premium, feature-rich version to the receptive minority at a sustainable price point. This dual approach can maximize public reach while ensuring financial viability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 105933"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145616560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-12-27DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105982
Kyudong Kim , Euijin Yang , Keri K. Stephens , Mir Rabby , Roselia Mendez Murillo , Matthew S. McGlone , Sergio Castellanos , Kasey M. Faust
Risk communications should provide clear messages to the public so people can take appropriate actions to protect their health and safety. Boil Water Advisories (BWAs), for instance, help safeguard communities from water quality issues. This study evaluates BWA effectiveness by analyzing 85 advisories from four Texas metropolitan areas, collected from press releases and social media platforms (e.g., Facebook). The evaluation focused on two main aspects: content compliance, to assess if the content meets state-wide requirements; and readability, to determine if the general public can easily understand the information. The results show that while press releases generally include essential content by adhering to the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ) guidelines, social media posts often lack essential information, such as mandatory language for the severity of the water contamination, action items, and contact details for real-time updates. Water utilities face challenges balancing regulatory compliance with effective public guidance. They can benefit from adapting communications across different platforms while maintaining appropriate reading levels for diverse audiences. Specifically, while press releases can meet regulatory standards with comprehensive content, their higher reading difficulty often makes them inaccessible to many audiences. Social media requires brief communication that cannot easily be compliant, but those messages are easier to understand. This study offers insights to help utilities enhance multi-channel BWA communication strategies and suggests regulatory agencies develop more realistic guidelines that acknowledge communication platform constraints while ensuring effective public response during water-related emergencies.
{"title":"Clear or compliant? The tension between regulatory requirements and public comprehension in boil water advisories","authors":"Kyudong Kim , Euijin Yang , Keri K. Stephens , Mir Rabby , Roselia Mendez Murillo , Matthew S. McGlone , Sergio Castellanos , Kasey M. Faust","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105982","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105982","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Risk communications should provide clear messages to the public so people can take appropriate actions to protect their health and safety. Boil Water Advisories (BWAs), for instance, help safeguard communities from water quality issues. This study evaluates BWA effectiveness by analyzing 85 advisories from four Texas metropolitan areas, collected from press releases and social media platforms (e.g., Facebook). The evaluation focused on two main aspects: content compliance, to assess if the content meets state-wide requirements; and readability, to determine if the general public can easily understand the information. The results show that while press releases generally include essential content by adhering to the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ) guidelines, social media posts often lack essential information, such as mandatory language for the severity of the water contamination, action items, and contact details for real-time updates. Water utilities face challenges balancing regulatory compliance with effective public guidance. They can benefit from adapting communications across different platforms while maintaining appropriate reading levels for diverse audiences. Specifically, while press releases can meet regulatory standards with comprehensive content, their higher reading difficulty often makes them inaccessible to many audiences. Social media requires brief communication that cannot easily be compliant, but those messages are easier to understand. This study offers insights to help utilities enhance multi-channel BWA communication strategies and suggests regulatory agencies develop more realistic guidelines that acknowledge communication platform constraints while ensuring effective public response during water-related emergencies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 105982"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145920975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106004
Linchao Luo , Chih-Shen Cheng , William Mobley , Katherine Lieberknecht , Juhyeon Kim , Fernanda Leite
Effective levee planning must balance capital cost, risk reduction, and community priorities. These objectives are rarely optimized together. This study presents a feasibility phase, simulation-in-the-loop framework that couples terrain-based flood modeling with a socially aware multi-objective optimizer. Flood risk is measured as Expected Annual Exposed Population (EAEP), obtained by integrating exposure over Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) nodes, mirroring the Hydrologic Engineering Center's Flood Damage Reduction Analysis (HEC-FDA) expected-annual formulation but with people rather than dollars. Exposure per scenario is computed by overlaying binary inundation masks with a population surface at the tract level. Distributional fairness is encoded through a Group Benefit Share (GBS) constraint that requires high-SVI tracts to receive at least a baseline share of annualized benefits. Capital cost is represented by a height-dependent unit-cost model suitable for screening. This study addresses the two-objective problem, minimize cost and expected annual exposure subject to the GBS constraint, using Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and leveraging Pareto front for feasibility phase decision making. Implemented with terrain-based flood modeling, GeoFlood, for rapid scenario evaluation, the framework is demonstrated in Southeast Texas. The results reveal clear trade-offs among cost, risk, and social benefits and identify non-dominated levee height configurations that satisfy the benefit-share floor. The contributions are a scalable decision support method that operationalizes expected annual population-based risk, embeds enforceable benefit-sharing guarantees, and uses lightweight simulation to explore large design spaces before higher fidelity design stages.
{"title":"Optimizing fluvial flood mitigation strategies: A multi-objective approach for cost-effective and socially-aware infrastructure feasibility analysis","authors":"Linchao Luo , Chih-Shen Cheng , William Mobley , Katherine Lieberknecht , Juhyeon Kim , Fernanda Leite","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effective levee planning must balance capital cost, risk reduction, and community priorities. These objectives are rarely optimized together. This study presents a feasibility phase, simulation-in-the-loop framework that couples terrain-based flood modeling with a socially aware multi-objective optimizer. Flood risk is measured as Expected Annual Exposed Population (EAEP), obtained by integrating exposure over Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) nodes, mirroring the Hydrologic Engineering Center's Flood Damage Reduction Analysis (HEC-FDA) expected-annual formulation but with people rather than dollars. Exposure per scenario is computed by overlaying binary inundation masks with a population surface at the tract level. Distributional fairness is encoded through a Group Benefit Share (GBS) constraint that requires high-SVI tracts to receive at least a baseline share of annualized benefits. Capital cost is represented by a height-dependent unit-cost model suitable for screening. This study addresses the two-objective problem, minimize cost and expected annual exposure subject to the GBS constraint, using Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and leveraging Pareto front for feasibility phase decision making. Implemented with terrain-based flood modeling, GeoFlood, for rapid scenario evaluation, the framework is demonstrated in Southeast Texas. The results reveal clear trade-offs among cost, risk, and social benefits and identify non-dominated levee height configurations that satisfy the benefit-share floor. The contributions are a scalable decision support method that operationalizes expected annual population-based risk, embeds enforceable benefit-sharing guarantees, and uses lightweight simulation to explore large design spaces before higher fidelity design stages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 106004"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145972712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106003
Ege Duran , Ibrahim Demir
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of hydrological hazards, understanding and reducing disaster risk to renewable energy infrastructure has become critical. Iowa, a national leader in wind energy generation, faces enhanced vulnerability due to the intersection of extensive wind turbine deployment and increasing flood risk. This study provides a comprehensive geospatial and statistical evaluation of flood exposure and site suitability for future installation of wind turbines across Iowa, using zonal statistics within buffer areas to evaluate spatial variation in elevation, soil drainage, flood depth, and mean wind profile. Correlation analysis reveals that turbine vulnerability is strongly linked to topographic variability (r ≈ 0.98), and soil characteristics (r ≈ 0.79), underscoring terrain as a key control on localized flood severity. Statewide results show that turbine exposure increases with spatial extent, from about 4 % near turbine bases to over 60 % at broader surroundings, underscoring the sensitivity of flood risk to buffer expansion and indicating that current siting practices may not sufficiently mitigate flood hazards. The research proposes targeted, data-driven recommendations for enhancing the resilience and continuity of wind generation as a vital component of the state's energy infrastructure. These insights support policymakers, engineers, and stakeholders in devising proactive flood mitigation strategies, reinforcing the reliability and security of Iowa's critical energy sector against evolving climate threats.
{"title":"Enhancing the resilience of wind energy infrastructure in Iowa: Flood risk assessment and site suitability analysis for critical infrastructure protection","authors":"Ege Duran , Ibrahim Demir","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As climate change increases the frequency and severity of hydrological hazards, understanding and reducing disaster risk to renewable energy infrastructure has become critical. Iowa, a national leader in wind energy generation, faces enhanced vulnerability due to the intersection of extensive wind turbine deployment and increasing flood risk. This study provides a comprehensive geospatial and statistical evaluation of flood exposure and site suitability for future installation of wind turbines across Iowa, using zonal statistics within buffer areas to evaluate spatial variation in elevation, soil drainage, flood depth, and mean wind profile. Correlation analysis reveals that turbine vulnerability is strongly linked to topographic variability (r ≈ 0.98), and soil characteristics (r ≈ 0.79), underscoring terrain as a key control on localized flood severity. Statewide results show that turbine exposure increases with spatial extent, from about 4 % near turbine bases to over 60 % at broader surroundings, underscoring the sensitivity of flood risk to buffer expansion and indicating that current siting practices may not sufficiently mitigate flood hazards. The research proposes targeted, data-driven recommendations for enhancing the resilience and continuity of wind generation as a vital component of the state's energy infrastructure. These insights support policymakers, engineers, and stakeholders in devising proactive flood mitigation strategies, reinforcing the reliability and security of Iowa's critical energy sector against evolving climate threats.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 106003"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145972794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-01Epub Date: 2025-11-18DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105915
Keri K. Stephens, Mir Rabby, Matthew S. McGlone
Vehicle-related flood fatalities are common, and past research has largely focused on psychological, experiential, and sociodemographic factors that contribute to driver safety behavior. Less is known about how flood-related road signs and messages are understood and acted on. This study (n = 1027) addresses that gap by examining how three factors—past exposure to warning signs, comprehension of those signs, and exposure to flood-related risk messages—affect drivers' decisions to turn around after encountering flood warning signs (e.g., Turn Around Don't Drown). Findings show that past exposure to two different flood-safety signs commonly found in the United States encourage safer driving. People with flood experience are five times more likely to turn their car around than others without this experience. Adults 55 years and older are three times more likely to turn around than young adults, and females are also more likely turn around than males. Finally, those who reported stronger risk affect were about 25 % more likely to turn their car around. Contributions underscore the critical role of static road signage and risk messaging in shaping driver behavior. We offer several recommendations for future research and public safety and risk managers.
{"title":"Communicating safety: The impact of warning signs and messages on reducing risky driving in flood conditions","authors":"Keri K. Stephens, Mir Rabby, Matthew S. McGlone","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105915","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105915","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Vehicle-related flood fatalities are common, and past research has largely focused on psychological, experiential, and sociodemographic factors that contribute to driver safety behavior. Less is known about how flood-related road signs and messages are understood and acted on. This study (<em>n</em> = 1027) addresses that gap by examining how three factors—past exposure to warning signs, comprehension of those signs, and exposure to flood-related risk messages—affect drivers' decisions to turn around after encountering flood warning signs (e.g., Turn Around Don't Drown). Findings show that past exposure to two different flood-safety signs commonly found in the United States encourage safer driving. People with flood experience are five times more likely to turn their car around than others without this experience. Adults 55 years and older are three times more likely to turn around than young adults, and females are also more likely turn around than males. Finally, those who reported stronger risk affect were about 25 % more likely to turn their car around. Contributions underscore the critical role of static road signage and risk messaging in shaping driver behavior. We offer several recommendations for future research and public safety and risk managers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 105915"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145584258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-29DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106026
Shenghua Zhou , Yaqin Wang , Zhengyi Chen , Dezhi Li , Xiaoyun Du , Xiaer Xiahou , Yifan Yang
The Wireless Flood Sensing Network (WFSN), comprising Flood Detection Nodes (FDNs) and Wireless Access Nodes (WANs), is essential for reducing flooding risk to infrastructure facilities. However, existing studies on FDN and WAN placements remain largely disconnected. Moreover, FDN placement often overlooks joint indoor-outdoor deployment, while WAN placement relies on manually created Signal Coverage Models (SCMs). This study develops an Identification-Development-Optimization (IDO) framework for designing WFSNs of building-type critical infrastructure facilities, including (i) identifying indoor-outdoor FDN placement areas, (ii) developing the SCM of WANs using Building Information Modeling (BIM), and (iii) optimizing WAN placements with FDN considerations. Using an electrical substation in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, as a case study, the WFSN scheme from the IDO framework outperforms 7 baseline schemes from expertise-based methods, numerical optimizations, and FDN-unaware optimizations, with a minimum of 8.4 % improvement in signal coverage performance across the facility. In high-priority areas (FDN-placed areas and key functional areas), the signal coverage performance improves by 12.1 % relative to the best baseline. This study contributes to a WFSN design framework, which orchestrates indoor and outdoor FDNs, provides a reusable function library converting BIM into SCM, and enables automated FDN-aware WAN optimization.
{"title":"Devising wireless flood-sensing networks for critical infrastructure facilities","authors":"Shenghua Zhou , Yaqin Wang , Zhengyi Chen , Dezhi Li , Xiaoyun Du , Xiaer Xiahou , Yifan Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106026","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106026","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Wireless Flood Sensing Network (WFSN), comprising Flood Detection Nodes (FDNs) and Wireless Access Nodes (WANs), is essential for reducing flooding risk to infrastructure facilities. However, existing studies on FDN and WAN placements remain largely disconnected. Moreover, FDN placement often overlooks joint indoor-outdoor deployment, while WAN placement relies on manually created Signal Coverage Models (SCMs). This study develops an Identification-Development-Optimization (IDO) framework for designing WFSNs of building-type critical infrastructure facilities, including (i) identifying indoor-outdoor FDN placement areas, (ii) developing the SCM of WANs using Building Information Modeling (BIM), and (iii) optimizing WAN placements with FDN considerations. Using an electrical substation in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, as a case study, the WFSN scheme from the IDO framework outperforms 7 baseline schemes from expertise-based methods, numerical optimizations, and FDN-unaware optimizations, with a minimum of 8.4 % improvement in signal coverage performance across the facility. In high-priority areas (FDN-placed areas and key functional areas), the signal coverage performance improves by 12.1 % relative to the best baseline. This study contributes to a WFSN design framework, which orchestrates indoor and outdoor FDNs, provides a reusable function library converting BIM into SCM, and enables automated FDN-aware WAN optimization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 106026"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146098680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-12DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106013
Dr Praveen Maghelal , Dr Sudha Arlikatti , Dr Michael Lindell , Dr Khawla Saeed Al Hattawi , Mr Bader Abdulaziz Omar Al Jaberi , Ms Ghala Mohammed Mansour
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), known for its dry desert climate, receives only 140–200 mm (5.5–8.0 in) of rainfall per year. Over the past decade there has been a notable increase in the intensity of rain and occurrences of flash flooding in the Emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. Although these events have caused fatalities and large-scale economic losses, there has been very little research about the increasing vulnerabilities of the population to flash flooding or about community preparedness and response to this hazard. The present study aims to fill this gap by examining households' decisions to evacuate in response to flooding and their intentions to prepare for future floods. A questionnaire based on the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) was administered to 223 residents in the Emirate of Fujairah. The resulting data analysis identified several significant predictors of flash flood evacuation. These include risk perceptions, both positive and negative affective responses, and receipt of warnings from government authorities and news media platforms. Other significant predictors were the number of elderly people in the household, the respondent's age, and home ownership. There were significant differences among flood preparedness actions that households intend to take, as well as differences between evacuees and non-evacuees in their expectations of adopting permanent relocation and structural mitigation. The insights derived from this study can strengthen emergency management agencies' support for household preparedness and response to future flash floods.
{"title":"The effect of evacuation decisions on flash flood preparedness in Fujairah, UAE: When the waters rise are we ready in desert country?","authors":"Dr Praveen Maghelal , Dr Sudha Arlikatti , Dr Michael Lindell , Dr Khawla Saeed Al Hattawi , Mr Bader Abdulaziz Omar Al Jaberi , Ms Ghala Mohammed Mansour","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2026.106013","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The United Arab Emirates (UAE), known for its dry desert climate, receives only 140–200 mm (5.5–8.0 in) of rainfall per year. Over the past decade there has been a notable increase in the intensity of rain and occurrences of flash flooding in the Emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. Although these events have caused fatalities and large-scale economic losses, there has been very little research about the increasing vulnerabilities of the population to flash flooding or about community preparedness and response to this hazard. The present study aims to fill this gap by examining households' decisions to evacuate in response to flooding and their intentions to prepare for future floods. A questionnaire based on the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) was administered to 223 residents in the Emirate of Fujairah. The resulting data analysis identified several significant predictors of flash flood evacuation. These include risk perceptions, both positive and negative affective responses, and receipt of warnings from government authorities and news media platforms. Other significant predictors were the number of elderly people in the household, the respondent's age, and home ownership. There were significant differences among flood preparedness actions that households intend to take, as well as differences between evacuees and non-evacuees in their expectations of adopting permanent relocation and structural mitigation. The insights derived from this study can strengthen emergency management agencies' support for household preparedness and response to future flash floods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"134 ","pages":"Article 106013"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145996457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-31DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105985
Lawrence Velasco, Eduardo Araral Jr.
Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy requires combining technical risk assessment with fiscal capacity and institutional coordination. DRR is a practical field that aims to generate actionable knowledge to mitigate the harmful effects of natural hazards. What is emphasized in indexed scholarship shapes which mechanisms are normalized, taught, and prioritized. If governance and public finance mechanisms are essential for implementation yet underemphasized, this may affect their integration into research and practice. However, their representation in indexed DRR scholarship has not been systematically measured. To this end, we apply Structural Topic Modeling to 4,568 Web of Science abstracts (1990–2024) to identify 15 latent topics and analyze how their expected proportions vary with publication year, citation count, and disciplinary domain. Three patterns emerge. First, governance and public finance topics account for approximately 20.3 % of the total abstract corpus, whereas urban planning and risk assessment topics account for 65.4 %. Second, documents published in recent years tend to show lower expected proportions of governance and finance topics. Third, higher-citation documents also tend to have lower expected proportions of these topics. The topic Local Government Finance highlights this tension: it shows high expected proportions in Economics and Business and Urban Studies and Infrastructure outlets, yet its emphasis declines over time and is negatively associated with citations. These estimates describe scholarly focus, not actual governance results. The findings suggest that DRR research would benefit from greater emphasis on governance and public finance.
有效的减少灾害风险政策需要将技术风险评估与财政能力和机构协调结合起来。减灾是一个实用领域,旨在产生可操作的知识,以减轻自然灾害的有害影响。索引奖学金所强调的内容决定了哪些机制是规范化的、教授的和优先考虑的。如果治理和公共财政机制对实施至关重要,但没有得到充分重视,这可能会影响它们融入研究和实践。然而,他们在索引DRR奖学金中的代表性尚未得到系统的衡量。为此,我们对4,568篇Web of Science摘要(1990-2024)应用结构主题建模,确定了15个潜在主题,并分析了它们的预期比例如何随出版年份、被引用次数和学科领域而变化。出现了三种模式。首先,治理和公共财政主题约占总抽象语料库的20.3%,而城市规划和风险评估主题占65.4%。其次,近年来发布的文件往往显示治理和财务主题的预期比例较低。第三,高被引文献中这些主题的预期比例也往往较低。地方政府财政这一主题突出了这种紧张关系:它在经济学和商业、城市研究和基础设施领域显示出很高的预期比例,但其重要性随着时间的推移而下降,并与引用负相关。这些估计描述的是学术焦点,而不是实际的治理结果。研究结果表明,加强对治理和公共财政的重视将有利于DRR研究。
{"title":"The state of local governance and public finance in disaster risk research: A structural topic modelling analysis","authors":"Lawrence Velasco, Eduardo Araral Jr.","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105985","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105985","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy requires combining technical risk assessment with fiscal capacity and institutional coordination. DRR is a practical field that aims to generate actionable knowledge to mitigate the harmful effects of natural hazards. What is emphasized in indexed scholarship shapes which mechanisms are normalized, taught, and prioritized. If governance and public finance mechanisms are essential for implementation yet underemphasized, this may affect their integration into research and practice. However, their representation in indexed DRR scholarship has not been systematically measured. To this end, we apply Structural Topic Modeling to 4,568 Web of Science abstracts (1990–2024) to identify 15 latent topics and analyze how their expected proportions vary with publication year, citation count, and disciplinary domain. Three patterns emerge. First, governance and public finance topics account for approximately 20.3 % of the total abstract corpus, whereas urban planning and risk assessment topics account for 65.4 %. Second, documents published in recent years tend to show lower expected proportions of governance and finance topics. Third, higher-citation documents also tend to have lower expected proportions of these topics. The topic <em>Local Government Finance</em> highlights this tension: it shows high expected proportions in Economics and Business and Urban Studies and Infrastructure outlets, yet its emphasis declines over time and is negatively associated with citations. These estimates describe scholarly focus, not actual governance results. The findings suggest that DRR research would benefit from greater emphasis on governance and public finance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 105985"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145938770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-24DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105977
C. Scott Watson , Maggie Creed , Januka Gyawali , Sameer Shadeed , Jamal Dabbeek , Divya L. Subedi , Rojina Haiju
More frequent extreme rainfall events in a changing climate increase the risk of flash flooding. However, the flood hazard modelling required to reduce disaster risk in urban environments is often limited by the availability of data required for model calibration and validation. Here, we use a historical flood event captured by 5 m resolution satellite imagery to inform future flood hazard assessments in the West Bank, Palestine. Flooding in January 2013 affected over 12,500 people and large areas of agricultural land. Vegetation loss and damage were captured using a normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), which was used as a reference flood extent. The physics-based HEC-RAS flood model best reproduced this NDVI-derived inundation extent (F1 score = 0.76), although the FastFlood model was able to produce a similar inundation pattern (F1 score = 0.74) over 300 times faster. Simulated flood depths from both models were similar. Climate analysis revealed that the January 2013 rainfall corresponded to a historical return period of between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 years. In comparison, a 1 in 100-year rainfall event (RX1day (maximum 1-day precipitation) of 148 mm) based on historical data (1985–2014) could increase by almost 40 % (to 205 mm) in the mid-future (2041–2060), which could cause 23 % (4 km2) greater inundation compared to the 2013 event. Although the patterns of future precipitation in the region are uncertain, our flood hazard maps can support urban planning and infrastructure development to manage storm water runoff.
{"title":"Earth observation informed modelling of flash floods","authors":"C. Scott Watson , Maggie Creed , Januka Gyawali , Sameer Shadeed , Jamal Dabbeek , Divya L. Subedi , Rojina Haiju","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105977","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105977","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>More frequent extreme rainfall events in a changing climate increase the risk of flash flooding. However, the flood hazard modelling required to reduce disaster risk in urban environments is often limited by the availability of data required for model calibration and validation. Here, we use a historical flood event captured by 5 m resolution satellite imagery to inform future flood hazard assessments in the West Bank, Palestine. Flooding in January 2013 affected over 12,500 people and large areas of agricultural land. Vegetation loss and damage were captured using a normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), which was used as a reference flood extent. The physics-based HEC-RAS flood model best reproduced this NDVI-derived inundation extent (F1 score = 0.76), although the FastFlood model was able to produce a similar inundation pattern (F1 score = 0.74) over 300 times faster. Simulated flood depths from both models were similar. Climate analysis revealed that the January 2013 rainfall corresponded to a historical return period of between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 years. In comparison, a 1 in 100-year rainfall event (RX1day (maximum 1-day precipitation) of 148 mm) based on historical data (1985–2014) could increase by almost 40 % (to 205 mm) in the mid-future (2041–2060), which could cause 23 % (4 km<sup>2</sup>) greater inundation compared to the 2013 event. Although the patterns of future precipitation in the region are uncertain, our flood hazard maps can support urban planning and infrastructure development to manage storm water runoff.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 105977"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145837280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As urban areas face increasing climate risks, enhancing urban resilience has become a crucial priority, especially in densely populated and rapidly ageing cities such as Singapore. This study proposes an integrated recovery planning workflow to reduce elderly vulnerability under compound extreme heat and flash flooding events intensified by climate change. This workflow considers three important criteria: outdoor thermal comfort, assessed using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI); the spatial vulnerability of the elderly population; and electricity disruption risk related to flood-exposed urban power infrastructure. UTCI was computed with the Urban Tethys-Chloris (UT&C) model, a computationally efficient urban ecohydrological model validated for tropical urban environments. Elderly vulnerability was assessed by combining demographic data, the spatial distribution of residents, and urban heat patterns, highlighting the connection between social vulnerability and heat exposure. Flood-prone power nodes were identified using high-resolution terrain data and national flood reports to enable modelling of compound urban heat and flooding hazards. The workflow was applied to Queenstown, Singapore, where multiple recovery strategies were simulated, and the resulting spatio-temporal patterns of elderly exposure and recovery priorities were analysed. The results show how prioritising the restoration of flood-affected power nodes serving heat-exposed elderly populations can substantially reduce heat-related vulnerability during compound events. Explicitly linking biophysical, socio-demographic, and infrastructure criteria within a single workflow provides a practical decision-support tool for climate-resilient recovery planning in ageing, high-density cities.
{"title":"Reducing elderly vulnerability to climate change risks using an integrated infrastructure recovery planning","authors":"Hamed Hafeznia , Pradeep Alva , Taihan Chen , Bui Do Phuong Tung , Yuan Chao , Rudi Stouffs , Bozidar Stojadinovic","doi":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105963","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105963","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As urban areas face increasing climate risks, enhancing urban resilience has become a crucial priority, especially in densely populated and rapidly ageing cities such as Singapore. This study proposes an integrated recovery planning workflow to reduce elderly vulnerability under compound extreme heat and flash flooding events intensified by climate change. This workflow considers three important criteria: outdoor thermal comfort, assessed using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI); the spatial vulnerability of the elderly population; and electricity disruption risk related to flood-exposed urban power infrastructure. UTCI was computed with the Urban Tethys-Chloris (UT&C) model, a computationally efficient urban ecohydrological model validated for tropical urban environments. Elderly vulnerability was assessed by combining demographic data, the spatial distribution of residents, and urban heat patterns, highlighting the connection between social vulnerability and heat exposure. Flood-prone power nodes were identified using high-resolution terrain data and national flood reports to enable modelling of compound urban heat and flooding hazards. The workflow was applied to Queenstown, Singapore, where multiple recovery strategies were simulated, and the resulting spatio-temporal patterns of elderly exposure and recovery priorities were analysed. The results show how prioritising the restoration of flood-affected power nodes serving heat-exposed elderly populations can substantially reduce heat-related vulnerability during compound events. Explicitly linking biophysical, socio-demographic, and infrastructure criteria within a single workflow provides a practical decision-support tool for climate-resilient recovery planning in ageing, high-density cities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13915,"journal":{"name":"International journal of disaster risk reduction","volume":"132 ","pages":"Article 105963"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}