Progress in Disaster Science最新文献

How can emergency management teams communicate to potentially impacted communities what a major event causing infrastructure outages might mean for them, and what they can do to prepare? In this paper we describe the process of creating a webtool for end users to visualise infrastructure outages that the Wellington region of New Zealand would face following a rupture of the Wellington fault. This webtool creates insight for three key groups: critical infrastructure owners, communities, and the emergency management sector itself. Critical infrastructure entities can use the tool to understand where they might consider infrastructure upgrades to mitigate gaps of delivery following a fault rupture, and to consider their emergency response plans for delivery in an emergency (leading to their consideration of ‘planning emergency levels of service’). Communities can use the tool to understand what infrastructure outages will mean at the household level in an emergency, including the considerable distances that some community members will have to walk to access services such as food and water and prepare for prolonged outages. Finally, with a greater knowledge of the gaps in delivery and of those community members that might need assistance with food and water collection, the emergency management sector can be better prepared. The methodology for creating the webtool is described, along with the insights that the completed webtool provides for emergency planning.

Citizen priorities, needs, and rights have been moving to the centre of ‘good’ risk management and governance in theory, but what is their role in practice? The disastrous impacts of the flooding event across western Europe in 2021 highlighted many gaps and challenges in flood risk governance (FRG) structures in Germany. To better understand these, this study explored responsibilities as perceived by citizens and compares these with legal-institutional social contracts. These perceptions of citizens were captured in an online survey in the affected regions. The results indicate that German FRG remains a predominantly top-down system with citizens being dependent on the functioning of the risk and emergency system. The results of the survey highlight the need for: 1) clarifying and co-defining roles and responsibilities in FRG and making them more transparent; 2) enhancing citizen active involvement in governance and deliberating interactions; 3) rebuilding trust; and 4) creating joint responsibilities between citizens and local authorities. Based on the findings of the study, it became apparent that research on citizen centred FRG is steps ahead of policy and practice. To enhance policy and practice, recommendations were developed to foster collaboration between citizens and local authorities to strengthen local FRG.

This study investigates the role of multi-stakeholder networks in disaster risk management (DRM) capacity development and how it aligns with the principles of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. While the Framework emphasises collaboration, coordination, and partnerships among diverse stakeholders, there remains a gap in understanding how networks foster and sustain collaborative DRM capacity in the context of international development projects. Employing a mixed-method case study approach, this research examines the networking strategies of a Swedish international development project, exploring capacity development outcomes at different levels and early signs of sustainability in three informal networks in Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines. The study focusses on the period one year after the cessation of formal external support. By applying an integrated complex adaptive systems and network governance lens, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the dynamic interplay between various stakeholders and systemic factors influencing network effectiveness to foster and sustain collaborative DRM capacity. The findings enhance our knowledge of informal multi-stakeholder networks in DRM and offer practical insights for optimising institutional designs and networking strategies within and beyond international development projects. The research underscores the importance of scalability, adaptability, and holistic approaches in fostering and sustainable collaborative DRM capacity development. Implications for implementing the Sendai Framework are also discussed.

“Lifeline of the nation” is the motto of Indian Railways as it connects through a common thread, billion plus population in one way or the other. The National Rail Plan for India – 2030 focuses on creating a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030 by suitably integrating new railway systems like high-speed rails. However, rail infrastructure is exposed to multi-hazards and disasters sometimes disrupt safe rail operations. This study explores rail infrastructure risk assessment at a national scale utilizing the UNDRR framework and synthesized application of geospatial technologies with a focus on disentanglement of local vulnerabilities of the rail infrastructure assets utilizing factors of health of bridges, visibility obstruction to level crossings, labour wages & their regions and GSDP under multi-hazard scenarios. The results revealed that the NR and NFR were identified as high-risk routes under the risk analysis of physical and social vulnerability scenarios, followed by CR Railways. The average annual frequencies of emergency cases in each zone show a correlation r (17) = 0.4758 with the combined mean risk ranks for each zone. In comparison to socioeconomic factors, which contribute to indirect losses, physical factors directly affect safety and contribute to direct losses. Further, outcomes depict more accidents on Indian Railways during the monsoon (nearly 50%) and cold weather (29%) seasons. The study suggests that with the participation of key stakeholders, including urban and transport planners, an integrated approach is helpful in identifying critical rail routes towards risk-informed adaptive disaster-resilient infrastructure planning for providing safety, continuity and reliability of essential rail services.

The need to integrate Early Warning System (EWS) with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) has long been recognized in several global forums. In the year 2006, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) proposed an Integrated Risk-based EWS (IR-EWS) by integrating four elements: (1) Monitoring and warning service; (2) Risk knowledge; (3) Dissemination and communication; and (4) Response capability. Nearly after two decades of the UNISDR proposal, our study finds that there are still gaps in making IR-EWS operational. Our study also finds that works on conceptualizing integration of resilience against disaster with EWS as part of DRR (in line with SDG-13) has not yet been started. Against this backdrop, in this study we developed an IR-EWS for flood termed as Dynamic Flood Risk Model (DFRM) which contains: (1) simple risk-based warning numbers which are easily understandable and communicable to the community, with risk considered as a proxy for resilience; and (2) capital-based action plans in relation to community capital to reduce disaster risk and increase community resilience against disaster. The DFRM is applied in two flood-prone districts in Bangladesh and found to be acceptable to the community with reasonable accuracy. The model is the customized version of flood for generic IR-EWS. This study can be considered as the first attempt of the next generation IR-EWS where risk is represented by simple warning numbers and where EWS (as part of DRR) can be applied to increase the resilience.

Bangladesh has successfully reduced the number of deaths caused by tropical cyclones associated with storm surges in its territory. The factors responsible for this success include significant improvements in satellite-based cyclone detection, early warning systems, and emergency evacuation. However, during such events, some residents prefer to not evacuate the region. Based on the first-hand data generated through in-depth interviews, participant observations, focus group discussions with residents aged over 59 years, field visits, and investigations, in this study, we provide information on the shelter-seeking places in Bangladesh during the latest cyclones and analyse the reasons why some residents do not evacuate the affected regions post cyclone warning. The findings suggest that in Bangladesh, community trust in warnings increased from 56% during the 1991 Cyclone Gorky to 96% during the 2020 Cyclone Amphan. We identified 33 reasons for the preference of the population in Bangladesh living along the coast to not move to a cyclone shelter during emergencies; these reasons can be subdivided into six categories: 1) resilient housing, or the residents are living adjacent to strong buildings; 2) reasons associated with public cyclone shelters; 3) to protect livelihoods, properties, and personal belongings; 4) transportation problems and practical issues during the warning period; 5) interrelated community beliefs and perceptions; and 6) reasons directly associated with cyclone warnings. We identified the foundational reasons for the non-evacuation behaviour of the residents and analysed why they preferred to remain home or take shelter in adjacent strong building infrastructures. Notably, our study provides valuable insights into the factors that affect effective evacuation planning and cyclone disaster risk management along the Bangladesh coast.

Effective risk management is crucial in the field of disaster management to mitigate the impact of disasters. It involves proactive planning, resource allocation, and the implementation of response measures. By identifying and assessing risks, stakeholders can take preventive measures and establish contingency plans, fostering resilience, coordination, and efficient disaster response and recovery processes. In the context of globalization, organizations face numerous uncertainties and risks, necessitating the implementation of efficient risk management plans. While the conventional risk response analysis assumes independence among risks, in reality, they are interconnected. Therefore, evaluating risk interactions becomes vital in comprehensive risk management evaluations. This study proposes an innovative framework for disaster risk management based on a review of relevant literature, global project management standards, and the insights gained from previous studies dealing with disaster management projects. To identify appropriate risk response strategies, an optimization model is developed that incorporates a maximization utility function and directly captures potential risk interdependence. An exact optimization method and two metaheuristics are proposed to solve the developed optimization model for the selection of risk response strategies. A detailed assessment of the considered solution algorithms in terms of various performance indicators and sensitivity analysis of model parameters are conducted through a comparative study. This analysis provides valuable insights into the effectiveness and practical applicability of the proposed methodology. The outcomes of this study will benefit practitioners and policymakers involved in disaster management by improving their ability to make informed decisions and allocate resources effectively.

One of the legacies of armed conflict is unexploded ordnance and abandoned ammunition. This legacy will, in many cases, have a severe impact on society and daily life, even for years or decades after hostilities have ended. The millions of tonnes of explosive remnants that remain in nature represent a grave threat in many ways, and, if left in place, the human, societal and environmental impact could prove to be severe. Clearing the ERW represents a serious and complex risk in itself, a risk that could increase if mismanaged. Furthermore, the accumulations of munition contamination hinder and severely endanger areal development, both on land and offshore. However, vast amounts of explosives and accumulations of munitions, such as those in dumping areas and shipwrecks, are systematically neglected. An unintentional detonation at such a site could prove to have disastrous societal and environmental consequences. In the present work, it is shown that systems thinking could be used as a tool to gain better insight into the complexity of managing the risk related to explosive remnants of war, and to better prioritize resources allocated to mitigating this threat, resulting in the optimization of resource allocation and reduced societal risk.

There are numerous gaps in hospital-disaster-preparedness in developing countries. Presently, there are no widely accepted tools to assess preparedness in Sri Lankan hospitals. As a first step towards developing a comprehensive tool for local hospitals, a thorough understanding of the existing tools is required. The purpose of this study was to examine the content and the validity and reliability of the tools used for hospital preparedness studies worldwide. A systematic review was conducted on three databases. The chosen study instruments were compared to the WHO's Hospital Emergency Response Checklist to identify the common components. The validity and reliability of those study instruments were also analysed. Out of the 53 selected studies, 26 did not reported either validity or the reliability. The majority of the tools had prioritized human resources and logistics management. Face validation was the frequently used validation method, and internal consistency was the frequently used reliability measure. However, the most hospital preparedness assessments had been conducted without using a reliable instrument. Crucial preparedness aspects were also neglected in majority of the tools. Different methods for assuring the validity and reliability were discovered. Findings of this study will guide future efforts in formulating a comprehensive hospital readiness tool.

A study of the extended desertification due to anthropogenic causes under climate change (CC) associated with its impact is presented here. Desertification, the main environmental issue, severely impacts agricultural output, causing poverty and economic instability in a nation like India. The regional distribution of desertification was determined using the RF and MaxEnt models. The western, central, and southern portions of the nation are very high, high, and moderately susceptible to desertification, respectively, according to the RF model. The MaxEnt model indicates that the western, central, and southern parts of the country exhibit a significant susceptibility to desertification, with the eastern parts also showing a moderate level of vulnerability. The remaining portion of this region, mainly in the north, east, and northeast, is particularly resistant to desertification. The outcome demonstrated that the country's desertification process had expanded from the west to the south. However, there are some spatial differences associated with the mentioned part of the country. This relevant information is crucial for decision maker of this country to take suitable remedies in regard to the reduction of the intensity of desertification.