Analysing economic impact on interdependent infrastructure after flood: Pakistan a case in point

A disaster such as floods can have a drastic impact on interdependent infrastructure and economic sectors. The resilience or the ability of the critical sector to recover quickly from the disruption can also reduce the consequences of the disaster. In this paper, through resilience and recovery time Dynamic Inoperability Input-Output model (DIIM) is applied. Thus, Input-Output (I-O) table is constructed for Pakistan's economic system and a case study is performed on the flooding in Pakistan 2011–12. The purpose of this study is to provide a ballpark estimate of the system-wide impact and ripple effect on the sectors that lasted for several days after the disruption. Furthermore, to analyze the inoperability and economic loss in the sectors caused by the disaster in a developing country. The findings of the research show that most of the critical sectors are associated with agriculture and service sector in terms of inoperability and economic loss respectively. The outcome of the study will be essential for the policy makers, disaster management authorities and health departments to respond accordingly.     

Post‐Ike economic resilience along the Texas coast

The economic devastation resulting from recent natural disasters has spawned intense interest in programmes that promote regional resilience. The economic impacts of Hurricane Ike (September 2008) endured long beyond the storm's landfall, compounded by a national recession. This study analyses the pattern of post‐Ike industrial growth in eight coastal counties of Texas, United States, and identifies sources of resilience and potential drivers of recovery. The results indicate that post‐disaster growth patterns differ from established growth patterns. Levels of resilience vary across industrial sectors, and service sectors tend to lead a recovery. The resilience of the hotel and restaurant sector, for instance, suggests that the presence of relief workers might immunise certain sectors against a post‐disaster economic downturn. Besides the sectors that are generally resilient, each county has its own distinct sectors that, depending on the extent of the damage suffered, tend to perform strongly after a disaster, owing to the characteristics of the respective county's economy.     

Defining disaster resilience: comparisons from key stakeholders involved in emergency management in Victoria,Australia

Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector. A data mining software tool, Leximancer, was employed to uncover the relationships between the definitions provided. The findings show that stakeholders see resilience as an ‘ability’ that encompasses emergency management activities and personal responsibility. However, the findings also highlight some possible points of conflict between stakeholders. In addition, the paper outlines and discusses a number of potential consequences for the implementation and the success of the resilience‐based approach in Australia.     

Community resilience and urban planning in tsunami-prone settlements in Chile

Urban planning can serve to minimise the effects of a tsunami and enhance community resilience. This study explores to what extent urban planning has addressed tsunami resilience in four villages on Chile's South Pacific coast, each of which was struck by tsunamis in 1960, 2010, and 2015. Through a detailed policy review and semi-structured interviews with residents, this paper analyses whether tsunami mitigation policies were incorporated into regional and local planning tools. It finds that although the government proposed relocation to tsunami-safe areas after the tsunami of 1960, urban development continued mainly in tsunami inundation zones—in the context of weak local planning frameworks and in the absence of community participation. In only one of the four case studies did participatory planning bring about the relocation of an entire village to a safe location. This paper concludes that incorporating participatory risk zone planning into urban planning enhances tsunami resilience.     

Stakeholder participation in building resilience to disasters in a changing climate

The resilience perspective has emerged as a plausible approach to confront the increasingly devastating impacts of disasters; and the challenges and uncertainty climate change poses through an expected rise in frequency and magnitude of hazards. Stakeholder participation is posited as pivotal for building resilience, and resilience is not passive; rather, stakeholders are actively involved in the process of building resilience. Who is involved and how they are involved are crucial aspects for developing resilience in practice. Nevertheless, there are few empirical studies available to inform theory or show how these issues are addressed. This study focuses on revealing how practitioners frame the issue of participation in relation to resilience, its relevance to a changing climate and how, in consequence, they construct practices. Using Hajer's [(1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the policy process. New York] ‘Social-interactive discourse theory’, in this interdisciplinary research, we study the frames and subsequent practices developed around a disaster management policy initiative in Australia: the Natural Disaster Resilience Program in Queensland. What emerges from the research findings as critical and requiring urgent attention is stakeholder and especially local government and community participation, and for this to become socially relevant, challenges such as meaningful communication and power structures need to be addressed. What is also critical is to move from experiential learning to social learning. Additionally, the results presented here offer empirical evidence on how broadening the pool of actors can be implemented, and the opportunities that this opens up for building resilience.     

Building disaster‐resilient micro enterprises in the developing world

Family‐owned micro enterprises operating within the informal sector of most developing countries provide millions of citizens with a livelihood and are the economic backbone of many communities. Yet, the turbulence that emanates up or down respective supply chains following a disaster can cause these entities to fail. This study develops a model that recognises the relative weakness of micro enterprises to such disaster‐related shocks. The model proposes that micro enterprises can moderate the effect of such shocks by creating resilience through cognitive preparation, continuous learning, and the generation of various forms of social capital (cognitive, relational, and structural). The propositions for the model are established through an extensive literature review, coupled with examples drawn from the documents of humanitarian agencies performing disaster relief work in India. This model also serves as a preliminary basis with which to derive metrics to set benchmarks or to assess the viability of a micro enterprise's ability to survive disaster‐related shocks.     

Nation‐building policies in Timor‐Leste: disaster risk reduction,including climate change adaptation

Few studies have explored the relationships between nation‐building, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Focusing on small island developing states, this paper examines nation‐building in Timor‐Leste, a small island developing state that recently achieved independence. Nation‐building in Timor‐Leste is explored in the context of disaster risk reduction, which necessarily includes climate change adaptation. The study presents a synopsis of Timor‐Leste's history and its nation‐building efforts as well as an overview of the state of knowledge of disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation. It also offers an analysis of significant gaps and challenges in terms of vertical and horizontal governance, large donor presence, data availability and the integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation for nation‐building in Timor‐Leste. Relevant and applicable lessons are provided from other small island developing states to assist Timor‐Leste in identifying its own trajectory out of underdevelopment while it builds on existing strengths.     

The concept of resilience revisited

The intimate connections between disaster recovery by and the resilience of affected communities have become common features of disaster risk reduction programmes since the adoption of The Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. Increasing attention is now paid to the capacity of disaster-affected communities to 'bounce back' or to recover with little or no external assistance following a disaster. This highlights the need for a change in the disaster risk reduction work culture, with stronger emphasis being put on resilience rather than just need or vulnerability. However, varied conceptualisations of resilience pose new philosophical challenges. Yet achieving a consensus on the concept remains a test for disaster research and scholarship. This paper reviews the concept in terms of definitional issues, the role of vulnerability in resilience discourse and its meaning, and the differences between vulnerability and resilience. It concludes with some of the more immediately apparent implications of resilience thinking for the way we view and prepare for disasters.     

区域水灾恢复力及水灾风险管理研究——以湖南省洞庭湖区为例

近年来灾害恢复力研究在领域的拓展和定义的延伸等方面取得了较大的进步。灾害恢复力作为系统的一个有价值的属性，与风险、脆弱性和适应性一起成为当前灾害综合管理和减灾研究的重要内容。但目前灾害恢复力研究仍停留在理论和概念层面，鲜有深入的实际操作性强的工作开展。为进一步理解水灾恢复力的内涵和实质，为区域恢复力建设提供切实可行的方案，作者在原有对灾害恢复力研究进展进行综述的基础上，开展了以湖南省洞庭湖区为例的洪水高风险区水灾恢复力理论和实践的研究，提出了由自然维、经济维、组织维、社会维组成的四维区域水灾恢复力概念模型，然后细致分析了区域水灾恢复力利益主体的相互关系，提供了初步的区域水灾恢复力评估模型。最后在定性分析的基础上，对洞庭湖区区域水灾风险管理进行了探讨，提出了相应的管理对策和建议，旨在为政府的防灾减灾决策提供科学依据。     

Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept?

Resilience is widely seen as a desirable system property in environmental management. This paper explores the concept of resilience to natural hazards, using weather-related hazards in coastal megacities as an example. The paper draws on the wide literature on megacities, coastal hazards, hazard risk reduction strategies, and resilience within environmental management. Some analysts define resilience as a system attribute, whilst others use it as an umbrella concept for a range of system attributes deemed desirable. These umbrella concepts have not been made operational to support planning or management. It is recommended that resilience only be used in a restricted sense to describe specific system attributes concerning (i) the amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction and (ii) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organisation. The concept of adaptive capacity, which has emerged in the context of climate change, can then be adopted as the umbrella concept, where resilience will be one factor influencing adaptive capacity. This improvement to conceptual clarity would foster much-needed communication between the natural hazards and the climate change communities and, more importantly, offers greater potential in application, especially when attempting to move away from disaster recovery to hazard prediction, disaster prevention, and preparedness.     

The 1970 Bhola cyclone,nationalist politics,and the subsistence crisis contract in Bangladesh

The devastating Bhola cyclone in November 1970 is credited with having triggered the political events that led to the division of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. A callous response to the disaster by the Pakistani regime resulted in a landslide electoral victory for Bengali nationalists, followed by a bitter and bloody civil war. Yet, despite its political momentousness, the Bhola cyclone has been the subject of little political analysis. This paper examines the events, arguing that its extraordinary political significance put disaster management on the nationalist agenda; the famine of 1974 confirmed its centrality, producing a social contract to protect the population against disasters and subsistence crises on which the country's acclaimed resilience to the effects of climate change rests. The Bhola cyclone also drew international attention to this neglected, little‐known region, and in general can be seen as foundational for the subsequent developmental achievements of Bangladesh.     

Efficacy of insurance for organisational disaster recovery: case study of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes

Insurance is widely acknowledged to be an important component of an organisation's disaster preparedness and resilience. Yet, little analysis exists of how well current commercial insurance policies and practices support organisational recovery in the wake of a major disaster. This exploratory qualitative research, supported by some quantitative survey data, evaluated the efficacy of commercial insurance following the sequence of earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011. The study found that, generally, the commercial insurance sector performed adequately, given the complexity of the events. However, there are a number of ways in which insurers could improve their operations to increase the efficacy of commercial insurance cover and to assist organisational recovery following a disaster. The most notable of these are: (i) better wording of policies; (ii) the availability of sector‐specific policies; (iii) the enhancement of claims assessment systems; and (iv) risk‐based policy pricing to incentivise risk reduction measures.     

From fatalism to resilience: reducing disaster impacts through systematic investments

This paper describes a method for reducing the economic risks associated with predictable natural hazards by enhancing the resilience of national infrastructure systems. The three-step generalised framework is described along with examples. Step one establishes economic baseline growth without the disaster impact. Step two characterises economic growth constrained by a disaster. Step three assesses the economy's resilience to the disaster event when it is buffered by alternative resiliency investments. The successful outcome of step three is a disaster-resistant core of infrastructure systems and social capacity more able to maintain the national economy and development post disaster. In addition, the paper considers ways to achieve this goal in data-limited environments. The method provides a methodology to address this challenge via the integration of physical and social data of different spatial scales into macroeconomic models. This supports the disaster risk reduction objectives of governments, donor agencies, and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.     

A review of coastal community vulnerabilities toward resilience benefits from disaster reduction measures

The coast has always been an area of significant hazards. In situations of community self-sufficiency, consequences of coastal hazards might be isolated to regions directly affected by the hazard. But, in the current global economy, fewer and fewer communities are isolated; damage to one location frequently has consequences around the globe and coastal community resilience can have broad-reaching benefits. Hazard responses for the built coastal environment have typically been resistance: constructing stronger buildings, enhancing natural barriers or creating artificial barriers. These approaches to hazard reduction through coastal engineering and shoreline defence efforts have been crucial to sustained coastal development. However, as coastal forces continue or magnify and resources become scarcer, resistance alone may be less effective or even unsustainable, and interest in resilience has grown. Resilience is a community's ability either to absorb destructive forces without loss of service or function, or to recover quickly from disasters. Community resilience encompasses multiple elements, ranging from governance to structural design, risk knowledge, prevention, warning systems and recovery. This paper focuses on hazards of coastal communities, and provides a review of some recent engineering efforts to improve the resilience elements of risk knowledge and disaster warnings for coastal disaster reduction.     

Disaster risk from a macroeconomic perspective: a metric for fiscal vulnerability evaluation

The Disaster Deficit Index (DDI) measures macroeconomic and financial risk in a country according to possible catastrophic scenario events. Extreme disasters can generate financial deficit due to sudden and elevated need of resources to restore affected inventories. The DDI captures the relationship between the economic loss that a country could experience when a catastrophic event occurs and the availability of funds to address the situation. The proposed model utilises the procedures of the insurance industry in establishing probable losses, based on critical impacts during a given period of exposure; for economic resilience, the model allows one to calculate the country's financial ability to cope with a critical impact. There are limitations and costs associated with access to resources that one must consider as feasible values according to the country's macroeconomic and financial conditions. This paper presents the DDI model and the results of its application to 19 countries of the Americas and aims to guide governmental decision‐making in disaster risk reduction.     

Ambivalence towards discourse of disaster resilience

This paper investigates empirically how the international aid community (IAC)—donors and practitioners—considers and implements disaster resilience in a specific country setting, Nepal, and throughout the rest of the world. A key finding is that there is ambivalence about a concept that has become a discourse. On a global level, the IAC utilises the discourse of resilience in a cautiously positive manner as a bridging concept. On a national level, it is being used to influence the Government of Nepal, as well as serving as an operational tool of donors. The mythical resilient urban community is fashioned in the IAC's imaginary; understanding how people create communities and what type of linkages with government urban residents desire to develop their resilience strategies is missing, though, from the discussion. Disaster resilience can be viewed as another grand plan to enhance the lives of people. Yet, regrettably, an explicit focus on individuals and their communities is lost in the process.     

Of timelines and timeliness: lessons from Typhoon Haiyan in early disaster response

Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on 8 November 2013 with maximum sustained winds of 235 kilometres per hour, adversely affecting at least 11 million people and displacing some 673,000 in the central regions of the country. The disaster clearly overwhelmed the Philippine government despite its seemingly well‐crafted disaster management plan. Using timelines of different organisations, this paper identifies gaps in the government's response, mainly due to its failure in coordinating and managing relief operations, which adversely affected its effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of critical goods and services following the disaster. The paper also demonstrates how non‐governmental organisations (NGOs), the United Nations, foreign governments and other organisations provided assistance, mainly through aid niching, to cover the government's shortcomings. The paper recommends a paradigm shift in the government's disaster response by integrating collaborative arrangements between government agencies and NGOs, and giving local governments the lead role, with the national government as support, in disaster planning and response.     

韧性理论视角下贫困村灾后恢复重建与灾害风险管理刍议

韧性理论引入灾害风险管理领域,为世界防灾减灾实践提供了新理念,并在国内外韧性城市社区建设中得到广泛应用,但针对乡村地区,尤其是高脆弱性的贫困村韧性社区建设的研究还较为鲜见。该文以韧性理论为基础,结合乡村振兴战略规划,通过对贫困村社会生态系统特征的分析,探讨了新时期我国贫困村灾后恢复重建与灾害风险管理发展方向及特点。研究发现:贫困村不仅产业经济落后,而且还具有自然环境复杂、基础设建设滞后、社会公益设施匮乏、教育水平较低、自然灾害频发等特点。这类灾害多发区与贫困人口聚集区在空间上的叠加,成为我国社会生态系统高脆弱性地区,面临着严峻的防灾减灾与扶贫开发的双重挑战;基于韧性理论视角,通过构建贫困村适灾韧性系统,开展贫困村社区韧性综合评价,调整贫困村灾后恢复重建规划编制理念等,以推动贫困村灾后恢复重建的转型;在此基础上,结合贫困村社会生态系统特点,以建立健全贫困村灾害风险管理机制、探究提升贫困村适灾韧性社区建设的新途径、协同灾害管理与乡村振兴发展目标、开展灾区恢复重建动态监测与后效评价等政策举措为抓手,深化贫困村灾害风险管理实践,提升贫困地区可持续发展能力。     

地震灾害下城市关键基础设施毁伤恢复力评估方法

为提高地震灾害后城市关键基础设施恢复力评估准确性,该文提出城市关键基础设施毁伤恢复力评估方法。分析城市关键基础设施在地震灾害中的响应特征,确定基础设施毁伤程度与地震灾害等级之间的关系;收集地震灾害信息,检测地震灾害等级,以此作为毁伤恢复力评估的重要指标;另外,结合毁伤恢复力的其他影响因素分析结果,构建恢复力评价指标体系,通过指标的求解,与设置的标准数据进行比对,得出最终的毁伤恢复力量化评估结果。在以某城市区域为例的案例研究中,通过模拟地震灾害的方式对毁伤恢复力评估,并对评估结果进行分析,显示恢复力的平均评价指数为0.81,能够有效提高恢复力评估准确性,具有一定应用前景。     

地质灾害防治行业信用体系建设探讨

信用是人类社会契约精神和信任关系的表达,是社会发展的必然产物。良好的信用体系能够促进资源的有效配置,提高交易效率,促进社会行业的健康良性发展。发达国家经过长期发展,已经形成完善的信用体系,大致可以分为市场经营、会员制经营、公共经营三种模式。21世纪后我国信用体系建设飞速发展,制度监管框架正在逐步建立,基础设施建设日趋完善,行业发展初具规模,中国地质灾害防治工程行业协会和四川省分别出台了各自的地质灾害防治行业信用体系制度。基于国内外信用体系建设经验和地质灾害防治行业当前状况,从顶层设计、统一标准、公开渠道、联合惩戒四个方面对我国地质灾害防治行业信用体系建设提出发展思路,构建了陕西省地质灾害防治行业信用体系。