Characterizing vulnerability to water scarcity: The case of a groundwater-dependent,rapidly urbanizing region

Groundwater overdraft is a resource management issue that poses a threat for the security of communities. Impacts of groundwater overdraft are influenced by the biophysical and social contexts of water management. This paper presents a method for assessing vulnerability to water scarcity in spatial terms using biophysical and social indicators. A geographic information system was used to establish areas of vulnerability based upon hydrologic variability in water resource availability within a groundwater basin, three types of water management systems, and 10 sociodemographic characteristics. Our study area is in the rapidly urbanizing Arizona Central Highlands, located ~150km north of the Phoenix metropolitan region, USA. Results indicate that the most biophysically vulnerable places do not necessarily intersect with the most vulnerable populations and that local differences in vulnerability are interrelated, rather than independent, outcomes in a process of socioenvironmental transformation. Vulnerability is influenced by laws that deny access to local surface waters and lead to dependence on fossil groundwater, and by economic reliance on urbanization. Localities attempt to reduce vulnerability through the development of community water systems and the expansion of water frontiers. While such strategies may reduce local vulnerability, they are not sustainable solutions because they transfer risks to other places, and thus contribute to vulnerability elsewhere.     

Estimating willingness to pay for a hypothetical earthquake early warning systems

The development of reliable, accessible, and transparent earthquake early warning systems (EEWSs) for disaster reduction have been given increased priority at local, national, and international levels. Accurately quantifying the social and economic benefits accrued to households and businesses from EEWSs are a challenging and difficult task. In this paper, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is used to evaluate the benefits of a hypothetical EEWS to the citizens of Tehran Metropolitan. This study clarifies public willingness to pay (WTP) for EEWS in Tehran, and the dominant factors involved in WTP through a CVM analysis. The survey, completed by more than 504 households, showed that on average households are willing to pay 367,471 Rials (38 US$) per month for the hypothetical EEWS. Those willing to pay the most for EEWS are households, which currently possess a fire alarm. Also the more educated the respondents and the more children the respondents have, the more willing they are to pay for EEWS. These results could be used by policy makers and technology firms in order to determine the optimal investments in early warning systems for earthquake disaster reduction.     

地下水回灌补源防治咸水入侵技术研究 --以山东省广绕县为例

山东省广绕县井灌区由于长期超采地下水，引起区域地下水位持续下降、咸水入侵和地裂缝等一系列环境地质问题，成为区域社会和经济持续发展的制约因素。采用地下水回灌补源和调蓄技术是防治咸水入侵的有效途径。探讨了地下水回灌补源系列技术方法，涉及试验研究、数学模拟与优化技术等。室内、野外试验研究为地下水回灌规划和设计以及建立数值模拟模型提供了基本数据和参数。为了优化调整地下水开采量和回灌补源，建立了管理模型。管理模型预测表明，引用黄河水和汛期雨洪水回灌补源，以及通过节水减少漏斗区地下水开采量等系列措施可以有效地阻止咸水入侵，逐步改善区内的地下水环境。     

Pinning down social vulnerability in Sindh Province,Pakistan: from narratives to numbers,and back again

This paper reflects critically on the results of a vulnerability assessment process at the household and community scale using a quantitative vulnerabilities and capacities index. It validates a methodology for a social vulnerability assessment at the local scale in 62 villages across four agro‐ecological/livelihood zones in Sindh Province, Pakistan. The study finds that the move from vulnerability narratives to numbers improves the comparability and communicational strength of the concept. The depth and nuance of vulnerability, however, can be realised only by a return to narrative. Caution is needed, therefore: the index can be used in conjunction with qualitative assessments, but not instead of them. More substantively, the results show that vulnerability is more a function of historico‐political economic factors and cultural ethos than any biophysical changes wrought by climate. The emerging gendered vulnerability picture revealed extremes of poverty and a lack of capacity to cope with contemporary environmental and social stresses.     

家户水灾社会脆弱性的评估方法研究——以长沙地区为例

中国是洪水灾害发生频繁的国家之一，研究水灾脆弱性对中国的灾害风险管理有着极为重要的意义。但是，合理评估脆弱性尤其是社会脆弱性却面临着极大的挑战。利用Hoovering改进模式，选择湘江流域的长沙地区为研究区，对研究区内的家户进行了社会脆弱性评价。结果表明，长沙市区的5个区内，高脆弱性家户最多的是天心区，最少的是雨花区。而就社区而言，高脆弱性家户最多的足裕南街街道和桔子洲街道。该结果反映了长沙不同行政区、社区社会脆弱性的差别，可供确定受援地区和受援人群及开展援助活动，乃至灾后日常风险管理参考。     

Understanding the causes of vulnerabilities for enhancing social-physical resilience: lessons from the Wenchuan earthquake

ABSTRACT

In an effort to understand the social-physical vulnerabilities from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, this research established and validated a conceptual model for natural disaster analysis. The earthquake severely impacted the built environment, with many buildings being destroyed in the earthquake and from secondary impacts. This vulnerable environment exacerbated the poverty in the local residents because of the lack of flat land and the inaccessibility of the mountainous areas. Therefore, there was an interactive relationship between the built environment vulnerability and the social vulnerability. Due to general poverty and low education levels, social vulnerability in rural areas is often the result of poor quality building construction; in the event of an earthquake, therefore, most economic losses and casualties are the result of building destruction. To enhance social-physical resilience, measures should be adopted to mitigate the vulnerability of the built environment and society through actions such as land use planning, the use of seismic-resistant technologies, and investment in infrastructure, education, industrial development, and environmental protection. This research extracts the reasons for the vulnerabilities through an examination of the interactions between the natural environment, the built environment, and the local society. The insights gained have significant theoretical and practical implications in assisting vulnerable communities resist and adapt to natural hazards to achieve sustainable development.     

Vulnerability of schools to floods in Nyando River catchment,Kenya

This paper assesses the vulnerability of schools to floods in the Nyando River catchment (3,600 km²) in western Kenya and identifies measures needed to reduce this vulnerability. It surveys 130 schools in the lower reaches, where flooding is a recurrent phenomenon. Of the primary schools assessed, 40% were vulnerable, 48% were marginally vulnerable and 12% were not vulnerable. Of the secondary schools, 8% were vulnerable, 73% were marginally vulnerable and 19% were not vulnerable. Vulnerability to floods is due to a lack of funds, poor building standards, local topography, soil types and inadequate drainage. The Constituencies Development Fund (CDF), established in 2003, provides financial support to cover school construction and reconstruction costs; CDF Committees are expected to adopt school building standards. In an effort to promote safe and resilient construction and retrofitting to withstand floods, this paper presents vulnerability reduction strategies and recommendations for incorporating minimum standards in the on‐going Primary School Infrastructure Programme Design.     

自然灾害社会易损性评价指标体系框架的构建

按照我们对社会易损性构成的认识,从区域人口易损系统、区域社会结构易损系统和区域社会文化易损系统三方面构建了自然灾害社会易损性评价指标体系。这个指标体系是由一个内部层次分明、逻辑结构清晰的9个指数和39个指标要素构成的框架。该评价体系可以作为政府管理部门和社会公众认识自然灾害的社会属性的科学依据,也是减灾防灾的重要工具。     

自然灾害的社会易损性及其影响因素研究

社会易损性是人类社会在自然灾害条件下的潜在损失,它的大小受许多因素的影响。从社会学视角出发,从人口、社会结构和社会文化三方面分析了社会易损性的影响因素,它们包括易损人群、易损职业、社会经济活动、社会组织结构、社会资本、社会保障制度、社会冲突的协调能力和灾害文化等因素。     

基于现代信息技术的城市灾害应急管理系统

城市灾害应急管理系统是一项复杂的大系统工程。本文着重从应急管理过程中的应急资源调配、应急预案制定等方面阐述了现代信息技术在城市灾害应急管理中的应用与优势。认为应急管理信息系统的建立目的不是为了预测和估算,而应是当灾害发生时,对已造成的灾情局面做出快速的辅助决策支持。基于此,利用SuperMapObject5.0,Visual Basic6.0,SQL Server2000等现代信息技术软件,以辅助决策、资源快速查询以及生命线管网易损处调查为目的,本文建立了一个局部地区灾害应急管理信息系统。系统的数据库建立更突出了为应急管理服务所需的基础信息、空间数据、应急预案和应急资源等信息划分方式;结合已有的震害预测理论和方法,开发了供水系统和交通系统的震害预测模块,事先为灾害应急决策提供可能的震害信息。系统的开发过程进一步证明了GIS在城市灾害应急管理中有着直观显示、容易操作、辅助准确决策等优势。     

Community-based disaster preparedness and climate adaptation: local capacity-building in the Philippines

Community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) approaches are increasingly important elements of vulnerability reduction and disaster management strategies. They are associated with a policy trend that values the knowledge and capacities of local people and builds on local resources, including social capital. CBDP may be instrumental not only in formulating local coping and adaptation strategies, but also in situating them within wider development planning and debates. In theory, local people can be mobilised to resist unsustainable (vulnerability increasing) forms of development or livelihood practices and to raise local concerns more effectively with political representatives. This paper focuses on the potential of CBDP initiatives to alleviate vulnerability in the context of climate change, and their limitations. It presents evidence from the Philippines that, in the limited forms in which they are currently employed, CBDP initiatives have the potential both to empower and disempower, and warns against treating CBDP as a panacea to disaster management problems.     

Post‐crisis analysis of an ineffective tsunami alert: the 2010 earthquake in Maule,Chile

Considering its huge magnitude and its location in a densely populated area of Chile, the Maule seism of 27 February 2010 generated a low amount of victims. However, post‐seismic tsunamis were particularly devastating on that day; surprisingly, no full alert was launched, not at the national, regional or local level. This earthquake and associated tsunamis are of interest in the context of natural hazards management as well as crisis management planning. Instead of focusing exclusively on the event itself, this article places emphasis on the process, systems and long‐term approach that led the tsunami alert mechanism to be ineffectual. Notably, this perspective reveals interrelated forerunner signs of vulnerability.     

Rural residents and choice of building earthquake-resistant house: results of a choice experiment study

Rural settlements, especially in developing countries, are disproportionally vulnerable to natural hazards due to both biophysical and social vulnerability. Building hazard-resistant houses requires a thorough understanding of hazards and institutional and financial resources. However, it is equally important for planners and policymakers to know how rural residents make the tradeoff between various housing attributes when provided with the resources such as low-interest housing construction loans. In this study, we use a choice experiment (CE) to examine rural households' preference for earthquake resistance when building houses. A total of 300 households from randomly selected villages in central districts of Guilan Province in Iran were recruited for a CE study in which they had to choose between a number of houses that differed in terms of the required construction loan, resistance to earthquakes, size, and exterior and interior designs. Our results show that the average resident preferred larger houses with better exterior and interior designs to more earthquake-resistant houses, and is willing to spend more on these attributes than earthquake safety. These results indicate that rural households are willing to receive loans to improve their houses but that this does not translate into more earthquake-resistant houses.     

Understanding the interacting factors that influence social vulnerability: a case study of the 2016 central Italy earthquake

This paper seeks to identify those areas that proved socially vulnerable to the earthquake that struck central Italy on 24 August 2016. The study involved four key steps. First, six relevant social vulnerability indicators were selected, based on previous conclusions in the literature. Second, the indicators were mapped using the inverse distance weighted interpolation method. Third, social vulnerability was assessed according to a spatial combination of the indicators. Fourth, in order to build a heterogeneity map, another approach was employed to represent the spatial variability of social vulnerability and to provide additional information on the synergistic contributions of the indicators. The results indicate that age and accessibility indicators affect the entire region under review, with highly vulnerable zones being close to small historical centres. These findings will be useful to governments, policymakers, and stakeholders with regard to implementing vulnerability mitigation strategies in Italian territories that are highly susceptible to earthquake hazards.     

The creation of vulnerability to natural disaster: Case studies from the Dominican Republic*

This paper argues that natural disasters are not a category of events which can be separated from the broader Issues of development, since economic change can create vulnerability to natural disaster. The analysis of case studies from the Dominican Republic shows how the development of large scale commercialized agricultural production has created such vulnerability by reducing or restricting the resource base of certain sectors of the population. It b suggested that the vulnerable state of a population should be considered as much a cause of natural disaster as the extreme physical phenomena Involved. Therefore there Is a need both for a broader framework for analysis of disasters and for strategies to reduce such vulnerability to be an Integral part of long term development planning.     

Are non‐poor households always less vulnerable? The case of households exposed to protracted civil war in Southern Sudan

Civil wars in Africa are now the leading contributory cause of vulnerability of rural communities. Understanding vulnerability during civil war is critical for humanitarian response and post-conflict rehabilitation planning. The lack of understanding of vulnerability has led existing studies to make sweeping generalizations, either by equating the dynamics of vulnerability during civil wars with vulnerability in other risk events, or by projecting people in the 'war zones' as unable to cope and subsequently becoming vulnerable. This paper is an attempt to gain a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of vulnerability during protracted civil war. It shows that during civil war the non-poor are not necessarily less vulnerable than poor households. The idea that people caught up in civil war are all vulnerable is not supported by the findings of this paper. It shows that the 'standard' pattern of vulnerability to drought is similar to that during exogenous counter-insurgency warfare, while a different pattern of vulnerability to endogenous shocks is identified.     

Mapping fires and American Red Cross aid using demographic indicators of vulnerability

Social vulnerability indicators can assist with informing disaster relief preparation. Certain demographic segments of a population may suffer disproportionately during disaster events, and a geographical understanding of them can help to determine where to place strategically logistical assets and to target disaster‐awareness outreach endeavours. Records of house fire events and American Red Cross aid provision over a five‐year period were mapped for the County of Los Angeles, California, United States, to examine the congruence between actual events and expectations of risk based on vulnerability theory. The geographical context provided by the data was compared with spatially‐explicit indicators of vulnerability, such as age, race, and wealth. Fire events were found to occur more frequently in more vulnerable areas, and Red Cross aid was found to have an even stronger relationship to those places. The findings suggest that these indicators speak beyond vulnerability and relate to patterns of fire risk.     

供水管网系统地震易损性风险评估

供水管网易损性风险评估就是通过识别和分析系统的易损性,找出管网中相对比较薄弱的部分,为确定安全策略和采取控制措施提供理论依据。借鉴网络脆弱性评估理论和方法,基于震后供水管网的连通性分析和水力分析结果,采用分层的分析方法,以管网的拓扑位置和节点服务特性作为影响管网易损性的因素,分配给各节点一定的权值,计算其易损性指标,采用定性与定量相结合的方法评判其易损性程度。对一实际管网进行地震易损性风险评估,说明了该方法的有效性与合理性。     

山东省地下水位下降引发的灾害及减灾对策

近二十年来山东省经济迅速发展与水资源匮乏的矛盾不断加剧。超量开采地下水导致地下水位持续的急剧下降，其结果引发了地裂缝、地面塌陷、海（咸）水入侵、生态环境恶化等一系列人为自然灾害。本文分析了这些灾害的基本特征并指出解决水资源不足是促进山东省经济持续高速发展并减轻地下水位下降灾害的根本措施。     

地下水过量开采的概率风险分析

应用一种概率风险分析方法评价了济宁市地下水水位降落漏斗区的风险度。该方法引入了可靠度和严重度来进行分析评价，可靠度从宏观上反映了含水层系统的安全可靠程度，而严重度从微观上详细地刻画了含水层系统的易破坏程度。其中，影响可靠度大小的因子主要有可开采量和实际开采量，严重度大小的主要影响因子包括实际开采量、净补给、降深和含水层的初始饱和厚度。在可靠度和严重度计算结果的基础上，利用AreGIS软件计算了漏斗区风险度的空间分布。结果表明：占研究区总面积5．53％的中部地区风险度最大，而西部和南部的风险度相对很小，符合该地区实际的水文地质条件和地下水资源的开采现状。