The adoption of a Climate Disaster Resilience Index in Chennai,India

Results derived from the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI)—consisting of five dimensions (economic, institutional, natural, physical, and social), 25 parameters, and 125 variables—reflect the abilities of people and institutions to respond to potential climate‐related disasters in Chennai, India. The findings of this assessment, applied in the 10 administrative zones of the city, reveal that communities living in the northern and older parts of Chennai have lower overall resilience as compared to the flourishing areas (vis‐à‐vis economic growth and population) along the urban fringes. The higher resilience of communities along the urban fringes suggests that urbanisation may not necessarily lead to a deterioration of basic urban services, such as electricity, housing, and water. This indication is confirmed by a strong statistical correlation between physical resilience and population growth in Chennai. The identification of the resilience of different urban areas of Chennai has the potential to support future planning decisions on the city's scheduled expansion.     

中山市城区避震疏散场所规划

当地震来临时,快速及时地将人员疏散到安全地带,能大大减少人员伤亡。因此,在地震频发、城市人口不断集中的今天,各城市应事先建设好避震疏散场所。通过对影响避震疏散场所选择的中山市城区地质构造背景与场地条件、以区为单位需安置人口数量、医疗救护点、易燃易爆危险源、避震疏散通道分布等要素的分析,并在野外勘查的基础上,参照关于建设避震疏散场所的规范和标准,对中山市城区避震疏散场所进行了规划。所规划的避震疏散场所安全可靠、布局合理,能够满足中山市城区的应急疏散需要。     

Unauthorised development and seismic hazard vulnerability: a study of squatters and engineers in Istanbul, Turkey

Many cities in developing nations have experienced an influx of poor migrants in search of work. This population influx has often been accommodated through land squatting, irregular construction and unauthorised housing. For the urban poor, this has resulted in immediate affordable housing; however, this housing frequently has long-term vulnerability to natural hazards. This article examines the ways in which squatters in Istanbul, Turkey, understand the seismic vulnerability of their unauthorised housing. Distrust of professional engineers and contractors has led Istanbul squatters to believe that self-built housing will not only be less costly but also safer than commercially built housing. The impact of residents' risk perceptions on their vulnerability to natural hazards is examined through a comparison of social attitudes regarding safe housing and the quality of unauthorised construction. This comparison highlights how squatters' risk perceptions necessitate innovative means of reducing vulnerability in unauthorised neighbourhoods of developing cities.     

Towards guidelines for post‐disaster vulnerability reduction in informal settlements

Although the development community has long recognised that securing land tenure and improving housing design can benefit significantly informal settlement residents, there is little research on these issues in communities exposed to natural disasters and hazards. Informal settlements often are located on land left vacant because of inherent risks, such as floodplains, and there is a long history worldwide of disasters affecting informal settlements. This research tackles the following questions: how can informal settlement vulnerabilities be reduced in a post‐disaster setting?; and what are the key issues to address in post‐disaster reconstruction? The main purpose of the paper is to develop a set of initial guidelines for post‐disaster risk reduction in informal settlements, stressing connections to tenure and housing/community design in the reconstruction process. The paper examines disaster and reconstruction responses in two disaster‐affected regions—Jimani, Dominican Republic, and Vargas State, Venezuela—where informal settlements have been hit particularly hard.     

The self‐built ecovillage in L'Aquila,Italy: community resilience as a grassroots response to environmental shock

The paper applies the community resilience approach to the post‐disaster case of Pescomaggiore, an Italian village affected by the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. A group of residents refused to accept the housing recovery solutions proposed by the government, opting for autonomous recovery. They developed a housing project in the form of a self‐built ecovillage, characterised by earthquake‐proof buildings made of straw and wood. The project is a paradigmatic example of a community‐based response to an external shock. It illustrates the concept of ‘community resilience’, which is widely explored in the scientific debate but still vaguely defined. Based on qualitative methodologies, the paper seeks to understand how the community resilience process can be enacted in alternative social practices such as ecovillages. The goal is to see under which conditions natural disasters can be considered windows of opportunity for sustainability.     

Disaster risk,social vulnerability,and economic development

This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate‐related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally‐occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM‐DAT), 1 representing country‐year‐level observations over the period 1980–2007. The study finds that low‐income countries are significantly more at risk of climate‐related disasters, even after controlling for exposure to climate hazards and other factors that may confound disaster reporting. Following the occurrence of a disaster, higher income generally diminishes a country's social vulnerability to such happenings, resulting in lower levels of mortality and morbidity. This implies that continued economic development may be a powerful tool for lessening social vulnerability to climate change.     

Minimization of socioeconomic disruption for displaced populations following disasters

In the aftermath of catastrophic natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, emergency management agencies come under intense pressure to provide temporary housing to address the large‐scale displacement of the vulnerable population. Temporary housing is essential to enable displaced families to reestablish their normal daily activities until permanent housing solutions can be provided. Temporary housing decisions, however, have often been criticized for their failure to fulfil the socioeconomic needs of the displaced families within acceptable budgets. This paper presents the development of (1) socioeconomic disruption metrics that are capable of quantifying the socioeconomic impacts of temporary housing decisions on displaced populations; and (2) a robust multi‐objective optimization model for temporary housing that is capable of simultaneously minimizing socioeconomic disruptions and public expenditures in an effective and efficient manner. A large‐scale application example is optimized to illustrate the use of the model and demonstrate its capabilities ingenerating optimal plans for realistic temporary housing problems.     

Disasters as an ideological strategy for governing neoliberal urban transformation in Turkey: insights from Izmir/Kadifekale

Since the turn of the twenty‐first century, Turkish cities have undergone large‐scale change through a process referred to as urban transformation, involving, notably, the demolition of inner‐city low‐income settlements. The official authorities and business circles have resorted to various forms of discourse to justify these projects, which have led to the deportation of a significant number of people to peripheral areas. The discourse of ‘natural disasters’, for example, suggests that urban transformation is necessary to protect people from some pending event. Probably the most effective application of this discourse has occurred in Izmir, where the risk posed by ‘landslides’ has played a critical role in the settlement demolitions conducted in the huge inner‐city neighbourhood of Kadifekale. By examining the case of Kadifekale, this paper provide some insights into how ‘natural disasters’ serve as a discourse with which to legitimise the neoliberal logic entrenched in the urban transformation process in Turkey.     

河西走廊地质灾害成因分析与防治对策

河西走廊是一个地质灾害多发区,其主要灾害有滑坡、泥石流、土地沙漠化、水土流失和土地盐渍化等.本文利用河西走廊酒泉、张掖和武威三地区的降水、暴洪灾害和地质灾害等资料,分析了该区主要地质灾害的成因和特点,结果表明,强降水是引发滑坡、塌陷和泥石流等地质灾害发生的主要原因,自然因素和人为因素共同构成了这些灾害的发生.分析了它们的主要出现地,圈定了落区,为今后准确预报地质灾害提供了科学依据.还提出了减少地质灾害发生的有效措施.     

自然灾害对深圳城市建设发展的影响

随着灾害科学研究的深入，城市自然灾害已经成为其重要的研究领域。对于快速城市化的深圳，其自然灾害方面的研究更有必要。深圳市的自然灾害主要有气象灾害、地质灾害和海洋灾害等3类，它们是自然变异因素与人类活动共同作用的结果。在深圳的建设发展中，自然灾害的影响表现在两个方面：一是限制了土地利用和开发的规模，加大了城市土地开发利用的成本；二是对城市的经济建设造成了危害，使深圳的生态环境和工程地质条件造成退化。最后针对深圳市自然灾害的特点，阐述了它们的防治原则。     

我国自然灾害时空分布及其粮食风险评估

分析了旱灾、水灾、风雹灾、霜冻灾、台风灾和农业病虫害、草害、鼠害8种自然灾害的时空分布情况,计算了其造成的历年粮食减产量,并在此基础上评估2020年自然灾害对粮食产量的影响。结果表明,2020年不同自然灾害对我国各省粮食生产的影响程度不同。旱灾风险区集中在我国北方地区,分布在黄淮海区、西北区等;涝灾风险区集中在我国南方地区,分布在长江中下游区等;风雹灾风险区对我国粮食产量影响相对较小,主要分布在新疆和青海;台风灾风险区集中在我国南方沿海地区;农业病虫害风险区集中在我国的南方地区,分布在华南沿海区和西南区等;而霜冻灾、农业草害、鼠害对粮食生产的影响范围和影响程度较小。     

Shelter, housing and recovery: a comparison of u.s. Disasters

In this paper we examine the issues associated with the temporary sheltering and housing of victims after natural disasters in the United States. Specific topics addressed include differential access to shelter and housing aid according to social class, ethnicity and related demographic factors; the relationship between post-disaster shelter and housing and long-term recovery; the role of social support networks in the sheltering of victims; and the implications of the research for the provision of shelter and housing aid after disasters.     

Maximising the net social benefit of the construction of post‐disaster alternative housing projects

The widespread destruction that follows large‐scale natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, challenges the efficacy of traditional temporary housing methods in providing adequate solutions to housing needs. Recognising these housing challenges, the Congress of the United States allocated, in 2006, USD 400 million to the Department of Homeland Security to support Alternative Housing Pilot Programs, which are intended to explore the possibilities of providing permanent and affordable housing to displaced families instead of traditional temporary housing. This paper presents a new methodology and optimisation model to identify the optimal configurations of post‐shelter housing arrangements to maximise the overall net socioeconomic benefit. The model is capable of quantifying and optimising the impacts of substituting temporary housing with alternative housing on the social and economic welfare of displaced families as well as the required additional costs of doing so. An application example is presented to illustrate the use of the model and its capabilities.     

The social impact of natural hazards: a multi‐level analysis of disasters and forms of trust in mainland China

This study aimed to assess the multi‐level effects of natural hazards on trust in Chinese society. Drawing on the Chinese General Social Survey conducted in 2012 and provincial disaster damage records, it examined the association between individuals’ past experiences of disasters and province‐level damage (measured by the number of affected people, deaths, and economic loss) and various forms of trust: in‐group; out‐group; generalised; and political. The findings indicate that Chinese individuals with experience of disasters have higher levels of out‐group trust but lower levels of political trust. Similarly, at the province level, damage owing to disasters over the past three years (2009–11) positively impacted on residents’ out‐group trust while negatively affecting their political trust. However, when provincial damage was aggregated for disasters over the past five years (2007–11), which included the devastating Sichuan earthquake on 12 May 2008, only total deaths had a positive effect on generalised trust.     

基于GIS的南通市自然灾害风险区划

本文从自然致灾因子危险性和承灾体易损性2个方面选取评价指标,在南通市基础图件的基础上,通过GIS软件分析分别得到南通市自然致灾因子危险性分区图和社会经济易损性分区图.两图叠加后,生成南通市自然灾害风险区划基本单元,采用自下而上的定量区划方法,合并得到自然灾害风险区划图,最后分别论述了每个风险区的自然灾害和社会经济的特征.通过对风险区划指标和区域划分的探讨,以期为南通市防灾减灾工作提供科学依据.     

Knowing better and losing even more: the use of knowledge in hazards management

Abstract

Although loss of life from natural hazards has been declining, the property losses from those causes have been increasing. At the same time the volume of research on natural hazards and the books reviewing findings on the subject have also increased. Several major changes have occurred in the topics addressed. Emphasis has shifted from hazards to disasters. There has been increasing attention to vulnerability. Views of causation have changed. Four possible explanations are examined for the situation in which more is lost while more is known: (1) knowledge continues to be flawed by areas of ignorance; (2) knowledge is available but not used effectively; (3) knowledge is used effectively but takes a long time to have effect; and (4) knowledge is used effectively in some respects but is overwhelmed by increases in vulnerability and in population, wealth, and poverty.     

Analysing news media coverage of the 2015 Nepal earthquake using a community capitals lens: implications for disaster resilience

South Asia is one of the regions of the world most vulnerable to natural disasters. Although news media analyses of disasters have been conducted frequently in various settings globally, there is little research on populous South Asia. This paper begins to fill this gap by evaluating local and foreign news media coverage of the earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015. It broadens the examination of news media coverage of disaster response beyond traditional framing theory, utilising community capitals (built, cultural, financial, human, natural, political, and social) lens to perform a thematic content analysis of 405 news items. Overall, financial and natural capital received the most and the least emphasis respectively. Statistically significant differences between local and foreign news media were detected vis‐à‐vis built, financial, and political capital. The paper concludes with a discussion of the social utility of news media analysis using the community capitals framework to inform disaster resilience.     

电力系统自然灾害的现状与对策

回顾了近年来世界各国的电力系统在自然灾害下的运行安全状况，特别是我国电力系统的主要自然灾害状况。重点介绍了电力系统在灾害性强风和地震作用下所受的影响。近年的自然灾害说明，开展我国电力系统防御重大自然灾害的研究和风险评估工作，建立电力系统自然灾害事故的预警机制、应急反应机制和灾后快速恢复重建机制，是提高电力系统防灾能力的关键。     

Natural Hazard Reporting in the UK Press

Important sources of information concerning world natural hazards are provided by the mass media, especially newspapers. The nature, depth and consistency of the reporting, however, varies considerably depending upon the journalistic approach of the newspaper and on the perceived 'newsworthiness' of a disaster. Intensive events are much more likely to receive attention than pervasive hazards but other contributory factors play a part, such as the day, time, severity in terms of damage and loss of life, and location of the event. This paper reflects on the reporting of natural hazards in UK newspapers and is based on an analysis of press cuttings taken over a period of twelve months. The survey indicated that there is a very uneven coverage of world disasters, that location maps are scarce, and that valuable follow-up reporting is minimal.     

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.