Protecting cultural assets from bushfires: a question of comprehensive planning

Cultural heritage sites form an unrenewable asset that is threatened by natural disasters. Given the high bushfire risk, mandatory Bush Fire Risk Management Plans have been drawn up throughout New South Wales, Australia. We compared their mandatory provisions for the protection of heritage assets with an 'Ideal Heritage Disaster Plan', containing a series of non-negotiable elements. The examined plans fell well short of the ideal. Preparedness Plans generally lacked a discussion of suppression techniques (for historic heritage), prevention, prescribed drills and communication procedures. None of the Response Plans or Recovery Plans contained any of the required core elements, such as rapid suppression techniques and stabilisation procedures. Where aspects were covered, they were addressed in an inadequate level of detail. The overall quality of the cultural heritage components of the plans is judged to be poor. Suggestions are made on how to improve the situation if heritage assets are to have a future following bushfire events.     

Communities and bushfire hazard in Australia: More questions than answers

The issue of communities and their exposure to bushfire hazard is highly topical internationally. There is a perceived trend of greater exposure to bushfire risk which is exacerbated by increased levels of building in fire-prone areas or peri-urban regions. There is a need to clarify what we understand to be peri-urban regions, and how we conceptualise and describe the communities that reside in them, in order that efficient and effective services are provided. However, more questions arise for us. For example: Where are these communities located? What do we know about the people who live there? What are the implications for bushfire mitigation? Despite being problematic, locality remains important to the understanding of communities, bushfire hazard and delivery of services.     

Estimating the economic,social and environmental impacts of wildfires in Australia

It is often said that bushfires are a fact of life in Australia. While Australian communities will always be affected by the impacts of bushfires, there is an element of human involvement that makes at least some bushfires avoidable. In Australia more bushfires are started by deliberate lighting than are caused by lightning or other natural sources. This creates an element of criminality in relation to bushfires which includes the establishment of bushfire arson as a serious criminal offence. The author presents a motive-based typology of deliberately lit bushfires and argues that a greater understanding of the reasons why people light bushfires can help prevention, investigation and treatment of offenders.     

Media and bushfires: A community perspective of the media during the Grampians Fires 2006

This paper examines the ways residents in the Grampians area in the Australian state of Victoria used their local and their state and national based media before, during and after the 2006 bushfires (wildfires). The researchers were particularly concerned to understand how residents evaluated media sources as trustworthy and credible in relation to bushfire warnings and information about the fires delivered in the media.Analysis of data derived from two separate focus group sessions conducted by the researchers reveals four main themes. (1) The media are perceived as part of a broader information gathering process. (2) Local knowledge is the most important aspect in broadcast information. (3) Members of small communities can feel disenfranchised and resentful of the media when media coverage focuses on larger towns, and (4) the effects of media reporting, including specific warnings, are both immediate and long lasting.The paper explores some of the tensions that result from the ways rural residents use and distinguish between local/regional and metropolitan and out-of-state bushfire information; and it encourages better use of the local/regional media to increase community safety and awareness in relation to bushfire mitigation, preparedness and crisis management issues before, during and after the fires. It is suggested that risk communications professionals need to understand that when mediated risk-related communications are provided, a key evaluative criterion is whether or not those media and the messages represent and reflect local knowledge.     

Media and bushfires: A community perspective of the media during the Grampians Fires 2006

This paper examines the ways residents in the Grampians area in the Australian state of Victoria used their local and their state and national based media before, during and after the 2006 bushfires (wildfires). The researchers were particularly concerned to understand how residents evaluated media sources as trustworthy and credible in relation to bushfire warnings and information about the fires delivered in the media.

Analysis of data derived from two separate focus group sessions conducted by the researchers reveals four main themes. (1) The media are perceived as part of a broader information gathering process. (2) Local knowledge is the most important aspect in broadcast information. (3) Members of small communities can feel disenfranchised and resentful of the media when media coverage focuses on larger towns, and (4) the effects of media reporting, including specific warnings, are both immediate and long lasting.

The paper explores some of the tensions that result from the ways rural residents use and distinguish between local/regional and metropolitan and out-of-state bushfire information; and it encourages better use of the local/regional media to increase community safety and awareness in relation to bushfire mitigation, preparedness and crisis management issues before, during and after the fires. It is suggested that risk communications professionals need to understand that when mediated risk-related communications are provided, a key evaluative criterion is whether or not those media and the messages represent and reflect local knowledge.     

Predicting self-evacuation in Australian bushfire

Australian bushfire safety policy does not require mandatory evacuation from bushfire as practiced in North America and other jurisdictions. Australian householders confronted with a bushfire threat must decide whether they remain and defend their property or evacuate. A better understanding of factors that influence householders’ decisions to self-evacuate can inform bushfire safety policy. Studies have identified variables that motivate evacuation from various hazards, including wildfire, but factors shaping the decision processes are not well understood. The Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) provided a theoretical framework of factors influencing protective response to hazard to analyse the actions of householders affected by two bushfires. Three factors that predict self-evacuation were identified: the perception that evacuation is effective in protecting personal safety; the receipt of official warnings; and perceived threat to property. These findings reinforce the importance of increasing householder awareness and sensitivity to the danger posed by bushfire; the adequacy of people’s bushfire preparedness; the effectiveness of early evacuation in protecting personal safety; and the potential persuasiveness of accurate, relevant and timely official warning messages in influencing safe evacuation from bushfire.     

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.     

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.     

‘Schismo‐urbanism’: cities,natural disaster,and urban sociology

This paper examines a city and a natural disaster, specifically New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina of August 2005. Recovery here is ongoing and the process of return is incomplete, with long‐term dislocation to other cities in the United States, such as Houston, Texas. The question arises as to how planning and stratification influence evacuation and return/dislocation and how they result in a particular practice of adaptation. This interrelated process is conceptually integrated and termed ‘schismo‐urbanism’ and is analysed within a multidimensional theoretical framework to evaluate aspects of urban sociology and natural disasters. Empirical research is based on a quantitative and qualitative mixed‐method case study. Data were collected during two rounds of field research in New Orleans and Houston in 2007 and 2009. As a comparative socio‐spatial study of affected and receptor communities, it makes a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to research on urban disasters in the context of continuing and rapid social change, and is targeted at disaster researchers, planning theorists and practitioners, and urbanists.     

地震减灾体系中的区域联防问题

地震灾害是我国主要的自然灾害之一。现阶段,减轻地震灾害的主要途径是在努力提高地震监测预报水平的基础上,发挥政府、社会和地震科技队伍三方面的作用,坚持以预防为主,建立地震减灾工作体系,走综合减灾的道路。行使政府职能是地震减灾工作体系的中心环节,职能的行使以一级政府的行政管辖范围为“边界”。但我国大陆地区已发生的大震和当前的重点监视防御区多分布于二省、三省或更多省市交界地区。突破行政区划,在地震活动区、危险区周围协调地开展监测、预报、宣传、防御工作是当前进行防震减灾战略布局所必需。地震科学发展的“跨”行政区划和政府行政职能的严格区划性的尖锐矛盾,有必要提出地震减灾中的区域联防问题,本文是有关这个问题的分析与建议。     

Natural disasters in Australia

The history of natural hazards in Australia and their physical, economic and social consequences are discussed in this paper. The lack of any national programme for hazard mitigation is identified, alongside an overview of Australia as a country where major disasters are accepted as a part of everyday life.     

Friends and family vs. government: who does the public rely on more to prepare for natural disasters?

This paper examines what organizations and groups individuals rely on to help prepare for natural disasters and how reliance differs vis-à-vis demographic characteristics. Using data gathered from 2,008 individuals employed in the United States, the results revealed that individuals are significantly more likely to rely on friends and family than government organizations at the local, state, and federal level. The findings also suggest that this reliance varies across demographic groups. For example, data from the present study suggest that women and minority groups as well as individuals who are older and less educated are significantly more likely to rely on organizations to help prepare for natural disasters. This study contributes to the disaster management and risk communication literatures by offering key insights into the organizations and groups the American public in general, and certain demographic groups in particular, rely on when it comes to preparing for natural disasters. Knowledge about the organizations and groups that individuals rely on to help prepare for natural disasters can help policymakers and practitioners target those organizations as conduits to deliver critical preparedness information, as well as other information related to disaster mitigation, response, and recovery.     

自然灾害综合预报和年度会商

本文从系统论的观点和高度上分析了自然灾害综合预报的必要性和重要意义，同时结合陕西省近几年开展年度综合会商的实际和体会，就自然灾害综合预报和年度会商的具体内容、形式和方法等建设问题进行了讨论，最后提出了今后进一步改进会商质量、提高预报水平的建议。     

Policy options for managing flood insurance

In much of the developed world, private sector insurance plays an important but often underappreciated role in the management of natural disasters. Insurance works by spreading individual and independent risks across all policyholders. This notion succeeds for uncorrelated risks such as theft and motor accidents, but is problematic where risks are highly correlated in space and time, as in the case of natural hazards. Insurers transfer much of this risk to international reinsurers who are guided by the principle that natural catastrophes in different parts of the world are uncorrelated. Global diversification allows reinsurers to confer to direct insurers the same assurance that insurers offer their policyholders. This paper outlines these principles and poses questions as to how a government might respond when insurers assess some risks as uninsurable. It considers a range of policy options including some that seek to avoid situations where interference by governments in the marketplace has proved unhelpful. A key paradigm is that insurance premiums should reflect actual risk in order to encourage homeowners, planners and government decision makers to reduce risks. While our focus is riverine flood risk, the principles can be generalized to a wide range of natural hazards.     

自然灾害变动的集成预测模型及其应用

本文提出了以非线性回归拟合发展趋势、正弦函数逼近周期变动和马尔可夫链刻划随机扰动的集成预测模型，并应用于山东省农业自然灾害成灾面积的变动规律模拟，得到了较好的预测效果。理论和实践表明，集成预测模型优于传统的单模型预测，为预测具有复杂机制的自然灾害演变提供了一种新方法。     

沿海城市自然灾害损失分类与评估

在系统总结国内外沿海城市自然灾害损失评估研究现状的基础上,对现有的自然灾害损失评估方法进行了探讨。针对当前研究中出现的灾害损失类型划分界定不清晰,对次生灾害损失和间接损失无法进行有效的定量评估等问题作了比较明确的阐述,从社会损失和经济损失两个方面建立了沿海城市自然灾害损失分类体系。在此基础上,提出了人员损失、直接损失和间接损失的评估方法。最后,提出了未来自然灾害损失评估研究中有待继续完善和开展的工作。     

Reason,emotion, compassion: can altruism survive professionalisation in the humanitarian sector?

The humanitarian sector has grown enormously over the past two decades. Some fear that professionalisation comes at the expense of altruistic volunteering. This may be a valid concern if altruism is the product of organisational culture and individual experiences rather than an innate trait. This paper examines advances in evolutionary biology and neurology that provide evidence in support of both the nature and nurture arguments, echoing earlier insights from social sciences. It then questions to what extent humanitarian principles build on altruistic impulses or instead seek to constrain them, and reviews recruitment profiles of selected humanitarian organisations and applicants' letters accordingly. This initial investigation warrants further research to identify how altruism as a personal trait and an organisational principle has influenced diverse humanitarian actors and traditions. This paper outlines how training curricula and organisational reward systems can build on—rather than stifle—natural altruism to nurture critical, reflexive practitioners.     

The role of the media in hazard mitigation and disaster management

The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, which began in January 1990, will embrace efforts to reduce death, injury and property losses stemming from rapid-onset natural disasters. Our expanding science and technology base makes possible this concerted cooperative international effort, and communications is a central part of that effort — for public education, early warning, evacuation and coordination of post-disaster relief. Mass communication is inextricably entwined with disasters and hazard mitigation. Reflecting the public's great interest and concern, the electronic and print media extensively cover natural disasters and significantly affect how and what the public learns about and how it perceives natural hazards. Improving the linkages between the media and disaster-mitigation researchers and practitioners could prepare the public to act promptly on warnings, helping to mitigate disasters. This could also accelerate the shift of the societal emphasis from post-disaster relief toward pre-disaster initiatives.     

Evaluating betterment projects

In the past decade Australia has experienced a series of large‐scale, severe natural disasters including catastrophic bushfires, widespread and repeated flooding, and intense storms and cyclones. There appears to be a prima facie case for rebuilding damaged infrastructure to a more disaster resilient (that is, to ‘betterment’) standard. The purpose of this paper is to develop and illustrate a consistent and readily applied method for advancing proposals for the betterment of essential public assets, which can be used by governments at all levels to determine the net benefits of such proposals. Case study results demonstrate that betterment investments have the potential to deliver a positive economic return across a range of asset types and regions. Results, however, are highly sensitive to underlying assumptions; in particular the probability of the natural disaster affecting the infrastructure in the absence of betterment.