Disaster reduction,loss and damage data,and the post-2015 international policy agenda

Disaster risk management, particularly management of climate-related risks, has become central to the international policy agenda. Reducing hazard-related loss and damage relies heavily on scientific inputs. Science, in turn, relies on data—in this case 1) risk-related data on hazards, exposure and vulnerability, and 2) data on associated loss and damage outcomes. The latter, data on losses and damage, are also post-2015 international policy outcome indicators at the highest level, required for countries’ monitoring of progress in reducing disaster risk, adapting to climate change, and achieving sustainable development. Although the quantity and accessibility of loss and damage data are improving, a number of issues continue to constrain their potential. These include needs for more consistent cataloguing of hazards and extreme events, more systematic and accurate documentation of per-event losses and damage, more precise cross-referencing of hazard events with associated loss and damage, and improved standardization and interoperability among databases. We identify measures for improvement in this regard, both for research purposes and for post-2015 international policy implementation.     

Optimize emission reduction commitments for international environmental agreements

In order to restrict global warming to no more than 2 ^°C, more efforts are needed. Thus, how to attract as more as possible countries to international environment agreements (IEAs) and realize the maximum reduction targets are meaningful. The motivation of this paper is exploring a set of method of designing IEA proposals. The paper built a chance-constrained two-stage cartel formation game model, which can explore whether a country signs an agreement in the first stage and discusses how the countries joining the coalition can make the best emission commitments in the second stage. Based on the model, the real emission data of 45 countries was collected for numerical experiments, which almost completely depict the current global emissions of different countries. A numerical experiment has also been carried out in the paper. Then some interesting results emerge as follows: risk averse, high cost, high emission reduction duty, and external stability impede large coalition formation; transfer scheme and high perceived benefits stimulate countries to join IEAs and make a good commitment; the most influential countries for coalition structure and commitment are those low-cost and low-emission entities. The results also demonstrate that the design of IEA proposals should not only pay attention to those economically developed and high-emission “big” countries, but also attach importance to those low-emission “small” countries.     

试论灾害文化在防灾减灾中的作用

本文通过对2008年春节前的冰雪灾害中社会公众防灾减灾的意识和自救能力进行分析,提出构建社会主义灾害文化体系意义及对防灾减灾的重要作用。     

Insuring Southeast Asian commercial forests: Fire risk analysis and the potential for use of data in risk pricing and reduction of forest fire risk

The author uses his own data gleaned from over 10 years of commercial forestry insurance across the world to propose that despite a low intrinsic fire risk across most of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, commercial fire losses are unacceptably high, and could be reduced substantially within the current financial legal and political framework within which forestry companies operate. Opening with a statement about the dearth of forest fire loss data in the commercial sector, it is observed that the consequent inability of general insurers to estimate the rate of fire loss leads to very low insurance participation in forestry within Indonesia. A summary is then provided of the financial and environmental benefits of insurance participation in commercial forestry were this situation to be changed. A short discussion on risk perceptions is introduced to make the point that without reliable commercial forest fire loss data, risk perceptions of fire exposure in Southeast Asia by the financial sector, including insurers, is a barrier to risk transfer and investment. While real fire risk and perceived fire risk for Indonesia seem at present to be in agreement, the paper challenges that this should the case. Comparisons are made with different parts of the world with the knowledge that, in commercial terms, plantations in the low latitudes behave similarly everywhere in terms of fire causes, fire propagation factors, and characteristics of plantation or managed mixed forest fires. A review of the fire sizes within commercial forests is a good indicator of the efficiency of fire management strategies, and profiles from a high fire risk territory and Indonesia are compared. Using commercial and unidentified data the author then demonstrates that commercial growers in Indonesia have a high annual rate of forest fire loss and may also have a significant catastrophe fire exposure. This ‘cat’ exposure is far greater than for equivalent plantations in clearly higher fire risk environments. These conclusions are and should be discussed with forestry companies to change attitude and investment levels. Practical points for improved plantation fire management are made along with comments about the resources required. A parallel discussion then reviews fire risk assessment and management by the insurers to prevent their own ‘forest fire’ losses if they are to get further involved with the provision of Indonesian commercial forest risk transfer. The explanation of how insurers price risk within a portfolio helps identify the specific data needed for a proper risk management strategy to be developed.     

Climate change and local level disaster risk reduction planning: need, opportunities and challenges

The field of climate change is full of uncertainties that are limiting strategic disaster risk reduction planning. In this paper, however, we argued that there is lot to do before we get our hands on reliable estimates of future climate change impacts. It includes bringing together different stakeholders in a framework suggested in this paper, developing case studies that reflect long-term local impacts of climate change, capacity building of local stakeholders that enables them to take decisions under uncertainty etc. We proposed a simple scheme that brings together climate, disaster and policy community together to start a dialogue in a run-up to understanding wider aspects of long-term risk reduction at local level. Strategic thinking, which has only been restricted to national and regional planning to date, needs to be inculcated in local level disaster risk reduction and policy personnel as well. There is a need to move from the attitude of considering local level players as ‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ for which developing a network of self learning and evolving organizations are required at the local level.     

环境灾害与可持续发展

灾害伴随人类社会的始终。整个人类社会发展的历史 ,从某种角度来说 ,就是一部与灾害抗争的历史。在远古时代和农业社会 ,虽然也曾发生过诸如森林过度砍伐造成水土流失、土地盐渍化等环境灾害 ,但作为一个单独的灾害类型 ,环境灾害引起人们的重视还是人类进入工业文明 ,环境问题充分暴露之后的事情。现在 ,人类对环境灾害的认识也从当初的公害事件三废污染发展到包括人群健康、环境污染、生态破坏以及国家安全、经济安全、甚至对整个人类造成危害的环境安全问题。从环境问题到环境灾害 ,再到广义的综合性的环境安全概念 ,人类对这一问题的认…     

Genetic amniocentesis following multifetal pregnancy reduction to twins: Assessing the risk

Fifty-three patients who elected to reduce their pregnancies to a twin gestation in our centre are known to have subsequently undergone genetic amniocentesis. Five of these patients lost their entire pregnancy following the genetic amniocentesis procedure. This is equivalent to a 9·4 per cent pregnancy loss rate for reduced twin gestations in comparison with an expected loss rate of 2 per cent for non-reduced twin gestations.     

关中地区的“丁戊奇荒”及应对措施

光绪年间的"丁戊奇荒"遍及全国多个省份,关中地区也在受灾之列,赤地千里,饿殍盈野,人相食。正逢多事之秋的清政府无力应对,只是敷衍了事,把赈灾重任交给了地方政府。在地方政府的多方筹措、当地及江南士绅的慷慨帮助下,灾民才得以渡过难关。本文重点论述了地方政府及士绅在赈灾过程中发挥的作用,以期说明清末封建社会对灾害是如何应对的。     

三峡水库与地震灾害

水力发电不产生二氧化碳,是典型的绿色能源,加之水库能调节江河水位,有效防止汛期洪涝和枯水期干旱等优势,所以世界各国都在大力建设水利工程。     

Adapting to droughts in Yuanyang Terrace of SW China: insight from disaster risk reduction

Despite international focus on how to facilitate adaptation to droughts in a changing climate, a good deal of adaptation will be enacted at the local level. Focusing on the Yuanyang Terrace of SW China (a very famous agricultural heritage site), this study illustrates that land use change, dynamic adaptation and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) are the main measures to reduce the drought disaster risk and have the important role in adapting to droughts based on methodology of the land use survey, household questionnaire, local government and companies’ interview. And a new conceptual model of adaptation from the insight of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) was proposed in spatial, temporal and social dimensions. It is a good practice to adapt to disaster risk and agricultural heritage conservation by tourism development. Adaptive risk management is more important in adapting to disaster risk in order to maintain heritages conservation and local livelihood improvement.     

Interrupting the social amplification of risk process: a case study in collective emissions reduction

One of the main approaches we have for studying the progressive divergence of understandings around a risk issue is that of social risk amplification. This article describes a case study of a particular environmental contaminant, a chemical flame retardant that could be interpreted as having produced a risk amplifying process. It describes in particular how a group of industrial organizations acted collectively to reduce emissions of this contaminant, in an apparent attempt to avert regulation and boycotts—that is, to intercept the social amplification process and avoid its secondary effects. The aim of the study was to investigate the constitutive qualities of this collective action: the qualities that defined it and made it effective in the eyes of those involved. These include institutionalisation and independence, the ability to confer individual as well as collective benefit, the capacity to attract (rather than avoid) criticism, and the ‘branding’ that helps communicate what otherwise appear to be a set of unconnected, local actions. Although the risk amplification framework has been criticised for implying that there is some externally given risk level that is subsequently amplified, it does appear to capture the mentality of actors involved in issues of this kind. They talk and act as though they believe they are participants in a risk amplification process.     

中国雪灾及相关研究述评

雪灾作为自然灾害的一种,相对于其他灾种,发生的范围和频率较小。历史上发生的雪灾有记载的200多次,其中重大的上百次。学界有关雪灾问题的研究存在着很大的不足：一是有关研究大都包涵在自然灾害之中作为灾种的一部分进行简单论述,而没有单独作为一个专题进行更为详实的研究;二是近30年来,学界多从气象学角度出发,对雪灾的形成机制及原因等方面进行分析,而从社会学与史学的角度进行研究的成果极其少见。     

区域开发的灾害识别和对策

区域开发是当前普遍采用的一种经济发展模式，然而区域开发活动引起的灾害还没有引起足够的重视。该文多区域开发建设活动与区域环境相互影响的观点，介绍了对区域开发引起的灾害进行识别的方法及其对策分析。区域灾害识别可采用历史记录法，成因分析法、预测法等方法。区域灾害对策有非工程性和工程性两类，工程性对策应根据区域灾害的类型、频率、强度、损失及区域开发性质来决定，而非工程性对策中建立区域统一的防灾救灾组织管理     

震后灾难心理及其救援对策研究

从心理学和行为学的角度审视了地震灾害带给灾区民众的悲伤、恐惧、忧愁、心慌、愤恨、犯罪等心理行为反应特征,认为必须加强地震灾害后的心理救援工作,对灾民的灾难心理进行干预和调控,在此基础上研究并提出了地震灾害心理救援的基本对策,以期灾难发生后能快速实施心理救援和救助,减少灾民的心理痛苦,尽快恢复社会秩序.     

抗灾体适能的影响因素及培养方法

本文以参与多次灾害救援的国家紧急救援队队员及专家为调查对象,通过问卷方式调查在灾害发生时及灾害发生后,影响抗灾体适能的主要影响因素。统计结果表明:影响抗灾体适能变化的主要因素有人们对灾害的认知水平,灾害发生时及发生后人们的心理适应能力、生理适应能力、体能水平及行动能力。在此基础上,提出了有效培养、提高抗灾体适能的方法与手段。即:减灾教育内容要将学生"该知道的"与"想知道的"相结合,通过演练演习等方式提高学生的防灾应急实际技能。     

“丁戊奇荒”中平阳府的灾情和赈灾工作——基于碑刻和地方志的研究

光绪年间的丁戊奇荒给山西社会造成严重影响,晋省平阳府尤重。基于平阳府碑刻和地方志材料,对当时的灾荒情况和赈灾情况进行分析。结果表明:此次旱灾灾情时间长、受灾严重,并引发了一系列诸如抢劫、食人肉、粮贵物贱、狼鼠灾害等社会问题。在此期间救灾措施是多样的,分为官方救济和民间义赈两部分。朝廷、地方官员开展赈灾工作,各个县开展自救活动。造成此次旱灾的主要原因是战乱频繁、粮食储备不足,清政府救灾措施存在弊端等。同时也警示着人们要勤俭节约、储备粮食,政府应整顿吏治。     

A comparison of definitions of affordability for flood risk adaption measures: a case study of current and future risk-based flood insurance premiums in Europe

Risk-based insurance is a commonly proposed and discussed flood risk adaptation mechanism in policy debates across the world such as in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. However, both risk-based premiums and growing risk pose increasing difficulties for insurance to remain affordable. An empirical concept of affordability is required as the affordability of adaption strategies is an important concern for policymakers, yet such a concept is not often examined. Therefore, a robust metric with a commonly acceptable affordability threshold is required. A robust metric allows for a previously normative concept to be quantified in monetary terms, and in this way, the metric is rendered more suitable for integration into public policy debates. This paper investigates the degree to which risk-based flood insurance premiums are unaffordable in Europe. In addition, this paper compares the outcomes generated by three different definitions of unaffordability in order to investigate the most robust definition. In doing so, the residual income definition was found to be the least sensitive to changes in the threshold. While this paper focuses on Europe, the selected definition can be employed elsewhere in the world and across adaption measures in order to develop a common metric for indicating the potential unaffordability problem.