The barriers impeding precautionary behaviours by undocumented immigrants in emergencies: The Hurricane Ike experience in Houston,Texas, USA

Emergency management tends to be planned for legal, resident populations that are responsive to mainstream channels of communication and enforcement. For many areas prone to extreme events and emergencies, populations are also composed of transitory tourists, temporary visitors and migrant workers. This latter group may be a large population and, while not completely invisible to residents, may prefer obscurity and concealment within the social landscape. Tending towards poverty, technologically disconnected and linguistically isolated, undocumented migrants seek employment and attempt to avoid local law enforcement and immigration officials for fear of imprisonment and deportation. In this context, the behaviours prompted by developing public emergencies will be different for undocumented migrants than for the population at large. We examine the experience of 135 Hispanic undocumented migrants in the coastal zone of Houston-Galveston, Texas to understand the factors and issues that influence decision making and behaviours under region-wide mandatory evacuation conditions. Undocumented migrants’ decisions to evacuate rest upon: the presence (or absence) of family and/or children, their access to risk information that they find meaningful and rational and is in harmony with their pre-conceptions about their circumstances, their openness to information that either confirms their experiences or confronts rumour-generated biases they carry, their familiarity with social groups and governmental agencies and the services they offer, and the outcome of their risk analyses that consider the dangers of remaining in situ against the danger of exposing themselves to discovery as ‘illegal aliens’. The results suggest that emergency management plans ought to promote the dispelling of rumours that weaken the effect of emergency communication, promote non-emergency outreach to peripheral populations through community groups, and promote better, basic, non-technical, Spanish-language media through mainstream conduits (i.e. the most commonly watched non-Spanish television channels) that do not require high-tech devices or advanced understanding of visual media tools.     

A fresh perspective on food safety in Canada: risk communication,public involvement,and the impact of the 2008 listeriosis outbreak

While the listeriosis outbreak of 2008 brought attention to food safety decision making in Canada, little of that attention was placed on public involvement and risk communication. With a primary focus on Health Canada (HC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), this article describes the state of microbial-related public involvement and risk communication undertakings and suggests ways in which improvements can be made. The findings show that public involvement and risk communication activities have been strengthened since the outbreak, but they have become neither dialogical nor highly participatory. HC engages with experts to a far greater extent than with the lay public and it has fallen short in fulfilling its stated commitment to openness and transparency. Furthermore, both HC's and the CFIA's approach to risk communication has been overly general, has failed to provide opportunities for dialogue with vulnerable and more general groups with whom it is communicating and is not rooted in foodborne surveillance data. Public involvement in food safety governance would be improved if HC provided the lay public with a seat on advisory committees and improved its public involvement reporting methods. HC and the CFIA could also make risk communication improvements by creating opportunities for dialogue between officials and the general public, and by exploring alternative risk communication vehicles, such as food labels.     

东北三省农作物洪涝时空风险评估

仅考虑空间差异的灾害风险评估已经满足不了灾害风险管理向精细化方向发展的要求,增加时间维度的时空风险评估分析有利于增强风险评估结果,对提升风险管理的准确性与针对性起着重要的作用.以东北三省为研究区,在气象数据、地形数据、农作物灾情数据和种植面积数据的支撑下,以县和月为单位的时空两个维度开展农作物洪涝时空风险评估研究.在方法上,采用反距离权重法(IDW),利用与县行政区最临近的3个气象站点的日降雨数据插值出县级行政区的日降雨数据;利用二元回归建立农作物洪涝受灾率与过程降雨量、县平均高程之间的农作物洪涝脆弱性函数;分县分月提取过程降雨量,构建非参数核密度的信息扩散模型拟合降雨量的概率分布;综合概率分布与脆弱性函数,计算出分县分月的农作物洪涝条件期望受灾率,实现风险时空差异表达.最后,制作出东北三省县级尺度下4至9月的农作物洪涝风险差异图,并对风险时空差异规律进行分析.     

Invisible institutions in emergencies: Evacuating the remote Indigenous community of Warruwi,Northern Territory Australia,from Cyclone Monica

Tropical Cyclone Monica is one of the most intense Australian cyclones in recorded history, and threatened several Indigenous communities in April 2006. It prompted the evacuation of the remote island community of Warruwi, and caused considerable damage to the mainland township of Maningrida. The evacuation of Warruwi went smoothly as emergency services personnel, the community and the airline cooperated to airlift some 350 people to designated safe areas on the mainland. We show that local institutions culturally embedded in Indigenous ways of understanding and responding to the world were important in providing essential but ‘unofficial’ services during the emergency. Recognizing and respecting the resilience of the local process involved in everyday Indigenous life is revealed as central to ensuring local cooperation and effective involvement of state and national institutions in delivering effective measures during emergencies. Ensuring that local, state and national authorities offer recognition and understanding of these Indigenous institutions, and develop strong relationships with them, should be a priority in developing approaches that limit conflict and trauma where emergency services risk overriding local protocol.     

“一带一路”沿线国家台风灾害关联经济损失研究--以2018年“山竹”台风灾害为例

经济全球化背景下,各区域的产业关联强度增加,灾害链也日益复杂,对“一带一路”沿线国家及其部门带来了深远的影响。该文梳理了台风灾害损失传导机制,运用多区域投入产出模型(Multiregional Inputoutput Model,MRIO),以2018年“山竹”台风为例,量化分析“一带一路”沿线20个国家24个部门的关联损失情况。研究认为:①2018年“山竹”台风对我国各部门造成的直接损失约为142.31亿元,间接经济损失达到1272.73亿元;②“山竹”台风灾害对沿线其他国家带来的关联损失为1232.13亿元,其中受影响最严重的是菲律宾;③部门关联损失最大的是制造业,其间接损失是直接损失的60倍。