From disaster to sustainable civil society: the Kobe experience

Nine years after the Kobe earthquake in Japan, social issues are still prominent, and the rehabilitation process is still ongoing. The earthquake caused two major changes in Japanese society: an increase in voluntary and non-government activities, and the enhancement of cooperation between local government and the residents' association. People's participation in the decision-making process was a significant achievement. To sustain the efforts generated after the earthquake, the Kobe Action Plan was formulated and tested in different disaster scenarios. The current study suggests that civil societies in urban areas are sustainable if, first, the activities related to daily services are provided by the resident's associations; and second, these are linked to economic incentives. Leadership plays a crucial role in collective decision-making. Creation of the support system is essential for long-term sustainability of civil-society activities. These observations are exemplified in the case study in Nishi Suma, one of the worst-affected areas in the Kobe city.     

Civil society and the state: Turkey after the earthquake

On 17 August 1999 Turkey was hit by a massive earthquake. Over 17,000 lives were lost and there was extensive damage to Turkey's heartland. This paper examines how various public and private institutions, including state and civil society institutions such as NGOs and the media responded to the needs of earthquake survivors. It documents the extensive involvement of NGOs in the relief efforts immediately after the disaster and examines the impact of such participation on state-civil society relations in the country. The data show that state response to the disaster went through several phases from a period of ineptitude to effective management. The paper credits the media and the NGOs for acting as advocates for survivors and forcing changes at the state level. The paper argues that an ideal response system, which fully addresses the needs of victims, can only be based on state-civil society relations that are both collaborative and adversarial.     

土木工程专业人员在地震应急救援中的作用和参与机制

从我国地震应急救援志愿者队伍现状出发,剖析了我国应急救援存在的土木工程专业技术人员匮乏、志愿者普遍缺乏系统培训及队伍建设缺乏长效机制等主要问题。具体阐述了土木工程专业人员在地震应急救援中的专业优势,提出了建立土木工程专业人员参与地震应急救援长效机制,以填补当前土木工程专业性志愿救援队伍的空白,完善地震应急救援力量的社会参与体系,推动中国志愿者服务体系的健康快速发展。     

发展中国家灾害经济的特点、成因及对策

发展中国家人口众多,经济技术落后,酱稀缺,抗灾能力低,防灾意识不强,加多不合理经济活动对环境的过度干预以及发达国家转嫁环境灾害和社会危机,致使发展中国家产生灾害的潜在因素日益增加,灾害的成灾损失越来越严重,灾害对经济发展的影响与经济因素对灾害的影响都在日益加深,形成恶性循环。本文从经济学角度提出了防灾减灾就采取的主要对策。     

1999年世界灾难性地震灾情成因分析

将 1 999年世界灾难性地震进行灾情与成因分析 ,总结出其特点及造成严重灾难的人为因素 ,最后综述了世界性地震预测的一些主要结论     

A critical analysis of earthquakes and urban planning in Turkey

The land use plans and policies of developed countries that live with the threat of earthquakes are gaining importance in reducing or eliminating the long‐term threat to people and property. In developing countries, however, these plans and policies seem to increase the level of vulnerability. This paper examines the effects of the earthquakes that have occurred in Turkey since 1992, with a particular focus on urbanisation and planning policies. It is based on extensive surveys carried out on location immediately after the earthquakes in Erzincan and Kocaeli‐Gölcük in 1992 and 1999, respectively. The analysis takes into account several factors, including the height of buildings, geological conditions and the construction period. The authors conclude that land use planning can serve as a very useful instrument for mitigating the extent of disaster damage if it is part of an appropriate planning system. In the case of Turkey, the planning system needs to be reorganised for this purpose.     

Disaster risk reduction in developing countries: costs, benefits and institutions

Some 60,000 people worldwide die annually in natural disasters, mostly due to the collapse of buildings in earthquakes, and primarily in the developing world. This is despite the fact that engineering solutions exist that can eliminate almost completely the risk of such deaths. Why is this? The solutions are expensive and technically demanding, so their cost–benefit ratio often is unfavourable as compared to other interventions. Nonetheless, there are various public disaster risk reduction interventions that are highly cost‐effective. That such interventions frequently remain unimplemented or ineffectively executed points to a role for issues of political economy. Building regulations in developing countries appear to have limited impact in many cases, perhaps because of inadequate capacity and corruption. Public construction often is of low quality, perhaps for similar reasons. This suggests the need for approaches that emphasise simple and limited disaster risk regulation covering only the most at‐risk structures—and that, preferably, non‐experts can monitor—as well as numerous transparency and oversight mechanisms for public construction projects.     

Disaster resilience and population ageing: the 1995 Kobe and 2004 Chuetsu earthquakes in Japan

This paper provides a framework for evaluating the effects of population ageing on disaster resilience. In so doing, it focuses on the 1995 Kobe and 2004 Chuetsu earthquakes, two major disasters that affected Japan before the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. It analyses regional population recovery on the basis of pre‐disaster and post‐recovery demographic characteristics using defined transition patterns of population ageing. The evaluation framework demonstrates that various recovery measures make different contributions to disaster resilience for each transition pattern of population ageing. With reference to regional population ageing, the framework allows for a prediction of disaster resilience, facilitating place vulnerability assessments and potentially informing policy‐making strategies for Japan and other countries with ageing populations.     

Effects of the Bam earthquake on employment: a shift-share analysis

Disasters have potential short-term and long-term impacts on employment and employment structures in affected regions. While measuring the full economic impact of a disaster requires sophisticated econometrics and mathematical simulations, conventional regional economic models such as shift-share analysis can be used to assess some of these effects. This paper applies shift-share analysis to understand potential long-term impacts of disasters on employment using the December 2003 Bam earthquake as a case study. The results provide further evidence that disasters could have significant long-term effects on the employment structure of affected regions.     

Providing health services during a civil war: the experience of a garrison town in South Sudan

The impact of conflict, particularly conflict arising during civil wars, on the provision of healthcare is a subject that has not been widely considered in conflict‐related research. Combatants often target health services to weaken or to defeat the enemy, while attempts to maintain or improve health systems also can comprise part of counter‐insurgency ‘hearts‐and‐minds’ strategies. This paper describes the dynamics associated with the provision of health services in Malakal, an important garrison town in South Sudan, during the second Sudanese civil war (1983–2005). Drawing on the concepts of opportunity hoarding and exploitation, it explores the social and political dynamics of service provision in and around the town during the war. These concepts provide a useful lens with which to understand better how health services are affected by conflict, while the empirical case study presented in the paper illustrates dynamics that may be repeated in other contexts. The concepts and case study set out in this paper should prove useful to healthcare providers working in conflict zones, including humanitarian aid agencies and their employees, increasing their understanding of the social and political dynamics that they are likely to face during future conflict‐related complex emergencies.     

Guatemala: violence in peacetime--a critical analysis of the armed conflict and the peace process

The recent history of Guatemala is interpreted here using an interdisciplinary approach inspired by recent development and conflict studies. The author reflects on his experience in peace-building activities and uses a combination of primary and secondary sources to present the Guatemalan war as a complex political emergency. The first part (a methodological introduction) proposes an analytical framework, taking into account both the root causes and the different functions of violence, in order to achieve a better understanding of contemporary conflicts. In the second and central part of the article, the integrated framework is applied to Guatemala, trying to understand causes and functions of war and negotiation and underlining the existence of structural obstacles to a lasting peace. The conclusions are dedicated to policy implications: if the signing of peace accords represents only a step towards negative peace, the condition for a lasting peace is a strategy for reconciliation and development based on social participation and social justice.     

Disasters and ‘conditions of possibility’: rethinking causation through an analysis of earthquakes in Nepal

What causes a disaster's aftermath? Scholars have increasingly turned to historical approaches that link outcomes to pre-disaster sociopolitical dynamics. Disasters lead to ‘critical junctures’ that ‘trigger’ events that unfold in the wake of the initial phenomenon. This paper argues that the ‘critical junctures’ paradigm shares limitations with ‘path dependency’ theory from which it is derived, namely a tendency towards historicism—a functionalist teleology better able to explain continuity than change. As an alternative, this analysis draws on Michel Foucault's understanding of ‘conditions of possibility’ as a way of rethinking agency/causation, moving away from individual subjects, events, or even historical conditions towards, instead, the new, radically destabilised ‘epistemological field’ emerging in the disaster's aftermath. This paper examines a series of devastating earthquakes in Nepal to consider how post-disaster ‘epistemological fields’ present new ‘conditions of possibility’ within which new ideas, actions, and outcomes become thinkable and possible in ways that pre-disaster historical conditions could not have predicted.     

中国火灾的时空演变特征——基于GIS的统计分析

研究对象为2000-2009年中国341个地级以上城市(不含台湾及港澳地区)的火灾统计数据。首先应用主成分分析法,计算火灾综合损失(fire composite losts,FCL);再对FCL进行分级,将所有研究单元按FCL从小到大分为5个级别,较高FCL单元主要分布于黑河—腾冲线以东地区。对每个研究单元分别进行时间序列分析,观察其FCL变化趋势,将各区域分为平稳区、改善区、恶化区和波动区,其分别占比41%,40%,8%和11%,表明绝大多数城市FCL呈平稳或下降趋势。恶化区明显地沿黑河—腾冲线、淮河—大别山—雪峰山沿线和东南沿海分布,这可能与气候变化或社会经济发展有关。     

某厂化学装置爆炸对设备房结构的损坏——调查与模拟分析

在对某厂化学爆炸所作的现场调查的基础上，对设备房钢筋混凝土框架结构构件的受损状况进行了分类描述，采用有限元方法对框架结构在静力和爆炸冲击荷载下的反应进行了模拟分析，分析结果与现场调查情况基本一致，给出了一些有意义的结论。     

一种新型的灾害救助撤离路线分析方法——基于混合空间数据的研究

灾害应急响应业务常面临数据不完备、应急措施适时性强等问题,要求所实现的应急响应方法灵活程度高,易于操作。以灾害救助撤离路线分析为例,探讨了如何通过混合数据的使用达到降低数据准备难度的目的,通过栅格空间分析的使用达到简化分析过程的目的,通过模型的设计实现达到方便业务功能集成更新的目的。设计并实现了路线分析的技术流程;基于重用思想定义业务模型,应用组件对象模型技术对路线分析方法进行了封装。所实现的业务模型证实了技术流程的有效性,具有较高运行效率。     

云南省Palmer旱度模式的建立——2010年干旱灾害特征分析

2010年春季云南省发生了特大干旱灾害,造成了严重的经济损失。按照Palmer旱度模式的思路,利用云南省的气象和土壤数据,建立了云南省的Palmer旱度模式。通过将计算得到的Palmer指数值与云南省的实际旱涝灾情历史记录进行对比,发现所建立的Palmer旱度模式能够较好地反映云南省的旱涝情况。基于该模式对2010年云南特大干旱灾害进行了特征分析,结果表明,此次干旱灾害是云南省30年来干旱变化过程中的一次突变。而且结果显示,在2010年的云南干旱灾害中,严重干旱地区整体呈现东西走向的空间分布,极端干旱地区主要分布在云南省的东南部。     

嫩江下游土地沙化的时空变化——基于MODIS数据的遥感分析

以2000,2004和2008年的MODIS数据为主要数据源,以嫩江流域下游为研究对象,在Arc-GIS9.0和ERDAS IMAGE9.0等软件支持下,建立沙化模型,并对沙化进行了信息提取与分析;借助ArcGIS强大的空间分析功能,完成了土地沙漠化的定量分析及其时空变化规律,在此基础上进一步探讨了土地沙化的过程、机理和成因.结果表明:研究区域沙漠化土地以轻度和中度沙漠化土地为主;重度和极重度沙漠化土地的年增长率较大,水域的年减少率最大;重度、极重度沙漠化土地主要向较低等级的沙漠化土地和水域转变,呈现一定的逆转移.     

Effects of the 2008 flood on economic performance and food security in Yemen: a simulation analysis

Extreme weather events such as floods and droughts can have devastating consequences for individual well being and economic development, in particular in poor societies with limited availability of coping mechanisms. Combining a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the Yemeni economy with a household‐level calorie consumption simulation model, this paper assesses the economy‐wide, agricultural and food security effects of the 2008 tropical storm and flash flood that hit the Hadramout and Al‐Mahrah governorates. The estimation results suggest that agricultural value added, farm household incomes and rural food security deteriorated long term in the flood‐affected areas. Due to economic spillover effects, significant income losses and increases in food insecurity also occurred in areas that were unaffected by flooding. This finding suggests that while most relief efforts are typically concentrated in directly affected areas, future efforts should also consider surrounding areas and indirectly affected people.     

"雪尘暴"灾情形成的多因素灰色关联分析--以2001年初锡林郭勒草原牧区特大"雪尘暴"为例

以2000年12月31日至2001年1月1日发生在内蒙古锡林郭勒草原上的“雪尘暴“为例,应用灰色系统理论的关联分析方法,以“雪尘暴“持续时间、能见度、积雪深度、退化草场比例、NDVI距平、冷季超载比例、畜棚圈面积等14个因子作为比较数列,对“雪尘暴“灾情形成进行了多因素关联分析.研究结果客观、定量地揭示了“雪尘暴“灾情形成与各因素间的相互关系,认为“雪尘暴“灾情的发生是偶然中的必然,其形成是自然因素和人类活动共同作用的结果,其中,人类活动对“雪尘暴“强度的加大起到了促进的作用.