A New Milestone to Global Disaster Reduction

Anewmilestonetoglobaldisasterreductionisfirmlysetupasthenewmillenniumthrowsitsfirstbeamoflightontheearth.Inthelastyearofthe20thcentury,theUNhasorganizedaseriesofimportantmeetingstosetupthenewmilestone.Forexamples,theForumfortheInternationalDecadeforN...     

Shandong Experts Gathered to Discuss Water Problems

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Disaster Situations from May to June in 1996

1WindStorm,HailStorm,StormRainfallandFlood-waterloggingDamageDuringMay6~7,1l,26,Yanqing,ChangpingandMiyuncountiesinBeijingexperiencedstormrainfallandhaildisastersinvaryingdegree,affecting85,0O0peopleandseverelyaffecting44,O0Opeople19l67Oha0fcropswereaffected,0utofwhich4,540hasufferedan0utputreductionby30%.Thedirecteconomicl0ssestotaled28.699millionyuan(RMB)-DuringMay22and24,stormrainfall,hailandhighwindhitBijie,T0ngren,Anshun,thesouthwestGuizhouandLit1panshuiareas,affecting165townshi…     

The Natural Disaster Situations from August to December in 1997

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Situation of Natural Disasters from July to December in 2000

Drought1 June～August( 1 ) Region affected:L iaoning ProvinceDaily water shortage:1 .7million m3Casualties:1 .86million persons faced with shortage of drinking waterMaterial damage:2 .53 million ha of crops affected,2 .65million ha damaged;0 .88million headof livestock faced with shortage of drinking waterEstimated damage:7billion yuan RMB( 2 ) Region affected:Jilin ProvinceDaily water shortage:60 0 0 0 0 m3/ citiesCasualties:2 .6million persons faced with shortage of drinking waterMater…     

Summary Account of Natural Disasters From April to June 1994

ＳｕｍｍａｒｙＡｃｃｏｕｎｔｏｆＮａｔｕｒａｌＤｉｓａｓｔｅｒｓＦｒｏｍＡｐｒｉｌｔｏＪｕｎｅ１９９４Ｔｈｅｓｅｃｏｎｄｓｅａｓｏｎ（Ａｐｒｉｌ－Ｊｕｎｅ）ｏｆ１９９４ｗｉｔｎｅｓｓｅｄａｎａｂｎｏｒｍａｌａｎｄｆｒｅｑｕｅｎｔｎａｔｕｒａｌｄｉｓａ...     

Disaster Situation from January to June in 1998 in China

JanuaryEarthquakeDisasterAt11:50a.m.Jan.10,anearthquakeof6.2MsoccurredinZhangjiakuo,HebeiProvince.Itsepicenterlocatedat41.12°N,114.337°E.Zhangbei,Shangyi,WanquanandKangbaocountieswereseverelyaffected.471000peoplewereaffected,417000wereseriouslyaffe...     

Disaster Situation from July to December in 1998 in China

SeismicDisastersAt12:51a.m.,July28,anearthquakeof5.5Ms,whichwasaccompaniedbylandslide,shockedtheBaichengCountyofAksuPrefectureandcausedseriousdestructiontothebuildingsofthecounty,withtheepicenteroftheearthquakelocatedat81.19°E,41.49°N.At12:40a.m.,A...     

Summary Account of Natural Disasters from July to September 1994

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Ethical Codes in Humanitarian Emergencies: From Practice to Research?

Notable strides have been made in recent years to develop codes of conduct for humanitarian intervention in conflicts on the part of international NGOs and UN organisations. Yet engagement by the academic and broader research communities with humanitarian crises and ongoing complex political emergencies remains relatively ad hoc and unregulated beyond the basic ethical guidelines and norms developed within universities for research in general, and within the governing and representative bodies of particular academic disciplines. This paper draws on a case study of research on humanitarian assistance to Liberia during that country's civil war from 1989 to 1996. The difficulties faced by humanitarian agencies in Liberia led to the development of two key sets of ethical guidelines for humanitarian intervention: the Joint Policy of Operations (JPO) and Principles and Policies of Humanitarian Operations (PPHO). This paper seeks to address what lessons, if any, these ethical guidelines, together with different experiences of conducting research in war-torn Liberia, can provide in terms of the role of academic researchers--and research itself--in humanitarian crises.     

Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept?

Resilience is widely seen as a desirable system property in environmental management. This paper explores the concept of resilience to natural hazards, using weather-related hazards in coastal megacities as an example. The paper draws on the wide literature on megacities, coastal hazards, hazard risk reduction strategies, and resilience within environmental management. Some analysts define resilience as a system attribute, whilst others use it as an umbrella concept for a range of system attributes deemed desirable. These umbrella concepts have not been made operational to support planning or management. It is recommended that resilience only be used in a restricted sense to describe specific system attributes concerning (i) the amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction and (ii) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organisation. The concept of adaptive capacity, which has emerged in the context of climate change, can then be adopted as the umbrella concept, where resilience will be one factor influencing adaptive capacity. This improvement to conceptual clarity would foster much-needed communication between the natural hazards and the climate change communities and, more importantly, offers greater potential in application, especially when attempting to move away from disaster recovery to hazard prediction, disaster prevention, and preparedness.     

Information on Subscribing to the Journal＂Natural Disaster ReductioninChina＂

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Survivor needs or logistical convenience? Factors shaping decisions to deliver relief to earthquake‐affected communities,Pakistan 2005–06

In Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan , Waters (2001) argues that bureaucratic rationality distracts humanitarian agencies from the needs of the people they are supposed to assist, in favour of other values that their institutional frameworks dictate. We test his claim by investigating the response to the Pakistan 2005 earthquake. One of us (Dittemore) worked with the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre in the theatre, managing a relief cargo shipment database. The response, known as 'Operation Winter Race', was hampered by extreme logistical challenges, but ultimately succeeded in averting a second disaster resulting from cold and starvation. We use statistical models to probe whether survivor needs significantly guided decisions to deliver relief to affected communities. Needs assessments remained incomplete and incoherent. We measure needs through proxy indicators and integrate them, on a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, with logistics and relief delivery data. We find that, despite strong logistics effects, needs orientations were significant. However, the strength of decision factors varies between commodity types (food versus clothing and shelter versus reconstruction materials) as well as over the different phases of the response. This study confirms Thomas's observation that logistics databases are rich 'repositories of data that can be analyzed to provide post-event learning' (Thomas, 2003, p. 4). This article is an invitation for others to engage in creative humanitarian data management.     

Declaration of the Beijing Ministerial Conference on Regional Cooperation to Implement the Convention to Combat Desertification in Asia(on May 13 ～ 15, 1997)

RecallingandAffirmingOurcommitmenttotheUnitedNationsConventiontoCombatDesertifi-cationinThoseCountriesExperiencingSeriousDroughtand/orDesertification,particularlyinAfrica,whichenteredintoforceonthe26thDecember1996;BearlnginmindthatthecommItmentstakenbythestatesoftheEarthattheUnitedNationsConferenceonEnvironmentandDevelopmentheldinRiodeJaneiroinl992areabouttobere-viewedbytheSpecialSessionoftheGeneralAssemblyoftheUnitedNationsandthatanearlyimplementationoftheConvention'sprovisionswou…     

A Brief Review on Application of Information Technique to Agrometeorological Disaster Reduction

Theagrometeorologicaldisastersareoneofimportantfactorscausedinstablecropyields.Duringnormalyearsdisaster-hitrangecausedbyagrometeorologicaldisastersreachesO.2millionkm2andcropyieldloses1obillionkginChina.Inthedrierperiodofmid-1970'stomid-1980's,drought-hitareasofcropsreachedO,5billionkm2andcropyieldslost44Obillionkgnationwide.ThelosscausedbysummerlowtemperaturewithcoolinjureinNortheastChinaduringl97O'sreached5billionkg.Impactofagrometeorologicaldisastersonagriculturalproductionhasat-tracted…     

Introduction to the Journal of“Natural Disaster Reduction in China”

Thejournalof"NaturalDisasterReductioninChina"(Englishedition)isacomprehensivepublication,anditstartedpublicationinl99l.Thepublicati0nincludes:(l)thepoliciesofrelevantgovernmentdepartmentsregardingnaturaldisasterreduction,preventionandresistance;(2)amonthlyorseasonalintroductiontonaturaldisastersituation;(3)theprediction,preventionandcountermeasuresagainstnaturaldisastersinthefieldsofhydrology,meteor0lo-gy,ocean0l0gy,seismology,agriculture,forestry,geology,mineralresourcesandconstructi0n;(4)ac…     

Introduction to the Journal of“Natural Disaster Reduction in China”

The journal of“Natural Disaster Reduction in China”is a comprehensive publication,and itstarted publication in 1 991 .The publication includes:(1 ) the policies of relevant government departments regardingnatural disaster reduction,prevention and resistance;(2 ) a monthly or seasonal introduction tonatural disaster situations;(3) the prediction,prevention and countermeasures against naturaldisasters in the fields of hydrology,meteorology,oceanology,seismology,agriculture,forestry,geology,mi…     

Mandated to fail? Humanitarian agencies and the protection of Palestinian children

This paper considers the efforts of United Nations and international agencies to address the threats to Palestinian children arising from Israeli occupation. It contains an account of the reasons why agencies have failed, over many years, to prevent systematic violations by the Israeli authorities and settlers. The discussion is organised around two inter‐related domains: institutional and political. The paper argues that, in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), limitations to the ways in which child protection has been conceptualised and pursued in practice are abundantly evident. Nevertheless, political pressure by Western donor governments serves to constrain an approach to child protection that is more preventative in nature, that addresses more explicitly Israeli violations of international law, and that reflects the experience and aspirations of Palestinian children themselves. Ultimately, therefore, the failure to protect Palestinian children must be seen not only as a result of humanitarian miscalculation but also as a consequence of political strategy.     

Introduction to the Journal of“Natural Disaster Reduction in China”

Thejournalof“NaturalDisasterReductioninChina”(Englishedition)isacomprehensivepublicationtanditstartedpublicationinl99l.Thepublichtionincludes:(l)thepoliciesofreIevantgovernmentdepartmentsregardingnaturaldisasterreduction,preventionandresistance;(2)amonthlyorseasonalintroductiontonaturaldisastersituationI(3)theprediction,preventionandcountermeasuresagainstnaturaldisastersinthefieldsofhydrology,meteorolo-gy,oceanology,seismology)agriculture,forestry,geology,mineralresourcesandconstruction;(4…     

What happened to the Second World? Earthquakes and postsocialism in Kazakhstan

There is an assumption that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Second World ceased to exist. Yet the demise of the Communist bloc as a geopolitical reality did not mean that it stopped exerting a defining influence over how people think and behave. This article examines how the postsocialist state in Kazakhstan deals with potential crises such as earthquakes and the extent to which the Soviet legacy still shapes intellectual debates, state structures, and civil society organisations in in that country. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews, this paper re-examines the Second World in its historical context and re-establishes it as a conceptual framework for considering disaster risk reduction in the former Soviet bloc. It argues that it is essential to pay attention to this legacy in Kazakhstan both in policy and practice if earthquake risk reduction is to be made more effective.