Defining disaster resilience: comparisons from key stakeholders involved in emergency management in Victoria,Australia

Three years after the introduction of the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience there remains no unanimously adopted definition of disaster resilience within Australia's emergency management sector. The aim of this study is to determine what the concept means to key stakeholders in the emergency management sector in the Australian State of Victoria, and how these conceptualisations overlap and diverge. Via an online survey, 113 people were asked how they define disaster resilience in their work in the emergency management sector. A data mining software tool, Leximancer, was employed to uncover the relationships between the definitions provided. The findings show that stakeholders see resilience as an ‘ability’ that encompasses emergency management activities and personal responsibility. However, the findings also highlight some possible points of conflict between stakeholders. In addition, the paper outlines and discusses a number of potential consequences for the implementation and the success of the resilience‐based approach in Australia.     

Project house water: a novel interdisciplinary framework to assess the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of flood-related impacts

Protecting our water resources in terms of quality and quantity is considered one of the big challenges of the twenty-first century, which requires global and multidisciplinary solutions. A specific threat to water resources, in particular, is the increased occurrence and frequency of flood events due to climate change which has significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts. In addition to climate change, flooding (or subsequent erosion and run-off) may be exacerbated by, or result from, land use activities, obstruction of waterways, or urbanization of floodplains, as well as mining and other anthropogenic activities that alter natural flow regimes. Climate change and other anthropogenic induced flood events threaten the quantity of water as well as the quality of ecosystems and associated aquatic life. The quality of water can be significantly reduced through the unintentional distribution of pollutants, damage of infrastructure, and distribution of sediments and suspended materials during flood events. To understand and predict how flood events and associated distribution of pollutants may impact ecosystem and human health, as well as infrastructure, large-scale interdisciplinary collaborative efforts are required, which involve ecotoxicologists, hydrologists, chemists, geoscientists, water engineers, and socioeconomists. The research network “project house water” consists of a number of experts from a wide range of disciplines and was established to improve our current understanding of flood events and associated societal and environmental impacts. The concept of project house and similar seed fund and boost fund projects was established by the RWTH Aachen University within the framework of the German excellence initiative with support of the German research foundation (DFG) to promote and fund interdisciplinary research projects and provide a platform for scientists to collaborate on innovative, challenging research. Project house water consists of six proof-of-concept studies in very diverse and interdisciplinary areas of research (ecotoxicology, water, and chemical process engineering, geography, sociology, economy). The goal is to promote and foster high-quality research in the areas of water research and flood-risk assessments that combine and build off-laboratory experiments with modeling, monitoring, and surveys, as well as the use of applied methods and techniques across a variety of disciplines.     

The safety policies and practices of community multi-purpose recreation facilities

This research investigated the under-explored area of safety in multi-purpose recreation facilities (MPRFs). Facility managers and other managerial staff (key informants) from four MPRFs in Victoria, Australia participated in semi-structured interviews. Safety was considered important from Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S), business viability and legal liability perspectives but not from a health promotion or public health point of view. Most implemented injury prevention measures required gymnasium and pool staff or users to change their behaviours. Awareness of safety standards was higher for some operational areas (e.g. aquatics, child-care) than others (e.g. gymnasium, group fitness activities). Key informants struggled to keep abreast of legislation changes and they relied on commercial, regulatory, and industry information sources rather than evidence of best practice. Reported factors influencing safety in MPRFs were classified into three types: internal (e.g. training, culture); external (e.g. weather, demographic change); and governance (e.g. insurance, industry standards). Comprehensive, relevant and accessible industry safety standards, which focus not only on OH&S but equally on health promotion principles and public health perspectives linked to injury prevention, are required. Training is needed to reflect these broader and equally important perspectives. Health/injury, fitness/recreation and insurance sector links should be improved to ensure a consistent, sustainable approach to safety.     

Study of environmental burden of lead in children using teeth as bioindicator

The south region of Sao Paulo city hosts the Guarapiranga dam, responsible for water supply to 25% of the city population. Their surroundings have been subject to intense and irregular occupation by people from very low socioeconomics classes. Measurements undertaken on sediment and particulate materials in the dam revealed concentrations of lead, copper, zinc and cadmium above internationally accepted limits. Epidemiological and toxicological studies undertaken by the World Health Organization in individuals exhibiting lead concentrations in blood, near or below the maximum recommended (10 µg dl^? 1), surprisingly revealed that toxic effects are more intense in individuals belonging to low socioeconomics classes. Motivated by these facts, we aimed at the investigation of chronic incorporation of lead, as well as the use of our BIOKINETICS code, which is based on an accepted ICRP biokinetics model for lead, in order to extrapolate the results from teeth to other organs. The focus of our data taking was children from poor families, living in a small, restrict and allegedly contaminated area in São Paulo city. Thus, a total of 74 human teeth were collected. The average concentration of lead in teeth of children 5 to 10 years old was determined by means of a high-resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). For standardization of the measurements, an animal bone certified material (H-Animal Bone), from the International Atomic Energy Agency, was analyzed. The amount of lead in children living in the surroundings of the dam, was approximately 40% higher than those from the control region, and the average lead concentration was equal to 1.3 μg g^? 1 approximately. Grouping the results in terms of gender, tooth type and condition, it was concluded that a carious molar of boys is a much more efficient contamination pathway for lead, resulting in concentrations 70% higher than in the control region. We also inferred the average concentrations of lead in other organs of these children, by making use of our BIOKINETIC code.     

Monitoring of heavy metal levels in roadside dusts of Thessaloniki, Greece in relation to motor vehicle traffic density and flow

In recent years, the level of heavy metal pollution in urban areas has been of considerable concern. The principal source has been attributed to the motor vehicle and increasing inner city congestion, which has lead to a change and enlargement of transport stop-start zones. These areas of high traffic density are associated with an increased release of heavy metals into the adjacent residential or commercial areas. Seventy-five roadside dust samples were collected throughout the inner city and by-pass motorway areas of Thessaloniki, Northern Greece. Samples were taken from arterial, major and minor roads, as well as the ring road, to compare and contrast the levels of heavy metals, namely Cu, Zn, Cd, Mn and Pb. Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS) was developed to quantitatively determine concentrations of both total element and geochemical fractionation, within the two dust particulate fraction sizes <75 microm and 75-125 microm. Acid digestion using Aqua Regia (3:1 conc. HCl:HNO(3)) was employed for the total elemental analysis, a method that was validated through the use of certified reference materials (CRM). Fractionation studies involved a three-step sequential extraction method performed on five selected samples (representatives of high, mid and low total elemental concentrations). The resultant solutions were analysed for lead and zinc levels to ascertain fractionation throughout the different geochemical fractions, thus assessing bioavailability.It was found that congestion/stop-start traffic patterns did influence and have led to increased levels of heavy metal deposition along inner city roads compared to levels observed on the new relief ring road. Dust particulate fraction sizes were only found to show statistically significant differences in cadmium and manganese, at the probability P < 0.001 or 99.9% confidence limit. Both Cd and Mn showed higher total levels in the smaller fraction sizes (<75 microm), implying that their major release source is exhaust emissions. There were no significant differences in the other elements, at the P > 0.05 or 95% confidence limit. Road type was seen to have little affect on cadmium and manganese, though lead, copper and zinc were all found to show higher levels on the inner city routes. This can be related back to the wear-and-tear of vehicle components as a result of the stop-start traffic patterns (brake pads etc). Both Pb and Zn have shown to be in chemical forms that are bio available to ecosystems.     

Cytotoxicity of TBBPA and effects on proliferation, cell cycle and MAPK pathways in mammalian cells

Poly-brominated flame retardants are ecotoxicologically relevant chemicals that can show high persistency in environmental samples and bioaccumulation in marine and fresh water animals. One of the most widely used compound is tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA). Until today, the toxicological data are rather fragmentary. Our studies on acute and sub-acute toxic effects with established cell lines demonstrate that TBBPA interferes with cellular signaling pathways. Cell viability is significantly reduced in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. The observed EC50 for rat kidney cells (NRK) was 52 microM (27 mg/l), 168 microM (90 mg/l) for A549 human lung cells, and 200 microM (108 mg/l) for Cal-62 human thyroid cells, respectively. The comparison of TBBPA with the non-brominated substance bisphenol A (BPA) clearly demonstrates that only the brominated compound exerts these effects on proliferation and cell viability. Cell cycle regulation was influenced considerably in Cal-62 cells, showing an explicit G2/M arrest in the cell cycle at TBBPA concentrations higher than 75 microM. Cellular signaling pathways directly connected to these affected parameters, e.g. the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades, are partly influenced in a cell specific and dose dependent manner. The extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK) is deactivated in NRK and A549 cells and activated in Cal-62 cells with increasing TBBPA concentrations.     

Prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis by methylumbelliferylguanidinobenzoate protease titration in amniotic fluid

Amniotic fluids were obtained from 19 mothers who had previously given birth to a child with cystic fibrosis. Measurement of methylumbelliferyl guanidinobenzoate (MUGB) reactive proteases suggested that all 19 would have unaffected babies. Amongst the first 10 cases to come to term there were 5 infants with cystic fibrosis. It is concluded that MUGB protease titration is not suitable for the early prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.     

Design conditions for learning in community service contexts

In this study, we investigated team‐based community service projects as action learning initiatives designed to facilitate two learning outcomes: community learning (knowledge of social, cultural, or economic issues) and personal learning (self‐awareness of managerial attitudes and abilities). We developed hypotheses to predict critical input conditions for action learning that promote community and personal learning. We tested these hypotheses with data collected from 381 MBA students and their team leaders who participated in a variety of community service projects. Results demonstrated that design conditions (task characteristics, social interactions, and affective responses) influenced community and personal learning differently. We supplemented survey results with interview and observational data from a subset of participants and conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications for action learning and practical recommendations for designing community service programs. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.