Tourists and disasters: lessons from the 26 December 2004 tsunamis

The 26 December 2004 tsunamis around the Indian Ocean exposed the vulnerability of many coastal communities, including those serving tourists. To draw conclusions regarding disaster risk reduction for tourism in coastal areas, this study surveyed international tourists who survived the tsunami regarding their perceptions and experiences of the disaster. Semi-structured interviews were completed between January and June 2005 of 55 primary interviewees who were international tourists in locations affected by the tsunami. The qualitative data from the interviews yielded commonalities across four main themes with relevance to disaster risk reduction: information and awareness, warning systems, personal preparation, and livelihoods. Three areas are suggested as topics to highlight for further investigation: the connections between sustainable tourism and disaster vulnerability, the role of tourists in disasters, and disaster risk reduction education.     

It is Always Dry Here: Examining Perceptions about Drought and Climate Change in the Southern High Plains

ABSTRACT

Drought is defined, experienced, and communicated about in multiple ways. This case study examines individual definitions of drought (timing, impacts, and severity) and attitudes about climate change. Household surveys (n?=?120) were conducted in Cimarron County, Oklahoma and Union County, New Mexico using a stratified random sampling method to select farmers, ranchers, and town residents. Information about drought is primarily communicated between neighbors, friends, and family, as well as media and local governing agencies. Residents perceive the recent drought to be the worst drought on record, regardless of previous drought experiences. Residents reported widespread drought-related impacts on agriculture, environment, and society. Most residents see drought as cyclical and driven by natural causes, rather than human causes. We recommend adaptive drought communication engage more fully with identity, place, and history. Climate information should be presented in a relevant manner to diverse agricultural stakeholders with differing attitudes about climate change, management, and climate information.     

小管径配水管网水质模型脆弱性研究

小管径配水管网水质模型模拟结果精度高.但由于管网工况的复杂性,水质模型预测结果具有不确定性.通过定义水质模型的本质脆弱性,建立脆弱性分析模型,采用指标评价法研究模型在不同验证工况下的脆弱性,可以有效降低水质模型预测风险、构建水质模型失效“防火墙”,为帮助供水企业更为广泛地应用模型预测水质提供理论依据.     

The local governance of climate change: new tools to respond to old limitations in Esmeraldas,Ecuador

This article argues that climate change, seen as a socially constructed anticipation of natural disasters and a future-risk that plays out in present politics, is enabling the emergence of new modes of governance in cities of the global south. The article focuses on the process by which the city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, developed a Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategy. Within the context of climate change adaptation, Esmeraldas mobilised new discourses, stakeholders, and planning mechanisms to address pre-existing urban planning and development limitations. This discursively enabled the municipality's ongoing governance project by leveraging resources, creating consensus, and informing practice. Climate change adaptation thus became an important mechanism for engaging with local priorities, particularly those of the most vulnerable populations, and for bridging the gap between the formal world of policymaking and the reality of life in the city, which is more often structured by informality.     

Risk and vulnerability analysis: A feasible process for local climate adaptation in Sweden?

Climate change is an important new challenge for local authorities. This study analyses the potential for using the Swedish mandatory process for risk and vulnerability analysis (RVA) as a vehicle to improve local climate adaptation work. An advantage with RVA is its comprehensive approach in dealing with all relevant threats and all vital functions of society. In order to test the applicability of incorporating climate adaptation into RVA, we studied practical experiences from three Swedish municipalities. In all municipalities, a pre-study to identify relevant climate-induced events was performed. In one municipality, this was followed by a more detailed analysis of the potential impacts of these events on the functions of the various administrations and companies within the local authority. Problems identified in successful integration of climate change into the municipal RVA process were lack of sufficient knowledge to identify the impacts of climate change on the level of the respective specialist or district administration and lack of resources to perform the analysis. There were also some difficulties in including a long-term perspective relevant for climate adaptation into RVA, which usually focuses on current threats. A positive outcome was that work on extreme climate events in RVA provided a traceable method to identify events with a potentially great impact on the function of local society and results that could be fed into other ongoing processes, such as spatial planning and housing plans.     

Understanding urban vulnerability,adaptation and resilience in the context of climate change

This paper introduces a special issue of Local Environment that has arisen through collaboration between academic researchers and the Urban Planning and Design Branch of UN-Habitat, focused on how we can understand and respond to the challenges of urban vulnerability, adaptation and resilience in the context of climate change. The paper establishes the existing state of the art in the field, and considers critical challenges that are emerging in the research-based literature. In this context, it introduces UN-Habitat's Cities and Climate Change Initiative and reflects on the lessons learnt and challenges ahead, drawing on insights from across the papers in the special issue. In conclusion, it identifies the role of international/transnational co-operation, the relation between adaptation and mitigation, issues of multi-level governance and the ways in which change in urban socio-technical systems might be achieved as critical issues across the science/policy interface where increased dialogue and the co-production of knowledge needs to focus in order to advance this agenda.     

Terror-Proofing Chemical Process Industries

The chemical process industries (CPI) handling hazardous chemicals can be rather attractive targets for deliberate adversarial actions by terrorists, criminals and disgruntled employees. The damage inflicted may include casualties, economic loss and political fallout. There is an urgent need for each facility to have a security management programme. Its essential components are security risk assessment, security countermeasures and emergency response.

Security risk assessment can be carried out qualitatively by threat analysis, vulnerability analysis and developing a Security Risk Factor Table (SRFT). All these are discussed at length. Security countermeasures are the steps taken to strengthen the weak points in a system, either by lessening vulnerabilities or by hardening the facilities. Various security countermeasures are suggested for improving security of CPI. Appropriate emergency response measures that could mitigate the consequences of a successful attack are also discussed in the paper. It is recommended that many of the conventional safety and security measures adopted thus far may have to be modified in light of the enhanced and complex nature of the present security threats.     

ARSENIC IN THE SHALLOW GROUND WATERS OF CONTERMINOUS UNITED STATES: ASSESSMENT,HEALTH RISKS,AND COSTS FOR MCL COMPLIANCE1

A methodology consisting of ordinal logistic regression (OLR) is used to predict the probability of occurrence of arsenic concentrations in different threshold limits in shallow ground waters of the conterminous United States (CONUS) subject to a set of influencing variables. The analysis considered a number of maximum contaminant level (MCL) options as threshold values to estimate the probabilities of occurrence of arsenic in ranges defined by a given MCL of 3, 5, 10, 20, and 50 μg/l and a detection limit of 1 μg/l. The fit between the observed and predicted probability of occurrence was around 83 percent for all MCL options. The estimated probabilities were used to estimate the median background concentration of arsenic in the CONUS. The shallow ground water of the western United States is more vulnerable than the eastern United States. Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California in particular are hotspots for arsenic contamination. The risk assessment showed that counties in southern California, Arizona, Florida, and Washington and a few others scattered throughout the CONUS face a high risk from arsenic exposure through untreated ground water consumption. A simple cost effectiveness analysis was performed to understand the household costs for MCL compliance in using arsenic contaminated ground water. The results showed that the current MCL of 10 μg/l is a good compromise based on existing treatment technologies.     

灾变山地环境影响下小流域脆弱性评价研究

流域脆弱性评价中,如何有效结合自然及社会等多方面因素开展较大区域尺度评价是目前研究的难点之一,特别是结合灾变山地环境影响,开展小流域脆弱性评价,对于山区流域防灾减灾及可持续发展具有积极的指导意义。采用栅格单元与小流域单元相结合的评价方法,综合自然与社会因素,并引入活跃灾害事件对小流域脆弱性的影响,从灾害危险度与社会易损性角度构建评价体系,应用3S技术,选取彭州龙门山区开展典型案例研究,开展灾变山地环境影响下的小流域脆弱性评价。最终将研究区小流域脆弱性划分为轻度、中度、高度及重度4个等级,各级含小流域个数分别为12、21、27及17个,相应面积占整个研究区面积的比例分别为11.53%,38.63%,40.46%及9.38%。针对区域内重大灾害事件,对评价结果进行验证表明,综合自然和社会因素,并引入灾害事件构建评价体系,并以栅格与小流域单元相结合的评价方法,对灾变山地环境下较大区域尺度流域脆弱性评价具有可行性,可为区域尺度小流域脆弱性评价研究提供一定参考。     

聚类分析法在贵州省雷电灾害易损性区划中的应用

采用R型聚类分析法对尽可能多的影响雷灾易损性的因子进行了筛选,确定100 k A以上平均地闪次数、地闪密度、雷电灾害频度、生命易损模数、区域生命易损模数5个因子为依据变量,用欧氏距离计算各样本的相似性测度,应用Q型聚类中的Ward’s法进行层次聚类分析,采用迭代聚类分析的方法进行相互验证,最后对贵州省雷电灾害易损性区划结果进行解释和证实、绘制雷灾风险区划图,结果表明:贵阳市雷电灾害的易损性最高,属高风险区,安顺市、六盘水市属中等风险区,遵义市、黔南州、黔东南州、铜仁市、毕节市、黔西南州属弱风险区。