Search results for: disaster management

Authors: Nemi Bhattarai

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In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs) in search and rescue (SAR) operations, disaster management, and many more areas where information about the location of human beings are important. This research will primarily focus on the use of optical and thermal camera via UAV platform in real-time detection, localization, and visualization of human beings on GIS. This research will be beneficial in disaster management search of lost humans in wilderness or difficult terrain, detecting abnormal human behaviors in border or security tight areas, studying distribution of people at night, counting people density in crowd, manage people flow during evacuation, planning provisions in areas with high human density and many more.

Keywords: UAV, human detection, real-time, localization, visualization, haar-like, GIS, thermal sensor

Procedia PDF Downloads 431

Authors: Zahidul Islam

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This study investigates the effectiveness of resourcing in post-disaster housing reconstruction with reference to Cyclones Sidr and Aila in Bangladesh. Through evaluating three key theories- Build Back Better approach, Balance Scorecard approach and Dynamic Competency theories, the synthesis of literature, and empirical fieldwork, this research develops a dynamic theoretical framework that moves the trajectory of post-disaster housing reconstruction towards the reconstruction of more resilient houses. The ultimate goal of any post-disaster housing reconstruction project is to provide quality houses and to achieve high levels of satisfaction for beneficiaries. However, post-disaster reconstruction projects often fail in their stated objectives; only 10-20% housing needs are met, with most houses constructed on a temporary rather than permanent basis. A number of scholars have argued that access to resources can significantly increase the capacity and capability of disaster victims to rebuild their lives, including the construction of new homes. This study draws on structured interviews of 285 villagers affected by cyclones to investigate the effectiveness of resourcing in rebuilding houses after Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 key stakeholders in UNDP, Oxfam, government officials, and national and international NGOs. The results of this study show that recovery rate of cyclone resilient houses that can withstand cyclone is very low and majority of the population are still vulnerable. Furthermore, hierarchical regression of survey data and thematic analyses of qualitative data indicate that access to resources, level of education, quality of building materials and income generating activities of the respondents are critical for effective post-disaster recovery. Conversely, resource availability, lack of coordination among participant organisations, corruption and lack of access to appropriate land constituted significant obstacles to livelihood recovery. Finally, this study makes significant theoretical contributions to theories of post-disaster recovery by introducing new variables and measures for evaluating the quality and effectiveness of post-disaster housing.

Keywords: disaster, resourcing, housing, resilience

Procedia PDF Downloads 107

Authors: H. J. Wattimanela, U. S. Passaribu, A. N. T. Puspito, S. W. Indratno

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Molluca Collision Zone is located at the junction of the Eurasian plate, Australian, Pacific, and the Philippines. Between the Sangihe arc, west of the collision zone, and to the east of Halmahera arc is active collision and convex toward the Molluca Sea. This research will analyze the behavior of earthquake occurrence in Molluca Collision Zone related to the distributions of an earthquake in each partition regions, determining the type of distribution of a occurrence earthquake of partition regions, and the mean occurrence of earthquakes each partition regions, and the correlation between the partitions region. We calculate number of earthquakes using partition method and its behavioral using conventional statistical methods. The data used is the data type of shallow earthquakes with magnitudes ≥ 4 SR for the period 1964-2013 in the Molluca Collision Zone. From the results, we can classify partitioned regions based on the correlation into two classes: strong and very strong. This classification can be used for early warning system in disaster management.

Keywords: molluca collision zone, partition regions, conventional statistical methods, earthquakes, classifications, disaster management

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Authors: Endina P. Purwandari, Yolanda Hervianti, Feri Noperman, Endang W. Winarni

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The earthquakes disaster is an event that can threaten at any moment and cause damage and loss of life. Game earthquake disaster mitigation is a useful educational game to enhance children insight, knowledge, and understanding in the response to the impact of the earthquake. This study aims to build an educational games application on the Android platform as a learning media for earthquake mitigation education and to determine the effect of the application toward children understanding of the earthquake disaster mitigation. The methods were research and development. The development was to develop edugame application for earthquakes mitigation education. The research involved elementary students as a research sample to test the developed application. The research results were valid android-based edugame application, and its the effect of application toward children understanding. The application contains an earthquake simulation video, an earthquake mitigation video, and a game consisting three stages, namely before the earthquake, when the earthquake occur, and after the earthquake. The results of the feasibility test application showed that this application was included in the category of 'Excellent' which the average percentage of the operation of applications by 76%, view application by 67% and contents of application by 74%. The test results of students' responses were 80% that showed that a positive their responses toward the application. The student understanding test results show that the average score of children understanding pretest was 71,33, and post-test was 97,00. T-test result showed that t value by 8,02 more than table t by 2,001. This indicated that the earthquakes disaster mitigation edugame application based on Android platform affects the children understanding about disaster earthquake mitigation.

Keywords: android, edugame, mitigation, earthquakes

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Authors: Arif Almutairi, Monjur Mourshed

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Due to varying geographical and tectonic factors, the region of Saudi Arabia has been subjected to numerous natural and man-made maritime disasters during the last two decades. Natural maritime disasters, such as cyclones and tsunamis, have been recorded in coastal areas of the Indian Ocean (including the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden). Therefore, the Indian Ocean is widely recognised as the potential source of future destructive natural disasters that could affect Saudi Arabia’s coastline. Meanwhile, man-made maritime disasters, such as those arising from piracy and oil pollution, are located in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, which are key locations for oil export and transportation between Asia and Europe. This paper provides a brief overview of maritime disasters surrounding Saudi Arabia’s coastline in order to classify them by frequency of occurrence and location, and discuss their future impact the region. Results show that the Arabian Gulf will be more vulnerable to natural maritime disasters because of its location, whereas the Red Sea is more vulnerable to man-made maritime disasters, as it is the key location for transportation between Asia and Europe. The results also show that with the aid of proper classification, effective disaster management can reduce the consequences of maritime disasters.

Keywords: disaster classification, maritime disaster, natural disasters, man-made disasters

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Authors: Yousef Abu Nahleh, Alhasan Hakami, Arun Kumar, Fugen Daver

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This study considers the problem of calculating safety stocks in disaster situations inventory systems that face demand uncertainties. Safety stocks are essential to make the supply chain, which is controlled by forecasts of customer needs, in response to demand uncertainties and to reach predefined goal service levels. To solve the problem of uncertainties due to the disaster situations affecting the industry sector, the concept of Emergency Safety Stock (ESS) was proposed. While there exists a huge body of literature on determining safety stock levels, this literature does not address the problem arising due to the disaster and dealing with the situations. In this paper, the problem of improving the Order Quantity Model to deal with uncertainty of demand due to disasters is managed by incorporating a new idea called ESS which is based on the probability of disaster occurrence and uses probability matrix calculated from the historical data.

Keywords: Emergency Safety Stocks, safety stocks, Order Quantity Model, supply chain

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Authors: Gavin Quibell, Martin Kleynhans, Margot Soler

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The Sendai Framework notes that disaster risk reduction is essential for sustainable development, and Disaster Risk Reduction is included in 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and 4 of the SDG targets. However, apart from promoting better governance and resourcing of disaster management agencies, little guidance is given how low-income nations can balance investments across the SDGs to achieve sustainable development in an increasingly climate vulnerable world with increasing prevalence of flood and drought disasters. As one of the world’s poorest nations, Malawi must balance investments across all the SDGs. This paper explores how Malawi’s National Guidelines for Community-based Flood Risk Management integrate sustainable development and flood management objectives at different administrative levels. While Malawi periodically suffers from large, widespread flooding, the greatest impacts are felt through the smaller annual floods and flash floods. The Guidelines address this through principles that recognize that while the protection of human life is the most important priority for flood risk management, addressing the impacts of floods on the rural poor and the economy requires different approaches. The National Guidelines are therefore underpinned by the following; 1. In the short-term investments in flood risk management must focus on breaking the poverty – vulnerability cycle; 2. In the long-term investments in the other SDGs will have the greatest flood risk management benefits; 3. If measures are in place to prevent loss of life and protect strategic infrastructure, it is better to protect more people against small and medium size floods than fewer people against larger floods; 4. Flood prevention measures should focus on small (1:5 return period) floods; 5. Flood protection measures should focus on small and medium floods (1:20 return period) while minimizing the risk of failure in larger floods; 6. The impacts of larger floods ( > 1:50) must be addressed through improved preparedness; 7. The impacts of climate change on flood frequencies are best addressed by focusing on growth not overdesign; and 8. Manage floods and droughts conjunctively. The National Guidelines weave these principles into Malawi’s approach to flood risk management through recommendations for planning and implementing flood prevention, protection and preparedness measures at district, traditional authority and village levels.

Keywords: flood risk management in low-income countries, sustainable development, investments in prevention, protection and preparedness, community-based flood risk management, Malawi

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Authors: Jieh-Jiuh Wang

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Disasters happen frequently due to the global climate changes today. The cultural heritage conservation should be considered from the perspectives of surrounding environments and large-scale disasters. Most current thoughts about the disaster prevention of cultural heritages in Taiwan are single-point thoughts emphasizing firefighting, decay prevention, and construction reinforcement and ignoring the whole concept of the environment. The traditional conservation cannot defend against more and more tremendous and frequent natural disasters caused by climate changes. More and more cultural heritages are confronting the high risk of disasters. This study adopts the perspective of risk identification and takes flood as the main disaster category. It analyzes the amount and categories of cultural heritages that might suffer from disasters with the geographic information system integrating the latest flooding potential data from National Fire Agency and Water Resources Agency and the basic data of cultural heritages. It examines the actual risk of cultural heritages confronting floods and serves as the accordance for future considerations of risk measures and preparation for reducing disasters. The result of the study finds the positive relationship between the disaster affected situation of national cultural heritages and the rainfall intensity. The order of impacted level by floods is historical buildings, historical sites indicated by municipalities and counties, and national historical sites and relics. However, traditional settlements and cultural landscapes are not impacted. It might be related to the taboo space in the traditional culture of site selection (concepts of disaster avoidance). As for the regional distribution on the other hand, cultural heritages in central and northern Taiwan suffer from more shocking floods, while the heritages in northern and eastern Taiwan suffer from more serious flooding depth.

Keywords: cultural heritage, flood, preventive conservation, risk management

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Authors: Scott A. Abbott

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This paper examines the increase in the occurrence of natural disasters worldwide and the need to support vulnerable communities in post-disaster recovery. Preparation and implementation of post-disaster recovery projects need to be improved to allow communities to recover infrastructure, housing, economically and socially following a catastrophe. With the continual rise in catastrophic events worldwide due to climate change, impacts on construction resources affect the ability for post-disaster recovery to be undertaken. This research focuses on case studies of catastrophic events in Queensland, Australia, to contribute to the body of knowledge and gain valuable insights on lessons learned from past events and how they have been managed. The aim of this research is to adopt qualitative data using semi-structured interviews from participants predominantly from the insurance sector to understand barriers that have previously and currently exist in post-disaster recovery. Existing literature was reviewed to reveal gaps in knowledge that needed to be tested. Qualitative data was collected and summarised from field research with the results analysed and discussed. Barriers that impacted post-disaster recovery included time, cost, and resource capability and capacity. Causal themes that impacted time and cost were identified as decision making, pre-planning, and preparedness, as well as effective communication across stakeholders. The research study applied a qualitative approach to the existing literature and case studies across Queensland, Australia, to identify existing and new barriers that impact post-disaster recovery. It was recommended to implement effective procurement strategies to assist in cost control; implement pre-planning and preparedness strategies across funder, contractor, and local governments; more effective and timely decision making to reduce time and cost impacts.

Keywords: construction recovery, cost, disaster recovery, resources, time

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Authors: Lara Leite Barbosa, Marco Imperadori

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This article aims to define strategies for applying innovative technology so that housing in regions subject to floods can be more resilient to disasters. Based on case studies of seven amphibious and floating projects, it proposes design guidelines to implement this practice. Its originality consists of transposing a technology developed for fluctuating buildings for housing types in regions affected by flood disasters. The proposal could be replicated in other contexts, endowing vulnerable households with the ability to resist rising water levels after a flood. The results of this study are design guidelines to adapt for houses in areas subject to flooding, contributing to the mitigation of this disaster.

Keywords: amphibious housing, disaster resilience, floating architecture, flood mitigation, post-disaster reconstruction

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Authors: Zhenyu Zhang, Hsi-Hsien Wei

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Highway network systems play a vital role in disaster response for disaster-damaged areas. Damaged bridges in such network systems can impede disaster response by disrupting transportation of rescue teams or humanitarian supplies. Therefore, emergency inspection and repair of bridges to quickly collect damage information of bridges and recover the functionality of highway networks is of paramount importance to disaster response. A widely used measure of a network’s capability to recover from disasters is resilience. To enhance highway network resilience, plenty of studies have developed various repair scheduling methods for the prioritization of bridge-repair tasks. These methods assume that repair activities are performed after the damage to a highway network is fully understood via inspection, although inspecting all bridges in a regional highway network may take days, leading to the significant delay in repairing bridges. In reality, emergency repair activities can be commenced as soon as the damage data of some bridges that are crucial to emergency response are obtained. Given that emergency bridge inspection and repair (EBIR) activities are executed simultaneously in the response phase, the real-time interactions between these activities can occur – the blockage of highways due to repair activities can affect inspection routes which in turn have an impact on emergency repair scheduling by providing real-time information on bridge damages. However, the impact of such interactions on the optimal emergency inspection routes (EIR) and emergency repair schedules (ERS) has not been discussed in prior studies. To overcome the aforementioned deficiencies, this study develops a routing and scheduling model for EBIR while accounting for real-time inspection-repair interactions to maximize highway network resilience. A stochastic, time-dependent integer program is proposed for the complex and real-time interacting EBIR problem given multiple inspection and repair teams at locations as set post-disaster. A hybrid genetic algorithm that integrates a heuristic approach into a traditional genetic algorithm to accelerate the evolution process is developed. Computational tests are performed using data from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, based on a regional highway network in Sichuan, China, consisting of 168 highway bridges on 36 highways connecting 25 cities/towns. The results show that the simultaneous implementation of bridge inspection and repair activities can significantly improve the highway network resilience. Moreover, the deployment of inspection and repair teams should match each other, and the network resilience will not be improved once the unilateral increase in inspection teams or repair teams exceeds a certain level. This study contributes to both knowledge and practice. First, the developed mathematical model makes it possible for capturing the impact of real-time inspection-repair interactions on inspection routing and repair scheduling and efficiently deriving optimal EIR and ERS on a large and complex highway network. Moreover, this study contributes to the organizational dimension of highway network resilience by providing optimal strategies for highway bridge management. With the decision support tool, disaster managers are able to identify the most critical bridges for disaster management and make decisions on proper inspection and repair strategies to improve highway network resilience.

Keywords: disaster management, emergency bridge inspection and repair, highway network, resilience, uncertainty

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Authors: Sapora Sipon, Mohd Fo’ad Sakdan, Che Su Mustaffa, Najib Ahmad Marzuki, Mohamad Sukeri Khalid, Mohd Taib Ariffin, Husni Mohd Radzi, Salhah Abdullah

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Flood disasters occur throughout the world including Malaysia. The major flood disaster that hit Malaysia in the 2014-2015 episodes proved the psychosocial and mental health consequences such as vivid images of destruction, upheaval, death and loss of lives. Flood, flood survivors reported that flood has changed one looks at their religious belief. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the changes in religious belief after the 2014-2015 Malaysia flood disaster. The total population of 1300 respondents who experienced the 2014-2015 Malaysia flood were surveyed a month after the disaster. The questionnaires were used to measure religiosity and stress. The results provide compelling evidence that religion played an important role in the lives of Malaysia flood disasters’ survivor where more than half of the respondents (>75%) experiencing the strengthening of their religious belief. It was also reported the victims’ strengthening of their religious belief proved to be a powerful factor in reducing stress in the aftermath of the flood.

Keywords: religious belief, flood disaster, humanity, society

Procedia PDF Downloads 375

Authors: Agim Kukelii, Gevorg Sargsyan

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This study, focusing on the base regional area (county level), estimates the effect of natural disaster damages on aggregate personal income, aggregate wages, wages per worker, aggregate employment, and aggregate income transfer. The study further estimates the dynamics of personal income, employment, and wages under natural disaster shocks. Southeast Texas, located at the center of Golf Coast, is hit by meteorological and hydrological caused natural disasters yearly. On average, there are more than four natural disasters per year that cane an estimated damage average of 2.2% of real personal income. The study uses the panel data method to estimate the average effect of natural disasters on the area’s economy (personal income, wages, employment, and income transfer). It also uses Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) model to study the dynamics of macroeconomic variables under natural disaster shocks. The study finds that the average effect of natural disasters is positive for personal income and income transfer and is negative for wages and employment. The PVAR and the impulse response function estimates reveal that natural disaster shocks cause a decrease in personal income, employment, and wages. However, the economy’s variables bounce back after three years. The novelty of this study rests on several aspects. First, this is the first study to investigate the effects of natural disasters on macroeconomic variables at a regional level. Second, the study uses direct measures of natural disaster damages. Third, the study estimates that the time that the local economy takes to absorb the natural disaster damages shocks is three years. This is a relatively good reaction to the local economy, therefore, adding to the “resiliency” hypothesis. The study has several implications for policymakers, businesses, and households. First, this study serves to increase the awareness of local stakeholders that natural disaster damages do worsen, macroeconomic variables, such as personal income, employment, and wages beyond the immediate damages to residential and commercial properties, physical infrastructure, and discomfort in daily lives. Second, the study estimates that these effects linger on the economy on average for three years, which would require policymakers to factor in the time area need to be on focus.

Keywords: natural disaster damages, macroeconomics effects, PVAR, panel data

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Authors: Gulhan Sen

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Disasters could result in many deaths and injuries. In these difficult times, accessible resources are limited, demand and supply balance is distorted, and there is a need to make urgent interventions. Disproportionateness between accessible resources and intervention capacity makes triage a necessity in every stage of disaster response. Healthcare professionals, who are in charge of triage, have to evaluate swiftly and make ethical decisions about which patients need priority and urgent intervention given the limited available resources. For such critical times in disaster triage, 'doing the greatest good for the greatest number of casualties' is adopted as a code of practice. But there is no guide for healthcare professionals about ethical decision-making during disasters, and this study is expected to use as a source in the preparation of the guide. This study aimed to examine whether the qualities healthcare professionals in Izmir related to disaster triage were adequate and whether these qualities influence their capacity to make ethical decisions. The researcher used a survey developed for data collection. The survey included two parts. In part one, 14 questions solicited information about socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge levels of the respondents on ethical principles of disaster triage and allocation of scarce resources. Part two included four disaster scenarios adopted from existing literature and respondents were asked to make ethical decisions in triage based on the provided scenarios. The survey was completed by 215 healthcare professional working in Emergency-Medical Stations, National Medical Rescue Teams and Search-Rescue-Health Teams in Izmir. The data was analyzed with SPSS software. Chi-Square Test, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test and Linear Regression Analysis were utilized. According to results, it was determined that 51.2% of the participants had inadequate knowledge level of ethical principles of disaster triage and allocation of scarce resources. It was also found that participants did not tend to make ethical decisions on four disaster scenarios which included ethical dilemmas. They stayed in ethical dilemmas that perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, manage limited resources and make decisions to die. Results also showed that participants who had more experience in disaster triage teams, were more likely to make ethical decisions on disaster triage than those with little or no experience in disaster triage teams(p < 0.01). Moreover, as their knowledge level of ethical principles of disaster triage and allocation of scarce resources increased, their tendency to make ethical decisions also increased(p < 0.001). In conclusion, having inadequate knowledge level of ethical principles and being inexperienced affect their ethical decision-making during disasters. So results of this study suggest that more training on disaster triage should be provided on the areas of the pre-impact phase of disaster. In addition, ethical dimension of disaster triage should be included in the syllabi of the ethics classes in the vocational training for healthcare professionals. Drill, simulations, and board exercises can be used to improve ethical decision making abilities of healthcare professionals. Disaster scenarios where ethical dilemmas are faced should be prepared for such applied training programs.

Keywords: disaster triage, medical ethics, ethical principles of disaster triage, ethical decision-making

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Authors: Yuxiao Jiang, Lingjun Meng, Mengyu Zhan, Lichunyi Zhang, Yingxia Yun

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On August 8th of 2015, a serious explosion occurred in Binhai New Area of Tianjin. This explosion led to the suspension of Tianjin-Binhai Light Rail Line 9 which was an important transportation mean connecting the old and new urban areas and the suspension causes inconvenience to commuters traveling from Tianjin to Binhai or Binhai to Tianjin and residents living by Line 9. On this regard, this paper intends to give suggestions on how to develop multi-mode transportation system rapidly and effectively after a disaster and tackle with the problems in terms of transportation infrastructure facilities. The paper proposes the idea of traffic resilience which refers to the city’s ability to restore its transportation system and reduce risks when the transportation system is destroyed by a disaster. By doing questionnaire research, on the spot study and collecting data from the internet, a GIS model is established so as to analyze the alternative traffic means used by different types of residents and study the transportation supply and demand. The result shows that along the Line 9, there is a larger demand for alternative traffic means in the place which is nearer to the downtown area. Also, the distribution of bus stations is more reasonable in the place nearer to downtown area, however, the traffic speed in the area is slower. Based on traffic resilience, the paper raises strategies to develop post-disaster multi-mode transportation system such as establishing traffic management mechanism timely and effectively, building multi-mode traffic networks, improving intelligent traffic systems and so on.

Keywords: traffic resilience, multi-mode transportation system, public traffic, transportation demand

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Authors: Keiko Shimazu, Yasuhiro Maida, Tetsuya Sugata, Daisuke Tamakoshi, Kenji Makabe, Haruki Suzuki

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In this paper, we report how to acquire serious victims’ locations in the Acute Stage of Large-scale Disasters, in an Emergency Information Network System designed by us. The background of our concept is based on the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11^th, 2011. Through many experiences of national crises caused by earthquakes and tsunamis, we have established advanced communication systems and advanced disaster medical response systems. However, Japan was devastated by huge tsunamis swept a vast area of Tohoku causing a complete breakdown of all the infrastructures including telecommunications. Therefore, we noticed that we need interdisciplinary collaboration between science of disaster medicine, regional administrative sociology, satellite communication technology and systems engineering experts. Communication of emergency information was limited causing a serious delay in the initial rescue and medical operation. For the emergency rescue and medical operations, the most important thing is to identify the number of casualties, their locations and status and to dispatch doctors and rescue workers from multiple organizations. In the case of the Tohoku earthquake, the dispatching mechanism and/or decision support system did not exist to allocate the appropriate number of doctors and locate disaster victims. Even though the doctors and rescue workers from multiple government organizations have their own dedicated communication system, the systems are not interoperable.

Keywords: crisis management, disaster mitigation, messing, MGRS, military grid reference system, satellite communication system

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Authors: Berna Eren Tokgoz, Mahdi Safa, Seokyon Hwang

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Power distribution systems are essential and crucial infrastructures for the development and maintenance of a sustainable society. These systems are extremely vulnerable to various types of natural and man-made disasters. The assessment of resilience focuses on preparedness and mitigation actions under pre-disaster conditions. It also concentrates on response and recovery actions under post-disaster situations. The aim of this study is to present a methodology to assess the resilience of electric power distribution poles against wind-related events. The proposed methodology can improve the accuracy and rapidity of the evaluation of the conditions and the assessment of the resilience of poles. The methodology provides a metric for the evaluation of the resilience of poles under pre-disaster and post-disaster conditions. The metric was developed using mathematical expressions for physical forces that involve various variables, such as physical dimensions of the pole, the inclination of the pole, and wind speed. A three-dimensional imaging technology (photogrammetry) was used to determine the inclination of poles. Based on expert opinion, the proposed metric was used to define zones to visualize resilience. Visual representation of resilience is helpful for decision makers to prioritize their resources before and after experiencing a wind-related disaster. Multiple electric poles in the City of Beaumont, TX were used in a case study to evaluate the proposed methodology.  

Keywords: photogrammetry, power distribution systems, resilience metric, system resilience, wind-related disasters

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Authors: Shafiqul Islam, Cordia Chu

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Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate related disasters such as flood and cyclone. Exploring from the semi-structured in-depth interviews of 38 stakeholders and literature review, this study examined the public spending distribution process in DRR. This paper demonstrates how the processes of political economy-enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment hinder the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) efforts of Department of Disaster Management (DDM) such as distribution of flood centres, cyclone centres and 40 days employment generation programs. Enclosure refers to when DRR projects allocated to less vulnerable areas or expand the roles of influencing actors into the public sphere. Exclusion refers to when DRR projects limit affected people’s access to resources or marginalize particular stakeholders in decision-making activities. Encroachment refers to when allocation of DRR projects and selection of location and issues degrade the environmental affect or contribute to other forms of disaster risk. Entrenchment refers to when DRR projects aggravate the disempowerment of common people worsen the concentrations of wealth and income inequality within a community. In line with United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Hyogo and Sendai Frameworks, in the case of Bangladesh, DRR policies implemented under the country’s national five-year plan, disaster-related acts and rules. These policies and practices have somehow enabled influential-elites to mobilize and distribute resources through bureaucracies. Exclusionary forms of fund distribution of DRR exist at both the national and local scales. DRR related allocations have encroached through the low land areas development project without consulting local needs. Most severely, DRR related unequal allocations have entrenched social class trapping the backward communities vulnerable to climate related disasters. Planners and practitioners of DRR need to take necessary steps to eliminate the potential risks from the processes of enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment happens in project fund allocations.

Keywords: Bangladesh, disaster risk reduction, fund distribution, political economy

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Authors: Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum, Carmit Rapaport

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The behavior of bystanders in emergencies and disasters have been examined for over 50 years. Such acts have been cited as contributing to saving lives in terms of providing first responder help until official emergency units can arrive. Several reasons have been suggested for this type of behavior but most focused on a broad segment of individual psychological decision-making processes. Recent theoretical evidence suggests that the external factors for such bystander decisions, mainly disaster community based social contexts factors, are also important. We aim to test these competing arguments. Specifically, we examine alternative explanatory perspectives by focusing on self-efficacy as a proxy for the accepted individual psychological case and contrast it with potential bystander characteristics of the individual as well factors as embedded in the social context of the disaster community. To do so, we will utilize a random sampling of the population from a field study of an urban community in Israel that experienced five years of continuous terror attacks. The results strongly suggest that self-efficacy, as well as external factors: preparedness and having skills for intervention during emergencies along with gender best, predict potential helping behaviors. These results broaden our view of bystander behavior and open a window for enhancing this phenomenon as another element in disaster and crisis management.

Keywords: bystander behavior, disasters emergencies, psychological motivation to help, social context for helping

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Authors: Kate Crinion, Martin Haran, Stanley McGreal, David McIlhatton

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Past research has demonstrated that disasters are continuing to escalate in frequency and magnitude worldwide, representing a key concern for the global community. Understanding and responding to the increasing risk posed by disaster events has become a key concern for disaster managers. An emerging trend within literature, acknowledges the need to move beyond a state of coping and reinstatement of the status quo, towards incremental adaptive change and transformational actions for long-term sustainable development. As such, a growing interest in research concerns the understanding of the change required to address ever increasing and unpredictable disaster events. Capturing transformational capacity and resilience, however is not without its difficulties and explains the dearth in attempts to capture this capacity. Adopting a case study approach, this research seeks to enhance an awareness of transformational resilience by identifying key components and indicators that determine the resilience of flood-affected communities within Cumbria. Grounding and testing a theoretical resilience framework within the case studies, permits the identification of how perceptions of risk influence community resilience actions. Further, it assesses how levels of social capital and connectedness impacts upon the extent of interplay between resources and capacities that drive transformational resilience. Thus, this research seeks to expand the existing body of knowledge by enhancing the awareness of resilience in post-disaster affected communities, by investigating indicators of community capacity building and resilience actions that facilitate transformational resilience during the recovery and reconstruction phase of a flood disaster.

Keywords: capacity building, community, flooding, transformational resilience

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Authors: S. M. Amin Hosseini, Oriol Pons, Albert de la Fuente

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An earthquake hit the Kermanshah province, which is located in the west of Iran, on 12th November 2017 at 18:18 UTC (21:48 Iran Standard Time). This earthquake caused several deaths and injured people. In this disaster, substantial homes were destroyed and many homes were damaged. The Iranian government, local authorities, and several non-governmental organizations responded to affected populations’ needs, such as foods, blanket, water, a tent as a temporary shelter, etc. Considerable national groups, including governmental, non-governmental organizations, and people from non-organized groups, directly and indirectly, tried to bring donated goods to the affected populations. However, some of these aids could not satisfy all the affected populations. Moreover, these impossibilities led to waste extensive resources. In this regard, this research study aims to assess the problems of the Kermanshah disaster responses. At the same time, this project searches possible solutions in order to increase emergency management efficiencies for encountering future events. To this end, this study assesses the problem from all beneficiaries´ point of views. In this regard, a survey and a questionnaire were designed for statistical analyses of the responses of people, who were involved in the Kermanshah earthquake recovery program. Additionally, this research study takes into account diverse strategies, which have been applied in other recovery programs, with the Kermanshah case in order to determine similarities and differences. Finally, this study presents possible solutions taken from other recovery programs that could be applied for the Kermanshah emergency responses. However, the results demonstrate that it is required to customize applied strategies based on local conditions and requirements.

Keywords: disaster response, Kermanshah earthquake, natural disasters, NGOs

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: S. Parisi, Ch. Achillas, D. Aidonis, D. Folinas, N. Moussiopoulos

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Preparedness addresses the strategy in disaster management that allows the implementation of successful operational response immediately after a disaster. With speed as the main driver, product design for humanitarian aid purposes is a key factor of success in situations of high uncertainty and urgency. Within this context, a telecommunications container (TC) has been designed that belongs to a group of containers that serve the purpose of immediate response to global disasters. The TC includes all the necessary equipment to establish a telecommunication center in the destroyed area within the first 72 hours of humanitarian operations. The design focuses on defining the topology of the various parts of equipment by taking into consideration factors of serviceability, functionality, human-product interaction, universal design language, energy consumption, sustainability and the interrelationship with the other containers. The concept parametric design has been implemented with SolidWorks® CAD system.

Keywords: telecommunications container, design, case study, humanitarian logistics

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Authors: D. Osborn, L. Easthope

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The increasing threat of ‘marauding terror,' utilising improvised explosive devices and firearms, has focused the attention of policy makers and emergency responders once again on the treatment of the critically injured patient in a highly volatile scenario. Whilst there have been significant improvements made in the response and lessons learned from recent disasters in the international disaster community there still remain areas of uncertainty and a lack of clarity in the care of the critically injured. This innovative, longitudinal study has at its heart the aim of using ethnographic methods to ‘slow down’ the journey such patients will take and make visible the ethical complexities that 2017 technologies, expectations and over a decade of improved combat medicine techniques have brought. The primary researcher, previously employed in the hospital emergency management environment, has closely followed responders as they managed casualties with life-threatening injuries. Ethnographic observation of Exercise Unified Response in March 2016, exposed the ethical and legal 'vacuums' within a mass casualty and fatality setting, specifically the extrication, treatment and care of critically injured patients from crushed and overturned train carriages. This article highlights a gap in the debate, evaluation, planning and response to an incident of this nature specifically the incapacitated, unidentified patients and the ethics of submitting them to the invasive ‘Disaster Victim Identification’ process. Using a qualitative ethnographic analysis, triangulating observation, interviews and documentation, this analysis explores the gaps and highlights the next stages in the researcher’s pathway as she continues to explore with emergency practitioners some of this century’s most difficult questions in relation to the medico-legal and ethical challenges faced by emergency services in the wake of new and emerging threats and medical treatment expectations.

Keywords: ethics, disaster, Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), legality, unidentified

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Authors: Elias Kodjo Kekesi

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This study seeks to investigate a critical but neglected area in disaster and emergency management in Ghana. It explores aspects of work within one of the safety-critical work environments that expose workers to psychological, social and physical harm. With much attention to crises’ survivors, deceased and their families, this research attempts to answer a key question: ‘What happens to the rescuer’? Emergency response is associated with immense and unprecedented pressure that puts responders’ physical, mental and social well-being at risk. Despite the negative psychological outcomes, scholars argue that being in a traumatic situation may trigger positive outcomes for some people. Thus, the study also focuses on the positive impact of working in a risky crisis environment. Additionally, people’s interpretation of negative experiences or exposure to adverse conditions differ owing to their personal resources which explains why some people may be negatively affected whiles others are positively impacted. To examine these complex nuances, an exploratory sequential mixed method design is adopted. This paper will highlight the findings of study one, which explores the underlying themes emerging from the Ghanaian disaster and emergency response environment regarding psychosocial hazard exposures and the corresponding outcomes.

Keywords: psychosocial hazards, organisational outcomes, qualitative research, Ghana

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Authors: Abolghasem Yousefi-Babadi, Ali Bozorgi-Amiri, Aida Kazempour, Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, Maryam Irani

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All over the world, natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods, volcanoes and hurricanes) causes a lot of deaths. Earthquakes are introduced as catastrophic events, which is accident by unusual phenomena leading to much loss around the world. Such could be replaced by disasters or any other synonyms strongly demand great long-term help and relief, which can be hard to be managed. Supplies and facilities are very important challenges after any earthquake which should be prepared for the disaster regions to satisfy the people's demands who are suffering from earthquake. This paper proposed disaster response facility allocation problem for disaster relief operations as a mathematical programming model. Not only damaged people in the earthquake victims, need the consumable commodities (e.g., food and water), but also they need non-consumable commodities (e.g., clothes) to protect themselves. Therefore, it is concluded that paying attention to disaster points and people's demands are very necessary. To deal with this objective, both commodities including consumable and need non-consumable commodities are considered in the presented model. This paper presented the multi-objective multi-period mathematical programming model regarding the minimizing the average of the weighted response times and minimizing the total operational cost and penalty costs of unmet demand and unused commodities simultaneously. Furthermore, a Chebycheff multi-objective solution procedure as a powerful solution algorithm is applied to solve the proposed model. Finally, to illustrate the model applicability, a case study of the Tehran earthquake is studied, also to show model validation a sensitivity analysis is carried out.

Keywords: facility location, multi-objective model, disaster response, commodity

Procedia PDF Downloads 232

Authors: Kimberly Joyce A. Roguis, Mica Lorraine L. Fernando, Alan Vito B. Macadangdang, Jennina Mari C. Mijares, Maria Carinnes A. Gonzalez

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The paper showcases the vulnerability of the tourism industry especially the inevitable occurrence of natural disasters, implicating the necessity for post-disaster analysis on tourist attractions. This study discusses the aftermath of the super typhoon ‘Yolanda’ incident in the locality of Coron Island, Palawan, assessing its general effect on the community and its tourism livelihood through the analysis of responses from key role-players in the tourism industry of the area gathered through semi-structured interviews and direct observation. The local government’s instigation of recovery programs to their locality has been a pivotal factor in reviving the vitality of their tourism industry and the involvement of the community has been the determining condition that shifted the industry towards revival a year after the incidence. The study illuminates the disaster mitigation processes in the local tourism livelihood perspective, predominantly the diving industry. It did not suffer physical damage to a great extent but was affected because of the public imagery the disaster brought upon. Collaboration between the local government and the community is the highlight of the research for they maneuvered recovery revealing that cooperation between these two parties bridged the correlation of recovery to tourism development. The disaster paved way to a stance towards promoting progressive tourism outlooks, raising awareness among the public and private sectors and re-assessment of the tourism vitality in their locality. The mayhem and destruction proved to be a liberating creative process to give way to progression and was deemed to be of high significance in the over-all tourism system process despite its impediments in the case of the tourism industry in Coron, Palawan.

Keywords: disaster recovery, tourism development, diving, Palawan

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Authors: Israel Ropo Orimoloye, Johanes A. Belle, Olusola Adeyemi, Olusola O. Ololade

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With more than 100,000 orbits during the past 20 years, Terra has significantly improved our knowledge of the Earth's climate and its implications on societies and ecosystems of human activity and natural disasters, including drought events. With Terra instrument's performance and the free distribution of its products, this study utilised Terra MOD13Q1 satellite data to assess drought disaster events and its spatiotemporal patterns over the Free State Province of South Africa between 2001 and 2019 for summer, autumn, winter, and spring seasons. The study also used high-resolution downscaled climate change projections under three representative concentration pathways (RCP). Three future periods comprising the short (the 2030s), medium (2040s), and long term (2050s) compared to the current period are analysed to understand the potential magnitude of projected climate change-related drought. The study revealed that the year 2001 and 2016 witnessed extreme drought conditions where the drought index is between 0 and 20% across the entire province during summer, while the year 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2015 observed severe drought conditions across the region with variation from one part to the another. The result shows that from -24.5 to -25.5 latitude, the area witnessed a decrease in precipitation (80 to 120mm) across the time slice and an increase in the latitude -26° to -28° S for summer seasons, which is more prominent in the year 2041 to 2050. This study emphasizes the strong spatio-environmental impacts within the province and highlights the associated factors that characterise high drought stress risk, especially on the environment and ecosystems. This study contributes to a disaster risk framework to identify areas for specific research and adaptation activities on drought disaster risk and for environmental planning in the study area, which is characterised by both rural and urban contexts, to address climate change-related drought impacts.

Keywords: remote sensing, drought disaster, climate scenario, assessment

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Authors: Ashish Trivedi, Amol Singh

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In the recent years, the magnitude and frequency of disasters have increased at an alarming rate. Every year, more than 400 natural disasters affect global population. A large-scale disaster leads to destruction or damage to houses, thereby rendering a notable number of residents homeless. Since humanitarian response and recovery process takes considerable time, temporary establishments are arranged in order to provide shelter to affected population. These shelter areas are vital for an effective humanitarian relief; therefore, they must be strategically planned. Choosing the locations of temporary shelter areas for accommodating homeless people is critical to the quality of humanitarian assistance provided after a large-scale emergency. There has been extensive research on the facility location problem both in theory and in application. In order to deliver sufficient relief aid within a relatively short timeframe, humanitarian relief organisations pre-position warehouses at strategic locations. However, such approaches have received limited attention from the perspective of providing shelters to disaster-affected people. In present research work, this aspect of humanitarian logistics is considered. The present work proposes a hybrid decision support model to determine relative preference of potential shelter locations by assessing them based on key subjective criteria. Initially, the factors that are kept in mind while locating potential areas for establishing temporary shelters are identified by reviewing extant literature and through consultation from a panel of disaster management experts. In order to determine relative importance of individual criteria by taking into account subjectivity of judgements, a hybrid approach of fuzzy sets and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was adopted. Further, Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was applied on an illustrative data set to evaluate potential locations for establishing temporary shelter areas for homeless people in a disaster scenario. The contribution of this work is to propose a range of possible shelter locations for a humanitarian relief organization, using a robust multi criteria decision support framework.

Keywords: AHP, disaster preparedness, fuzzy set theory, humanitarian logistics, TOPSIS, temporary shelters

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Authors: Chang Hsueh-Sheng, Chen Tzu-Ling

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Earthquake is an unpredictable natural disaster and intensive earthquakes have caused serious impacts on social-economic system, environmental and social resilience. Conventional ways to mitigate earthquake disaster are to enhance building codes and advance structural engineering measures. However, earthquake-induced ground damage such as liquefaction, land subsidence, landslide happen on places nearby earthquake prone or poor soil condition areas. Therefore, this study uses spatial statistical analysis to explore the spatial pattern of damaged buildings. Afterwards, principle components analysis (PCA) is applied to categorize the similar features in different kinds of clustered patterns. The results show that serious landslide prone area, close to fault, vegetated ground surface and mudslide prone area are common in those highly damaged buildings. In addition, the oldest building might not be directly referred to the most vulnerable one. In fact, it seems that buildings built between 1974 and 1989 become more fragile during the earthquake. The incorporation of both spatial statistical analyses and PCA can provide more accurate information to subsidize retrofit programs to enhance earthquake resistance in particular areas.

Keywords: earthquake disaster, spatial statistic analysis, principle components analysis (pca), clustered patterns

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Authors: Gurjinder Singh, Jasmeen Kaur, Mukul Dhiman

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This paper mainly describes the significance of 3D printing in the supply chain management in a scenario when there is disruption in global supply chain. Furthermore, the development and implementation of supply chain strategies in context of 3D printing technology is framed to make supply chain of an organization resilient to disruption caused by natural disasters.

Keywords: 3D printing, global supply chain, supply chain management, supply chain strategies

Procedia PDF Downloads 448