Search results for: Natural Hazard.

Authors: Ahmet Kivanc Kutluca, Semahat Ozdemir

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Urban disaster risks and vulnerabilities are great problems for Turkey. The annual loss of life and property through disaster in the world-s major metropolitan areas is increasing. Urban concentrations of the poor and less-informed in environmentally fragile locations suffer the impact of disaster disproportionately. Gecekondu (squatter) developments will compound the inherent risks associated with high-density environments, in appropriate technologies, and inadequate infrastructure. On the other hand, there are many geological disadvantages such as sitting on top of active tectonic plate boundaries, and why having avalanche, flood, and landslide and drought prone areas in Turkey. However, this natural formation is inevitable; the only way to survive in such a harsh geography is to be aware of importance of these natural events and to take political and physical measures. The main aim of this research is to bring up the magnitude of natural hazard risks in Izmir built-up zone, not being taken into consideration adequately. Because the dimensions of the peril are not taken seriously enough, the natural hazard risks, which are commonly well known, are not considered important or they are being forgotten after some time passes. Within this research, the magnitude of natural hazard risks for Izmir is being presented in the scope of concrete and local researches over Izmir risky areas.

Keywords: Earthquake, Flood, Landslide, Natural Hazard Planning.

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Authors: A. Fathianpour, M. B. Jelodar, S. Wilkinson

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This paper outlines the approaches taken to assess multi-hazard assessments. There is currently confusion in assessing multi-hazard impacts, and so this study aims to determine which of the available options are the most useful. The paper uses an international literature search, and analysis of current multi-hazard assessments and a case study to illustrate the effectiveness of the chosen method. Findings from this study will help those wanting to assess multi-hazards to undertake a straightforward approach. The paper is significant as it helps to interpret the various approaches and concludes with the preferred method. Many people in the world live in hazardous environments and are susceptible to disasters. Unfortunately, when a disaster strikes it is often compounded by additional cascading hazards, thus people would confront more than one hazard simultaneously. Hazards include natural hazards (earthquakes, floods, etc.) or cascading human-made hazards (for example, Natural Hazard Triggering Technological disasters (Natech) such as fire, explosion, toxic release). Multi-hazards have a more destructive impact on urban areas than one hazard alone. In addition, climate change is creating links between different disasters such as causing landslide dams and debris flows leading to more destructive incidents. Much of the prevailing literature deals with only one hazard at a time. However, recently sophisticated multi-hazard assessments have started to appear. Given that multi-hazards occur, it is essential to take multi-hazard risk assessment under consideration. This paper aims to review the multi-hazard assessment methods through articles published to date and categorize the strengths and disadvantages of using these methods in risk assessment. Napier City is selected as a case study to demonstrate the necessity of using multi-hazard risk assessments. In order to assess multi-hazard risk assessments, first, the current multi-hazard risk assessment methods were described. Next, the drawbacks of these multi-hazard risk assessments were outlined. Finally, the improvements to current multi-hazard risk assessments to date were summarised. Generally, the main problem of multi-hazard risk assessment is to make a valid assumption of risk from the interactions of different hazards. Currently, risk assessment studies have started to assess multi-hazard situations, but drawbacks such as uncertainty and lack of data show the necessity for more precise risk assessment. It should be noted that ignoring or partial considering multi-hazards in risk assessment will lead to an overestimate or overlook in resilient and recovery action managements.

Keywords: Cascading hazards, multi-hazard, risk assessment, risk reduction.

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Authors: Sunusi N., Kresna A. J., Islamiyati A., Raupong

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Hazard rate estimation is one of the important topics in forecasting earthquake occurrence. Forecasting earthquake occurrence is a part of the statistical seismology where the main subject is the point process. Generally, earthquake hazard rate is estimated based on the point process likelihood equation called the Hazard Rate Likelihood of Point Process (HRLPP). In this research, we have developed estimation method, that is hazard rate single decrement HRSD. This method was adapted from estimation method in actuarial studies. Here, one individual associated with an earthquake with inter event time is exponentially distributed. The information of epicenter and time of earthquake occurrence are used to estimate hazard rate. At the end, a case study of earthquake hazard rate will be given. Furthermore, we compare the hazard rate between HRLPP and HRSD method.

Keywords: Earthquake forecast, Hazard Rate, Likelihood point process, Point process.

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Authors: S. A. Razavian Amrei, G.Ghodrati Amiri, D. Rezaei

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This paper presents probabilistic horizontal seismic hazard assessment of Naghan, Iran. It displays the probabilistic estimate of Peak Ground Horizontal Acceleration (PGHA) for the return period of 475, 950 and 2475 years. The output of the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is based on peak ground acceleration (PGA), which is the most common criterion in designing of buildings. A catalogue of seismic events that includes both historical and instrumental events was developed and covers the period from 840 to 2009. The seismic sources that affect the hazard in Naghan were identified within the radius of 200 km and the recurrence relationships of these sources were generated by Kijko and Sellevoll. Finally Peak Ground Horizontal Acceleration (PGHA) has been prepared to indicate the earthquake hazard of Naghan for different hazard levels by using SEISRISK III software.

Keywords: Seismic Hazard Assessment, Seismicity Parameters, PGA, Naghan, Iran

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Authors: Devanjan Bhattacharya, Jitka Komarkova

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The research describes the implementation of a novel and stand-alone system for dynamic hazard warning. The system uses all existing infrastructure already in place like mobile networks, a laptop/PC and the small installation software. The geospatial dataset are the maps of a region which are again frugal. Hence there is no need to invest and it reaches everyone with a mobile. A novel architecture of hazard assessment and warning introduced where major technologies in ICT interfaced to give a unique WebGIS based dynamic real time geohazard warning communication system. A never before architecture introduced for integrating WebGIS with telecommunication technology. Existing technologies interfaced in a novel architectural design to address a neglected domain in a way never done before – through dynamically updatable WebGIS based warning communication. The work publishes new architecture and novelty in addressing hazard warning techniques in sustainable way and user friendly manner. Coupling of hazard zonation and hazard warning procedures into a single system has been shown. Generalized architecture for deciphering a range of geo-hazards has been developed. Hence the developmental work presented here can be summarized as the development of internet-SMS based automated geo-hazard warning communication system; integrating a warning communication system with a hazard evaluation system; interfacing different open-source technologies towards design and development of a warning system; modularization of different technologies towards development of a warning communication system; automated data creation, transformation and dissemination over different interfaces. The architecture of the developed warning system has been functionally automated as well as generalized enough that can be used for any hazard and setup requirement has been kept to a minimum.

Keywords: Geospatial, web-based GIS, geohazard, warning system.

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Authors: Chung-Hung Tsai

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Global environmental changes lead to increased frequency and scale of natural disaster, Taiwan is under the influence of global warming and extreme weather. Therefore, the vulnerability was increased and variability and complexity of disasters is relatively enhanced. The purpose of this study is to consider the source and magnitude of hazard characteristics on the tourism industry. Using modern risk management concepts, integration of related domestic and international basic research, this goes beyond the Taiwan typhoon disaster risk assessment model and evaluation of loss. This loss evaluation index system considers the impact of extreme weather, in particular heavy rain on the tourism industry in Taiwan. Consider the extreme climate of the compound impact of disaster for the tourism industry; we try to make multi-hazard risk assessment model, strategies and suggestions. Related risk analysis results are expected to provide government department, the tourism industry asset owners, insurance companies and banking include tourist disaster risk necessary information to help its tourism industry for effective natural disaster risk management.

Keywords: Tourism industry, extreme weather, multi-hazard, vulnerability analysis, loss exceeding probability, risk management.

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Authors: S. Zappacosta, C. Bove, M. Carmela Marinelli, P. di Lauro, K. Spasenovic, L. Ostano, G. Aiello, M. Pietrosanto

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This paper proposes a neural network approach for assessing flood hazard mapping. The core of the model is a machine learning component fed by frequency ratios, namely statistical correlations between flood event occurrences and a selected number of topographic properties. The classification capability was compared with the flood hazard mapping River Basin Plans (Piani Assetto Idrogeologico, acronimed as PAI) designed by the Italian Institute for Environmental Research and Defence, ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale), encoding four different increasing flood hazard levels. The study area of Piemonte, an Italian region, has been considered without loss of generality. The frequency ratios may be used as a standalone block to model the flood hazard mapping. Nevertheless, the mixture with a neural network improves the classification power of several percentage points, and may be proposed as a basic tool to model the flood hazard map in a wider scope.

Keywords: flood modeling, hazard map, neural networks, hydrogeological risk, flood risk assessment

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Authors: Ali A. Ahmed, Mohammed I. Hussein

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The amounts of radioactivity in the igneous rocks have been investigated; samples were collected from the total of eight basalt rock types in the northeastern of Kurdistan region/Iraq. The activity concentration of 226Ra (238U) series, 228Ac (232Th) series, 40K and 137Cs were measured using Planar HPGe and NaI(Tl) detectors. Along the study area the radium equivalent activities Raeq in Bq/Kg of samples under investigation were found in the range of 22.16 to 77.31 Bq/Kg with an average value of 44.8 Bq/Kg, this value is much below the internationally accepted value of 370 Bq/Kg. To estimate the health effects of this natural radioactive composition, the average values of absorbed gamma dose rate D (55 nGyh-1), Indoor and outdoor annual effective dose rates Eied (0.11 mSvy-1) . and Eoed (0.03 mSvy-1), External hazard index Hex (0.138) and internal hazard index Hin(0.154), and representative level index Iγr (0.386) have been calculated and found to be lower than the worldwide average values.

Keywords: Absorbed dose, activity concentration, igneousrocks, HPGe, NaI(TI), Natural Radioactivity.

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Authors: Hazem J. Smadi

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FMEA has been used for several years and proved its efficiency for system’s risk analysis due to failures. Risk priority number found in FMEA is used to rank failure modes that may occur in a system. There are some guidelines in the literature to assign the values of FMEA components known as Severity, Occurrence and Detection. This paper propose a method to assign the value for occurrence in more realistic manner representing the state of the system under study rather than depending totally on the experience of the analyst. This method uses the hazard function of a system to determine the value of occurrence depending on the behavior of the hazard being constant, increasing or decreasing.

Keywords: FMEA, Hazard Function, Risk Priority Number.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Alexandr Bozek, Eduard Bakos, Jiri Dvorak, Alena Bumbova, Lenka Jesonkova

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The case study deals with the semi-quantitative risk assessment of water resource earmarked for the emergency supply of population with drinking water. The risk analysis has been based on previously identified hazards/sensitivities of the elements of hydrogeological structure and technological equipment of ground water resource as well as on the assessment of the levels of hazard, sensitivity and criticality of individual resource elements in the form of point indexes. The following potential sources of hazard have been considered: natural disasters caused by atmospheric and geological changes, technological hazards, and environmental burdens. The risk analysis has proved that the assessed risks are acceptable and the water resource may be integrated into a crisis plan of a given region.

Keywords: Crisis, emergency, frequency, ground water, hazard, point index, risk, sensitivity, water supply.

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Authors: Lingzhi Li, Jiankun Zhang, Tiantian Gu

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Hazard management that can prevent fatal accidents and property losses is a fundamental process during the buildings’ construction stage. However, due to lack of safety supervision resources and operational pressures, the conduction of hazard management is poor and ineffective in China. In order to improve the quality of construction safety management, it is critical to explore the use of information technologies to ensure that the process of hazard management is efficient and effective. After exploring the existing problems of construction hazard management in China, this paper develops the griddization management model for construction hazard management. First, following the knowledge grid infrastructure, the griddization computing infrastructure for construction hazards management is designed which includes five layers: resource entity layer, information management layer, task management layer, knowledge transformation layer and application layer. This infrastructure will be as the technical support for realizing grid management. Second, this study divides the construction hazards into grids through city level, district level and construction site level according to grid principles. Last, a griddization management process including hazard identification, assessment and control is developed. Meanwhile, all stakeholders of construction safety management, such as owners, contractors, supervision organizations and government departments, should take the corresponding responsibilities in this process. Finally, a case study based on actual construction hazard identification, assessment and control is used to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed griddization management model. The advantage of this designed model is to realize information sharing and cooperative management between various safety management departments.

Keywords: Construction hazard, grid management, griddization computing, process.

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Authors: Frantisek Bozek, Alena Bumbova, Eduard Bakos

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Paper is dealing with vulnerability concerning elements of hydrological structures and elements of technological equipments which are acceptable for groundwater resources. The vulnerability assessment stems from the application of the register of hazards and a potential threat to individual water source elements within each type of hazard. The proposed procedure is pattern for assessing the risks of disturbance, damage, or destruction of water source by the identified natural or technological hazards and consequently for classification of these risks in relation to emergency water supply. Using of this procedure was verified on selected groundwater resource in particular region, which seems to be as potentially useful for crisis planning system.

Keywords: Hazard, Hydrogeological Structure, Elements, Index, Sensitivity, Water Source, Vulnerability

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Authors: Siti Nor Hafizah binti Mohd Zaid, Mohamed Abdel-Maguid, Abdel-Hamid Soliman

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Because road traffic accidents are a major source of death worldwide, attempts have been made to create Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) able to detect vehicle, driver and environmental conditions that are cues for possible potential accidents. This paper presents continued work on a novel Nonintrusive Intelligent Driver Assistance and Safety System (Ni-DASS) for assessing driver attention and hazard awareness. It uses two onboard CCD cameras – one observing the road and the other observing the driver-s face. The windscreen is divided into cells and analysis of the driver-s eye-gaze patterns allows Ni-DASS to determine the windscreen cell the driver is focusing on using eye-gesture templates. Intersecting the driver-s field of view through the observed windscreen cell with subsections of the camera-s field of view containing a potential hazard allows Ni-DASS to estimate the probability that the driver has actually observed the hazard. Results have shown that the proposed technique is an accurate enough measure of driver observation to be useful in ADAS systems.

Keywords: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Driver Hazard Awareness, Driver Vigilance, Eye Tracking

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Authors: F. S. Eguakun, T. C. Nkwor

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Trees in the university environment are uniquely position; however, they can also present a millstone to the infrastructure and humans they coexist with. The numerous benefits of trees can be negated due to poor tree health and anthropogenic activities and as such can become hazardous. The study aims at evaluating the hazardous status of avenue trees in University of Port Harcourt. Data were collected from all the avenue trees within the selected major roads in the University. Tree growth variables were measured and health condition of the avenue trees were assessed as an indicator of some structural defects. The hazard status of the avenue trees was determined. Several tree species were used as avenue trees in the University however, Azadirachta indica (81%) was found to be most abundant. The result shows that only 0.3% avenue tree species was found to pose severe harzard in Abuja part of the University. Most avenue trees (55.2%) were rated as medium hazard status. Due to the danger and risk associated with hazardous trees, the study recommends that good and effective management strategies be implemented so as to prevent future damages from trees with small or medium hazard status.

Keywords: Avenue tree, hazard status, inventory, urban.

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Authors: A. Bumbová, M. Čáslavský, F. Božek, J. Dvořák

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The paper deals with the analysis of hazards and sensitivity of potential resource of emergency water supply of population in a selected region of the Czech Republic. The procedure of identification and analysis of hazards and sensitivity is carried out on the basis of a unique methodology of classifying the drinking water resources earmarked for emergency supply of population. The hazard identification is based on a general register of hazards for individual parts of hydrological structure and the elements of technological equipment. It is followed by a semi-quantitative point indexation for the activation of each identified hazard, i.e. fires of anthropogenic origin, flood and the increased radioactive background accompanied by the leak of radon. Point indexation of sensitivity has been carried out at the same time. The analysis is the basis for a risk assessment of potential resource of emergency supply of population and the subsequent classification of such resource within the system of crisis planning.

Keywords: Hazard identification, sensitivity, semi-quantitative assessment, emergency water supply, crisis situation, ground water.

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Authors: Avinoam Borowsky, Tal Oron-Gilad, Yisrael Parmet

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This study examined the role of driving experience in hazard perception and categorization using traffic scene pictures. Specifically, young-inexperienced, moderately experienced and very experienced (taxi) drivers observed traffic scene pictures while connected to an eye tracking system and were asked to rate the level of hazardousness of each picture and to mention the three most prominent hazards in it. Target pictures included nine, nearly identical, pairs of pictures where one picture in each pair included an actual hazard as an additional element. Altogether, 22 areas of interest (AOIs) were predefined and included 13 potential hazards and 9 actual hazards. Data analysis included both verbal reports and eye scanning patterns of these AOIs. Generally, both experienced and taxi drivers noted a relatively larger number of potential hazards than young inexperienced drivers Thus, by relating to less salient potential hazards, experienced drivers have demonstrated a better situation model of the traffic environment.

Keywords: Concept Construction, Hazard Perception, EyeMovements, Driving Experience.

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Authors: D. Pinto, L. Castro, M.L. Cruzat, S. Barros, J. Gironás, C. Oberli, M. Torres, C. Escauriaza, A. Cipriano

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Flash Floods, together with landslides, are a common natural threat for people living in mountainous regions and foothills. One way to deal with this constant menace is the use of Early Warning Systems, which have become a very important mitigation strategy for natural disasters. In this work we present our proposal for a pilot Flash Flood Early Warning System for Santiago, Chile, the first stage of a more ambitious project that in a future stage shall also include early warning of landslides. To give a context for our approach, we first analyze three existing Flash Flood Early Warning Systems, focusing on their general architectures. We then present our proposed system, with main focus on the decision support system, a system that integrates empirical models and fuzzy expert systems to achieve reliable risk estimations.

Keywords: Decision Support System, Early Warning Systems, Flash Flood, Natural Hazard.

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Authors: Belkacem Selma, Boumediene Selma, Samira Chouraqui, Hanifi Missoum, Tourkia Guerzou

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Natural disasters have occurred and will continue to cause human and material damage. Therefore, the idea of "preventing" natural disasters will never be possible. However, their prediction is possible with the advancement of technology. Even if natural disasters are effectively inevitable, their consequences may be partly controlled. The rapid growth and progress of artificial intelligence (AI) had a major impact on the prediction of natural disasters and risk assessment which are necessary for effective disaster reduction. Earthquake prediction to prevent the loss of human lives and even property damage is an important factor; that, is why it is crucial to develop techniques for predicting this natural disaster. This study aims to analyze the ability of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict earthquakes that occur in a given area. The used data describe the problem of high energy (higher than 104 J) seismic bumps forecasting in a coal mine using two long walls as an example. For this purpose, seismic bumps data obtained from mines have been analyzed. The results obtained show that the ANN is able to predict earthquake parameters with  high accuracy; the classification accuracy through neural networks is more than 94%, and the models developed are efficient and robust and depend only weakly on the initial database.

Keywords: Earthquake prediction, artificial intelligence, AI, Artificial Neural Network, ANN, seismic bumps.

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Authors: Tomohiro Ando, Satoshi Yamashita

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The objective of this study is to propose a statistical modeling method which enables simultaneous term structure estimation of the risk-free interest rate, hazard and loss given default, incorporating the characteristics of the bond issuing company such as credit rating and financial information. A reduced form model is used for this purpose. Statistical techniques such as spline estimation and Bayesian information criterion are employed for parameter estimation and model selection. An empirical analysis is conducted using the information on the Japanese bond market data. Results of the empirical analysis confirm the usefulness of the proposed method.

Keywords: Empirical Bayes, Hazard term structure, Loss given default.

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Authors: Chang-Guk Sun, Jin-Soo Shin

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In this study, an inland metropolitan area, Gwangju, in Korea was selected to assess the amplification potential of earthquake motion and provide the information for regional seismic countermeasure. A geographic information system-based expert system was implemented for reliably predicting the spatial geotechnical layers in the entire region of interesting by building a geo-knowledge database. Particularly, the database consists of the existing boring data gathered from the prior geotechnical projects and the surface geo-knowledge data acquired from the site visit. For practical application of the geo-knowledge database to estimate the earthquake hazard potential related to site amplification effects at the study area, seismic zoning maps on geotechnical parameters, such as the bedrock depth and the site period, were created within GIS framework. In addition, seismic zonation of site classification was also performed to determine the site amplification coefficients for seismic design at any site in the study area. KeywordsEarthquake hazard, geo-knowledge, geographic information system, seismic zonation, site period.

Keywords: Earthquake hazard, geo-knowledge, geographic information system, seismic zonation, site period.

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Authors: I. Grigoratos, R. Monteiro

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Regions with a significant percentage of non-seismically designed buildings and reduced urban planning are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards. In this context, the project ‘Improved Tools for Disaster Risk Mitigation in Algeria’ (ITERATE) aims at seismic risk mitigation in Algeria. Past earthquakes in North Algeria caused extensive damages, e.g. the El Asnam 1980 moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1 and Boumerdes 2003 Mw 6.8 earthquakes. This paper will address a number of proposed developments and considerations made towards a further improvement of the component of seismic hazard. In specific, an updated earthquake catalog (until year 2018) is compiled, and new conversion equations to moment magnitude are introduced. Furthermore, a network-based method for the estimation of the spatial and temporal distribution of the minimum magnitude of completeness is applied. We found relatively large values for M_c, due to the sparse network, and a nonlinear trend between M_w and body wave (m_b) or local magnitude (M_L), which are the most common scales reported in the region. Lastly, the resulting b-value of the Gutenberg-Richter distribution is sensitive to the declustering method.

Keywords: Conversion equation, magnitude of completeness, seismic events, seismic hazard.

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Authors: Abu Bakar Sambah, Fusanori Miura

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Remote sensing image processing, spatial data analysis through GIS approach, and analytical hierarchy process were introduced in this study for assessing the vulnerability area and inundation area due to tsunami hazard in the area of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Appropriate input parameters were derived from GSI DEM data, ALOS AVNIR-2, and field data. We used the parameters of elevation, slope, shoreline distance, and vegetation density. Five classes of vulnerability were defined and weighted via pairwise comparison matrix. The assessment results described that 14.35km² of the study area was under tsunami vulnerability zone. Inundation areas are those of high and slightly high vulnerability. The farthest area reached by a tsunami was about 7.50km from the shoreline and shows that rivers act as flooding strips that transport tsunami waves into the hinterland. This study can be used for determining a priority for land-use planning in the scope of tsunami hazard risk management.

Keywords: AHP, GIS, remote sensing, tsunami vulnerability.

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Authors: I. Yakubu, D. Mireku-Gyimah, D. Asafo-Adjei

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The challenge for everyone involved in preserving the ecosystem is to find creative ways to protect and restore the remaining ecosystems while accommodating and enhancing the country social and economic well-being. Frequent fires of anthropogenic origin have been affecting the ecosystems in many countries adversely. Hence adopting ways of decision making such as Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) is appropriate since it will enhance the evaluation and analysis of fire risk and hazard of the ecosystem. In this paper, fire risk and hazard data from the West Gonja area of Ghana were used in some of the methods (Analytical Hierarchy Process, Compromise Programming, and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) for MCDM evaluation and analysis to determine the optimal weight method for fire risk and hazard. Ranking of the land cover types was carried out using; Fire Hazard, Fire Fighting Capacity and Response Risk Criteria. Pairwise comparison under Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to determine the weight of the various criteria. Weights for sub-criteria were also obtained by the pairwise comparison method. The results were optimised using GRA and Compromise Programming (CP). The results from each method, hybrid GRA and CP, were compared and it was established that all methods were satisfactory in terms of optimisation of weight. The most optimal method for spatial multicriteria evaluation was the hybrid GRA method. Thus, a hybrid AHP and GRA method is more effective method for ranking alternatives in MCDM than the hybrid AHP and CP method.

Keywords: Compromise programming, grey relational analysis, spatial multi-criteria, weight optimisation.

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Authors: Tirthankar Ghosh, Dilip Roy, Nimai Kumar Chandra

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Sometime it is difficult to determine the exact reliability for complex systems in analytical procedures. Approximate solution of this problem can be provided through discretization of random variables. In this paper we describe the usefulness of discretization of a random variable using the reversed hazard rate function of its continuous version. Discretization of the exponential distribution has been demonstrated. Applications of this approach have also been cited. Numerical calculations indicate that the proposed approach gives very good approximation of reliability of complex systems under stress-strength set-up. The performance of the proposed approach is better than the existing discrete concentration method of discretization. This approach is conceptually simple, handles analytic intractability and reduces computational time. The approach can be applied in manufacturing industries for producing high-reliable items.

Keywords: Discretization, Reversed Hazard Rate, Exponential distribution, reliability approximation, engineering item.

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Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang

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The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.

Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, sanitary sewerage, healthrisk assessment, hazard quotient, target organ-specific hazard index.

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Authors: A. Bumbová, M. Čáslavský, F. Božek, J. Dvořák, E. Bakoš

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The paper presents the case study of hazard identification and sensitivity of potential resource of emergency water supply as part of the application of methodology classifying the resources of drinking water for emergency supply of population. The case study has been carried out on a selected resource of emergency water supply in one region of the Czech Republic. The hazard identification and sensitivity of potential resource of emergency water supply is based on a unique procedure and developed general registers of selected types of hazards and sensitivities. The registers have been developed with the help of the “Fault Tree Analysis” method in combination with the “What if method”. The identified hazards for the assessed resource include hailstorms and torrential rains, drought, soil erosion, accidents of farm machinery, and agricultural production. The developed registers of hazards and vulnerabilities and a semi-quantitative assessment of hazards for individual parts of hydrological structure and technological elements of presented drilled wells are the basis for a semi-quantitative risk assessment of potential resource of emergency supply of population and the subsequent classification of such resource within the system of crisis planning.

Keywords: Hazard identification, register of hazards, sensitivity identification, register of sensitivity, emergency water supply, state of crisis, resource of emergency water supply, ground water.

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Authors: Eakarat Boonreang

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The past two decades, Thailand faced the natural disasters, for instance, Gay typhoon in 1989, tsunami in 2004, and huge flood in 2011. The disaster management in Thailand was improved both structure and mechanism for cope with the natural disaster since 2007. However, the natural disaster management in Thailand has various problems, for examples, cooperation between related an organizations have not unity, inadequate resources, the natural disaster management of public sectors not proactive, people has not awareness the risk of the natural disaster, and communities did not participate in the natural disaster management. Objective of this study is to find the methods for capacity building in the natural disaster management of Thailand. The concept and information about the capacity building and the natural disaster management of Thailand were reviewed and analyzed by classifying and organizing data. The result found that the methods for capacity building in the natural disaster management of Thailand should be consist of 1) link operation and information in the natural disaster management between nation, province, local and community levels, 2) enhance competency and resources of public sectors which relate to the natural disaster management, 3) establish proactive natural disaster management both planning and implementation, 4) decentralize the natural disaster management to local government organizations, 5) construct public awareness in the natural disaster management to community, 6) support Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) seriously, and 7) emphasis on participation in the natural disaster management of all stakeholders.

Keywords: Capacity Building, Community Based Disaster Risk Management, Natural Disaster Management, Thailand.

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Authors: Suguru Yoshioka, Seiichi Tani, Seinosuke Toda

Abstract:

In historical science and social science, the influence of natural disaster upon society is a matter of great interest. In recent years, some archives are made through many hands for natural disasters, however it is inefficiency and waste. So, we suppose a computer system to create a historical natural disaster archive. As the target of this analysis, we consider newspaper articles. The news articles are considered to be typical examples that prescribe the temporal relations of affairs for natural disaster. In order to do this analysis, we identify the occurrences in newspaper articles by some index entries, considering the affairs which are specific to natural disasters, and show the temporal relation between natural disasters. We designed and implemented the automatic system of “extraction of the occurrences of natural disaster" and “temporal relation table for natural disaster."

Keywords: Database, digital library, corpus, historical natural disaster, temporal relation

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Authors: Federico Valenzuela-Beltran, Sonia E. Ruiz, Alfredo Reyes-Salazar, Juan Bojorquez

Abstract:

A reliability-based methodology which uses structural demand hazard curves to consider the increment of the ductility demands of structures with tilting is proposed. The approach considers the effect of two orthogonal components of the ground motions as well as the influence of soil-structure interaction. The approach involves the calculation of ductility demand hazard curves for symmetric systems and, alternatively, for systems with different degrees of asymmetry. To get this objective, demand hazard curves corresponding to different global ductility demands of the systems are calculated. Next, Uniform Exceedance Rate Spectra (UERS) are developed for a specific mean annual rate of exceedance value. Ratios between UERS corresponding to asymmetric and to symmetric systems located in soft soil of the valley of Mexico are obtained. Results indicate that the ductility demands corresponding to tilted structures may be several times higher than those corresponding to symmetric structures, depending on several factors such as tilting angle and vibration period of structure and soil.

Keywords: Asymmetric yielding, tilted structures, seismic performance, structural reliability

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Authors: Jamalizadeh, M.R., Moghaddamnia, A., Piri, J., Arbabi, V., Homayounifar, M., Shahryari, A.

Abstract:

Dust storms are one of the most costly and destructive events in many desert regions. They can cause massive damages both in natural environments and human lives. This paper is aimed at presenting a preliminary study on dust storms, as a major natural hazard in arid and semi-arid regions. As a case study, dust storm events occurred in Zabol city located in Sistan Region of Iran was analyzed to diagnose and predict dust storms. The identification and prediction of dust storm events could have significant impacts on damages reduction. Present models for this purpose are complicated and not appropriate for many areas with poor-data environments. The present study explores Gamma test for identifying inputs of ANNs model, for dust storm prediction. Results indicate that more attempts must be carried out concerning dust storms identification and segregate between various dust storm types.

Keywords: Dust Storm, Gamma Test, Prediction, ANNs, Zabol.

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