Managing Compound Hazards: Impact of COVID-19 and Cases of Adaptive Governance during the 2020 Kumamoto Flood in Japan.

Takako Izumi,Sangita Das,Rajib Shaw,Miwa Abe

doi:10.3390/ijerph19031188

Abstract

Japan experienced natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic as some other countries did. Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures, including many other parts of southern Japan, experienced record-breaking heavy rain on 4th July 2020. While many countries were affected by compound hazards, some cases such as the Kumamoto flood did not cause a spike of the COVID-19 cases even after going through massive evacuation actions. This study aims to understand how COVID-19 made an impact on people’s response actions, learn the challenges and problems during the response and recovery phases, and identify any innovative actions and efforts to overcome various restrictions and challenges through a questionnaire survey and interviews with the affected people. With an increase in the risk of compound hazards, it has become important to take a new, innovative, and non-traditional approach. Proper understanding and application of adaptive governance can make it possible to come up with a solution that can work directly on the complex challenges during disasters. This study identified that a spike of COVID-19 cases after the disaster could be avoided due to various preventive measures taken at the evacuation centers. It shows that it is possible to manage compound hazard risks with effective preparedness. Furthermore, during emergencies, public-private-partnership as well as collaboration among private organizations and local business networks are extremely important. These collaborations generate a new approach, mechanism and platform to tackle unprecedented challenges.

Highlights

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralCompound hazards that combined natural hazards and the COVID-19 pandemic have had major impacts on the community and the environment, and increased the virus spread [1,2]
The online survey was conducted from March 2nd to March 11th in 2021, with the support of a survey company, to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the evacuation action taken by the residents and the change in volunteerism under the Kumamoto flood, and identify innovative response and recovery efforts taken by local communities to tackle the difficulties that they encountered during COVID-19 and the flood
The WHO [20] has pointed out that it is crucial that all preventive measures are carried out at evacuation centers, such as hand hygiene, wearing masks, The survey findings revealed that COVID-19 had a major impact on the decision to social distancing, etc

Summary

Introduction

Compound hazards that combined natural hazards and the COVID-19 pandemic have had major impacts on the community and the environment, and increased the virus spread [1,2]. As in the case of Cyclone Amphan during COVID-19, two extreme events that are not related in origin but occur simultaneously or in succession are considered compound, multiple, or concurrent hazards [5]. They have a characteristic of amplifying the with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations

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