Anthropogenic Hazards Research Articles

Assessment of the Environmental Consequences Caused by Endogenous and Anthropogenic Hazards for the Azov Recreation Area

The Russian sector of the Azov recreational area is under the influence of numerous pollution sources of anthropogenic or natural origin. To ensure a comfortable recreation and recovery of the population, it is necessary to apply methods of integrated system monitoring, which makes it possible to identify patterns of the pollution formation in heterogeneous areas of the territory and places of increased environmental risk. Mathematical and simulation modelling should be an integral part of such systems, as a tool for scenario analysis, forecasting and warning. The paper proposes cellular automaton modelling methods, which have the advantages of expressivity, which allows for expansion of the possibilities for studying complex physicochemical processes and phenomena associated with the migration and transformation of reagents in the atmosphere and in the aquatic environment. The method is implemented in the form of a software application. We also present the results of the simulation of diffusion process and two substances - products of combustion in a fire with a point localization of epicentres; independent dispersion and interaction of light fractions of emission products upon activation of a land volcano and heavy fractions of mud volcano breccias of an underwater mud volcano.

Private Security Preparedness for Disasters Caused by Natural and Anthropogenic Hazards

The subject of the research is to examine the private security preparedness for disasters caused by natural and anthropogenic hazards. In addition, the relationship between preparedness levels and various demographic and socio-economic factors is examined. The survey was anonymous with 4-point Likert scale questions (1- I absolutely disagree; 4- I absolutely agree). It was conducted at the University of Criminal Investigation and Police Studies in Belgrade, during the initial course for obtaining a private security license and the course for combating domestic violence were attended by members of the police from all over Serbia. Data for the study were collected from a total of 178 members of private security. The research was conducted from April to June 2019. Within the first part of the questionnaire, there were questions concerning demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents (gender, age, education, marital status, working experience, served military status), while the second part contained questions about the p the private security preparedness for disasters caused by natural and anthropogenic hazards (e.g perception of the degree of responsibility due to the type of work performed in case of natural and anthropogenic disasters, perception of the level of preparedness of a private insurance company, knowledge of safety procedures for disaster response, evaluation of the response efficiency of first responders, etc.). The results of the multivariate regressions of preparedness subscale showed that variables (e.g., gender, age, education, marital status) were not significantly affected by preparedness.

Contribution to the Knowledge of the Phytocenotic Diversity of the Lesser Antilles Revisiting Some Old and More Recent Floristic Data

The complex structure of the abiotic factors in the Lesser Antilles leads to singular vegetation ranging from the dry to the humid. Geomorphology by means of the wide variety of topographic facets is the determining parameter which leads to gradients of mesological factors. Among the latter, both on the windward and leeward facades, the precipitation is distinguished by bioclimatic staging associated with plant stagings which consist of a mosaic of phytocenoses of variable sizes, ages, floristic compositions and structures as well as of different architecture. Based on examples of old and recent floristic surveys by authors which indicate ecotones, types and inversions of vegetation, we have shown the great phytocenotic diversity of the plant cover in the Lesser Antilles which are all biosystemic responses to the effects of natural and anthropogenic hazards. Thanks to this significant ecosystemic plasticity, the Lesser Antilles represent veritable laboratories for autoecological and synecological studies as well as of floristic succession.

Evolution of an Estuarine Island in the Anthropocene: Complex Dynamics of Chongming Island, Shanghai, P.R. China

Islands are known to be vulnerable to many natural and anthropogenic hazards, especially estuarine islands, which are affected at rates and intensities above those found elsewhere around the globe. The sustainable development of estuarine islands has been a part of their evolution, which has been a continuous integration of human impact and response to natural processes. This study reviews the complex dynamics of Chongming Island, an estuarine island in Shanghai, with an emphasis on the nature of human intervention. We conclude that the island is an example of a coupled human-environment system, as it has been throughout its formation and evolution, which is integrated at the local (intracoupled), regional (pericoupled), and global (telecoupled) scale. This conceptual framework reveals Chongming Island to be an exemplar of—and indeed a test-case for—China’s vision of eco-civilization development, in which it is reimagined as an ‘eco-island’. Accordingly, we argue that islands are benchmarks for building sustainability in the Anthropocene, and a more complete understanding of their dynamics, and the factors that influence them in a metacoupled world, is critical for future development.

Acoustic deterrents to manage fish populations

Finding effective ways to direct native fish away from anthropogenic hazards and limit the spread of invasive species, without physical intervention, harming non-target fishes or interrupting aquatic commerce is a major challenge for fisheries management. One option is to target fish sensory systems to manipulate behavior using attractive or repulsive cues. Many, if not all species of fish, use sound as part of their behavioral repertoire and display varying degrees of phonotaxis. Sound has inherent advantages over other sensory stimuli such as light or odor as underwater sound attenuates slowly, is highly directional and is unimpeded by low light or water turbidity. This review details the use of acoustics to deter and guide fish movements for a wide variety of fishes, before critically assessing the benefits and limitations of the technology. No single method of fish deterrence is a “one size fits all”, and therefore this review will assist both managers and researchers attempting to use acoustic deterrents for different fish orders.

A ground-up approach to estimate the likelihood of business interruption

Critical infrastructure (such as transportation, water, electric power, wastewater, and telecommunications) provides the conveyance of goods, services, and resources to communities, which are vital for economic activities. Buildings, bridges, and other structures and components of the infrastructure might be subject to natural and anthropogenic hazards, which may lead to a reduction or loss of functionality of infrastructure. Businesses may experience disruptions because of (i) direct damage to the business properties and facilities, (ii) reduction or loss of functionality of the supporting critical infrastructure, or (iii) impact on social systems affecting the availability of the workforce at a specific business and supporting businesses as well as customers. Current approaches do not model the functionality of business properties and supporting infrastructure, generally obtaining only empirical estimates of business interruption losses. Such predictions might not be applicable to different businesses, supporting infrastructure, social systems, locations, and hazards; and they would in general not reflect possible changes in the built environment due to mitigation strategies and interventions. This paper proposes a mathematical formulation that overcomes the limitations in the current approaches. The proposed formulation models and quantifies the likelihood of business interruption with a ground-up approach by incorporating the dependency of business operations on physical structures, infrastructure and social systems. The paper illustrates the proposed formulation by investigating the business interruption of an example food retail store in Seaside, Oregon subject to a seismic hazard.

Modeling 3D Free-geometry Volumetric Sources Associated to Geological and Anthropogenic Hazards from Space and Terrestrial Geodetic Data

Recent decades have shown an explosion in the quantity and quality of geodetic data, mainly space-based geodetic data, that are being applied to geological and anthropogenic hazards. This has produced the need for new approaches for analyzing, modeling and interpreting these geodetic data. Typically, modeling of deformation and gravity changes follows an inverse approach using analytical or numerical solutions, where normally regular geometries (point sources, disks, prolate or oblate spheroids, etc.) are assumed at the initial stages and the inversion is carried out in a linear context. Here we review an original methodology for the simultaneous, nonlinear inversion of gravity changes and/or surface deformation (measured with different techniques) to determine 3D (three-dimensional) bodies, without any a priori assumption about their geometries, embedded into an elastic or poroelastic medium. Such a fully nonlinear inversion has led to interesting results in volcanic environments and in the study of water tables variation due to its exploitation. This methodology can be used to invert geodetic remote sensing data or terrestrial data alone, or in combination.

The System Approach and Problems of Modeling Natural-Technogenic Safety

The paper substantiates the necessity of using the system analysis as an effective tool for studying security problems, in particular the problems of ensuring natural and man-made safety, in the study of natural and anthropogenic threats. The article shows the interrelation and interdependence of natural and man-made safety factors, which is confirmed at the fundamental level today. The article identifies the main types of natural- anthropogenic hazards, such as those of natural, man-made, social character. To study the problems of natural and man-made safety, the model of an ecological-technogenic system is proposed, which adequately reflects the main processes that determine the problems of natural and man-made safety; the specificity of the system approach to problems of natural and man-made safety is determined. This model allows us to classify the risks of the complex system operation. The article, using the methodology of system analysis, highlights the most important methodological principles to be followed when exploring ecological and man-made systems as well. They are: the principle of optimal simplicity, the principle of social responsibility, the principle of interdisciplinarity of the ecological-technogenic system, the principle of objectivity, the principle of hierarchy of goals, the principle of values and “economic realism”, the principle of analysing of constantly developing systems, the principle of system synthesis. The author formulates the main stages of the system analysis of natural and technological safety problems. The author concludes that developing the fundamentals of risk-based analysis of emergency situation consequences requires a special attention.

Risk perception in the population living near the Turin municipal solid waste incineration plant: survey results before start-up and communication strategies

BackgroundThe start-up of the Turin municipal solid waste incineration plant (2013) was accompanied by surveillance of health effects, which included a human biomonitoring campaign. Here we present the results of the risk perception survey of local residents before the plant went into operation.MethodsThe survey sample was 394 local residents: 198 residing near the plant (exposed group) and 196 residing in an area distant from the plant site (unexposed group). The survey questionnaire investigated awareness of environmental and health issues, including a section on the perception of environmental health risks. Multivariate Poisson regressions were performed to determine the differences in risk perception between the two groups (exposed vs. unexposed).ResultsThe exposed group was more concerned about natural hazards (prevalence ratio [PR] 1.61; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99–2.61), anthropogenic hazards (PR 1.35; 95% CI 1.03–1.77), and waste management (PR 1.19; 95% CI 0.94–1.50). There were no significant differences in opinions about environmental pollution-related diseases between the two groups, though the exposed considered themselves to be at risk for developing these diseases. The survey population placed its trust more in health care providers than in any other category.ConclusionsThe risk perception survey questionnaire yielded data that enabled a better understanding and interpretation of the social context: residents living near the incineration plant were more concerned than those living distant from it, especially about anthropogenic hazards. This information was subsequently incorporated into the design the communication tools.

ANALYSIS OF MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS RESULTING TO NATURAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC HAZARD

Exposure to traumatic stressors and subsequent trauma-related to mental changes may alter a person’s risk-taking behaviour. It is still unclear whether this relationship depends on the specific types of traumatic experiences. Moreover, the association has never been studied in displaced individuals with substantial levels of traumatic experiences. The study determined the factors that could motivate the heterogeneous displaced individual to mal-adaptive behaviours and aimed to analyse the traumatized and displaced individuals having mal-adaptive manifestation. The researcher determined the causes of these maladaptive behaviours and its physical responses exhibited by no less than the respondents who experienced the traumatic events brought about by natural and anthropogenic hazards. This study employed quantitative methods which emphasized on the objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data that was collected through surveys. Computational techniques were used in determining their mal-adaptive behaviours using the Likert scale. The researcher’s divided the forty (40) individuals which was the subject of the study into two groups. The result showed that the data with the Probability of 0.3 showed using drugs was consistently dominated by the behaviour in Probability (0.1) who are making up excuses as they did not finish the school work and Probability (0.2) which is avoiding conversations with other students. This was probably associated with Internally Displaced Persons curiosity and social media influences. It also showed that the mal-adaptive behaviours exhibit by the respondents was associated by their experiences during traumatic events such as typhoon and or fire hazard.

Modeling fall migration pathways and spatially identifying potential migratory hazards for the eastern monarch butterfly

Identifying core migratory pathways and associated threats is important for developing conservation priorities for declining migratory species, such as eastern monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus L.). Characterization of monarch fall migration core pathways and annual variability was compared using kernel density estimation models (KDEMs) and MaxEnt ecological niche models. Potential anthropogenic hazards were identified across migratory pathways and related to conservation strategies. Journey North citizen scientist monarch overnight roost data from 2002 to 2016 were used to model the fall migration at 10 km spatial resolution with MaxEnt and KDEMs. Potential anthropogenic threats to the fall migration were spatially identified along core migratory routes. The KDEM migratory pathways best represented patterns of monarch movement towards overwintering locations. Migratory routes varied as much as 200 km from east to west in the southern Central Flyway, which was also the only area identified with monarch roadkill hotspots. Potential threats from mosquito adulticide ultra-low volume (ULV) spraying were concentrated along Eastern Flyway coastal areas. Potential nectar resource loss or contamination from high usage of glyphosate herbicide and neonicotinoid insecticides was greatest in the Midwest, within the core route of the Central Flyway. MaxEnt and KDEM were complementary in modeling monarch migratory pathways. Monarch roadkill estimation and mitigation strategies are most needed in the southern core migratory pathways through Texas and Mexico. High quality nectar resource enhancement could help to mitigate potential threats from mosquito ULV spraying and nectar resource loss or contamination in coastal areas and the Midwest, respectively.

Impacts of maternal characteristics and temperature on juvenile survival in the crocodile lizard: Implications for conservation.

Captive breeding is an important conservation measure that may restore and enhance wild populations of rare and endangered species. Multiple anthropogenic hazards have brought the crocodile lizard, Shinisaurus crocodilurus, to the brink of extinction. We initiated a captive breeding program and quantified female reproductive traits, including reproductive timing, litter size, litter mass, and neonate size. To identify the internal and external factors affecting female reproductive function, we then analyzed how maternal age is related to body size, temperature, and female reproductive traits. We found that larger female crocodile lizards produced more offspring than smaller ones, as both litter size and litter mass were positively related to maternal body size. In contrast, neonate size was independent of maternal body size. Maternal reproductive output varied among different age groups. Young and old females had significantly smaller living litter size and mass than middle-aged females. Among captive females, one-third exhibited early parturition in autumn and winter instead of the following spring, a pattern probably associated with higher ambient temperatures in captivity. Although female reproductive output and neonatal body size did not differ between early- and normal-parturition females, offspring from the former group died earlier than those from the latter. Our study highlights the danger of climate change in hastening parturition, a phenomenon that could significantly hamper neonate survival and impede population recruitment.

Saviour: Disaster Management and Monitoring Utility

Every year, human-induced disasters result in infrastructural damages, monetary costs, distresses, injuries, and deaths. Anthropogenic hazards are hazards caused by human intervention. They are in contrast to natural hazards, and they may adversely affect humans and other organisms. They may also disrupt the working of ecosystem. In this context, Machine learning based disaster detection and management systems have been proposed to cope with disasters and emergencies by improving the disaster detection, search and rescue missions during disaster response. Crowdsourcing and Twitter sentiments are use for collecting disaster related information. This information is process by ML for disaster detection. Further process is related with disaster management. “Saviour” have collaboration with all emergency services. These services become available as fast as possible.

Validation of an agent-based building evacuation model with a school drill

An effective evacuation of buildings is critical to minimize casualties due to natural or anthropogenic hazards. Building evacuation models help in preparing for future events and shed light on possible shortcomings of current evacuation designs. However, such models are seldom compared or validated with real evacuations, which is a critical step in assessing their predictive capacities. This research focuses on the evacuation of a K-12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) school located within the tsunami inundation zone of Iquique, Chile. An agent-based evacuation model was developed to simulate the evacuation of approximately 1500 children and staff from the school during a global evacuation drill carried out for the entire city. The model simulates the motions of heterogeneous human agents, and the simulations were validated using video analysis of the real event. Resulting error estimations between predicted versus measured flow rates and evacuation times are 13.5% and 5.9%, respectively. The good agreement between the simulated and measured values can be attributed to the known distribution of students and staff at the start of the drill, and their known exposure to emergency preparedness protocols. However, the results presented herein show that this mathematical evacuation model can be used for logistical changes in the emergency planning.

Countries' classification by environmental resilience

Rapid population growth, urbanization, and industrialization affect countries' vulnerability to future disasters. This study investigates the vulnerability of 141 countries to natural and anthropogenic hazards using six environmental indicators including air pollution, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, access to drinking water, access to improved sanitation, environmental risks (total death and affected people), and energy use. Results confirm that the resilience varies by the location. Furthermore, this work delineates the World countries using the environmental resilience score. The most resilient countries are located in Europe and North America and the least resilient countries are in Africa and Asia. Based on the results, Estonia and Ethiopia are the most and the least resilient countries, respectively. Integrated results can highlight resilient cities as a guide for other regions.

Post‐independence mortality of juveniles is driven by anthropogenic hazards for two passerines in an urban landscape

Urban environments impose novel selection pressures with varying impacts across species and life history stages. The post‐fledging stage for migratory passerines, defined as the period of time from when hatch‐year birds fledge until their first migration, is a poorly understood component of annual productivity that potentially limits population growth. We studied two migratory passerines with positive and negative population responses to urbanization, respectively: gray catbird Dumetella carolinensis and wood thrush Hylocichla mustelina. Our goals were to estimate post‐fledging survival rates for urban bird populations and determine which features of the urban landscape impact mortality risk during the post‐fledging stage. From 2012–2014, we tracked 127 fledglings (60 gray catbirds and 67 wood thrushes). Over 55 d after fledging, cumulative survival of gray catbirds (0.32 [95% CI: 0.22–0.47]) was approximately half that of wood thrushes (0.63 [95% CI: 0.52–0.75]). Thus, survival rates during the post‐fledging stage, taken in isolation, do not explain differential trajectories of gray catbird and wood thrush populations in urban environments. Most mortality (86%) for both species was due to predation. However, after reaching independence from parental care, 6 birds (9.4% of mortalities) died of anthropogenic causes (e.g. building, car strikes). Crossing roads significantly increased mortality risk, but increasing daily movement distance decreased mortality risk. Our results raise the question of whether anthropogenic sources of mortality are compensatory or additive to natural mortality; we emphasize the need to monitor fledgling survival beyond the parental‐dependence stage in order to fully understand the impacts of anthropogenic hazards on juvenile birds.

Progress on integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction for sustainable development pathways in South Asia: Evidence from six research projects

Due to natural vulnerabilities and human factors, losses and damages from natural disasters continue to rise in South Asia. There is also growing evidence for links between climate change and disaster risks. In response, there have been calls for bringing together climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy development, in order to address the risks efficiently and to promote sustainable development pathways. However, progress toward such convergence in the policy arena has been uneven. We report on a group of six research projects awarded in three countries of South Asia to examine progress, research needs and potential mechanisms for improving implementation of CCA and DRR. Some significant localized improvements in CCA-DRR were generated, primarily through facilitating communication across administrative scales and with local communities. We observed a common tendency toward weak institutional coordination between agencies charged with disaster response and those charged with climate change planning (as well as development planning more broadly). The idea that sustainable development requires addressing combined natural and anthropogenic hazards does not yet appear to have penetrated to the institutional levels where disaster response planning commonly takes place. We close by identifying further knowledge needs and proposing recommendations for steps toward convergence of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

Detection and Analysis of Spikes in a Random Sequence

Motivated by the more frequent natural and anthropogenic hazards, we revisit the problem of assessing whether an apparent temporal clustering in a sequence of randomly occurring events is a genuine surprise and should call for an examination. We study the problem in both discrete and continuous time formulation. In the discrete formulation, the problem reduces to deriving the probability that p independent people all have birthdays within d days of each other. We provide an analytical expression for a warning limit such that if a subset of p people among n are observed to have birthdays within d days of each other and d is smaller than our warning limit, then it should be treated as a surprising cluster. In the continuous time framework, three different sets of results are given. First, we provide an asymptotic analysis of the problem by embedding it into an extreme value problem for high order spacings of iid samples from the U[0, 1] density. Second, a novel analytical nonasymptotic bound is derived by using certain tools of empirical process theory. Finally, the required probability is approximated by using various bounds and asymptotic results on the supremum of the scanning process of a one dimensional stationary Poisson process. We apply the theories to climate change related datasets, datasets on temperatures, and mass shooting records in the United States. These real data applications of our theoretical methods lead to supporting evidence for climate change and recent spikes in gun violence.

TurtleCam: A “Smart” Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Investigating Behaviors and Habitats of Sea Turtles

Sea turtles inhabiting coastal environments routinely encounter anthropogenic hazards, including fisheries, vessel traffic, pollution, dredging, and drilling. To support mitigation of potential threats, it is important to understand fine-scale sea turtle behaviors in a variety of habitats. Recent advancements in autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) now make it possible to directly observe and study the subsurface behaviors and habitats of marine megafauna, including sea turtles. Here, we describe a smart AUV capability developed to study free-swimming marine animals, and demonstrate the utility of this technology in a pilot study investigating the behaviors and habitat of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea). We used a Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS (REMUS-100) AUV, designated 'TurtleCam', that was modified to locate, follow and film tagged turtles for up to 8 hours while simultaneously collecting environmental data. The TurtleCam system consists of a 100-meter depth rated vehicle outfitted with a circular Ultra-Short BaseLine receiver array for omni-directional tracking of a tagged animal via a custom transponder tag that we attached to the turtle with two suction cups. The AUV collects video with six high-definition cameras (five mounted in the vehicle nose and one mounted aft) and we added a camera to the animal-borne transponder tag to record behavior from the turtle's perspective. Since behavior is likely a response to habitat factors, we collected concurrent in situ oceanographic data (bathymetry, temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a, turbidity, currents) along the turtle's track. We tested the TurtleCam system during 2016 and 2017 in a densely populated coastal region off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, where foraging leatherbacks overlap with fixed fishing gear and concentrated commercial and recreational vessel traffic. Here we present example data from one leatherback turtle to demonstrate the utility of TurtleCam. The concurrent video, localization, depth and environmental data allowed us to characterize leatherback diving behavior, foraging ecology, and habitat use, and to assess how turtle behavior mediates risk to impacts from anthropogenic activities. Our study demonstrates that an AUV can successfully track and image leatherback turtles feeding in a coastal environment, resulting in novel observations of three-dimensional subsurface behaviors and habitat use, with implications for sea turtle management and conservation.

ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЕ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ ЖЕЛЕЗНОДОРОЖНЫХ ПЕРЕВОЗОК В ЗОНАХ ПРОЯВЛЕНИЯ ОПАСНЫХ ПРИРОДНЫХ ПРОЦЕССОВ

Objective: To conduct safety evaluation of urban land in the process of goods traffic by railway transport in regions with natural hazards on the basis of system approaches. Methods: During safety evaluation, modern urban areas were considered as a complex multilevel system, concentrated mainly in large water basins and characterized by the presence of the developed railway infrastructure. Results: A complex approach of determining natural and anthropogenic hazards interrelation within the limits of an urban land was introduced. By breaking the problem of natural and anthropogenic causes of contingency within the limits of an urban land, the processes and phenomena of interrelation were considered, which, in case of integrated accounting, provides an opportunity to improve the level of forecast of land resistance to hazard occurrence. Practical importance: The developed approach and calculation data make it possible on a reasonable basis, to select measures to increase resistance, to assess the necessity in efficiency improvement of hazardous processes and phenomena monitoring, as well as to restrict the use of transportation infrastructure elements.