Complex Disaster Research Articles

Efficient multi-objective path planning for complex disaster environments: hierarchical target filtering and ranking optimization strategies

Efficient multi-objective path planning for complex disaster environments: hierarchical target filtering and ranking optimization strategies

The seawall helps but—: using “material registers” to understand coastal infrastructure for disaster risk management in an island community

PurposeThis paper contributes to discourse about complex disasters by applying cultural lenses to the study of coastal infrastructure (such as seawalls and dikes), thus departing from studies that focus on characterising, assessing, and predicting the physical resilience of hard structural forms that dominate knowledge about coastal infrastructure.Design/methodology/approachThis ethnographic study nuances Philippine coastal infrastructure through examining the material registers of a seawall bordering an island inhabited by artisanal fisherfolk. By “material registers”, this research refers to the socially informed ways of regarding and constructing material configurations and how the latter are enacted and resisted. Data collection was accomplished through focus groups with community leaders, on-site and remote interviews with homeowners, and archival research to further understand the spatial and policy context of the structure.FindingsThe discussion focuses on the seawall’s three material registers (protection, fragility, and misrecognition) and reveals how infrastructure built for an island community of fisherfolk simultaneously fulfils, fails, and complicates the promise of disaster resilience.Research limitations/implicationsThis research demonstrates the potential of “material registers”, a term previously used to analyse architecture and housing, to understand the technopolitics of infrastructure and how materially informed tensions between homeowners' and state notions of infrastructure contribute to protracted experiences of disaster and coastal maladaptation.Practical implicationsThis research signposts the need for disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, and sustainable development policies that legitimize the construction of infrastructure to recognize the latter's relationship and impact on multiple sphere of coastal life, including housing and citizenship implications.Social implicationsThis research highlights how infrastructure for coastal disaster risk management implicates geographically informed power relations within a community fisherfolk and between their “small” island community and more politically and economically dominant groups.Originality/valueWhereas studies of coastal infrastructure are focused on quantitative and predictive research regarding hard structural forms in megacities, this study apprehends disaster complexity through examining the cultural and contested nature of infrastructure for coastal flood management in an island community of fisherfolk.

Police sergeants and disaster management during Australia’s Black Summer bushfire crisis

ABSTRACT The police sergeant, or equivalent supervisor, is the glue that binds police units together, assigns workloads, and distributes organisational power from ‘above’ to ensure that those in the field play fairly and by the rules. Yet very little empirical research has been undertaken to examine the work of sergeants or consider how these roles impact the ability of police and their partners to manage critical incidents, including complex disasters. Drawing on a case study of disaster policing during Australia’s Black Summer bushfires, this paper examines how police sergeants with two distinct emergency management roles leveraged their authority, relationships, and knowledge to support the effective management of this incident. Using composite accounts, it illustrates how both sergeants drew upon and adapted traditional understandings of their role to negotiate the perceived deficiencies of command-and-control and networked features of complex disaster management systems. The case studies illustrate how the officers’ positionalities (organisationally, geographically, and systemically) enhanced their sensemaking abilities during the crisis, and they utilised their recognised authority, relationships, and soft skills to inform, nudge, and influence a wide range of stakeholders. The paper reveals that police sergeants may be uniquely positioned to assist with the coordination of increasingly complex disaster management assemblages at a time when the neoliberal state’s ability to even ‘steer’ these effectively is increasingly called into question.

Factors Influencing Citizen’s Safety Consciousness for Responding to Future Disasters

In terms of future societies, the diversity and complexity of new disasters are increasing. Given physical measures cannot solely address large-scale complex disasters in the future, elevating public safety consciousness and establishing it as a core value becomes essential. This study empirically analyzed the influencing factors that contribute to the improvement of safety awareness regarding future disaster risks. Citizens' age, whether they were a disaster-vulnerable group, local safety awareness, risk awareness, whether response measures were discussed, and the level of satisfaction with disaster safety policies in the prevention and recovery stages were identified as sig nificant influencing factors. The expected results are anticipated to lay the foundation for policies and systems capable of promoting future safety consciousness.

Comprehensive Risk Assessment of Farmer Households in Flood and Earthquake Prone Areas Based on Multidimensional Information Diffusion Model

In recent years, the global practice of regional natural disaster reduction and comprehensive risk prevention has promoted the integration of multiple disciplines, and the theory and technology of comprehensive risk assessment for multiple natural disaster chains urgently need innovation. This article is based on multiple natural disaster chain scenarios and sets secondary indicators for multiple influencing factors based on the first level indicators composed of basic risk factors such as hazard factors, vulnerability of disaster bearing bodies, and disaster prevention and reduction capabilities. By using multidimensional information diffusion technology, multiple hazard factor hazard combination factors, vulnerability combination factors of disaster bearing bodies, and comprehensive disaster prevention and reduction capability combination factors reflecting various natural disaster scenarios are constructed, A household comprehensive risk assessment index system for multi-dimensional information diffusion assessment of natural disaster comprehensive risk was designed by quantifying risk factors such as the intensity of comprehensive disaster causing factors, vulnerability of disaster bearing bodies, and comprehensive disaster prevention and reduction capabilities in disaster scenarios. This paper expands the traditional information diffusion comprehensive risk assessment model, makes up for the lack of information on geographical units, establishes a multi impact factor multi dimension natural disaster risk comprehensive assessment model for multi risk factors of complex disaster scenarios with small samples, obtains the theoretical value of multi-dimensional information Diffusion model comprehensive risk assessment for complex disaster scenarios, breaks through the sample size limit of natural disaster risks, and makes up for the lack of information on small samples of small probability events, Improved the reliability and accuracy of comprehensive risk assessment for multiple natural disaster chains. Then, take the disaster scenario formed by the comprehensive risk of earthquake and flood in a place in the upper reaches of the Fujiang River basin as the analysis sample, calculate the comprehensive risk assessment value of flood and earthquake damage in the study area's micro samples (rural households in villages and towns). By comparison, it is found that the comprehensive risk value assessed by the multi-dimensional information Diffusion model has good reliability and high accuracy, which is significantly better than the traditional Kriging interpolation method and geographical weighted regression method. This article provides a comprehensive risk assessment of natural disasters at the micro household level, which can better reflect the diversity and regionality of risks, help clarify the hidden risks of rural natural disasters, and provide scientific basis for government emergency management decision-making.

Advocating integration of human responses in the flood resilience framework for inland cities of northern China

ABSTRACT Frequent urban flooding poses a predominant challenge to resilience managers and the public in inland cities. Nevertheless, various facets of the formation, development, and response to inland flooding in developing countries are still less understood. Using the statistics data of typical flood events in China, this paper examines the causes of devastation in inland areas of the north combined with a comprehensive risk assessment methodology and explores a nuanced understanding of resilience. The conclusions reveal that the inland cities of northern China are facing an imminent threat from escalating flood hazards. 11% of the flood-influenced population and 17% of the disaster-caused economic losses are concentrated in the region. Increased extreme precipitation, heightened exposure and vulnerability, and a sluggish human response to crises are main factors contributing to these complex disasters. The study also proposes a transformative flood resilience framework for inland flooding from three dimensions, emphasizing the integration of human responses. The three aspects of the framework are summarized based on the driving factors mentioned earlier and a simplified multidimensional perspective of resilient cities, reflecting the adaptive and evolutionary features of resilience. Hence, incorporating the resilience strategies to urban flood risk management is a relatively practical approach to urban flood risk management in inland regions.

Coordination and Disaster Response: A Humanitarian Organizational Network perspective in Uganda

This paper examined the relationship between humanitarian organizational network, coordination and disaster response in Uganda. Contextually, most research in the area of disaster management rotates around the entire disaster management process/stages. There is inadequate research that tends to study a single stage in the disaster management cycle especially the response stage. Additionally, there are limited studies that have been conducted in developing countries like Uganda, most studies have been and continue to be conducted in highly disaster-prepared, coordinated and developed states. The study used a cross-sectional survey design in which quantitative methods were applied. Findings indicate that coordination positively influenced disaster response. Based on the literature and findings, the study concludes that disaster response is dependent on coordination. The study recommends that responding organizations should establish clear communication channels, build trust and social capital, and ensure that there is learning and adaptation to complex disaster environments. This will lead to better coordination within the humanitarian organizational networks and in turn successful disaster response operations.

Governing complex disasters in Southeast Asia: A focus on COVID-19 management in Malaysia

PurposeThe paper aims to address the gap in literature on effective disaster governance in Southeast Asia, with a focus on COVID-19 management in Malaysia. It explores the intersection of localized hazard understandings, disaster governance and policy implications, emphasizing systemic vulnerability, resilience enhancement and improving risk communication and resource management. The goal is to offer insights and frameworks for policymakers, researchers and practitioners to navigate disaster governance complexities in Southeast Asia, marked by unique challenges and vulnerabilities.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs an analytical descriptive methodology, involving a comprehensive literature review of academic articles, official reports and case studies related to disaster governance in Malaysia. It focuses on evaluating Malaysia's disaster governance's adaptability, inclusivity and coordination, considering policy implementation, stakeholder engagement and resource allocation. This approach facilitates a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of Malaysia's strategies in integrating environmental and health disaster management systems.FindingsThe findings reveal that Malaysia's disaster governance, particularly during COVID-19, has been challenged by the need for rapid adaptation and coordination. While early lockdowns and a robust vaccination program were effective, they also highlighted issues in healthcare system capacity and socioeconomic impacts. The study emphasizes the importance of integrated, resilient disaster management strategies that consider public health, environmental risks and socio-economic factors. It underscores the need for improved stakeholder collaboration, infrastructure resilience and climate change mitigation in disaster governance.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited by a lack of specific data on Malaysia's unique socio-cultural, economic and political dynamics in disaster response. This gap hinders the development of nuanced, context-specific policies and practices for effective disaster governance, emphasizing the need for more region-focused studies.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the need for Malaysia to develop more resilient, integrated disaster governance frameworks, emphasizing local community empowerment, sustainable infrastructure and climate change mitigation. It calls for enhanced regional cooperation in Southeast Asia for effective disaster preparedness and response.Social implicationsThe research suggests that disaster governance should prioritize social resilience and inclusivity, addressing the varying impacts on different societal segments. Emphasis on mental health, community engagement and equitable resource distribution is vital for comprehensive disaster management and societal well-being in Southeast Asia.Originality/valueThis paper uniquely contributes to the understanding of disaster governance in Southeast Asia by combining empirical research and systematic reviews focused on Malaysia. It offers a novel perspective on integrating environmental and health disaster management, highlighting systemic vulnerabilities and resilience strategies. The study's value lies in its emphasis on the region's unique challenges, providing valuable insights for policymakers, researchers and practitioners in developing effective, context-specific disaster governance frameworks in Southeast Asia.

The difficulty of nuclear emergency prevention measures during natural disasters: ongoing challenges in Japan

It is crucial to anticipate nuclear emergency scenarios and implement effective measures. Japan’s climate and topography make it vulnerable to natural disasters; thus, it is necessary to address compounding and cascading disaster scenarios involving the simultaneous occurrence of natural and nuclear disasters. On 1 January 2024, an earthquake hit the Noto region of Ishikawa Prefecture, resulting in damage to the area around the Shika Nuclear Power Plant, located 90 km from the epicenter. This earthquake revealed that, in the event of a complex disaster, it is possible that residents living within 30 km of the Shika Nuclear Power Plant will be completely unprepared for a nuclear disaster. In the event of a complex disaster, it is crucial to implement appropriate countermeasures while balancing responses to both nuclear and natural disasters and optimizing radiation disaster prevention measures.

Uncertainty in Forest Fire Management

In forest fire management, uncertainties are inherent. One major challenge for forest fire managers is the uncertainty of whether a fire will start at all, where, when and with what effect. In particular, human negligence and arson are unforeseeable. This research focuses on these uncertainties affecting the preparatory practices of forest fire managers in Brandenburg, Germany, and how they are anticipated and dealt with. Qualitative content analysis of expert interviews and focus group discussions generate in-depth insights into the role of uncertainties in the prevention phase and during the control of the event. Findings shows that uncertainties pose barriers to preparatory action. Coping mechanisms rely on individual sensemaking that are in turn influenced by one’s role, knowledge and experience as well as organizational habits and values. Analysis of German firefighters’ perceptions of and coping with uncertainty shows that practices of imagination help to anticipate uncertain futures and to cope with dynamic, complex disasters.

Awareness of disaster preparedness between administrative staff and residents in the vicinity of the Genkai and Ikata nuclear power plants following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster.

When considering disaster preparedness, one challenge is mitigating the health impacts of evacuations. Nuclear disaster preparedness has evolved based on past experiences from numerous disasters, including the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident. However, there is a lack of comprehensive reporting on the awareness of administrative staff, medical personnel, and residents in the areas surrounding nuclear power plants (NPPs). This study reports on a survey aimed at gaining insights into the understanding and current state of disaster preparedness and elucidating the differences in perceptions of nuclear disaster preparedness among the relevant stakeholders surrounding NPPs. Interview surveys were conducted from 14 to 16 September 2022 in the area surrounding Kyushu Electric Power's Genkai NPP in Saga Prefecture and from 11 to 13 January 2023 in the area around Shikoku Electric Power's Ikata NPP. The surveys targeted administrative, medical, and nursing care facilities and residents. Responses from 57 participants indicated a lack of awareness of natural and nuclear disasters, challenges in evacuation planning, and a gap between nuclear disaster training and residents' understanding of evacuation protocols. This study highlights inadequacies in nuclear disaster preparedness and the need for a better understanding among residents regarding evacuation procedures. This study identified three key issues: (1) a lack of awareness about disasters, including nuclear disasters; (2) concerns about complex disasters and the difficulties in creating evacuation plans; and (3) a discrepancy between nuclear disaster training and residents' understanding of evacuation procedures. To bridge this gap, it is important to deepen residents' understanding of nuclear disasters, continuously convey the lessons learned from the FDNPP accident, and regularly reassess and update nuclear disaster preparedness strategies.

Developing Complex Disaster Response Scenarios Using Social Network Analysis

Given the escalating frequency and severity of complex disasters, it is imperative to transition from isolated disaster-specific systems to integrated disaster response frameworks. The development of complex disaster scenarios represents a crucial initial step, facilitating an in-depth comprehension of extant vulnerabilities and the forecasting of prospective challenges. This study reinterprets individual disasters that occurred within the same spatiotemporal domain as complex disasters. Complex spatiotemporal disaster clusters were explored, a social network analysis on individual disasters within these identified clusters was performed, and a regional disaster response scenario was proposed. This approach, which integrates spatiotemporal disaster big data with social network analysis, enables statistical measurement of inter-disaster relationships. Visual representations of these relationships through network graphs offer a quantitative lens to analyze relationships that may be difficult to describe narratively. Developing such scenarios facilitates a clear and swift understanding of the relational dynamics among disasters, particularly in situations where there is an inadequate policy and institutional framework for responding to complex disasters.

A dynamic exploratory hybrid modelling framework for simulating complex and uncertain system

Complex disaster systems involve various components and mechanisms that could interact in complex ways and change over time, leading to significant deep uncertainty. Due to deep uncertainty, decision-makers have severe inadequacy of knowledge and often encounter unpredictable surprises that may emerge in the future, thus making it difficult to specify appropriate models and parameters to describe the system of interest. In this paper, we propose a dynamic exploratory hybrid modeling framework that fits data, models, and computational experiments together to simulate complex systems with deep uncertainty. In the framework, one needs to develop multiple plausible models from a hybrid modeling perspective and perform enormous computational experiments to explore the diversity of future scenarios. Real-time data is then incorporated into diverse forecasts to dynamically adjust the simulation system. This ultimately enables an ongoing modeling and analysis process in which deep uncertainty would be gradually mitigated. Our approach has been applied to a human-involved car-following system simulation under complex traffic conditions. The results show that the proposed approach can improve the prediction accuracy while enhancing the sensitivity of the simulation system to uncertain changes in the system of interest.

Inferring cascading effects of natural and built environments failures from social media videos in disasters

The objective of this study is to infer the cascading effects between disruptive events in disasters using content coding and imagery representation techniques on social media videos. It is well recognized that disaster events are cascading due to the dynamic interactions between natural and built environments. Understanding why and how the failures of natural and built environments such as road and vehicle damages cascade is critical for retrospective investigation and disaster adaptation. Social media provides high-volume and real-time data, which has been broadly used in disaster management. What's more, the immense availability of social media videos, which record the facts of disaster events with high spatial and temporal resolutions, provides a unique opportunity to review and uncover the cascading process in disasters. Here, we propose an analytical method from two theoretical perspectives: content understanding and the philosophy of cascading effects. First, we establish a content classification system to code social media videos with respect to specific disaster events. Then, an imagery representation approach is developed to capture the cascading effects based on the observed relations from the social media videos. To examine the application of these methods and to derive new insights for the cascading effects, we leverage empirical social media video data collected from Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging platform, during Typhoon Lekima. The coding results show that social media videos contain a wealth of information regarding disaster impacts, enabling us to unveil the occurrences and processes of the natural and built environment failures. By establishing cascading relations among disaster failures, we can present a whole picture of the complex disaster events induced by typhoons. The proposed method and findings of this study can contribute to not only computational modeling of cascading failures within natural and built environment, but also informing the design and planning of cities in adapting to future disasters.

재난 위험 및 자원 운영·관리 시스템

In this study, we present a disaster situation and response resource management system. This system aims to proactively prepare for and respond to both single and complex disaster scenarios within a city. Additionally, we propose strategies for the effective operation of such resource management systems during emergencies. Notably, we leverage blockchain technology to enhance the transparency of disaster management resource operations and the overall system. While our research successfully designed and developed a disaster resource management system using 4th industrial revolution technologies, practical considerations remain. This process is critical not only for the secure operation of disaster management resources but also for the overall usability of the prototype system, especially when integrating it with government departments and management agencies. The feasibility of blockchain implementation in this context needs further review and evaluation. Future studies will focus on refining the prototype system to enhance its performance and ultimately create a practical solution for real-world disaster response.

Resilience in complex disasters: Florida's hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery amid COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic and active hurricane seasons posed complex challenges for coastal communities, requiring innovative and adaptive emergency management approaches. Using in-depth interviews with Florida emergency management professionals, this study examines emerging challenges and strategies implemented by governmental and nonprofit agencies during the hurricane-pandemic compound disasters of the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons. Our findings reveal the interconnectedness of challenges across different disasters and their interplay with existing vulnerabilities. We find that social distancing due to COVID-19 strained human and financial resources for hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery. Moreover, the increased remote work due to COVID-19 increased reliance on information communication technologies (ICTs), which intensified the negative impacts of the existing urban-rural digital divide in Florida. These ICT challenges impeded inter-agency collaboration and external funding for rural communities, further amplifying disparities in hurricane response and recovery. Our study also uncovers multifaceted strategies addressing competing priorities between hurricane evacuation and COVID-19 prevention, resource limitations, information and communication gaps, and collaboration challenges. These insights provide practical guidance to coastal communities to enhance future preparedness and response efforts in hurricane-pandemic compounding disasters.

County-Level Flash Flood Warning Framework Coupled with Disaster-Causing Mechanism

Climate change has intensified the risk of extreme precipitation, while mountainous areas are constrained by complex disaster mechanisms and difficulties in data acquisition, making it challenging for existing critical rainfall threshold accuracy to meet practical needs. Therefore, this study focuses on Yunnan Province as the research area. Based on historical flash flood events, and combining remote sensing data and measured data, 12 causative factors are selected from four aspects: terrain and landforms, land use, meteorology and hydrology, and population and economy. A combined qualitative and quantitative method is employed to analyze the relationship between flash floods and triggering factors, and to calibrate the parameters of the RTI (Rainfall Threshold Index) model. Meanwhile, machine learning is introduced to quantify the contribution of different causative factors and identify key causative factors of flash floods. Based on this, a parameter η coupling the causative mechanism is proposed to optimize the RTI method, and develop a framework for calculating county-level critical rainfall thresholds. The results show that: (1) Extreme rainfall, elevation, slope, and other factors are direct triggers of flash floods, and the high-risk areas for flash floods are mainly concentrated in the northeast and southeast of Yunnan Province. (2) The intraday rainfall has the highest correlation with the accumulated rainfall of the previous ten days; the critical cumulative rainfall ranges from 50 mm to 400 mm. (3) The county-level critical rainfall threshold for Yunnan Province is relatively accurate. These findings will provide theoretical references for improving flash flood early warning methods.

Dynamic Simulation of the Probable Propagation of a Disaster in an Engineering System Using a Scenario-Based Hybrid Network Model

With the growing threat of worldwide natural disasters, the safety status of the engineering system is facing serious uncertainties. A small disturbance can cause unexpected serious losses through amplification effects of the fragile environment and unwanted interactions of system elements. The safety status of the disrupted engineering system is subject to profound uncertainty and cognitive ambiguity, which is an impediment to emergency simulation decision making. To analyze the likely future under profound uncertainty, this article develops a scenario-based method to simulate the dynamic evolution process of complex disasters for the engineering system. The complex chain of disasters is segmented into a set of correlated scenarios, and the cascading effects between these scenarios are modeled according to the risk−propagation−consequences process. We applied this method to a mega rail transportation project and established a disaster evolution network in an attempt to traverse all possible future scenarios during operation. The Monte Carlo simulations made it possible to assess the disastrous consequences of the various disturbances and to identify the most vulnerable nodes. This model is expected to reduce uncertainty and provide key information for emergency decision making within the engineering system project.

Characteristics of strata movement and method for runoff disaster management for shallow multiseam mining in gully regions: A case study

Multiseam mining in gully regions has resulted in severe and complex disaster chains, including crack development, mountain landslides, river blockage, and intensified mine water inflow. To prevent and control water inrush disasters, it is imperative to investigate the characteristics and mechanizations of overburden failure under the combined effect of gully terrain and repeated mining in coal seams. This study takes multiseam mining within the gully region of the Xiqu Coal Mine as a case study. The comprehensive analytical method that integrates surface exploration, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurement, numerical simulation, and rainfall-runoff analysis, is used to anatomize the entire process of overburden failure induced by downward multiseam mining and the accumulation process of runoff in the gully region. The results reveal that compared to single-seam mining activities, repeated mining and the occurrence of key stratum (KS) structure failure triggered the comprehensive subsidence of the interburden, producing a cutting-type fracture and stepped subsidence, while the overburden exhibited severe damage. Compared to gentle surface topography, gully slopes are prone to shear sliding under the effects of mining subsidence and gravity, resulting in the connection of the downward cracks of the slope and the upward cracks of the overburden. In addition, if the accumulation formed by gully landslides due to repeated mining blocks the river channel and forms a barrier lake during the flood season, it may cause a surge in underground water. High-precision terrain synthesized by UAV tilt photogrammetry is used to simulate the rainfall inundation range and time of different durations during the “100-year return period” rainstorm in the study area. This study proposes a zoning prevention and control method for surface runoff disasters based upon the characteristics of surface deformation and surface inundation time; this method involves filling surface cracks in runoff areas and submerged and crack development areas, implementing slope cutting and control in potential landslide areas, and strengthening the riverbed in submerged and maximum settlement areas.

Study on Estimation of Typhoon Damage Thresholds in Coastal Region

Typhoon damage in coastal areas is a complex disaster characterized by heavy rain, strong winds, and turbulent waves. The strength of these strong winds and waves is determined by the intensity of the typhoon. In this study, a variable representing strong winds and waves was developed. A damage prediction model using rainfall, wind, and the developed variable was then proposed and thresholds for each variable were calculated across cities, counties, and districts located in coastal areas. Two damage prediction models were compared based on variables. Standard normal variables related to strong winds and rainfall by duration were calculated using Empirical Copula. The first logistic regression model was constructed using these variables. The second model used a multiple logistic regression model, considering strong winds and rainfall by duration. Although there are more cities, counties, and districts where the multiple logistic regression model exhibited better accuracy, there have been several instances where the typhoon damage induction threshold suggested by this model was abnormal. On the other hand, a relatively stable critical value was yielded using standard normal variables by Empirical Copula. This is because standard normal variables are calculated based on the probability according to the order of rainfall and strong wind magnitude. Hence, the critical value falls within the minimum and maximum range of observed values. According to the research results, it is possible to predict whether typhoon damage will occur in cities, counties, and districts located in coastal areas using the typhoon information provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration during a typhoon event, which can aid in preparing for typhoon disasters.