Disaster Hit Research Articles

The Impacts of Climate Change on the Availability of Surface Water Resources in Jordan

Climate change in the Middle East area including Jordan has started to be reflected in decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures with their impacts on the availability of surface and groundwater. This article aims to evaluate the impacts of decreasing or increasing precipitation by 10% and 20% on the quantities of flood runoff based on recorded precipitation and runoffs of catchments during the past 60 to 70 years of observation, during which the precipitation in individual or a few years increased or decreased by tens of percentages relative to the long-term average precipitation. The results of quantification show that in Jordan as a whole, decreasing precipitation by 10% and 20% has historically (during the recording period) resulted in reductions in flood flows by 26.2% and 52.8% and that increasing precipitation by 10% and 20% has resulted in increases in flood flows by 26.4% and 56.5% respectively. These results look somehow paradox, because the general perception is that flood runoff changes in the same percentage like precipitation although flood flow is not linearly correlated with precipitation but exponentially. Decreasing precipitation in the water-scarce stressed country, Jordan due to climatic changes, will have strong implications on rain-fed and irrigated agriculture and on household water supplies with very severe socio-economic percussions expressed in increasing unemployment and poverty which may lead to social and political unrest. Therefore, proactive measures have to be implemented before disasters hit. Such measures are limited in Jordan to seawater desalination, intensified water harvesting and improved water use efficiency in agriculture.

The impacts of financial and non-financial crises on tourism: Evidence from Macao and Hong Kong

This study examines the negative impacts of economic crises and disasters caused by weather or diseases on inbound tourists. We use two well-known tourist cities, Macao and Hong Kong, to highlight the importance of economic variables in attracting tourists, and the significant decreases in tourists when economic crises and disaster hit. Our results show that ignoring the impacts of crises will bias the statistical estimates. Using a simple dummy variable method, we illustrate that the test results can change from insignificant to significant statistically. We find that different types of crises will have different degree of negative impacts on tourism industry which are important for policy makers and the tourism industry in crisis management and in overcoming the difficulties in attracting more tourists under very unfavorable conditions.

Socio-economic assessment of farmers having mobile phone: A study in Ayodhya district of Uttar Pradesh

Present study was aimed to develop and assess the acceptability of culturally-competent cookies based on locally grown crops for the vulnerable population of a disaster-prone Himalayan state Uttarakhand. The supplemented cookies were developed using a cereal-pulse-millet mix of wheat flour, black soybean or Bhat flour and ragi or Madua flour in the ratio of 60:20:20 and were found to be high in protein (18.58%), fat (20.09%), fibre (1.67%), ash (2.53%), lysine (585.2 mg), NDP Cal % (13.4%), calcium (97.2 mg), iron (4.9 mg) and zinc (0.88 mg). These were acceptable for 60 days in aluminum laminate pouches. A consumer acceptability trial to determine the acceptability of these cookies by the local population showed a significantly (pd”0.01) higher acceptability by all age groups. It was concluded that cookies were nutrient dense food which can be effectively targeted for meeting the nutritional needs of the disaster hit population and address the food insecurity issues that arise aftermath any emergency especially when the donated food conflicts with the cultural/religious beliefs of the affected region.

Flow or Fence: Learning, Preserving, and Redefining the Riverfront Cultural Landscape

The Chao Phraya River and the network of canals or “klongs” are the origin of Bangkok’s nick-name “Venice of the East”. Its amphibian nature of lower delta area where used to be covered by the sea around 5000 years ago provides a water-based settlement for the citizens. Rivers as an agricultural irrigation system are also used for daily consumption, transportation, and drainage channels. Bangkok was established in 1782 as the capital of Thailand by King Rama I of the Chakri Dynasty. The location is on a flood plain delta of the Chao Phraya River with the same consideration as the up north old capital Ayutthaya; the river is performed as a natural defense against enemies and also provides a water-based settlement for the citizens. The worst flood in Thailand’s history occurred during the 2011 monsoon season; July to November; that became the severest flood disaster hit parts of the capital city of Bangkok and resulted in a total of 815 deaths and 65 of Thailand’s 77 provinces were declared flood disaster zones, and over 20,000 square kilometers (7700 square miles) of farmland was damaged. The most affected areas were the recent capital Bangkok and the old capital Ayutthaya. The major causes were not only from the natural disaster but also water management failures from the human disaster. The studies aimed to include the survey of after-flood areas, reviewing the history of the waterfront communities and their attitudes toward development and changes, then discussed threats and crisis to the cultural landscape, the cause and effects of the disaster, the theoretical framework of the best management practices and the resolutions models proposed by the involved authorities. Whilst, history also gives us a sense of identity and traditional wisdom, the paper tried to find a paradigm shift and invented best practices for future generation flood protection using “the meaning and spirit of cultural landscape” model.

Post-Disaster Reconstruction of Road Infrastructure

The rehabilitation and reconstruction of damaged road infrastructure plays a vital role in the recovery of disaster affected regions. The methods and processes adopted by road-asset owners during the reconstruction phase influence the longer term effects in disaster hit communities. While the decision making processes are intended to reduce impacts, mistakes at the decision making stage can lead to an increase in social and economic impacts in the longer term. It is thus imperative to understand how decision making takes place with regard to post-disaster reconstruction of road infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to understand how road asset owners assess and prioritise post-disaster reconstruction projects in order to identify how decision making could be improved in Australia and similar regions. The results of in-depth interviews conducted with road infrastructure practitioners in disaster affected regions are presented. The findings showed that there is a gap between the research community and practitioners in the use of systematic methods to aid prioritisation and decision making. The interviews also showed that the consideration of only a limited set of engineering and financial elements can lead to unintended consequences that impede resilience. A causal loop diagram was developed to illustrate the interrelationship between factors and showed that active intervention based on a systems thinking approach will benefit post-disaster decision making. These findings suggest that the development of more localised decision making tools can increase their adoption among practitioners.

Performance analysis of handover parameter for natural disaster in LTE-A network

<span>Natural disaster is an unpredictable event which can cause service communication disruption. The disruption of service communication can be divided into three cases which are power outage, broken backhaul and physical destruction by disaster. This paper focuses on power outage case. Although each base stations equipped with backup batteries, it only last for several hours. After natural disaster hit certain areas, traffic is highly congested due to panic and rescue operation of lifesaving. This scenario will drain the backup batteries quickly. In order to limit the UEs’ connection to the affected base station, this research proposed to adjust Received Signal Strength (RSS) based on parameter called as a distance fraction coefficient, α so that the affected coverage area is reduced when in disaster area situation. The parameter is added in the path loss equation and later in the RSS equation. The numerical results show the RSS improved whereby α=0.2 gives the optimal value and therefore limit the incoming traffic to the affected base station. </span>

Effect of HUD-HUD Wind Intensity on the Structural Behaviour of 220kv Transmission Line Tower at Visakhapatnam

The transmission line towers are one of the important transmission line structures in the distribution of power from the source to the various places. Transmission line towers carry heavy electrical transmission conductors at a sufficient and safe height from ground. In addition to their self-weight they have to withstand all forces of nature like strong wind and earthquake. Therefore transmission line towers should be designed considering both structural and electrical requirements for a safe and economical design. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse the behaviour of Transmission line tower under the influence of natural disaster hit Visakhapatnam (District) in Andhra Pradesh (State), India recently in the month of November, 2014. The 220kV tower is modeled and analysed using STADD Pro V-8i and Ansys Mechanical APDL for Maximum loading combinations considering HUD-HUD wind intensity of 275 km/hr (76m/s) and the results obtained are compared with the results obtained for regular wind intensity of 180km/hr(50m/s). Also, the velocity profiles are drawn for both the wind speeds.

Monocular Vision Aided Autonomous UAV Navigation in Indoor Corridor Environments

Deployment of autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in various sectors such as disaster hit environments, industries, agriculture, etc. , not only improves productivity but also reduces human intervention resulting in sustainable benefits. In this regard, we present a model for autonomous navigation and collision avoidance of UAVs in GPS-denied corridor environments. In the first stage, we suggest a fast procedure to estimate the set of parallel lines whose intersection would yield the position of the vanishing point (VP) inside the corridor. A suitable measure is then formulated based on the position of VP on the intersecting lines in reference to any of the image boundary axes. The knowledge of VP location alongside the formulated mechanism govern the necessary set of commands to safely navigate the UAV avoiding any collision with the side walls. Furthermore, the relative Euclidean distance scale expansion of matched scale-invariant keypoints in a pair of frames is taken into account to estimate the depth of a frontal obstacle; usually a wall at the end of the corridor. However, turbulence in the UAV arising due to its rotors or other external factors such as wind may introduce uncertainty in depth estimation. It is rectified with the help of a constant velocity aided Kalman filter model. Necessary set of control commands are then generated to avoid the frontal wall before collision. Exhaustive experiments in different corridors reveal the efficacy of the proposed scheme.

Designing a spatial cloud computing system for disaster (earthquake) management, a case study for Tehran

IT experts believe that cloud computing is turning into the fifth vital human needs preceded by water, electricity, gas, and telecommunications. In line with this trend, one of its major applications is in the swiftness enhancing of disaster management entities. This research, by using the huge capacities of cloud computing, aims to design a system to promote the performance of relief operations in disaster hit areas. The architecture of the designed system consists of two parts: hardware and software. In the hardware side, using NIST standards, the assessment function designed by Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, also applying Tehran’s telecom infrastructures plans and selecting 20 main centers in Tehran, a high bandwidth and widespread network of fiber optic infrastructure as the physical backbone of our cloud-based system has been exploited which covers all areas of the city. In the software part, an application has been developed using the ASP.net capabilities in the Microsoft Visual Studio to collect and integrate the data gathered by early dispatched relief groups. Based on the special prioritization algorithm designed by Iran’s passive defense organization, the application is capable of providing information by analyzing various spatial data. By processing and unifying the input data into the DBMS, the designed service offers a wide range of capabilities including real-time spatial tables, graph and curve generation, and different special-temporal queries in prioritizing the quake hit areas, recognizing and targeting the most severely hit ones. The mentioned capabilities enable city managers and decision makers to enhance the accuracy, swiftness, and effectiveness of relief operations.

Relief materials vehicles planning in natural disasters

A variety of relief materials needs to be transported to the disaster hit areas immediately after natural disasters. This paper studies the problem of planning relief materials vehicles in order to maximize their total weight. We propose a new method named substitution equilibrium point which can be used to plan relief materials vehicles. One feature of our model is to consider the substitution among vehicles which is usually omitted in the literature. The simulation experiments show that the transportation fleets are increased effectively considering the substitution between vehicles. Substitution equilibrium point has the same results as integer programming but has much lower time complexity.

Processing Social Media Images by Combining Human and Machine Computing during Crises

ABSTRACT The extensive use of social media platforms, especially during disasters, creates unique opportunities for humanitarian organizations to gain situational awareness as disaster unfolds. In addition to textual content, people post overwhelming amounts of imagery content on social networks within minutes of a disaster hit. Studies point to the importance of this online imagery content for emergency response. Despite recent advances in computer vision research, making sense of the imagery content in real-time during disasters remains a challenging task. One of the important challenges is that a large proportion of images shared on social media is redundant or irrelevant, which requires robust filtering mechanisms. Another important challenge is that images acquired after major disasters do not share the same characteristics as those in large-scale image collections with clean annotations of well-defined object categories such as house, car, airplane, cat, dog, etc., used traditionally in computer vision research. To tackle these challenges, we present a social media image processing pipeline that combines human and machine intelligence to perform two important tasks: (i) capturing and filtering of social media imagery content (i.e., real-time image streaming, de-duplication, and relevancy filtering); and (ii) actionable information extraction (i.e., damage severity assessment) as a core situational awareness task during an on-going crisis event. Results obtained from extensive experiments on real-world crisis datasets demonstrate the significance of the proposed pipeline for optimal utilization of both human and machine computing resources.

Development risk analysis method for tsunami disaster

After tsunami disaster hit Aceh and Mentawai Island, Indonesia Government prepare disaster prevention plan for the areas that could be hit by tsunami disaster. Government has predicted that 19 areas could hit by tsunami disaster if big earthquake occur in that areas. Based on that condition, Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) in several cities has prepared the evacuation facilities to reduce the effect of tsunami if the disaster is occurred. Although, the evacuation facilities have been built, however the risk from the impact of tsunami in that areas are still could not be measured. This paper shows the method to measure tsunami disaster risk, and method to determine the priorities handling tsunami impacts in certain area. This risk analysis method was developed based on risk analysis method developed by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The risk of tsunami disaster is determined based on three parameters, i.e: threat of tsunami, vulnerability of people, infrastructure and agriculture, the inundation impact of tsunami. The priorities of tsunami risk handling to the affected areas are determined based on the Risk Prioritisation Index (RPI). The RPI values could be determined from the risk analysis values. The RPI values indicate the risk exposure rank in the tsunami affected areas. From analysis RPI value of each area, Government could determine the area that should be prioritising prevention to facing tsunami disaster because of the high risk level that could be occurred in that area.

Small Business Disaster Assistance

When a disaster hits, it affects the entire community. A small business is especially vulnerable because it does not necessarily have the resources to respond to a disaster or to catastrophic damage. In fact, it is reported that approximately 25 percent of small businesses that close due to a disaster never reopen, and 40 percent of small businesses hit directly by a serious natural disaster do not recover. This is true regardless of what kind of disaster is involved, from a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, flooding, winter storms, or even civil unrest or terrorism. Small businesses experience a number of different problems when a disaster hits. As expected, there is the physical damage that results from a disaster, which is a more serious issue when the business is not insured or is underinsured for the damage. However, the most serious and critical problem for small businesses is the loss of profits due to closure or loss of customers as a result of a disaster. Sixty-two percent of businesses report the loss of sales as their main problem after a disaster. Unfortunately, a large percent of businesses does not carry insurance to cover continuing operations. Fortunately, some economic assistance is available to small businesses that have suffered losses due to disasters. Immediate disaster assistance is led by state governments, which is complemented with federal assistance for disasters that qualify. Federal disaster assistance, which is generally the same regardless of the location and form of a disaster, is discussed first in the Article. This is followed by a discussion of state disaster assistance, using the state of Florida to exemplify two approaches taken by state government to provide small-business disaster relief.

Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Restoration at Disaster Hit Area of Sindh Pakistan Through Government Support

Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Restoration at Disaster Hit Area of Sindh Pakistan Through Government Support

Mosaicists at work: the organisation of mosaic production in Early Islamic Jerash

Abstract

CROWDSOURCING APPROACH FOR DISASTER RESPONSE ASSESSMENT

Philippines are a country attuned to social media and a disaster prone country and recent research focused on the interesting use of Twitter. This work is motivated to provide information through crowdsourcing, which uses humans as sensors to observe and report events in the physical world. In this paper we propose that, Twitter feeds which consist of short messages to extract information as a tool in needs assessment for a disaster hit community. This information will serve as situation awareness through crowd sensing, in order to deliver the relevant basic needs to the disaster stricken community and humanitarian disaster response. The data were obtain using the Twitters open search API, preliminary experiment is carried out, Naive Bayes algorithm was used to classify disaster related tweets. The geo location feature in the tweets were extracted and translated into map for visualization and the information related to disaster. This study will be helpful in identifying, analyzing, monitoring and evaluating basic needs of the affected communities, in order for the decision makers to take necessary actions and respond to the needs of the people. Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/mijst.2017.31.5969 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

Perspectives in Development Finance and Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) in the Philippines

This paper reviews development finance and ODA in the Philippines, amidst current trends and historical flow, as well as reveals similarities and differences with the ODA trends of one of its closest neighbors, Indonesia, to determine whether either country, is moving towards casting off its ODA recipient status. Findings reveal an uptrend in global ODA, with trends in the Philippines ODA and other overseas capital flow, appearing to mimic the world economy. Downward ODA trends in the Philippines were evident, during international financial crises and presidencies, marked by corruption. Total ODA commitments in the Philippines reveal a converging trend with the public sector, as the main ODA channel, and this was the major ODA channel for Indonesia as well. Bilateral ODA commitments surged in 2012, with Japan emerging as the top donor for both the Philippines and Indonesia. The Philippines’ major multilateral ODA donor was the European Union (EU); however, other multilateral institutions were Indonesia’s top multilateral donors. In terms of total aggregate ODA, major bilateral donor countries of the Philippines included Japan, the U.S., Australia, Korea, Germany, and France. This was the case also in Indonesia, except that Korea did not figure in its top five list. Furthermore, a jump in ODA value was observed in the Philippines and Indonesia ODA trends, after an environmental disaster hit these countries, on two separate occasions. Thus, while many similarities were found in terms of ODA trends in the Philippines and Indonesia, the Philippines remains a net recipient of ODA, while Indonesia is emerging as a donor country, as seen in the steady decline of its multilateral ODA, received during the past few years.

Disaster Hit Pithoragarh District of Uttarakhand Himalaya: Causes and Implications

The area devastated by disastrous on 1st July 2016 is located in Didihat and Thal Tehsils of Pithoragarh district and fall in the catchments of East Ramganga and Charma rivers respectively. Heavy rains caused landslide incidences and damages in the area around Didihat, Bastari and Naulra villages. As many as 21 human lives were lost in these incidences. The impact on these localities of landslides caused by heavy rainfall events and fast changes in landscape. Landslide incidences are attributed to construction on loose soil/overburden material and drainages. Increasing anthropogenic activities, venturing in unsafe areas due to limited land availability and heavy localized precipitation. These are continuously increasing the vulnerability of these to landslides. In view of that, the paper will provide insights into suggestive measures that may help in preparing a roadmap towards sustainable development within the affected areas.

Residents Open Their Homes to Tourists When Disaster Strikes

Residents are key stakeholders of tourism destinations. Yet, to date, no study has investigated if and how residents can contribute to destination recovery when a disaster hits. The emergence of peer-to-peer networks offers an efficient platform for residents to open their homes to displaced tourists. Such help is particularly critical if key tourist infrastructure is severely damaged. But are residents willing to open their homes and help in other ways? The present study adopts a scenario-based survey research design, including Australians who live in tourism regions and Australian tourists. Results indicate that (1) segments of residents willing to support the tourism industry in disaster situations exist, and (2) tourists are willing to accept residents’ offers of support. The more immediate the emergency, the higher the willingness to help and accept help. These insights point to the potential of involving residents in destination recovery efforts.

Disaster Medicine in China: Present and Future.

Disaster can strike people in any community at any time anywhere in the world. Disasters occur with high frequency, take on multiple forms, and exert wide influence, typically causing property damage, injuries, and death. As the world's largest developing country, China incurs great costs when a disaster hits. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the Chinese government focused its attention on the construction of an emergency response system, the creation of disaster prevention and mitigation systems, and the development of a disaster medicine program. Here, we describe the current status of disaster medicine in China, focusing on the following four aspects: the Emergency Management System, Education & Training, Rescue Practices, and Research. We also discuss the future of disaster medicine in China. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:157-165).