Disaster Information Research Articles

Global assessment of subnational drought impact based on the Geocoded Disasters dataset and land reanalysis

Abstract. Despite the importance of a link between hydrometeorological drought hazards and their socioeconomic impact, the link at a subnational level has yet to be evaluated due to the lack of precise subnational information on disaster locations. Using the newly developed Geocoded Disasters (GDIS) dataset, we examined whether the subnational socioeconomic drought impact information in GDIS could be represented by hydrometeorological hazards quantified from soil moisture in ERA5-Land during 1964–2018. We found that the socioeconomic drought impacts shown in GDIS were generally represented by drought hazards quantified from ERA5-Land soil moisture. Our comparison between GDIS and ERA5-Land could benefit the quantification of vulnerability to drought, and we found that sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were vulnerable to drought, while North America and Europe were less vulnerable to drought. Both GDIS and ERA5-Land indicated that the Horn of Africa, northern China, and western India were drought-prone areas. Since it is difficult for national-level analyses to accurately identify the locations of drought-prone areas, especially in large countries such as China and India, our analysis clarifies the importance of the use of subnational disaster information.

Disaster risk management system in Vietnam: progress and challenges

BackgroundVietnam is one of the countries most impacted by disasters in Asia- Pacific. Floods, droughts and storms are the most common catastrophes. These risks endanger millions of lives and create massive financial and production losses. ObjectiveThis study aims at reviewing the disaster risk management (DRM) system in Vietnam, identifying progress and challenges of this system, hence making recommendations for improving the system for better responding with natural hazards. MethodThe study uses PSR model (Pressure- State- Response) in combination with DRM management framework by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to evaluate DRM system in Vietnam with 5 aspects: (i) DRM regulatory framework (ii) DRM organization (iii) DRM financial resources (iv) DRM integration in to plans at central and local levels (v) Disaster warning and education. The data collection consists of reviewing existing literature and interviewing key informants in DRM. ResultsDisasters is a serious threat to Vietnam’s socio economic development. To respond, Vietnam has made many efforts including develop a comprehensive legal framework for DRM which Law on Disaster Prevention and Control takes the key role. Vietnam has also established a fairly well organized DRM system from the central to local levels. The financial sources for DRM are arranged from State budget and sources outside State budget. Vietnam has developed major policies for integrating DRM into development plans centrally and locally. The disaster information and warning system is being modernized with the integration of disaster education in training programs. Challenges in DRM are identified, including institutional, financial and information issues. In addition, Vietnam is facing the increase of disasters and extreme climate events due to climate change. Covid 19 and its socio-economic consequences also lead to a lack of resources for DRM. Economic development moreover results in the decline of ecosystem-based disaster mitigation works and put more pressures on DRM. RecommendationsIn the future, Vietnam should develop an information-sharing network between ministries, sectors, localities and NGOs to support the policy formulation process and enhance the coordination of multi-stakeholders. The country should also establish more proper funding allocation mechanisms to fulfill DRM’s demands, especially for disaster preparedness and reconstruction phases.

Post-disaster building damage assessment based on improved U-Net

When a severe natural disaster occurs, the extraction of post-disaster building damage information is one of the methods to quickly obtain disaster information. The increasingly mature high-resolution remote sensing technology provides a solid foundation for obtaining information about building damage. To address the issues with inaccurate building positioning in existing building damage assessment methods, as well as poor classification due to similar minor and major damage characteristics in building damage classification. Based on U-Net, we designed a two-stage building damage assessment network. The first stage is an independent U-Net focused on building segmentation, followed by a Siamese U-Net focused on building damage classification. The Extra Skip Connection and Asymmetric Convolution Block were used for enhancing the network's ability to segment buildings on different scales; Shuffle Attention directed the network's attention to the correlation of buildings before and after the disaster. The xBD dataset was used for training and testing in the study, and the overall performance was evaluated using a balanced F-score (F1). The improved network had an F1 of 0.8741 for localization and F1 of 0.7536 for classification. When compared to other methods, it achieved better overall performance for building damage assessment and was able to generalize to multiple disasters.

Risk assessment for comprehensive meteorological disaster of winter wheat based on multisource gridded data: A case study in the upper Huaihe River basin, China

AbstractCrop production security is an essential guarantee for the prosperity of country and the well‐being of people. In the context of frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, how to comprehensively evaluate the risk of multiple hazards and quantitatively describe spatial differences will be one of the significant topics in agricultural disaster mitigation. In this study, based on the gridded meteorological data and other datasets (crop, socioeconomic, disaster loss, and actual planting location) from 2000 to 2020, multihazard risk model for different growth period was built to assess the comprehensive risk of winter wheat in the upper Huaihe River basin (UHRB), China. The conclusions were as follows: (a) The spatial distribution of continuous rain risk increased gradually from north to south; the area of the highest lodging risk was located in the east; the spatial trend of drought risk was the highest in the south and the lowest in the northeast. (b) The weights of continuous rain, lodging, and drought disasters were 41, 31, and 28%, respectively, which indicated that winter wheat in UHRB was most affected by continuous rain during the harvest period. (c) The spatial distribution of comprehensive disaster risk assessment showed that the higher risk areas were located in the central and southern parts (Huaibin, Linquan, Luoshan). After verification by historical disasters information, the results are credible, providing a concrete scientific basis for implementing regional agricultural disaster response measures.

Evaluating the flooding level impacts on urban metro networks and travel demand: behavioral analyses, agent-based simulation, and large-scale case study

With urban residents’ increasing reliance on metro systems for commuting and other daily activities, extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall and flooding impacting the metro system services are becoming increasingly of concern. Plans for such emergency interruptions require a thorough understanding of the potential outcomes on both the system and individual component scales. However, due to the complex dynamics, constraints, and interactions of the elements involved (e.g., disaster, infrastructure, service operation, and travel behavior), there is still no framework that comprehensively evaluates the system performance across different spatiotemporal scales and is flexible enough to handle increasingly detailed travel behavior, transit service, and disaster information data. Built on an agent-based model (ABM) framework, this study adopts a data-driven ABM simulation approach informed by actual metro operation and travel demand data to investigate the impact of flood-induced station closures on travelers as well as the overall system response. A before-after comparison is conducted where the traveler behaviors in disaster scenarios are obtained from a discrete choice model of alternative stations and routes. A case study of the Shanghai Metro is used to demonstrate the ability of the proposed approach in evaluating the impacts of flood-induced station closures on individual traveler behavior under normal operation and a series of water level rise scenarios of up to 5m. It was found that, when the flood-induced station closures only affect a few river-side stations in the city center, the travelers experience only minor disruptions to their trips due to the availability of unaffected stations nearby as a backup. However, as the water level increases and more stations (mainly in the suburban area) are affected, up to 25% of trips are no longer being fulfilled due to the loss of entrances, exits, or transfer links. The system experiences overall less crowdedness in terms of passenger volume and platform waiting time with a few exceptions of increased passenger load due to concentrations of passenger flows to alternative stations under flooding-induced station closures. The proposed approach can be adapted to other disaster scenarios to reveal the disaster impacts on both aggregated and disaggregated levels and guide the design of more spatio- and temporally-targeted emergency plans for metro systems.

Direct and indirect health effects of the nuclear power plant disasters: a review for health care professionals

Background: Nuclear power plants are deeply integrated into our society. They possess substantial risk for major disasters. Two of the worst-categorized nuclear power plant disasters were Chernobyl and Fukushima, emitting large amounts of radioactive materials and required mass evacuations in neighboring areas. Methods: This is a rapid review of the literature. We searched PUBMED and Medline for original studies of all large nuclear power plant disaster information documented in literature. Results: Eighty-three publications were identified in the review. The results are summarized in categories based on direct health effects such as immediate health effects, indirect health effects related to evacuation, cancer, behavioral effects and environmental effects like proliferation of wildlife and other infectious diseases. Conclusion: Nuclear power plant disasters have a great impact on human health including increased rates of cancer, behavioral and psychosocial problems, and evacuation related problems. These disasters can lead to major environmental impact, specifically on wildlife, resulting in unanticipated health consequences for local populations. In this review, we describe these consequences of nuclear power plant disasters as they apply to local health care workers.

한국 공공기관 재난 홍보자료 번역의 오류 분석 - 중국어 코로나19 홍보지를 중심으로 -

This study aims to analyze the translation errors in Chinese COVID-19 information materials published by Korean public institutions and to explore ways to improve the translation quality of disaster information materials. First, this study discusses the factors to be considered for the quality assessment of public sector translation, as well as the criteria of translation evaluation in previous studies. Based on this, a framework for analyzing disaster information materials is identified. Then, this study analyzes the translation errors in Chinese COVID-19 information materials from January 2020 to February 2022. The analysis finds eight error types in the materials, with the most significant problem being low acceptability, as well as several mistranslations and grammatical errors. These findings suggest the need to select qualified translators and revisers, provide standard terminologies, and strengthen translation policies to convey disaster information to foreigners more effectively.

Similarity Calculation of Sudden Natural Disaster Cases with Fused Case Hierarchy—Taking Storm Surge Disasters as Examples

Sudden natural disasters have the characteristics of complexity, unpredictability and frequency. To better manage and analyze sudden natural disasters promptly with the help of historical natural disaster cases, this study adopts the method of fused case structure to calculate the similarity between sudden disaster cases. Based on the disaster information of historical natural disaster cases, this paper aims to perform similarity measures for sudden natural disaster cases that contain textual information, data information and geographic location information at the same time. Taking storm surge disasters as examples, we designed a hierarchical case structure of “vertex-edge-label” based on the characteristics of sudden natural disaster cases. Then, we calculated the case similarity based on three aspects of sudden natural disasters, which were “case scenario”, “disaster damage” and “case structure”. Finally, we aggregated multiple factors to obtain the similarity between storm surge cases and conducted experiments on the historical storm surge cases in China. The result verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the method and showed a higher accuracy of the established aggregated multifactor method compared with the benchmark method.

Trends in rainfall and hydrometeorological disasters in new capital city of Indonesia from long-term satellite-based precipitation products

The Indonesian government has decided to move its capital city from Jakarta in Java to Nusantara Capital City (IKN) on Borneo island. This study investigates the trend and variability of rainfall in the IKN and two buffer cities and its relation to hydrometeorological disasters. We analyze 20 years of Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) version 6 data and hydrometeorological disaster information from the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure. The annual rainfall, the extreme rain index of R95p (number of very wet days), and R99p (number of very extremely wet days) show a slightly decreasing trend. However, the index of consecutive wet days (CWD) increases, resembling the rising number of floods and landslides. Rainfall shows robust seasonal and diurnal variations. Peak rainfall occurs in November–December and March–April, while the driest period is observed during August–October. Dry months associated with El-Nino, can cause severe dry conditions and increase the potential for catastrophic forest fires. The peak precipitation amount and frequency were observed in the early morning and the second peak in the afternoon. Mainland areas tend to have a peak occurring later than those on the coast and ocean. The results of this study can be additional information in formulating a strategic plan to anticipate future hydrometeorological disasters in IKN.

Nurses' knowledge levels and preparedness for disasters: A systematic review

ObjectiveNurses, who play a key role in disasters, should be sufficiently prepared and have good knowledge in responding to disasters to reduce the negative consequences on the population affected by disasters as disasters increase globally. The study aimed to investigate the results of peer-reviewed publications that measure nurses' level of knowledge and preparedness for disasters. MethodThe systematic review model was used in this study. Scientific studies on disaster preparedness of nurses in Turkish and English between 2015-and 2019 were systematically examined. Sciencedirect, Ulakbim and Medline/PubMed databases were used for the literature search. In the study, the keywords ‘disaster’, ‘disaster preparedness', ‘disaster competencies', ‘disaster nursing’, ‘disaster information’ and ‘nurse’ was searched. Seventeen (17) research articles conducted with nurses suitable for the study were included and analyzed. ResultsStudies commonly report that nurses are not sufficiently prepared for disasters and are not confident in responding to disasters effectively. It was seen that the factors that increase the preparedness for disaster response are previous disaster response experience and disaster-related education level. ConclusionThe results of this systematic review show that it is necessary to develop better education and training programs to strengthen the knowledge and skills of nurses, especially in disaster preparedness.

Situation aware intelligent reasoning during disaster situation in smart cities.

Investigating prior methodologies, it has come to our knowledge that in smart cities, a disaster management system needs an autonomous reasoning mechanism to efficiently enhance the situation awareness of disaster sites and reduce its after-effects. Disasters are unavoidable events that occur at anytime and anywhere. Timely response to hazardous situations can save countless lives. Therefore, this paper introduces a multi-agent system (MAS) with a situation-awareness method utilizing NB-IoT, cyan industrial Internet of things (IIOT), and edge intelligence to have efficient energy, optimistic planning, range flexibility, and handle the situation promptly. We introduce the belief-desire-intention (BDI) reasoning mechanism in a MAS to enhance the ability to have disaster information when an event occurs and perform an intelligent reasoning mechanism to act efficiently in a dynamic environment. Moreover, we illustrate the framework using a case study to determine the working of the proposed system. We develop ontology and a prototype model to demonstrate the scalability of our proposed system.

Measure of Utilizing Space Database Information for Improvement of Efficient Disaster Management (Focusing on Nuclear Power Plant Accidents)

The damage caused by disasters is increasing worldwide, with hundreds of thousands of deaths due to the occurrence of complex large-scale disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2004 Indian tsunami. South Korea has also experienced human casualties and damage to property caused by large-scale disasters in the past 10 years. Accordingly, a disaster-appropriate response measure is needed. Thus, we conducted this study to present a measure of utilizing spatial database and image information to improve the efficiency of disaster management that is operated based on the country’s existing national disaster management system. We present an efficient disaster response measure that differs from the existing collection-, reporting-, and propagation-oriented operating methods of disaster information through the use of spatial database and image-based information that can be combined with mandatory information with regard to nuclear power plant accidents. Thus, this study contributes to deriving a system that could collect and provide information rapidly at the time of disaster by defining the attribute and spatial information required at the time of disaster during nuclear power plant accidents and by deriving available systems and providing institutions.

Flood Disaster Monitoring and Emergency Assessment Based on Multi-Source Remote Sensing Observations

Flood disasters are one of the most serious meteorological disasters in China. With the rapid development of information technology, individual monitoring tools could not meet the need for flood disaster monitoring. Therefore, a new integrated air-space-ground method, based on combined satellite remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing and field measurement technology, has been proposed to monitor and assess flood disasters caused by a dam failure in Poyang County, Jiangxi Province. In this paper, based on an air-space-ground investigation system, the general flooded areas, severely affected areas, and more severely affected areas were 53.18 km2, 12.61 km2 and 6.98 km2, respectively. The size of the dam break gap was about 65 m and 34.7 m on 22 and 23 June. The assessment precision was better than 98%, and the root mean square error (RMSE) was 0.86 m. The method could meet the needs for flood disaster information at different spatiotemporal scales, such as macro scale, medium scale and local small scale. The integrated monitoring of flood disasters was carried out to provide the whole process and all-round information on flood evolution dynamics, the disaster development process for flood disaster monitoring and emergency assessment, and holographic information for emergency rescue and disaster reduction, as well as to meet the need for different temporal and spatial scales of information in the process of disaster emergencies.

The role of social media as a communication facility for hydrometeorological disasters in shallot farming activities

Social media as a means of communication plays a role in building a new paradigm of disaster. One of the social media users for hydrometeorological disaster communication is a shallot farmer in Parangtritis Village, Kretek Subdistrict, Bantul District, Yogyakarta Special Region. This study aims to determine the role of social media as a means of communication for hydrometeorological disasters in shallot farming activities. The design of this research is descriptive quantitative research. The research was carried out from April to October 2021 by taking the location of shallot farmers in Parangtritis Village, Kretek Subdistrict, Bantul District, Yogyakarta Special Region. The research sample was determined by a quota of 50 respondents. Research data were collected through observation, interviews, and documentation. The data that has been collected is then processed and analyzed descriptively. The results of this study show that: (1) The respondents' ownership of gadgets is 84%. Of all respondents who have gadgets, 71.4% of respondents have an internet connection. (2) All respondents stated that ownership of gadgets and internet connection is useful in hydrometeorological disaster information. (3) All respondents who have gadgets and internet connections have facebook and whatsapp social media accounts. (4) The role of ownership of social media accounts is as a means of exchanging information on hydrometeorological disasters, namely information related to shallot farming activities (seedlings, soil processing, fertilizers, pest eradication, harvesting, etc.) and information on the threat of hydrometeorological disasters on shallot farming, such as floods and extreme weather. The existence of social media is able to have a positive impact on shallot farmers, especially in adapting to existing weather conditions with strategies to change crop variations, change cropping patterns, change planting periods, and change irrigation systems, thereby helping harvest success.

The extent of and motivation for disaster information seeking behavior via social networking sites

This study adopts a research model founded on multiple theories to investigate potential influence of source credibility (SC), argument quality (AQ), self-efficacy (SEF), tolerance of ambiguity (TA), locus of control (LOC), and perceived usefulness of information (PUI) on individuals’ information-seeking behavior (ISB) of disaster information from social networking sites (SNSs). The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis of 312 global responses reveals that, overall, individuals infrequently seek behavior about disaster information from SNSs. In addition, the source and content quality (SAQ) and SEF that emerge are significant antecedents of PUI, which in turn is a significant determinant of ISB. These findings and their implications are further discussed in the paper.

FOSS (Free Open Source Software) Integration to Implement WebGIS-Based Information System of Kelud Volcano

The purpose of this research is to establish a webGIS-based disaster information system. WebGIS application is used as a dissemination strategy of geospatial information of the data obtained from the surrounding area of Kelud Volcano. This application utilizes the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) standardized by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The initial step in the development of this system includes providing a database for geospatial data storing consisting of landslide-prone zones, land suitability, and tourism which were the focus of this research. The second step is the GeoJSON data conversion and Web Mapping Service (WMS) creation. This study has several results in the form of; 1) the establishment of a web-based GIS application system using FOSS standardized by OGC provides benefits in terms of cost efficiency in the development and provides convenience for the application because it is widely used by the community; 2) the development of information systems built in two directions between community participation and disaster web managers shows effective results; 3) the results of the two system tests show that the system built has no functional problems but, the version of the web browser used needs to be considered. This application is expected to build a communication aspect between policymakers and the community concerning an integrated disaster information management.

Community radio-based disaster information dissemination pattern on K-Pass FM Radio Katapang

K-Pass FM Radio Katapang is one of the radios disseminating information about disasters that focuses on training, awareness, and understanding of the people of Katapang Regency to play a role in dealing with disasters and help reduce disaster risk as well. This study aimed to determine the dissemination pattern of disaster information based on community radio conducted by Radio K-Pass FM Katapang. The research used a qualitative approach through case studies research methods. Data collection techniques included in-depth interviews, observation, documentation, and literature studies. Informants amount six people consist of resource persons consisting of community radio administrators, people who feel the impact of the existence of community radio, and people who take part in community radio programs. The study results showed that the dissemination of disaster information on Radio K-Pass FM Katapang increased the awareness of the local community about the dangers of disasters. The disaster information on K-Pass FM Radio Katapang went through three stages: the pattern of dissemination of disaster mitigation information (pre), the pattern of disseminating information when the disaster occurred (in), and post-disaster information (past). This community radio also established a Rescue School that aims to provide knowledge and actions that the community can carry out when a disaster occurs. This study concludes that Radio K-Pass FM Katapang has succeeded in becoming a community radio that positively impacts society, especially in disseminating information related to disasters. Therefore, Radio K-Pass FM Katapang still exists today even though it has been around for a long.

Access to Disclosure of Disasters Information for Deaf People through Sign Language Interpreter

There are plenty of information or news regarding natural disasters being inaccessible for Deaf people, and this stems from lack of Sign Language Interpreters. Urgency Sign Language Interpreters have an important role in bridging communication between society and the entire Deaf population, Sign Language Interpreters can also help people with Deafness in accessing information comprehensively on the aforementioned subject (natural disasters). Mostly, Deaf people communicate through sign language in their everyday lives, although Deaf people are still experiencing exclusion in discerning the newest and developing information on the current state of world affairs. This study aimed to elaborate situations faced by Deaf people in accessing information on natural disasters around them, their needs on accessing said information, and also urgency as well as obstacles faced in providing Sign Language Interpreters. This research will use qualitative approach by means of document/literature study to gather data from various international as well as national articles in general.

Experimental Research and Instrument Design of Seepage Measurement in Rock and Soil Based on Heat Transfer

Seepage in the underground rock and soil is one of the main causes of geological disasters. Precursor information for geological disasters is provided by accurately measuring the seepage flow in rock and soil, so as to provide disaster warnings in time. This article analyzes the principle of seepage measurement in rock and soil based on heat transfer, deduces the relationship between the flow rate and temperature of the fluid with a seepage sensor, designs and manufactures an entire seepage measurement sensor, and designs a seepage measurement circuit. Finally, a set of portable geotechnical seepage measuring instruments is designed. An experimental platform is designed to realize seepage flow and temperature change experiments with the seepage sensor, it is proved that the sensor can effectively measure the seepage flow for different experimental samples, the measurement range is 0.06–0.160 ml/s. Based on the measured characteristic temperature of the seepage sensor, the calculated seepage flow is obtained, the relative error between the calculated value and the measured value is within 3%.

Factors related to preparedness for emergency hemodialysis in the event of a natural disaster.

This study aimed to explore patients’ preparedness for emergency hemodialysis in the event of a natural disaster and to determine the factors affecting such preparedness.A cross-sectional study was conducted in undergoing hemodialysis at dialysis facilities in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The participants were a cohort of 256 outpatients aged 20 years or older, 186 (72.7%) were male, and the average age was 61.9 ± 10.9 years. The participants were divided into those who had prepared for emergency dialysis treatment and those who had not. Cross tabulations were performed on the 2 groups using the following participant attributes: preparedness for dialysis during a disaster, knowledge of how to protect themselves during a disaster, and intention to dialyze and evacuate during a disaster, followed by binomial logistic regression analysis.Of the 256 study patients, 184 (71.9%) were not prepared for dialysis treatment. In logistic regression models, patients who were not prepared for dialysis treatment were found to have higher odds of being employed (odds ratio (OR): 2.469; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.205-5.058), not being aware of disaster information acquisition methods in the event of a disaster (OR: 4.580, 95%; CI: 2.048-10.241), did not receive explanations on proper disaster response from dialysis facility staff (OR: 2.557, 95%; CI: 1.319-4.954), and believing that their family away from home would not be concerned about them (OR: 2.021; 95% CI: 1.062-3.847).Disaster preparedness in patients undergoing dialysis remain inadequate. Dialysis facilities need to strengthen their explanations of disaster response, particularly with regard to working, middle-aged people.