Disaster Programs Research Articles

The Future of Environmental Compliance Incentives in U.S. Agriculture: The Role of Commodity, Conservation, and Crop Insurance Programs

In recent years, direct payments — a type of farm commodity program payment — have made up a large share of Federal agriculture assistance that could be withheld from farmers who fail to comply with highly erodible land conservation (conservation compliance and sodbuster) or wetland conservation (swampbuster) provisions, known collectively as environmental compliance requirements. If direct payments are sharply reduced or eliminated to help reduce the Federal budget deficit, compliance incentives would be reduced on many farms, potentially increasing environmental quality problems. Some farmers will still be subject to compliance through existing Federal agricultural programs (e.g., conservation or disaster programs) or programs that may succeed direct payments. Making federally subsidized crop insurance subject to compliance could also make up some of the lost incentive to farmers.

9/11 Tragedy Spurs Advances in PTSD Research

9/11 Tragedy Spurs Advances in PTSD Research

Study on Fast Prediction Model of Seismic Economic Loss Based on GA-ANN Macroscopic Vulnerability Method

It is well-known that seismic disaster will cause serious damage, so the prediction and evaluation of seismic loss before earthquake event happened can provide foundation of disaster reduction program. And after seismic event happened, it is very important to fast evaluate the seismic disaster loss. Traditional seismic loss prediction method is vulnerability list method which need detailed information about all kinds of structures and facilities of the evaluated areas, and for most areas, it is very difficult to get such detailed information. This paper brings forward a new simple fast prediction method for seismic economic loss. Firstly, a macroscopic vulnerability model was discussed. secondly, a three-layer BP network model for seismic economic loss prediction is built up, BP network model is one of the most widely used artificial neural network (ANN) model, but due to its deficiencies such as easy to get into local extreme minimum value, genetic algorithm (GA) is introduced to overcome the deficiencies. In this model, seismic intensity, average GDP per capita and per area, population density are selected to be the input layer index, and GDP loss ratio as the output layer, 80 earthquake events which happened recent years are regarded as training and check up samples. Finally, the economic loss caused by Wenchuan earthquake is evaluated by the proposed model, and the feasibility and practicability are validated by the numerical example.

Involvement of the US Department of Defense in Civilian Assistance, Part I: A Quantitative Description of the Projects Funded by the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid Program

To review the history and goals of the US Department of Defense's largest civilian assistance program, the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster and Civic Aid Program and to describe the number, geographic regions, years, key words, countries, and types of projects carried out under this program since 2001. Using the program's central database, we reviewed all approved projects since 2001 and tabulated them by year, combatant command, country, and key word. We also reviewed the project descriptions of projects funded between January 1, 2006, and February 9, 2008, and examined how their activities varied by combatant command and year. Of the 5395 projects in the database, 2097 were funded. Projects took place in more than 90 countries, with Southern, Pacific, and Africa Command hosting the greatest number. The most common types of projects were school, health, disaster response, and water infrastructure construction, and disaster-response training. The "global war on terror" was the key word most frequently tagged to project descriptions. Project descriptions lacked stated goals as well as implementation and coordination strategies with potential partners, and did not report outcome or impact indicators. The geographic reach of the program is vast and projects take place in a wide variety of public sectors. Yet their security and civilian assistance value remains unclear given the lack of stated project goals, implementation strategies, or measures of effectiveness. To facilitate transparency and policy discussion, we recommend project proposals include hypotheses as to how they will enhance US security, their relevance to the public sector they address, and outcome and impact indicators that can assess their value and effectiveness.

An Overview of the U.S. Agricultural Economy and the 2008 Farm Bill

The 2008 farm bill involved 16 months of debate. The end product is similar to the 2002 farm bill in the crops arena, continuing counter-cyclical payments, direct payments, and marketing assistance loans. In addition, however, the 2008 bill adds a new, optional counter-cyclical revenue program (Average Crop Revenue Election, or ACRE), authorizes a new permanent disaster program, and contains various other changes. The new ACRE program provides an entirely new set of dimensions for producers to consider in deciding whether to opt into the program, including the multi-year trade-off between the loss of potential “traditional” payments and the revenue protection provided by ACRE, as well as the producer's own expectations about yield and price trends and variability. The payment calculation associated with the new permanent disaster program appears at first glance to be relatively simple, although the whole-farm nature of the program and the number of variables makes it quite complex.

US Farm Bill 2008: Back to the Future? La loi agricole de 2008 aux États‐Unis : Retour vers le futur? Das US‐Landwirtschaftsgesetz von 2008: Zurück in die Zukunft?

SummaryUS Farm Bill 2008: Back to the Future?After years of deliberation, eight temporary extensions of expiring law and two overridden vetoes, the Food, Conservation and Energy Act became law on June 18, 2008, framing the policy environment for US farmers for several years to come. The farm bill was written in a period of lean supplies, soaring demand, increased budget deficits, and intense scrutiny. When the dust settled the bill had five new titles, a new disaster program, and a new option offering an irrevocable choice of the traditional price‐based safety net or a new revenue‐based program. The latter constituted a new direction for US policy, moving towards more revenue based payments, a move that was resisted by the administration concerned with the implications for the WTO and that disapproved of the changes to the budget that financed the new programs. In the end the desires of the members of Congress trumped the administration’s veto. FAPRI–MU’s analysis shows that the impact of the 2008 farm bill on agricultural markets will be small. However, the direction of US agricultural policy is likely to put the farm bill at odds with the WTO, especially if there is a new agreement under the Doha round.

Disasters and Humanitarian Crises: A Joint Future for Responders?

In the last 35 years, the disaster and humanitarian communities have evolved rapidly in two parallel cohorts. The disaster enterprise in the US and Latin America grew up in the 1970s in response to a series of major earthquakes, hurricanes, and forest fires, culminating with the nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island and the formation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979/80. The Disaster Program at the Pan-American Health Organization also took form in the 1980s.The humanitarian enterprise can be traced to the Biafran War of 1968/69, where a range of international, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) converged to respond to support a population that was fleeing a civil war and famine. In the years since, drawn to refugees and internally displaced persons in war circumstances as varied as Angola, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, the humanitarian community has expanded in numbers, reach, and budget.

National Emergency Response Programs for Dental Health Care Professionals

Members of the established public health systems and medical community must understand that, in medical surge events, members of the dental profession and other non-traditional disaster health care personnel are an additional source of assistance in response activities. The authors relied on hands-on experience, expert consultations, literature reviews and Web searches to identify disaster response training programs appropriate for members of the dental profession and other health care personnel. The authors identified multiple governmental and professional disaster training programs. Five key national-level programs address the training and organization of health care professionals to support a large-scale disaster program. Because of their training and skills, dental professionals would be valuable additions to these programs and could make significant contributions if natural disasters and/or terrorist events were to occur.

A Mental Health Program for Ground Zero Rescue and Recovery Workers: Cases and Observations

A Mental Health Program for Ground Zero Rescue and Recovery Workers: Cases and Observations

Cuba's Disaster Management Model: Should it be Emulated?

The article offers a criticism of the point of view that disaster programs in Cuba should be emulated by other countries. It shows the relationship that exists between disaster vulnerability and resilience, to shed light on the promises as well as the problems of using Cuba as a model to emulate in social development. Cuba has an excellent record when it comes to disaster preparedness and response involving warning and evacuation, in which governmental control of the population is used very effectively to minimize the potential morbidity and mortality of hurricanes and tropical storms. It nevertheless has a very poor record in dealing with disaster reconstruction, recovery, and mitigation as well as with solving slow onset chronic problems and vulnerabilities of the population.

Disaster Reduction on the Coasts of the Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami of 26th December 2004 has resulted in a massive and generous response for disaster relief and reconstruction, together with plans to be more prepared next time. Disaster reduction, a program delivered before disaster strikes, is the best long term means of reduction of poverty but it receives less attention in the aftermath of a major disaster. An effective disaster reduction program must address all risks, not just tsunamis. For some regions tropical cyclones and storm surges are more frequently deadly than tsunamis. The two can be combined in the assessment of inundation. The program must be one which is affordable in regions of poverty, and it must be one which is implemented by the communities themselves. A procedure is given whereby a “disaster reduction limit state” is added to the procedures of risk assessment. Based on these principles, a Guide to Disaster Reduction on the Coasts of the Indian Ocean is proposed.

Crop insurance, disaster assistance, and the role of the federal government in providing catastrophic risk protection

Since 1980, the principal form of crop loss assistance in the United States has been provided through the Federal Crop Insurance Program. The Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980 was intended to replace disaster programs with a subsidized insurance program that farmers could depend on in the event of crop losses. Crop insurance was seen as preferable to disaster assistance because it was less costly and hence could be provided to more producers, was less likely to encourage moral hazard, and less likely to encourage producers to plant crops on marginal lands. Despite substantial growth in the program, the crop insurance program has failed to replace other disaster programs as the sole form of assistance. Over the past 20 years, producers received an estimated $15 billion in supplemental disaster payments in addition to $22 billion in crop insurance indemnities.

Facing the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness and Response in the United States

Facing the Unexpected presents the wealth of information derived from disasters around the world over the past 25 years. The authors explore how these findings can improve disaster programs, identify remaining research needs, and discuss disaster within the broader context of sustainable development. How do different people think about disaster? Are we more likely to panic or to respond with altruism? Why are 110 people killed in a Valujet crash considered disaster victims while the 50,000 killed annually in traffic accidents in the U.S. are not? At the crossroads of social, cultural, and economic factors, this book examines these and other compelling questions. The authors review the influences that shape the U.S. governmental system for disaster planning and response, the effectiveness of local emergency agencies, and the level of professionalism in the field. They also compare technological versus natural disaster and examine the impact of technology on disaster programs.

What Future for Agricultural Safety Net Programs?

The early 1990s held the promise of decoupled farm programs in Canada and the U.S.; however, the potential benefits of decoupling have been eroded by ad hoc disaster programs. This paper assesses the benefits and difficulties of disaster programs relative to traditional farm programs, and proposes gross margin insurance as an approach to safety nets that captures the benefits of both. Gross margin insurance is applied to hogs in Ontario and Minnesota as case studies, with the cost and level of income protection compared. We show that based on simple estimates of actuarially fair premium costs, gross margin insurance compares favorably with programs that have been used to support hog farm incomes in both regions.

Government Institutional Effects on the Value of Seasonal Climate Forecasts

AbstractThe impact of government institutions on the value of improved climate forecasts is examined. Results suggest that crop insurance and earned income tax credit have little effect on the expected change in after‐tax cash flows. Federal tax law has only a modest influence. As expected, the disaster program decreases the value of improved climate forecasts. With no price changes, the farm program lowers the value of the forecasts because of the acreage reduction provisions. With at least some price decreases, the farm program increases the value of climate forecasts. Here, the price supports override the acreage reduction provisions.

Regionalizing Emergency Management: Counties as State and Local Government

Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, and Iniki and the Loma Prieta earthquake are still having profound impacts on the national emergency management system. The failures to prepare and respond adequately to these emergencies may well lead to fundamental reform of the system. The U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs has been holding hearings on the reauthorization of the Emergency Management Agency, which has borne much of the criticism for the recent failures. In 1992, Congress commissioned a National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) study of the national emergency management system and a General Accounting Office (GAO) study of the Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Both studies focused on improving federal executive leadership, transferring resources from FEMA's national security and civil defense programs to its natural disaster programs, and building state and local capacities to manage their own emergency management systems better. States and communities, too, are reexamining their emergency management organizations and capabilities. This analysis examines the emergency management function in terms of its fit within the emerging roles of county government in the United States. The thesis is that county governments may in fact be the most logical and hospitable hosts for emergency management agencies because of their unique roles in state and local governance. Indeed, county governments are the most appropriate and effective vehicles for regionalizing policy making and program administration in a variety of functional areas, as well as emergency management. In fact, the NAPA report recognized the crucial roles of county governments in implementing and maintaining emergency management programs and pointed out the uneven state and local government commitment to emergency management and limited capacity to design and administer programs (1993; pp. 82-88). GAO (1993) focused on the problem of bringing federal resources to bear when state and local government and volunteer agency capacities are overwhelmed. GAO recommended improvements in the damage assessment process and in state and local capacities (pp. 6-12), as well as in the structure and function of FEMA. Both NAPA and GAO recognized the need for sustained federal action to build state and local capacities to handle such events. In response to the NAPA and GAO studies and recent congressional hearings, the sponsors of S.995, the Federal Disaster Preparedness and Response Act of 1993, sought to reorganize FEMA and to amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5131) to (1) authorize federal agencies to be more proactive in preparing for anticipated disasters; (2) clarify federal, state, and local government and private organization roles in disaster preparedness and response; (3) create an accessible inventory of disaster response resources; (4) manage private agency and volunteer participation; (5) assist state and local officials in assessing damage and requesting federal aid; and (6) improve state and local government capacities (including financial incentives for state compliance). The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs scheduled hearings on S.995 for the fall of 1993 (Glenn, 1993). The principal goal was to designate a lead agency with the capacity to ensure communication between the President and governors and effective interaction among emergency management agencies at all levels. The major question was whether a reformed Emergency Management Agency can fulfill those responsibilities. The logical next question was whether similar reforms could encourage better communication and interaction among state and load emergency management agencies, including governors' offices. That is the question addressed here. Brief overviews of emergency management and county government will provide the context for the managements for central roles for counties in state and local emergency management. …

Chemical warfare: disaster preparation in an Israeli hospital.

The situation in the Middle East makes it imperative that Israeli hospitals be prepared for disaster, particularly that associated with chemical warfare. To prepare for the impact of chemical warfare, Israeli hospitals have designed mass trauma programs, which include staff training and simulated disaster drill exercises. These have been incorporated in the conventional disaster program since 1989. This article provides a brief overview of the trauma program at Beilinson Medical Center in Petach Tikva, Israel, including definition of four stages of injury, guidelines for intervention, and a discussion of the role of the social worker in the disaster plan.

Disaster Programs as Technology Transfers: The Case of Puerto Rico in the Aftermath of Hurricane Hugo

This paper identifies a set of processes which characterized the organized disaster response to Hurricane Hugo in Puerto Rico. It uses insights generated from the technology transfer literature to compare the relative effectiveness of three disaster mitigation programs in Puerto Rico, and to generalize to the likely difficulties inherent in international disaster mitigation programs emanating from core societies. In Puerto Rico the services of the Weather Service Forecasting Office and the computer model used to evacuate and shelter populations worked well. However, the coastal management program has had mixed success at best. This paper attempts to identify the causes of the differential effectiveness of these three programs by showing the similarities between the WSFO program and the SLOSH computer model and their differences from the coastal management program. It also considers other elements in the disaster response system that did not work as well: sheltering, long term emergency housing, and lifeline protection.

Emergency Medical Service System (EMSS) in Tokyo: Special Reference to the Disaster Program

The Emergency Medical Service System in Tokyo has been developed through the cooperative efforts and achievements of many. EMS in Tokyo consists of three parts: 1) the network system of emergency hospitals; 2) the transportation system of emergency patients (Ambulance System); and 3) the communications system (Emergency Medical Information System). Emergency services are controlled by the Japanese Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The former is in charge of ambulance and rescue services located in the fire department, the latter has to do with medical affairs.

Insurance versus Disaster Relief: An Analysis of Interactive Modelling for Disaster Policy Planning

This paper is concerned with ways that policy makers can plan ahead with respect to dealing with consequences of natural hazards. Despite the rash of movies highlighting dangers of earthquakes, floods, and tornados, local policy makers and community leaders view natural disasters as low priority items until after an event occurs.1 Should the damage be severe there is great concern with getting the community back on its feet and preventing disasters of a similar sort from occurring in the future. The behavior of public officials is naturally influenced by individual reactions to hazards which they face. There is considerable empirical evidence documenting the lack of interest by residents of hazardprone areas in adopting protective measures to mitigate losses or purchasing insurance voluntarily. Following a severe disaster, there is normally a clamor for disaster relief to aid uninsured victims and Congress has frequently responded with special legislation. In this sense the policy maker and individuals join forces since they both have the same objective-a speedy recovery. Petak and Atkisson have shown that the federal government, in contrast to local and state agencies, has been increasingly concerned with developing hazard mitigation policies and reducing uncertainties associated with natural disasters, but has been only partially successful in accomplishing their objectives.2 One reason for limited progress in this domain is the lack of available time to analyze and evaluate long-term planning options due to the large number of daily decisions that require immediate action. In order to change the context of policy planning, there is a need to develop interactive decision support tools that clearly enable one to evaluate the impact of alternative disaster programs on different stakeholders. In this sense the discussion in this paper supplements the approaches taken by Wallace and de Balogh3 and de Balogh and Petak4 in this volume.