Emergency Mitigation Research Articles

Assessing the efficacy of micro-piles prepared using polymer-soil mixtures for landslide emergency mitigation

Assessing the efficacy of micro-piles prepared using polymer-soil mixtures for landslide emergency mitigation

FFO: Forest Fire Ontology and Reasoning System for Enhanced Alert and Management Services

Forest fires or wildfires pose a serious threat to property, lives, and the environment. Early detection and mitigation of such emergencies, therefore, play an important role in reducing the severity of the impact caused by wildfire. Unfortunately, there is often an improper or delayed mechanism for forest fire detection which leads to destruction and losses. These anomalies in detection can be due to defects in sensors or a lack of proper information interoperability among the sensors deployed in forests. This paper presents a lightweight ontological framework to address these challenges. Interoperability issues are caused due to heterogeneity in technologies used and heterogeneous data created by different sensors. Therefore, through the proposed Forest Fire Detection and Management Ontology (FFO), we introduce a standardized model to share and reuse knowledge and data across different sensors. The proposed ontology is validated using semantic reasoning and query processing. The reasoning and querying processes are performed on real-time data gathered from experiments conducted in a forest and stored as RDF triples based on the design of the ontology. The outcomes of queries and inferences from reasoning demonstrate that FFO is feasible for the early detection of wildfire and facilitates efficient process management subsequent to detection.

Emergency mitigation of drought worldwide: Qualitative descriptive design

AbstractA popular idea is that slow‐moving droughts worldwide require long‐lasting emergency mitigation. In this article, we describe our study on how human society could improve its emergency mitigation of droughts for the ultimate objective of emergency management. The research methodology involved a qualitative descriptive design. As a paradigm shift, we initially examined middle‐term emergency mitigation to regional droughts to draw the implementation of long‐term emergency mitigation to regional droughts through three stakeholders (i.e., three analytical units such as international institutions, drought‐prone nations, and drought‐resistant nations). A major finding was that the three stakeholders should transform their current middle‐term drought mitigation strategies into long‐term drought mitigation ones. Based on the effectiveness of long‐term emergency mitigation, they must address multiple alternatives to include the strategic vision, Earth's community approach, social impacts of drought, drought fund initiative, lessons from few national cases (e.g., Australia and UAE), education, and scenario‐based training and could integrate droughts with other issues. It is advised that in the future, researchers will expand their study to encompass all nations worldwide.

Uncertainty analysis of dam-break flood risk consequences under the influence of non-structural measures

Climate change is causing an increase in the frequency of extreme disasters, increasing the likelihood of dam failures and floods. At the same time, the concentration of human activities in certain areas has increased the severity of the consequences of dam failures, requiring the establishment of more robust and reliable emergency management systems to protect lives and property. Non-structural measures serve as flexible and adaptable emergency mitigation measures that can be dynamically adjusted during rescue operations and enhance the resilience of urban systems. This article focuses on the consequences of life loss due to dam failure. Taking China's Yuyao City and SMH Reservoir as the research object, it analyzes the emergency response process after the disaster occurred, identifies the factors influencing the life loss, and selects non-structural measures such as disaster identification warnings, urban emergency management responses, evacuation routes, and destination selection as key areas of study. The research examines the impact of non-structural measures on the consequences of life loss and provides recommendations and suggestions. The results indicate that effective non-structural measures can significantly reduce the life loss in flood disasters.

A study on knowledge, attitude, and practices toward ophthalmic emergencies among fresh medical graduates in India.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and estimate the knowledge, attitude, and practices of Indian fresh medical graduates with respect to ophthalmic emergencies. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 1300 participants who had completed compulsory rotatory residential internship with the help of a questionnaire distributed through social platforms. The Chi-square and Pearson's coefficient relation tests were used. Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS. P <0.05 was taken as the level of statistical significance. Good knowledge proportionately corresponded to a good attitude with statistical significance (P = 0.000). Participants with good practice also had a good attitude with significance (P = 0.001). Good knowledge participants who managed ophthalmic emergencies were statistically significant than that of participants with poor knowledge and managed ophthalmic emergencies, 15.72%. (χ2 = 16.653, P = 0.000). Attitude toward confidence in the management of ophthalmic emergencies and their willingness in undergoing training was significant (χ2 = 43.8, P = 0.000). Educating and training fresh medical graduates can help in the management and mitigation of ophthalmic emergencies to reduce ocular morbidity and prevent blindness to a greater degree.

"Are we in this together?": embedding social identity detection in drones improves emergency coordination.

Autonomous systems, such as drones, are critical for emergency mitigation, management, and recovery. They provide situational awareness and deliver communication services which effectively guide emergency responders' decision making. This combination of technology and people comprises a socio-technical system. Yet, focusing on the use of drone technology as a solely operational tool, underplays its potential to enhance coordination between the different agents involved in mass emergencies, both human and non-human. This paper proposes a new methodological approach that capitalizes on social identity principles to enable this coordination in an evacuation operation. In the proposed approach, an adaptive drone uses sensor data to infer the group membership of the survivors it encounters during the operation. A corpus of 200 interactions of survivors' talk during real-life emergencies was computationally classified as being indicative of a shared identity or personal/no identity. This classification model, then, informed a game-theoretic model of human-robot interactions. Bayesian Nash Equilibrium analysis determined the predicted behavior for the human agent and the strategy that the drone needs to adopt to help with survivor evacuation. Using linguistic and synthetic data, we show that the identity-adaptive architecture outperformed two non-adaptive architectures in the number of successful evacuations. The identity-adaptive drone can infer which victims are likely to be helped by survivors and where help from emergency teams is needed. This facilitates effective coordination and adaptive performance. This study shows decision-making can be an emergent capacity that arises from the interactions of both human and non-human agents in a socio-technical system.

Post Covid-19 Emergency Mitigation Strategies Through Parents Readiness in Children's Behavior and Social Development

The COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on patterns of social interaction, education, and behavior on child development. Children with social development problems need good readiness from their parents in order to carry out their optimal growth functions. Parental readiness is one of the mitigation strategies to reduce the negative impact of COVID-19. The purpose of this research is to explore how parents are prepared for their children's social development after the COVID-19 emergency, in the Jember Regency. This research method uses qualitative research with a phenomenological design involving 7 parents in the Jember Regency area. The research instrument used a design theory from Prochaska, namely the transtheoretical model for parental preparation and Hurlock's theory, namely the ability to behave in accordance with social demands for children's social development. Data analysis used the induction method with specific conclusions drawn for the general public and presented descriptively. Parents have prepared and facilitated children's needs, learning environment, and provided motivation to children in their development period. Some parents admit that they have difficulty adjusting to their child's development. This is different from parents as housewives who have a lot of time with their children who claim that they understand their child's condition and can adapt to their child's development. Parents also provide time for their children to talk about their activities in their environment and limit their use of gadgets and replace them with other games that can stimulate their motor and sensory. The readiness of parents in the social development of children in the post-COVID-19 emergency shows positive results. Parents are well prepared to support their children's social development.&#x0D; Keywords: Child, COVID-19, Development, Parent, Readiness.

Assessing translocation success and long‐distance homing in riverine turtles 10 years after a freshwater oil spill

AbstractWildlife translocation is often used as a mitigation strategy for construction projects and other disturbances to habitat. In 2010, one of the largest freshwater oil spills in the United States occurred in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, when over 3.2 million L of diluted bitumen crude oil impacted nearly 56 km of riverine habitat. During 2010 and 2011 cleanup efforts, 686 northern map turtles (Graptemys geographica) were captured from oil‐impacted stretches of the river, cleaned, rehabilitated, and translocated 2.5–84.3 km from their original capture location. The goal of this translocation effort was to release turtles within the same watershed, but away from ongoing cleanup operations, so individuals could potentially return to their original home range after it had been cleaned of oil and restored. In this study, we evaluated the success of translocation as an emergency mitigation strategy for freshwater turtles by quantifying recapture probability and homing by northern map turtles translocated varying distances from their home ranges. During subsequent years of survey up to 10 years post‐spill, 230 of the translocated turtles were recaptured, of which 104 exhibited homing by returning to their original home ranges. Turtles translocated to sites nearest their original capture location had a higher probability of recapture and homing than those translocated further away. Females had a higher probability of returning to original home ranges than males when translocated greater distances. In addition, four females and one male are known to have traveled &gt;50 km between capture and release locations, which to our knowledge is the greatest travel distance recorded for any freshwater turtle species in the United States. Our results demonstrate that riverine turtles have considerable homing ability when displaced long distances, which has important implications for design and success of translocation projects.

PENGAYOMAN PEMERINTAH PADA MASYARAKAT DALAM MEWUJUDKAN DESA TANGGUH BENCANA

This activity has a focus on strengthening the community's role in creating a disaster-resilient village in Dayakan Village, Badegan District, Ponorogo Regency. The main benefit of this activity is to rebuild the community's contribution in the context of disaster management in Dayakan Village. Desa Dayakan is one of the villages which is affected by natural disasters every year such as landslides, flash floods, forest fires, and droughts. The entire Dayakan Village is located on the contours of mountainous land and most of it is forest. The implementation of this service is carried out through several activities including: (1) Socialization of program activities, (2) Strengthening the existence of disaster risk reduction (DRR) forums, (3) Disaster and emergency mitigation training, (4) Establishment of disaster posts in each hamlet, and (5) Establishment of disaster communication and information posts. In practice, the community has been very supportive of this activity through their participation in every activity held, besides that the role of the village government, DRR groups, and external institutions has also continued to be developed. The advice given in this activity is that the village government must be the motor in giving enthusiasm to the community to make the area a disaster resilient village.Keywords: Disaster Resilient Area, Community, Role

Collaborative Tourism Reconstruction Of The Bay Area In Palu City Following The 2018 Earthquake And Tsunami Disaster

Palu Bay, which is developed as a tourism area, is in the ring of fire with a history of repeated disasters. This tourism was able to increase tourist visits to the city of Palu. However, the 2018 earthquake and tsunami resulted in a decrease in tourist visits to the city of Palu. In addition to determining the interaction patterns of the Palu city population, this study tries to pinpoint the key factors the government used to transform Palu Bay into a popular tourist destination. This is accomplished by identifying the key factors that make Palu Bay a popular tourist destination and figuring out how to boost tourism there in the wake of the 2018 earthquake and tsunami disaster. Schutz analysis was employed with post-positivist paradigm and transcendental phenomenology approach. Triangulation was used to collect data, while content analysis was used to process it.Key factors used by the local government of Palu City in developing Palu Bay as a tourism area included: 1. The potential of Palu Bay's natural resources with its natural beauty and unique five-dimensional city (sea, bay, valley, mountain and river); 2. Strategic location on the coast of Palu city with easy access for tourists, 3. Market share of domestic and international tourists; 4. Of the nine existing sub-sectors, Palu Bay has the potential to become the mainstay sector of the city of Palu to support the regional economy because the agricultural, mining, fisheries, industrial, housing and financial sectors lack the potential to be the mainstay sector. The development of tourism in the Palu Bay area is carried out by prioritizing disaster emergency mitigation and response with proper governance and principles of Good Corporate Governance (GCG). Collaborative Multidimensional reconstruction of the private sector, local communities and local governments (triple BCG) as well as patterns of disaster mitigation and emergency response to stimulate tourism in the Palu bay area affected by the 2018 earthquake and tsunami.

Managing risk of non‐indigenous species establishment associated with ballast water discharges from ships with bypassed or inoperable ballast water management systems

Abstract Ballast water is recognized as a leading pathway for the introduction of aquatic non‐indigenous species which have caused substantial ecological damage globally. Following international regulations, most international ships will install a ballast water management system (BWMS) by 2024 to limit the concentration of aquatic organisms in ballast water discharges; however, these new technologies may not operate as expected at global ports having variable water quality or may periodically malfunction. Using simulations informed by empirical data, we investigated the risk of non‐indigenous species establishment associated with BWMS inoperability and evaluated potential mitigation strategies. Scenarios considered included bypassed or inoperable BWMS achieving no reduction in organisms, and partially functioning BWMS with discharged organism concentrations exceeding permissible limits. These scenarios were contrasted to outcomes with fully functioning BWMS and to voyages where ballast water exchange (BWE) was used to mitigate risk. Partially functioning BWMSs were nonetheless beneficial, reducing organism concentrations in ballast and thus establishment risk. When a BWMS is bypassed or partially functioning, BWE is a useful emergency mitigation measure, reducing establishment risks more than partial BMWS. However, the greatest risk reduction was achieved when partial BWMS and BWE were combined. Voyage‐specific characteristics such as concentration of organisms at uptake and destination port salinity can affect the optimal management strategy for voyages when the BWMS does not achieve compliant discharges. Synthesis and applications. The risk of aquatic invasions and their associated ecological damages can be substantially reduced by using a ballast water management system (BWMS) and/or ballast water exchange (BWE). When a BWMS is inoperable, appropriate mitigation measures should be decided on a trip‐by‐trip basis considering voyage route and reason for BWMS inoperability (when known). BWE is a useful strategy for reducing invasion risk, except when uptake concentrations are very low. Combining BWE and partial BWMS always reduced risk compared with BWE alone, but did not greatly reduce risk when uptake concentrations were high.

Vegetation Responses to Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activity in China, 1982 to 2018.

Climate change and human activities significantly affect vegetation growth in terrestrial ecosystems. Here, data reconstruction was performed to obtain a time series of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for China (1982–2018) based on Savitzky–Golay filtered GIMMS NDVI3g and MOD13A2 datasets. Combining surface temperature and precipitation observations from more than 2000 meteorological stations in China, Theil–Sen trend analysis, Mann–Kendall significance tests, Pearson correlation analysis, and residual trend analysis were used to quantitatively analyze the long-term trends of vegetation changes and their sources of uncertainty. Significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity was observed in vegetation changes in the study area. From 1982 to 2018, the vegetation showed a gradually increasing trend, at a rate of 0.5%·10 a−1, significantly improving (37.15%, p < 0.05) more than the significant degradation (7.46%, p < 0.05). Broadleaf (0.66) and coniferous forests (0.62) had higher NDVI, and farmland had the fastest rate of increase (1.02%/10 a−1). Temperature significantly affected the vegetation growth in spring (R > 0; p < 0.05); however, the increase in summer temperatures significantly inhibited (R < 0; p < 0.05) the growth in North China (RNDVI-tem = −0.379) and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (RNDVI-tem = −0.051). Climate change has highly promoted the growth of vegetation in the plain region of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River (3.24%), Northwest China (1.07%). Affected by human activities only, 49.89% of the vegetation showed an increasing trend, of which 22.91% increased significantly (p < 0.05) and 9.97% decreased significantly (p < 0.05). Emergency mitigation actions are required in Northeast China, Xinjiang, Northwest China, and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, monitoring vegetation changes is important for ecological environment construction and promoting regional ecological protection.

Social Media and the Internet of Things for Emergency and Disaster Medicine Management.

Social Media and the Internet of Things are nowadays full and strong components of day-to-day life worldwide. Both allow communicating with others 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without distance limitations. During the last decade, on-site citizens have shared disaster-related first reports on social media. Official institutions are using the same framework for delivering up-to-date and follow-up directives. Moreover, monitoring health risks, patients, and systems behavior in real-time over the Internet-of-Things allows detecting different levels of anomalies that might lead to critical events that need to be managed as an emergency. Emergency and disaster medicines deal with broad and complex medical, surgical, mental health, epidemiological, managerial, and communicational issues. Social Media platforms and the Internet of Things are technologies that increase cyber-physical interactions between individuals, machines, and their environment. The generated data over time are massive and are supporting the emergency or disaster mitigation process. This chapter deals with, in the first section, the social media platforms, and the Internet of Things. Then, at a second one, the concepts of emergency, disaster medicine and management are discussed. In the following two sections, we discuss applications and usages of social media and IoT technologies for improving the management (preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation) of emergencies and disasters as fundamental keys and pillars for efficiently handling the managerial information flow in emergency and disaster contexts.

The state of science on severe air pollution episodes: Quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Severe episodic air pollution blankets entire cities and regions and have a profound impact on humans and their activities. We compiled daily fine particle (PM2.5) data from 100 cities in five continents, investigated the trends of number, frequency, and duration of pollution episodes, and compared these with the baseline trend in air pollution. We showed that the factors contributing to these events are complex; however, long-term measures to abate emissions from all anthropogenic sources at all times is also the most efficient way to reduce the occurrence of severe air pollution events. In the short term, accurate forecasting systems of such events based on the meteorological conditions favouring their occurrence, together with effective emergency mitigation of anthropogenic sources, may lessen their magnitude and/or duration. However, there is no clear way of preventing events caused by natural sources affected by climate change, such as wildfires and desert dust outbreaks.

What can influence a county’s resilience and susceptibility to coronavirus in Nebraska?

This study sought to classify and assign the 93 counties in Nebraska into distinctive spatial-temporal clusters based on their trends in the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. A secondary goal of this study was to assess the potential role of preexisting sociodemographic, environmental, and health conditions in determining the county’s resilience and susceptibility to 2019-nCov. Spatial-temporal cluster analysis yielded three distinct confirmed cases and death clusters. Results from spatial-temporal cluster and regression analyses suggested that COVID-19 and HIV and obesity prevention should be integrated. Emergency response planning and mitigation should focus on counties characterized by noticeable increases in the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths and/or counties with relatively high population and ethnic minorities.

Empowering health systems research to engage with technical, organizational, social and economic forces: Lessons from the 2014 Ebola epidemic

AbstractThis paper draws lessons from the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic to suggest how health systems research can be strengthened to assist better with preparedness for and mitigation of future public health emergencies. The epidemic killed more than 11 000 people in West Africa between February 2014 and January 2016. The causes of the epidemic and the response to the outbreak harbour many lessons concerning how health systems were overwhelmed and need to be re‐designed in order to cope with future public health emergencies and limit their escalation. From these lessons, it is possible to identify the most significant systemic issues that must be addressed to ensure health systems can exhibit greater resilience in the face of similar events in the future. The paper goes on to consider the current capacity of health systems research (HSR) to assist with the management of these issues and to suggest that critical systems thinking and practice could empower health systems researchers and practitioners in a manner that would give them much greater potency. The research has additional importance now that Covid‐19 has demonstrated that pandemics are not ‘black swan’ events.

Examining the potential impacts of processes associated with urbanization and land use changes on inundation depths in areas affected by Hurricane Harvey in Houston

ABSTRACT This study explored to examine the potential impacts of population change and processes associated with urban development and land use changes on damage levels due to Hurricane Harvey in the greater Houston area. Results from linear mixed effects modeling suggested that certain social and demographic aspects of urbanization such as population growth, increase in the number of housing units, and management and professional occupations can be detrimental to the ecosystem of the greater Houston area. Another important finding was that damage-levels due to the hurricane were more severe in zip codes characterized by declines in median household income and increased unemployment. Emergency response planning and mitigation should focus on these areas.

An Analysis of Media Resources during Typhoon Hagibis

Background: The passage of typhoon Hagibis over Izunokuni City, where our hospital is located, resulted in the city essentially becoming an island due to flooding and landslides. Objectives: To examine the sources used to obtain information on typhoon Hagibis with respect to the storm itself, safety, and health issues and to present data resources that can be used for disaster emergency mitigation among health workers. Methods: The survey inquired about respondents’ age, sex, and occupation and asked the media to receive information about typhoon Hagibis and on damage induced by the typhoon in Izunokuni City. Results: The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 65 years old and the number of males was 97 and females 160. The number of clerks was 198, doctors 49, and nurses 10. The most frequently reported medium for obtaining information on the typhoon and damage induced by the typhoon in Izunokuni City were the television, followed by the internet (search engines like Yahoo or Google) and social networking services (SNSs). Conclusion: Television remains an important tool, but the internet and SNSs, have become similarly useful for obtaining information on disasters provided electric power is still available. One key point to consider in the future might be inter-connection through certain services between classic media and internet-based media for distributing information on disasters.

МЕТОДИКА РОЗРАХУНКУ МАТЕРІАЛЬНИХ РЕЗЕРВІВ ЯК ІНСТРУМЕНТ МЕХАНІЗМУ ДЕРЖАВНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ СИЛАМИ ЦИВІЛЬНОГО ЗАХИСТУ

Важливим елементом управлінської діяльності є підготовка та прийняття обґрунтованих управлінських рішень Ефективність функціонування єдиної державної системи цивільного захисту (ЄДСЦЗ) в цілому визначається оперативністю дій сил цивільного захисту (ЦЗ). Сили цивільного захисту – це аварійно-рятувальні формування, спеціалізовані служби та інші формування цивільного захисту, призначені для проведення аварійно-рятувальних та інших невідкладних робіт (АРІНР) з ліквідації наслідків надзвичайних ситуацій (НС). Тривалість проведення різного виду робіт залежить від достатнього запасу матеріального резерву, що використовується при виконанні робіт, та визначає час ліквідації НС та її наслідків, тим самим впливає на кількість людських жертв і об’єм матеріальних збитків від НС. У науковій статті на основі аналізу завдань визначених Кодексом цивільного захисту а також дій органів управління та сил цивільного захисту у надзвичайних ситуаціях пропонується математичний апарат визначення необхідних (достатніх) матеріальних резервів для підвищення ефективності дій підрозділів сил цивільного захисту при ліквідації наслідків надзвичайних ситуацій як інструмент механізму державного управління силами цивільного захисту. Матеріальні резерви необхідні для забезпечення експлуатації та ремонту техніки та озброєння можуть утворювати комплекти матеріальних резервів або матеріальні резерви за окремими типами елементів на складах. Комплектні матеріальних резервів, у свою чергу, можна поділити на об’єктові (на один тип техніки) та групові (на групу однотипних об’єктів техніки). У статті розроблено математичний апарат розрахунку матеріальних резервів необхідних для забезпечення експлуатації техніки та озброєння при виконанні аварійно-рятувальних та інших видів робіт. Для оцінки впливу матеріальних резервів на ефективність функціонування підрозділів сил цивільного захисту при ліквідації НС та їх наслідків використовуються деякі показники надійності озброєння.

Characteristics and emergency mitigation of the 2018 Laochang landslide in Tianquan County, Sichuan Province, China

This paper describes a recent landslide event, which occurred at Liucheng village in Tianquan County, Sichuan Province, China, on July 15, 2018. The Laochang landslide described in this research is an outstanding and valuable reference for understanding the characteristics of such kind of landslides that are geologically similar to the landslide. The deformation characteristics of the landslide are investigated based on field investigations, drilled boreholes, and exploratory trenches. The 225 residents of 64 households living on the flat platform were threatened by the landslide. Therefore, to guarantee the safety of human life and property becomes the primary emergency task. The anti-sliding piles were taken to stabilize the landslide and mitigate impacts caused by the landslide. Based on the analysis of the monitoring data, the effectiveness of anti-sliding piles is evaluated. The results indicate that the anti-sliding piles are effective in increasing the stability of the landslide, and this work can provide a reference for similar slope engineering projects.