Global Disaster Management Research Articles

Global Landslide Finder: Detecting the Time and Place of Landslides with Dense Earth Observation Time Series

This paper presents a remote sensing approach for rapidly and automatically generating maps of surface disturbances caused by landslides on the global scale. Our approach not only identifies the locations of these disturbances but also pinpoints the estimated time of their occurrence. Using the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, we analyzed two decades of Landsat 5, 7, and 8 surface reflectance data. We tested this approach in five landslide-prone regions: Iburi (Japan), Kashmir (Pakistan), Karnataka (India), Porgera (Papua New Guinea), and Pasang Lhamu (Nepal). The results were promising, with R2 values ranging up to 0.85, indicating a robust correlation between detected disturbances and actual landslide events compared to manually made inventories. The accuracy metrics further validated our method, with a producer’s accuracy of 75%, a user’s accuracy of 73%, and an F1 score of 75%. Furthermore, the method proved well transferable across different locations. These findings demonstrate the method’s potential as a valuable tool for near real-time and historical analysis of landslide activity, thereby contributing to global disaster management and mitigation efforts.

CONSIDERATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN GLOBAL DISASTER RISK REDUCTION FRAMEWORKS: A QUALITATIVE SURVEY

The impact of the disaster on cultural heritage assets was prominent. Despite the fact that disaster risk reduction (DRR) frameworks were developed to aid nations in combating disaster risk, cultural heritage protection continues to receive little consideration in the overall guidelines. As a result,the previous researcher discovered that cultural heritage needs are frequently not prioritized in the overall disaster management plan. This paper examined the consideration of cultural heritage requirements in the global disaster management plan in light of this concern. A qualitative survey was conducted to investigate the obstacles to appropriately integrating DRR into heritage site management in disaster-prone regions. The 30 respondents agreed that cultural heritage sites should be included in the disaster risk reduction plan; however, the current disaster management practice has not adequately incorporated the heritage sites requirement into the plans and requires significant improvements to combat the disaster risk, particularly in the realm of climate change.It is recommended that future research identify the currently established heritage management instruments that have incorporated disaster risk reduction

Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of Global Disaster Management in the Post-COVID-19 Era.

Addressing the Challenges and Opportunities of Global Disaster Management in the Post-COVID-19 Era.

Optimal design and reconfiguration of flower constellations: An application to global disaster management

Unpredictable natural disasters are inevitable, and creating a communication satellite constellation that can continuously cover the entire Earth during disasters seems practically impossible. On the other hand, building up dedicated constellations associated with disaster areas does not make sense, either technically or temporally. This paper presents an optimal approach to providing timely and continuous communication coverage by optimal design and reconfiguration of flower constellations (FCs). In particular, the proposed approach addresses the optimal design of an FC and its formation by optimal satellites’ transfer from the last constellation and the remaining satellites from the previous reconfigurations. The multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (NSGA-II) is used to find optimal FC designs that minimize the height of perigee while simultaneously minimizing the number of satellites. In addition, the optimum assignment for transferring satellites to the designed FC is to minimize the total Δv for the reconfiguration by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. In the end, the feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparison optimal results.

Seeing through the clouds: Processes and challenges for sharing geospatial data for disaster management in Haiti

This article examines the ways in which the production and sharing of geospatial data for disaster management purposes have evolved in Haiti, within the context of the 2010 earthquake and 2016 Hurricane Matthew. The conditions for these developments are traced through the institutional and operational dynamics among key stakeholders at international, State and local levels. The article is presented as a case study and is based on reports, field observations and interviews with relevant stakeholders. Overall, the article finds that the increasing recognition, use and value of data for disaster management activities since the earthquake, is contributing to a number of interrelated economic, technical and legal processes and challenges for data sharing among stakeholders in the country. Economic findings are primarily centered around the impact which donor funding, project based work and “new market” dymnamics are having on data sharing. These issues feed into technical findings, where the increasing number of stakeholders and geospatial based projects has led to data access uncertainty and quality concerns among stakeholders. Lastly, legal findings are generally concerned with uncertainty regarding license conditions. Underlying each of these findings is the increasing value and implication of open data. The article concludes with an analytical discussion which frames these main findings within broader developments taking place in the global disaster management sector.

“A jungle that is continually encroaching”: The time of disaster management

This essay examines the temporal logics of contemporary disaster management. I discuss episodes from the expansion of the global disaster management complex—in the United States after WWII, and in Indonesia after the New Order—to characterize the form of futurity established through the technocratic administration of systematically-envisioned catastrophe. Disaster management projects a shallow future whose indeterminacy does not stimulate aspiration toward transcendence of the given, but rather motivates an endless procedural loop of anticipation and pre-emption in order to delay the destruction of the present order. Disaster management thus refashions “action” as the postponement of the future, and in doing so explicates a basic but neglected temporality of liberalism—that of vigilance toward continually-renewed danger.

Real-time foresight — Preparedness for dynamic networks

Foresight processes help decision makers plan for potential, desirable or probable futures. With increasing unpredictability, under pressure of time and in multi-agency situations, however, traditional foresight and strategic management fail. In this paper, we redefine a foresight process for real time network management instructed by the extreme case of collaboration in global disaster management. We use an actor–network approach to explore on global and local levels emerging networks. We find that ad hoc and long term network dynamics are governance structures for unpredictable collaboration just as traditional goal setting and targeting is conducive to stable environments. Altogether five dynamic network patterns are found that underlie successful ad hoc collaboration: (1) identification of heterogeneous network actors and early alignment of interests (2) development of a shared vision for heterogeneous goals (3) use of boundary objects (4) punctual directness and distance among implementing actors (5) intense local integration of the focal actor. Governmental decision makers, corporate actors and voluntary associations who are cognisant of dynamic network patterns can use them for rapid collaboration instead of long-range foresight and constituent planning. To base leadership on dynamic network principles instead of traditional strategic management means to adopt a new real-time foresight for collaborative innovation.

Women’s Economic Empowerment and Social Change from a Culture-Psychological Perspective

Since the beginning of the 1990ies, gender mainstreaming and related women`s economic empowerment programs became an integral part of development programs and global disaster management. Gender―or more generally speaking social―justice is defined as its end goal, that is a condition in which diverse needs and interests are acknowledged and shared power relations are existent. Albeit the goal of social justice appears to be clear, subjective ideals may be diverse and contradictory, depending on personal stances, religious affiliations as well as on sociocultural contexts. How do theoretical approaches developed in western countries aid analysis of, and development of interventions for social problems within non-western contexts? In this article, I address this question by investigating which gender relations are endorsed by a disaster-stricken village community in Southeast Asia. The community helps to clarify what is possible when a group of several Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) works together on issues of social justice and gender issues using livelihood programs and micro-credit schemes. On the background of the empirical findings, I discuss shortcomings of western approaches.

The Hydra Paradox: Global Disaster Management in a World of Crises

This article explores issues of disasters and their management, against a backdrop of multiple crises that are seen as defining the current condition of globalisation, driven by an ongoing dialectic between forces from ‘above’ and ‘below’. The article draws on forms of chaos theory, treating disasters and their management as a key site in which to examine intersections of crisis and chaos in global processes, colliding with destructive natural events and forces which are still outside dominant systems of control. The exposition starts from a new look at the ancient myth of Hydra, still used to capture the intractability of global crises and problems. Hydra represented hyper-complexity and exponential growth, qualities that characterise global problems today. It also presented a fantasy solution to the problems of agency from below which dominant groups have found irresistibly seductive for millennia. Este artículo explora asuntos sobre los desastres y sus gestiones, desde el punto de vista de múltiples crisis, que parecen definir la condición actual de la globalización, motivado por una constante dialéctica entre las fuerzas de ‘arriba’ y las de ‘abajo’. El artículo parte de las formas de la teoría del caos en los procesos globales, topándose con eventos y fuerzas naturales destructivas, que siguen siendo sistemas externos dominantes del control. La exposición comienza con una nueva mirada al antiguo mito de Hidra, usado todavía para captar la insolubilidad de las crisis y los problemas globales. Hidra representaba un crecimiento hipercomplejo y exponencial, cualidades que hoy caracterizan los problemas globales. También presentaba una solución de fantasía a los problemas de los organismos desde debajo, en los cuales, los grupos dominantes encontraron irresistiblemente seductores por milenios. 本文探讨各种灾难与对它们的管理，其背景是被视作定义当前全球化条件的多重危机，当前的全球化主要受“上”和“下”之间的辩证法驱动。应用大混乱（无序）理论的形式，把灾难和对它们的管理当作检讨全球过程中的危机和大混乱之间关系的关键之处，与毁灭性的自然事件和力量冲撞，这些力量仍然超出主导的各种控制系统。本文始于关于古代多头蛇（难于根除的祸患）的神话的新看法，以便说明全球危机和问题的难以解决性。多头蛇代表的是极端复杂性和指数般的增长，意指今天全球问题的特征。它也意味着对来自下层、主导性集团为了太平盛世已经发现极具吸引力的能动的问题的神奇解决方案。 이 글은 위로부터 힘과 아래로부터의 힘 간의 진행되고 있는 변증법에 의해서 추동되고 있는 세계화의 현재적 조건으로 정의되는 복합 위기를 배경으로 재해와 재해 관리를 쟁점을 검토한다. 재해와 재해관리를 아직까지 지배적인 관리 체계 밖에 있는 파괴적인 자연 사건과 힘과 충돌하면서 지구적 과정에서 위기와 카오스가 교차하는 핵심적인 영역으로 다루면서, 카오스 이론을 논한다. 이 논의는 지구적 위기와 문제의 해결 불가능성을 파악하는데 아직까지 사용되는 고대 힌드라 신화를 새롭게 조망하면서 시작한다. 힌드라는 오늘날 지구적 문제를 특징짓는 속성인 초-복합성과 지수적 성장을 대표한다. 또한 힌드라는 지배 집단이 수천 년 동안 매혹적인 것으로 본 행위자들의 문제에 대한 환상적인 해결책을 제시한다. Эта статья исследует проблемы бедствий и управления ими, на фоне многочисленных кризисов, которые рассматриваются определяющими текущее состояние глобализации, движимой продолжающейся диалектикой между силами «сверху» и «снизу». Статья основана на формах теории хаоса, рассматривает бедствия и управление ими в качестве ключевого места, в котором можно исследовать пересечения кризиса и хаоса в глобальных процессах, сталкивающихся с разрушительными природными явлениями и силами, которые все еще являются внешними доминирующими системами контроля. Экспозиция начинается с нового взгляда на древний миф о Гидре, все еще используемого для фиксации неподатливых глобальных кризисов и проблем. Гидра представляет собой гиперсложность и экспоненциальный рост, качества характеризующие глобальные проблемы сегодня. Также представлена фантазия принятия решения проблемы агентством снизу, которую доминирующие группы находили неотразимо соблазнительной на протяжении тысячелетий.