Large Disasters Research Articles

Post-disaster reconstruction in Christchurch: a “build back better” perspective

PurposeThe 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes were one of the most devastating events in New Zealand’s history. Due to the large scale of disruption and losses, the central government created a separate body, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), to manage and oversee recovery activities. Working with local authorities and stakeholders, CERA plays a major role in driving the recovery in Christchurch. This paper aims to analyse CERA’s decision-making process and the effects of some of its critical decisions on the recovery outcomes. The paper takes a “build back better” (BBB) perspective to understand the decisions taken and processes used.Design/methodology/approachThe case study adopted a mixed-methods research design (Creswell, 2013) and was conducted by reviewing official CERA documents and publications related to its recovery assessments and by conducting interviews with key officials from CERA. Collecting data from both qualitative and quantitative data sources enabled the process of triangulation.FindingsLessons learned from the Canterbury experience in terms of recovery best practices are reported. CERA’s recovery policy aimed to give confidence to the community and renew and revitalise the damaged city. Compared with the BBB theory, the community-driven recovery strategy and the multi-stakeholder approach worked well. Other critical decisions aligned with the BBB theory include land zoning, empowering community and integration with existing developmental plans.Originality/valueBBB can be used as a tool for the implementation of recovery and restoration measures following a large disaster. However, a set of practical indicators to measure the level of BBB is needed.

Public in-Kind Relief and Private Self-Insurance

This paper provides a new angle on the question of crowding effects of public policies. We examine how non-hypothetical self-insurance behavior by households responds to variations in public investments in relief capabilities based on a large disaster preparedness survey (n = 19,071) conducted in Japan in 2012. In our specific setting which looks at emergency drinking water, (i) government provides in-kind, rather than cash, relief and (ii) the crowding effect observed is more apt to be total, rather than partial. In contrast to much of the literature studying crowding effects of cash relief, we find little evidence for crowding out in emergency drinking water, with an upper bound of 2% at the intensive margin. We also identify important benefits of targeting in-kind relief to households with minors.

Consistent modeling of a catastrophic flowslide at the Shenzhen landfill using a hydro-elasto-plastic model with solid–fluid transition

Flow-type landslides are an important hazard that can cause great destruction due to the rapid flow velocity and large disaster area. This paper presents a catastrophic flowslide that recently occurred at a landfill in Shenzhen, China. This disaster involved an area about 1100 m in length and 630 m in maximum width, and caused the death of 77 people and the destruction of 33 buildings. The precise reason for the landfill’s failure is still unknown, and therefore we try to contribute an increased understanding of the event for future prevention. In this study, the failure mechanism of the studied slope was analyzed and described under partially saturated condition. The solid–fluid transition during the flowslide occurrence was described using a unified constitutive model. The model was used to perform the hydro-elasto-plastic modeling in the pre-failure stage, the viscous modeling in the post-failure stage, and the second-order work criterion was introduced in between to model the solid–fluid transition. The consistent evolution of the flowslide, including initiation, propagation, and deposit stages, was simulated and analyzed using the finite element method with Lagrangian integration points after careful calibration of the viscous parameters. The numerical results were compared with the real case and used to explain the failure mechanism.

Simulating disaster volunteerism in Japan: “Pay It Forward” as a strategy for extending the post-disaster altruistic community

When a large disaster occurs, many volunteers can be garnered. After the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan in 2011, about 1.4 million volunteers rushed to the disaster area. Survivors-turned-volunteers from the 2004 Chuetsu Earthquake helped people in Noda Village, which was affected by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, while in turn people affected by the Chuetsu Earthquake were assisted by survivors of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake from Nishinomiya City. Such a chain of support is called a “Pay-It-Forward” Network (PFN) and can serve as a valuable reserve of volunteer support in the next disaster. This paper studies PFNs using mathematical simulation and cellular automata. First, we compare two variables: whether volunteerism tended to be affected by neighborhoods (N) or by a disaster itself (R) following two large disasters in Japan: the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. Second, we simulated volunteerism in the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake using cellular automata, including changing the variables (α) reflected by sympathy based on similar disaster experience. We found that the neighborhood (N) factor prevented the PFN from triggering inter-survivor support especially in the Tohoku case; however, the simulation revealed that, under other conditions, the PFN can spread volunteerism dramatically. On the whole, this study suggests the importance of two factors, N and R, and shows that PFNs can effectively activate the chain of support in some cases.

Numerical Simulations for Large Deformation of Geomaterials Using Molecular Dynamics

From the microperspective, this paper presents a model based on a new type of noncontinuous theoretical mechanical method, molecular dynamics (MD), to simulate the typical soil granular flow. The Hertzian friction formula and viscous damping force are introduced in the MD governing equations to model the granular flow. To show the validity of the proposed approach, a benchmark problem of 2D viscous material flow is simulated. The calculated final flow runout distance of the viscous material agrees well with the result of constrained interpolated profile (CIP) method as reported in the literature. Numerical modeling of the propagation of the collapse of three‐dimensional axisymmetric sand columns is performed by the application of MD models. Comparison of the MD computational runout distance and the obtained distance by experiment shows a high degree of similarity. This indicates that the proposed MD model can accurately represent the evolution of the granular flow. The model developed may thus find applications in various problems involving dense granular flow and large deformations, such as landslides and debris flow. It provides a means for predicting fluidization characteristics of soil large deformation flow disasters and for identification and design of appropriate protective measures.

Coordination of Autonomous Healthcare Entities: Emergency Response to Multiple Casualty Incidents

In recent years, many urban areas have established healthcare coalitions (HCCs) composed of autonomous (and often competing) hospitals, with the goal of improving emergency preparedness and response. We study the role of such coalitions in the specific context of response to multiple‐casualty incidents in an urban setting, where on‐scene responders must determine how to send casualties to medical facilities. A key function in incident response is multi‐agency coordination. When this coordination is provided by an HCC, responders can use richer information about hospital capacities to decide where to send casualties. Using bed availability data from an urban area and a suburban area in the United States, we analyze the response capability of healthcare infrastructures under different levels of coordination, and we develop a stress test to identify areas of weakness. We find that improved coordination efforts should focus on decision support using information about inpatient resources, especially in urban areas with high inter‐hospital variability in resource availability. We also find that coordination has the largest benefit in small incidents. This benefit is a new value proposition for HCCs, which were originally formed to improve preparedness for large disasters.

Prediction of Pillar Stability for Underground Mines Using the Stochastic Gradient Boosting Technique

The prediction of pillar stability is of great importance because pillar failure can lead to large disasters. In this paper, a stochastic gradient boosting (SGB) model was applied to classify pillar stability. Five potentially relevant factors, including the pillar width, the pillar height, the ratio of the pillar width to the pillar height, the uniaxial compressive strength of the rock, and the pillar stress, were chosen to establish the evaluation index system. The 205 pillar samples were collected, and an SGB model was developed by training 80% of original data (165 samples), and the optimal parameter values of the model were achieved by the method of 10-fold cross-validation. The external testing set (with 40 samples) was used to validate the feasibility of the SGB model. The accuracy and kappa analysis, together with the three within-class classification metrics (recall, precision, and F-measure), and receiver operating characteristic curve were utilized to evaluate the performance of the optimum SGB, random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and MLPNN models. The results revealed that the SGB model has higher credibility than the RF, SVM, and MLPNN models. The sensitivity of the parameters was investigated based on the relative variable importance, in which the pillar stress and the ratio of the pillar width to the pillar height were found to be the major influencing variables for pillar stability.

Prediction of Slope Stability Using Four Supervised Learning Methods

The analysis and prediction of slope stability are very important, because slope failure can lead to large disasters. This paper focused on a performance comparison of four supervised learning methods for slope stability prediction. Based on characteristics of slope instability and analysis of data availability, six typical slope parameters—the unit weight, cohesion, internal friction angle, slope inclination, slope height, and pore water ratio—were chosen to establish the evaluation index system. The gravitational search algorithm (GSA), random forest (RF), support vector machine, and naive Bayesian (Bayes) were proposed to establish classifiers. A data set from more than 10 domestic and abroad slope projects was established to train and test the four classifiers, and then, key parameters of the four models were optimized by using the method of 10-fold cross validation. The prediction performances of the four supervised learning methods were compared and analyzed. The results of accuracy, Kappa, and receiver operating characteristic curves reveal that both GSA and RF models can achieve satisfactory results, and the GSA model can obtain the best results when compared with the other three learning methods. Finally, seven models with varying indicators are investigated to obtain the parameter sensitivity based on RF and GSA models.

From Incident to Inpatient: How Healthcare Coalitions Can Improve Incident Response

In recent years, many urban areas have established healthcare coalitions composed of autonomous (and often competing) hospitals, with the goal of improving emergency preparedness and response. We study the role of such coalitions in the specific context of response to multiple-casualty incidents in an urban setting, where on-scene responders must determine how to send casualties to medical facilities. A key function in incident response is multi-agency coordination. When this coordination is provided by a healthcare coalition, responders can use richer information about hospital capacities to decide where to send casualties. Using bed availability data from an urban area and a suburban area in the United States, we analyze the response capability of healthcare infrastructures under different levels of coordination, and we develop a stress test to identify areas of weakness. We find that improved coordination efforts should focus on decision support using information about inpatient resources, especially in urban areas with high inter-hospital variability in resource availability. We also find that coordination has the largest benefit in small incidents, suggesting that policy makers should improve coordination in smaller incidents. This benefit is a new value proposition for healthcare coalitions, which were originally formed to improve preparedness for large disasters.

Study of a Improvement Plans about Efficient Operation of Korean Volunteer Fire Departments

본 연구는 2012년부터 2016년까지 5년간의 (구)국민안전처 내부 소방행정자료와 통계연보, (구)소방방재청 통계와통계청 자료 등을 활용, 우리나라 의용소방대의 소방 활동과 각종 대민봉사 지원활동 전반에 대한 통계분석을 통해현실적 문제점을 도출하여 개선방안을 모색하였다. 연구결과는 첫째, 농촌지역 특성을 고려한 의용소방대 정원관리제도 보완 둘째, 의용소방대 내부적 갈등요인 해소를 위한 교양교육제도 강화 셋째, 의용소방대장 등 관리계층 대원들의 조직운영 리더십 역량강화 넷째, 지역여건에 맞는 의용소방대 교육·훈련제도 확립 다섯째, 의용소방대 대형재난현장 활동 보상제도 개선이다. 본 연구결과는 향후, 우리나라 의용소방대 발전의 기초자료로 활용되기를 기대한다.This study sought for an improvement plan of overall fire-fighting activities and all kinds of support activities of servicefor public welfare of Korean Volunteer Fire Departments by utilizing the internal fire administration data and statisticalyearbooks of the (Old)Ministry of Public Safety and Security (MPSS), the statistics of the (Old) National EmergencyManagement(NEMA), and the data of the National Statistical Office (NSO) of 5 years from 2012 to 2016 and drawing thepractical problems through the statistical analysis. The results of the study are as follows: First, the quota management systemof Volunteer Fire Departments that considers the characteristics of rural areas should be supplemented. Second, the culture andtraining system to solve internal conflict factors of Volunteer Fire Departments should be strengthened. Third, managementmembers readership competency of operating organizations including volunteer fire marshals should be strengthened. Fourth,the education and training system of Volunteer Fire Departments to satisfy regional conditions should be established. Fifth,the reward system for Volunteer Fire Departments activities of large disaster sites should be improved. The result of the studywill be expected to be utilized as the basic data to develop Korean Volunteer Fire Departments in the future.

Disaster Coverage Predication for the Emerging Tethered Balloon Technology: Capability for Preparedness, Detection, Mitigation, and Response.

A disaster is a consequence of natural hazards and terrorist acts, which have significant potential to disrupt the entire wireless communication infrastructure. Therefore, the essential rescue squads and recovery operations during a catastrophic event will be severely debilitated. To provide efficient communication services, and to reduce casualty mortality and morbidity during the catastrophic events, we proposed the Tethered Balloon technology for disaster preparedness, detection, mitigation, and recovery assessment. The proposed Tethered Balloon is applicable to any type of disaster except for storms. The Tethered Balloon is being actively researched and developed as a simple solution to improve the performance of rescues, facilities, and services of emergency medical communication in the disaster area. The most important requirement for rescue and relief teams during or after the disaster is a high quality of service of delivery communication services to save people's lives. Using our proposed technology, we report that the Tethered Balloon has a large disaster coverage area. Therefore, the rescue and research teams are given higher priority, and their performance significantly improved in the particular coverage area. Tethered Balloon features made it suitable for disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery. The performance of rescue and relief teams was effective and efficient before and after the disaster as well as can be continued to coordinate the relief teams until disaster recovery. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:222-231).

Two halves make a whole: Both first responders and experts are needed for the management and identification of the dead in large disasters

Catastrophic natural disasters are a regular global issue claiming thousands of lives and having severe and long lasting consequences for communities. Along with the rescue and care of survivors and the provision of basic services, managing the dead in a proper and dignified manner is one of the three pillars of disaster response. Since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, progress to facilitate better coordination in the management of the dead has been made. Two guidelines contributing to this positive trend are the Interpol DVI Guide, and the “Management of the Dead after Disasters — A Field Manual for First Responders”. The former is aimed at forensic specialists and emergency services, the latter at untrained first responders confronted with the management of the dead when specialist forensic services are not available. This paper sets out the complementarity of the two publications, illustrating that ideally, both first responders and experts are needed to properly manage and identify the dead following large disasters.

Study on Estimate of Load Ratio of Doubly Reinforced Concrete Beam Exposed to the Standard Fire

There are a lot of concerns on safety structure performance by being buildings to be large and high-rise. In particular, damage due to the fire recently leads to a large disaster and therefore a variety of countries operate the regulation on the fire resistance performance depending on the building structure. There are differences on the fire resistance design in each country but 50% of the design load is suggested to be reasonable for the normal temperature during the fire by applying the concept of the loading ratio to the fire resistance design of structures. Since the loading ratio is the factor having a major impact on the evaluation of the fire resistance performance, it should be preferentially considered. The study on setting up the loading ratio to evaluate the fire resistance performance and safety of structures has yet to be fully furnished in South Korea. Therefore, in this paper, the loading ratio proper for the construction status in South Korea is to be taken into account and then the ratio is to be proposed on the single reinforcement beam.

Large Natural Disasters--Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries

The Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) are valuable components of the disaster risk financing tool kit for Fund members, especially developing countries. They help to meet urgent balance of payments needs, and are designed to play a catalytic role in mobilizing other external financing. This paper develops proposals for a higher annual access limit under the RCF and RFI, building on a November 2016 staff paper on small states’ resilience to natural disasters and climate change (IMF, 2016c). Directors generally supported the proposal in that paper to establish higher annual access limits of 60 percent of quota under the RCF and RFI for countries experiencing severe natural disaster-related damages. The focus of this paper is to specify the threshold of damage from a natural disaster that would allow members experiencing urgent balance of payments needs arising from such disasters to access emergency financing at the higher annual limit. In the November 2016 paper, staff proposed, among other things, the possibility of establishing a higher access limit under the RCF and RFI where the amount of damage reached the threshold of 30 percent of GDP. Most Directors regarded the proposed threshold of disaster damage as overly restrictive, and suggested lowering the threshold to 20 percent of GDP or lower, provided that this did not jeopardize the self-sustainability of the PRGT. For a range of future disaster outcomes, a damage threshold of 20 percent of GDP could increase projected annual average PRGT loan demand in the 1-5 percent range over the next decade, which should not pose significant risks to the robustness of PRGT self-sustainability. Cautious stewardship of PRGT resources argues against a lower disaster damage threshold, pending further experience with disaster trends and associated PRGT loan demand. This paper does not propose changes to the current cumulative access limits for the RCF and RFI. The cumulative access limits play an important role in the Fund’s financing architecture, constraining the extent to which countries can access Fund resources without implementing a Fund-supported program with upper credit tranche (UCT) conditionality and associated policies in circumstances where such a program would be more appropriate. The Board will have the opportunity to review the cumulative access limits in the context

Update on the Financing of the Fund’s Concessional Assistance and Debt Relief to Low-Income Countries

PRGT-related policies following the 2015 enhancement of the financial safety net for LICs, while options to better assist countries confronting sudden balance of payments needs due to large natural disasters are under consideration. Demand for PRGT resources has increased. Demand for concessional resources has exceeded historical averages in recent years, mainly in response to sustained low commodity prices and deteriorated global financial market conditions. Demand is expected to reach new highs in 2017 and longer-term estimates have been raised somewhat.

Understanding the nature and scale of risks in Karonga, Malawi

The urban centre of Karonga in Malawi experiences many large and small disasters, including earthquakes, strong winds and floods. Inhabitants also face such everyday risks as unsafe water, poor-quality sanitation and widespread use of dirty fuels within households. However, the nature and scale of the risks are poorly understood. Based on data from 380 systematically selected households in Karonga, this paper explores the frequency and impacts of small and large disasters and everyday risks, finding informal settlements in flood zones to be most affected. Impacts vary according to differences in levels of income, planning and housing status, access to water, sanitation and the type of energy used by households. Attempts to reduce and respond to disaster risk are affected by weak governance structures. The knowledge can create the basis for capacity building at both the community and local government levels.

The Thousand Year Flood: University Students’ Reflections on Service Learning Experiences Before and After a Natural Disaster

Service learning allows health sciences students to connect what they learn in the classroom with real-world experiences. The goal of this article was to examine the experiences of students in a nutrition course who completed their service learning assignment at a community food bank before or after a large natural disaster—the October 2015 flood in South Carolina. Sources of data included an online survey and a qualitative content analysis of the service learning assignment reflection papers. Students ( n = 106 completed the course) equally valued their service learning experience at both pre- and post-flood periods; however, significantly more post-flood students (44%) rated the training they received prior to volunteering as inadequate than pre-flood students (7%, χ2 = 7.55, p < .01). From the reflection papers, themes that emerged more often in post-flood papers were related to altruism (e.g., mentions of wanting to volunteer in the future, include others in their volunteer experiences, or donate food) as compared to pre-flood papers, which tended to mention more of the technical aspects of volunteering, such as comments around sorting or bagging food. Analysis of the reflection papers also revealed several students who volunteered pre-flood but returned to volunteer again after the flood. The results of this study indicate that students can familiarize themselves with volunteer opportunities through service learning that enable them to return to their volunteer location at a time of community crisis and need; however, additional training regarding the impact of natural disasters would be beneficial.

2017 Handbook of IMF Facilities for Low-Income Countries

This Handbook provides guidance to staff on the financial facilities and non-financial instruments for low-income countries (LICs), defined here as all countries eligible to obtain concessional financing from the Fund. It updates the previous version of the Handbook that was published in February 2016 (IMF, 2016d) by incorporating modifications resulting from Board papers and related decisions since that time, including Financing for Development—Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries—Further Considerations (IMF, 2016c), Review of Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust – Review of Interest Rate Structure (IMF, 2016b), Eligibility to Use the Fund’s Facilities for Concessional Financing (IMF, 2017a), Large Natural Disasters—Enhancing the Financial Safety Net for Developing Countries (IMF, 2017b) and Adequacy of the Global Financial Safety Net – Proposal for a New Policy Coordination Instrument (IMF, 2017c). Designed as a comprehensive reference tool for program work on LICs, the Handbook also refers, in summary form, to a range of relevant policies that apply more generally to IMF members. As with all guidance notes, the relevant IMF Executive Board decisions, including the terms of the various LIC Trust Instruments that have been adopted by the Board, remain the sole legal authority on the matters covered in the Handbook

Design and implementation of disaster management GIS system based on ultra high definition display environment

In case of large scale disaster, it is very important to collect disaster information and understand them to make decision at counter disaster headquarter (CDH). Existing disaster information gathering and sharing system based on geographic information system (GIS) cannot respond to deal with large scale disaster from the points of the scalability and operability. This paper introduces a new design of disaster state presentation system using large size and ultra definition displaying system in order to collect and share disaster state information to make decision for officers at the CDH. The proposed method displays both GIS based location information and multimedia information in parallel on the same display. These displayed disaster information are interactively controlled using workspace controller to display on tiled display wall (TDW). We designed and implemented our system as a prototype. Through performance evaluation, the effects and future works of our proposed system are discussed.

Does Frugality Influence Firm Behavior? Evidence from Natural Disasters

Across 42 countries, I show that nonfinancial firms in more frugal countries tend to have shorter debt maturity, and when large natural disasters occur, they raise debt with a much shorter maturity structure and smaller amounts of equity. Additionally, firms in more frugal countries are more likely to tap global capital markets the year after the disasters, not before. Lastly, while firms in thriftier countries reduce corporate investments at higher rates when disasters occur, those that have foreign assets and foreign income do not, as would be expected if residents’ frugality can intensify frictions on firms’ local capital supply.