Local Disaster Research Articles

Influence of Planning Tools on the Performance of a Disaster Management Project in Rwanda. A Case of Strengthening National and Local Disaster Risk Management Capacity, Resilience and Enhancing Preparedness and Early Warning System Project in Musanze District

Influence of Planning Tools on the Performance of a Disaster Management Project in Rwanda. A Case of Strengthening National and Local Disaster Risk Management Capacity, Resilience and Enhancing Preparedness and Early Warning System Project in Musanze District

Six classes named entity recognition for mapping location of Indonesia natural disasters from twitter data

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide the location of natural disasters that are poured into maps by extracting Twitter data. The Twitter text is extracted by using named entity recognition (NER) with six classes hierarchy location in Indonesia. Moreover, the tweet then is classified into eight classes of natural disasters using the support vector machine (SVM). Overall, the system is able to classify tweet and mapping the position of the content tweet.Design/methodology/approachThis research builds a model to map the geolocation of tweet data using NER. This research uses six classes of NER which is based on region Indonesia. This data is then classified into eight classes of natural disasters using the SVM.FindingsExperiment results demonstrate that the proposed NER with six special classes based on the regional level in Indonesia is able to map the location of the disaster based on data Twitter. The results also show good performance in geocoding such as match rate, match score and match type. Moreover, with SVM, this study can also classify tweet into eight classes of types of natural disasters specifically for the Indonesian region, which originate from the tweets collected.Research limitations/implicationsThis study implements in Indonesia region.Originality/value(a)NER with six classes is used to create a location classification model with StanfordNER and ArcGIS tools. The use of six location classes is based on the Indonesia regional which has the large area. Hence, it has many levels in its regional location, such as province, district/city, sub-district, village, road and place names. (b) SVM is used to classify natural disasters. Classification of types of natural disasters is divided into eight: floods, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes, forest fires, droughts and volcanic eruptions.

Persistence in Perturbed Contact Models in Continuum

Can a local disaster lead to extinction? We answer this question in this work. In the paper [19] we considered contact processes on locally compact metric spaces with state dependent birth and death rates and formulated suf- ficient conditions on the rates that ensure the existence of invariant measures. One of the crucial conditions in [19] was the critical regime condition, which meant the existence of a balance between birth and death rates in average. In the present work, we reject the criticality condition and suppose that the bal- ance condition is violated. This implies that the evolution of the correlation functions of the contact model under consideration is determined by a nonlocal convolution type operator perturbed by a (negative) potential. We show that local peaks in mortality do not typically lead to extinction. We prove that a family of invariant measures exists even without the criticality condition and these measures can be described using the Feynman-Kac formula.

‘We knew a cyclone was imminent’: Hazard preparedness and disaster management efficiency nexus in coastal Bangladesh

Natural hazard-prone countries in the global south adopted an anticipatory-preparedness approach in disaster risk reduction (DRR) by shifting away from the response and rehabilitation approach. It was highly associated with the policy recommendations of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) framework. Nevertheless, challenges remained in managing disaster risks due to heterogeneous efficiency among disaster managers. This research examines the institutional effectiveness of the disaster management agency in cyclone-prone areas in southwestern coastal Bangladesh through network analysis. This research also explores institutional efficiency's impact on household preparedness in mitigating losses. We collected two distinct data sets from the local Union Disaster Management Committee (UDMC) and households in the same operational area of UDMC that were at risk of cyclonic disasters. To evaluate the effectiveness of local disaster management institutions, we conducted structured interviews with 336 representatives, spanning eight UDMCs in the cyclone-prone regions. To assess the impact of institutional performance (specifically, the UDMCs) on household disaster preparedness and loss mitigation, we collected data from 696 at-risk households. These households were located within the operational zones of the eight UDMCs, and the data was obtained using a structured questionnaire. Based on the application of social network analysis, our findings demonstrated that UDMC members were more active in the aftermath of disasters, as confirmed by three centrality measures - degree, eigenvector, and betweenness. Consequently, upon employing the Negative Binomial and Poisson regression models, we found a positive association between household engagement with UDMCs and participation in disaster preparedness training. This training appeared to enhance the knowledge and capacity of the respondents. The spill-over effects from disaster preparedness appeared to bolster the resilience of at-risk households, assist them in avoiding disaster-induced damages, and maintain consumption stability in the wake of disasters.

Flight to Climatic Safety: Local Natural Disasters and Global Portfolio Flows

Flight to Climatic Safety: Local Natural Disasters and Global Portfolio Flows

The climate-nature emergency and higher education

The Climate-Nature Emergency (CNE) is an existential crisis that makes urgent the need to fundamentally transform the dominant model of social and economic development. Amid the wreckage created by competitive accumulation and hyper consumption, the crucial need is to develop a sustainable moral order, embodying constructive human-nature and human-human relations. Following Durkheim, the main components of a moral order are the state, which is the crucial repository of collective interest, and individuals who take responsibility for self-improvement and the implementation of social values. The CNE foregrounds the capacity of states everywhere to both organise centrally and foster devolved community agency that can effectively address local problems and disasters. Working with government, higher education has a central role to play in advancing and defending science, fostering skills and knowledge in government, and in developing reflexive agents effective in social action in all of the local, communal, national, regional and global scales. The CNE also calls up the need to overhaul the curriculum to render it consistent with ecological survival. Higher education has an advanced capacity to cooperate across national borders and can assist nation-states in the difficult but vital process of building stable global cooperation. In addressing these issues, China and higher education in China have strong endogenous traditions, ancient and recent, on which to draw, including the consensual role of the Sinic state, which when functioning effectively draws on widespread public support; governance through deep devolution within the framework of central policies; Confucian self-cultivation with its capacity to foster consciously reflective lifelong learners; and tianxia an approach to global cooperation founded in moral values and norms of conduct rather than coercion. When combined with the Western respect for personal freedom and initiative, these qualities have much to offer in addressing the CNE, not only in China but across the world.

The Impact of Exposure to Previous Disasters on Hospital Disaster Surge Capacity Preparedness in Finland: Hospital disaster surge capacity preparedness.

As disasters are rare and high-impact events, it is important that the learnings from disasters are maximized. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of exposure to a past disaster or mass casualty incident (MCI) on local hospital surge capacity planning. The current hospital preparedness plans of hospitals receiving surgical emergency patients in Finland were collected (n = 28) and analyzed using the World Health Organization (WHO) hospital emergency checklist tool. The surge capacity score was compared between the hospitals that had been exposed to a disaster or MCI with those who had not. The overall median score of all key components on the WHO checklist was 76% (range 24%). The median surge capacity score was 65% (range 39%). There was no statistical difference between the surge capacity score of the hospitals with history of a disaster or MCI compared to those without (65% for both, P = 0.735). Exposure to a past disaster or MCI did not appear to be associated with an increased local hospital disaster surge capacity score. The study suggests that disaster planning should include structured post-action processes for enabling meaningful improvement after an experienced disaster or MCI.

Integrating Resilience into Risk Matrices: A Practical Approach to Risk Assessment with Empirical Analysis

The changing and intensifying landscape of global, national, and local disaster risks, driven by socio-political, environmental, and technological shifts, underscores the critical need for risk assessment by international agencies and governments. The Risk Matrix, introduced in 1995, has been widely used for risk assessment in different contexts, lauded for its simplicity and effectiveness. This model relies on the core risk components of consequence and likelihood, making it a favored tool for risk managers. To enhance the precision of risk assessment, various adaptations and extensions of the risk matrix have emerged; while some indirectly address resilience aspects, none explicitly integrate resilience into the matrix. This paper explores the risk matrix and its extensions, advocating for the inclusion of resilience in risk assessment. It introduces an empirical approach to quantify resilience, through a survey targeting small and medium-sized businesses in Southern Ontario, Canada. By developing two types of risk matrices—one with resilience considerations and one without—our work demonstrates how resilience alters risk prioritization, highlighting the importance of preparedness. This research underscores the pivotal role of resilience in risk assessment and urges its explicit integration into risk matrices to enhance accuracy and efficacy. Through practical examples and empirical data, the paper builds a compelling case for the central role of resilience in modern risk assessment practices.

Strengthening the Spatial Quality of Fishpond towards Disaster Mitigation on the Urban Riparians of Meureudu River, Indonesia

Meureudu City center, which is located on the riverfronts of Meureudu River, Pidie Jaya Regency continues experienced rapid urban development caused dramatic changes in the land use. Developments that occur in this area must be controlled strictly, given often conflicting management and use of land, especially between cultivation activities for the economic improvement of local community and interests of the environmental protection. Conflicting interests in land use in urban area, especially for fishpond cultivation as productive land for the local community, which partly utilizes river borders, riparian corridors, and green open spaces which in the RDTR (Detailed Spatial Planning) of Meureudu District are buffer areas that need to remanage. The knowledge about the potential fishpond is important to ensure the ecological stability of the area in terms of restoration of riparian corridors. Implementing sustainable management of the fishpond land layout is a must, because this area is vulnerable to flash floods, tsunamis, and strong winds. This study aims to examine the development of sustainable fishpond land management and be able to play a role in local disaster mitigation. This research uses a descriptive qualitative approach method. Management strategy analysis was carried out using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) method. The results of the research are; strategies to improve the spatial quality of fishponds that are multifunctional, in addition to having sustainable productive functions and are also capable of disaster mitigation.

Is HealthPathways viewed as a useful and trustworthy source of information by health professionals?

Objective HealthPathways is a web-based platform designed for use during a consultation to offer health professionals locally agreed information to support clinical and referral decision making. This study aimed to investigate whether access to specific HealthPathways pages in the North Coast New South Wales (NSW) region increased during specific critical events. High pageviews is used as a proxy for platform usefulness, and/or trust as a source of up-to-date information. Methods Data were extracted from Google Analytics from December 2015 to December 2021. Descriptive statistics were generated for the total number of pageviews for all pages by month and year (2015-2021); for the top 15 most viewed pages in 2019, February-March 2020 inclusive (early COVID-19 pandemic period), 10-24 March 2021 (North Coast NSW region local disaster declaration period)and 26 June-11 October 2021 (NSW COVID-19 lockdown period); and for monthly pageviews for the Influenza Immunisation pathway (2016-2021). Results Access to specific pages in HealthPathways increased alongside the occurrence of critical events affecting the region. Spikes in access to specific pages were seen during COVID-19 lockdown periods, during natural disasters, as well as during the annual influenza season. Conclusions HealthPathways is viewed as a useful and trusted source of information for health professionals in the North Coast NSW region. HealthPathways provides an opportunity for timely dissemination of information during critical events, including natural disasters and emergencies.

The Level of Disaster Awareness and Preparedness of San Jose Vegetable Farmers in Monkayo, Davao De Oro: Basis for Extension Intervention

This study investigates the level of disaster awareness and preparedness among the San Jose Vegetable Farmers in Monkayo, Davao de Oro, a region frequently impacted by natural disasters due to its geographical and climatic conditions. The primary aim is to assess the demographic profile, disaster awareness, and preparedness levels of these farmers. Using a descriptive quantitative research design, data were collected through surveys involving 50 participants selected via purposive sampling. The results reveal a diverse age group with half of the respondents aged 41 years or older. Most farmers have occupied their land for over 31 years, with the majority operating on small-scale land holdings of 1-2 hectares. The findings indicate a high level of disaster awareness among the farmers, characterized by a strong understanding of disaster risks and active engagement in education and training activities. However, there is a slight gap in their confidence in securing themselves and their families. In terms of preparedness, the farmers exhibit robust readiness, particularly in family communication and community plans. Nonetheless, areas such as disaster supplies, and first aid training require further enhancement. The involvement of government and local disaster management offices has been crucial in supporting and strengthening the community’s preparedness efforts, ensuring a resilient approach to disaster management. This study underscores the importance of continuous education, resource allocation, and community involvement in enhancing disaster resilience among small-scale farmers in disaster-prone areas. Extension services, provided by agricultural and disaster management experts, can play a crucial role in addressing the identified gaps and strengthening the community’s overall awareness and preparedness.

Politics versus Preparedness? How Electoral Incentives Affect the Provision of Local Disaster Public Goods in the Philippines

Abstract There is an expectation that elections create responsive policymakers that provide optimal public services. However, does this hold true when it comes to non- particularistic and non-immediate goods like disaster preparedness projects? In this exploratory study, I argue that electoral incentives can discourage the provision of local disaster public goods due to their non-particularistic and non-immediate nature. Using datasets containing electoral data and government ratings of local disaster public goods in Philippine cities and municipalities from 2017 to 2021, I find evidence that local disaster public goods provision is affected by (1) the intensity of local electoral competition and (2) the timing of the elections. Estimates suggest that local disaster public goods decline in quality one year before elections. Furthermore, in municipalities, more intense electoral competition is linked to lower quality provision of these collective goods. The findings illustrate how electoral incentives distort leaders’ policymaking against their constituencies’ long-term, common needs.

PKM Sosialisasi Tanggap Bencana dan Pengelolaan Berkelanjutan dalam Upaya Menjaga Wisata Alam di Desa Gosari

Gosari Amusing Park (Wagos) is a natural tourism destination located in Gosari Village, Gresik Regency, Indonesia. This community-based research explores an approach that focuses on two crucial aspects: disaster preparedness and sustainable management in the context of village tourism. The primary objectives are to enhance awareness of natural disaster potentials in Wagos while preserving its existence and sustainability as a local entrepreneurship venture.Participatory action research is adopted in three stages in this mentoring program: preparation, implementation, and evaluation. The engagement team, comprising academics, students, and the East Java Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), collaborates with local youth. They work alongside the head of Gosari Village to identify risk mitigation measures, including the installation of evacuation route signs.During the implementation stage, the activities include disaster awareness campaigns, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) to identify vulnerable points, and the introduction of INARISK software along with evacuation simulations for the youth managing Wagos and the Toppi community.The evaluation stage emphasizes the importance of re-socialization by the youth to the local community, the installation of permanent evacuation signs, and impromptu simulations at tourist locations. The results show that the success of disaster risk mitigation heavily depends on community awareness and local entrepreneurship. Wagos, as a tourist village, has proven its existence through the creation of social values and effective promotional efforts. In conclusion, disaster awareness and sustainable management are crucial to maintaining tourist villages in the face of natural disasters and increasing business competition. This community-based research also asserts that an interdisciplinary approach and understanding the local disaster cycle are key to addressing these challenges.

A REVIEW OF STOCK MARKET IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CATACLYSMS AND LESSONS FOR INVESTORS

The objective of this paper is to present a review analysis of stock market impact of environmental disaster with the factors that orchestrate the impact, and to offer a novel framework for investors and managers. The paper applied an in-depth empirical review and synthesis method. Findings from the review and synthesis of empirical literature provide strong evidence that environmental disasters have diverse effects on the stock markets with majority of the literature reporting adverse effects on the stock markets. Additionally, findings are more preponderant on short run impact than on long run effects. Findings also show that environmental disasters may offer unique arbitrage opportunities for short-selling investors. The paper concludes by highlighting the capacity of environmental finance as one of the catalysts to bolster corporate adaptive capacity to environmental disaster. Furthermore, the degree of environmental disaster impact on stock market may depend on factors such as the type of environmental disaster, geographical location of environmental disaster, economic sector, stage of economic development, length of disaster and intensity of disaster. Accordingly, the paper develops a framework, which is recommended as a model for further research agenda on environmental disaster effect on stock markets.

A study on the establishment of database for local government disaster response and decision support system in the nuclear accidents

ABSTRACT Radiological disasters have been recognized as a prominent societal catastrophe worldwide since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. In order to cope with such disasters, efforts have been made to improve disaster response plans and systems based on the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident. Particularly, as demonstrated by the Fukushima case, radiological disasters require the assumption of large-scale evacuation of residents. Thus, it is essential for prompt and accurate decision-making to take place at the local government’s Emergency Management Center (EMC), enabling smooth execution of the missions assigned to personnel at the field. This is crucial for protecting the lives of residents and ensuring their safety. However, the existing systems for effective response to radiological disasters are relatively inadequate compared to other types of disasters. To overcome these limitations, this study aims to develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are optimized for radiological disaster response by standardizing the Field Measure Motion Manual at nuclear safety for local governments. Based on these SOPs, The Resident Protection Measures Support System (RPMS) will be proposed, which enables the timely dissemination of specific missions and information to personnel, while providing real-time information on the situation at the field to the EMC, supporting decision-making and facilitating effective situation management.

Data-driven evacuation and rescue traffic optimization with rescue contraflow control

In response to local sudden disasters, e.g., high-rise office or residential building fire disasters, road occupation can cause conflicts, and traffic directions may be opposite between evacuation vehicles and rescue vehicles; moreover, lane contraflow can be adopted to meet these surge traffic demands. However, lane contraflow that provides more roads for rescue vehicles reduces the traffic supply in the evacuation direction. It is unclear how to control the number of contraflow roads used by rescue vehicles to coordinate evacuation and rescue traffic operations. Here, we adjust the critical rescue traffic volume of reversing the normal road traffic direction to control rescue contraflow. Additionally, we propose a multiobjective mixed integer linear programming formulation for evacuation and rescue traffic optimization. Additionally, considering that the upper limit of the critical rescue traffic volume is unknown and that the proposed formulation includes multiple objectives and multi-priority vehicle classes, a three-stage solving algorithm is developed. Next, a large-scale evacuation and rescue traffic optimization result dataset is obtained for the Nguyen–Dupuis road network, and the impact of different rescue contraflow control plans on evacuation and rescue traffic is studied based on data-driven statistical analysis. The results show that by adjusting the optimal rescue traffic route, the critical rescue traffic volume for reversing the normal road traffic direction can reduce the interference of rescue traffic to evacuation traffic operation performance without reducing rescue traffic operation performance, and can be used to coordinate evacuation and rescue traffic operation under rescue contraflow.

Implications of trust, preparedness, risk perceptions, and local context on deprivation costs and disaster relief planning

Deprivation Costs Functions (DCFs) are key to designing effective relief distribution operations after disasters. In this paper, data are collected in Colombia and Ecuador to estimate DCFs for water and food, considering the influence of individuals' attitudes on preparedness, risk perception, and trust in response agents. Hybrid Choice Models are used to analyze and compare the estimated DCFs. The analyses confirm that DCFs differ by commodity. Additionally, socioeconomic characteristics of individuals influence their willingness to pay for critical supplies to reduce their own suffering. Preparedness, risk perceptions and trust in response agents impact individuals' behavior in disaster situations. The results also show that community and religious groups are considered the most trusted response agents in both countries. As a result, their involvement in official relief efforts should be more articulated. Colombia and Ecuador show significant differences in their estimated DCFs, confirming that deprivation costs are context-specific by nature. As such, DCFs should not be directly transferred among disaster locations. The findings from this study will support decision-makers in designing effective preparedness and response plans that are based on trust relationships that serve as foundations for community resilience.

Rainfall-Induced Landslide Susceptibility Assessment and the Establishment of Early Warning Techniques at Regional Scale

This study builds upon deterministic evaluations of the extensive cumulative rainfall thresholds associated with shallow landslides in the Gaoping River Basin, with a specific focus on the necessary response times during typhoon and intense rainfall events. Following the significant impact of Typhoon Morakot on the Liugui area, our investigation enhances previous research by employing a downscaled approach. We aim to establish early warning models for village-level, intermediate-scale landslide cumulative rainfall thresholds and to create action thresholds for small-scale, key landslide-prone slopes. Our inquiry not only combines various analytical models but also validates their reliability through comprehensive case studies. Comparative analysis with the empirical values set by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau (SWCB) and the National Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) provides a median response time of 6 h, confirming that our findings are consistent with the response time frameworks established by these institutions, thus validating their effectiveness for typhoon-related landslide alerts. The results not only highlight the reference value of applying downscaled cumulative rainfall thresholds at the village level but also emphasize the significance of the evaluated warning thresholds as viable benchmarks for early warnings in landslide disaster management during Taiwan’s flood and typhoon seasons. This research offers a refined methodological approach to landslide early warning systems and provides scientific support for decision making by local governments and disaster response teams.

Enhanced glacial lake activity threatens numerous communities and infrastructure in the Third Pole

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are among the most severe cryospheric hazards in the Third Pole, encompassing the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Tianshan Mountains. Recent studies on glacial lake changes and GLOF characteristics and risks in this region have shown scattered and insufficiently detailed features. Here, we conduct an appraisal of the GLOF risks by combining high-resolution satellite images, case-by-case high-precision GLOF modeling, and detailed downstream exposure data. The glacial lake changes from 2018 to 2022 in the region were primarily driven by the accelerated expansion of proglacial lakes. The GLOF frequency has exhibited a significant increasing trend since 1980, with intensified activity in Southeastern Tibet and the China-Nepal border area over the past decade. Approximately 6,353 km2 of land could be at risk from potential GLOFs, posing threats to 55,808 buildings, 105 hydropower projects, 194 km2 of farmland, 5,005 km of roads, and 4,038 bridges. This study directly responds to the need for local disaster prevention and mitigation strategies, highlighting the urgent requirement of reducing GLOF threats in the Third Pole and the importance of regional cooperation.

Research on landslide susceptibility prediction model based on LSTM-RF-MDBN.

The occurrence of landslide disasters causes huge economic losses and casualties. Although many achievements have been made in predicting the probability of landslide disasters, various factors such as the scale and spatial location of landslide geological disasters should still be fully considered. Further research on how to quantitatively characterize the susceptibility of landslide geological disasters is necessarily important. To this end, taking the Wenchuan earthquake as the research area and extracting eight influencing factors, including terrain information entropy (Ht), lithology, distance from rivers, distance from faults, vegetation coverage (NDVI), distance from roads, peak ground motion acceleration (PGA), and annual rainfall, a landslide susceptibility prediction model was hereby established based on LSTM-RF-MDBN, a landslide susceptibility prediction map was drawn, and the spatial distribution characteristics of landslide disasters were analyzed. The results showed that (1) LSTM had good prediction results for the eight influencing factors, with an average prediction accuracy of 85%; (2) compared with models such as DNN and LR for predicting landslide disaster points, the AUC value of RF for predicting landslide point positions reached 0.88, presenting a higher accuracy compared to other models; (3) the AUC value of the landslide susceptibility prediction model based on LSTM-RF-MDBN reached 0.965, which had a high accuracy in predicting landslide susceptibility. Overall, the research results can provide a scientific basis for selecting the best strategy for landslide disaster warning, prevention, and mitigation.