Natural Disasters Research Articles

TRANSFORMATIVE ELEMENTS OF TANJUNG BUMI BANGKALAN COASTAL AREA ARCHITECTURE

Indonesia is an archipelago country that is rich in traditional architecture. Natural disasters and the effect of globalization can make traditional architecture vulnerable. However, resilient and sustainable coastal area reconstruction can protect valuable assets for the development of the affected area. One of the principles of sustainable coastal development is to maintain a historical identity. Therefore, the image of a coastal city needs to consider and improve its identity based on the local culture. Traditional architecture, which is an expression of the traditions and culture of its people, has the potential to be developed into contemporary architecture. The Tanjung Bumi coastal area has an interesting traditional Tanean Lanjang architecture. This study aimed to identify transformative elements of Tanean Lanjang architecture within the coastal area of Tanjung Bumi so that it can be used as a basis for presenting contemporary architecture and maintaining the continuity of traditional architecture. This research is descriptive, with qualitative methods that explore the transformative elements of Tanjung Bumi Bangkalan coastal area architecture. Transformative elements that were identified included the existence of a multifunctional long yard, a rectangular house, the shape and layout of the Langgar, a porch, and columns.

Hydraulic Simulation for Flow One Dimension of Shatt Al-Hilla River

Floods are considered the most serious disaster among all-natural catastrophes because they occur more frequently than any other natural hazard and strongly impact more individuals than all other natural disasters. Therefore, it is necessary to study flood risk. Hillah River is critical in securing industrial, agricultural, and civil water in three Iraqi governorates: Babil, Diwaniyah, and Muthanna. Its primary source is the Euphrates River, which extends approximately 100 kilometers within Babil Governorate – the study area. This research aims to evaluate and study the river's capacity and predict future floods by developing scenarios for anticipated events. Also, a hydraulic model was developed to assess the manning coefficient for Shatt Al-Hillah. The one-dimensional HEC-RAS 6.0.1 program has been used to simulate water flow in the river, incorporating over 350 cross-sections spaced at 250-meter intervals surveyed in 2018 by the Department of Water Resources in Babil Governorate. The model was calibrated using observed discharge data from 2004 to 2022 in Shatt al-Hillah. Subsequently, it was compared with a range of water levels by varying manning factors. The calibration results indicated that a roughness coefficient of 0.023 was suitable for unstable flow conditions, and the least mean square root error between the measured and simulated water levels was 0.053. The simulation results showed that the current capacity of Al-Hilla River was 205 m3/s, such that it cannot pass the design discharge of 303 m3/s. After conducting scenarios greater than 205 m3/s, the results showed that increasing the discharge increased the areas exposed to flooding so that when the discharge was 450 m3/s, flooding of the submerged areas increased. With a percentage of 92.2%, the northern side of Babil Governorate will be more vulnerable to flooding than the southern side because the southern part levels are lower than the northern part.

Machine Learning Identification of Attributes and Predictors for a Flash Drought in Eastern Australia

Flash droughts (FDs) are natural disasters that strike suddenly and intensify quickly. They occur almost anywhere, anytime of the year, and can have severe socio-economic, health and environmental impacts. This study focuses on a recent FD that began in the cool season of the Upper Hunter region of Eastern Australia, an important energy and agricultural local and global exporter that is both flood- and drought-prone. Here, the authors investigate the FD that started abruptly in May 2023 and extended to October 2023. The FD followed floods in November 2021 and much above-average May–October 2022 rainfall. Eight machine learning (ML) regression techniques were applied to the 60 May–October periods from 1963–2022, using a rolling windows attribution search from 45 possible climate drivers, both individually and in combination. The six most prominent climate drivers, and likely predictors, provide an understanding of the major contributors to the FD. Next, the 1963–2022 data were divided into two shorter timespans, 1963–1992 and 1993–2022, generally accepted as representing the early and accelerated global warming periods, respectively. The key attributes were markedly different for the two timespans. These differences are readily explained by the impacts of global warming on hemispheric and synoptic-scale atmospheric circulations.

Women’s reproductive health in the aftermath of natural disasters in Bangladesh: Prospects for empowerment

In this study, the authors examine the effect of Cyclone Sidr in 2007 on selected aspects of women’s reproductive decision-making in Bangladesh. We used Person in Environment theories to model the effect of cyclone Sidr on the reasons for non-contraception among women who did not want a child. The difference-in-difference approach was used as a research design using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys of 2004 and 2011 to test a model of reasons for non-contraception among a subsample of women who did not want a child. Our results indicated that women experienced fewer social controls on contraceptive use decision-making in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

The Continuous Time-Resource Trade-off Scheduling Problem with Time Windows

We introduce a variant of the cumulative scheduling problem (CuSP) characterized by continuous modes, time windows, and a criterion that involves safety margin maximization. The study of this variant is motivated by the Geospatial based Environment for Optimisation Systems Addressing Fire Emergencies Horizon 2020 Project, which is devoted to the design of evacuation plans in the face of natural disasters and more specifically, wildfire. People and goods have to be transferred from endangered places to safe places, and evacuation planning consists of scheduling evacuee moves along precomputed paths under arc capacities and deadlines. The resulting model is relevant in other contexts, such as project or industrial process scheduling. We consider here several formulations of the continuous time-resource trade-off scheduling problem (CTRTP-TW) with a safety maximization objective. We establish a complete complexity characterization distinguishing polynomial and NP-hard special cases depending on key parameters. We show that the problem with fixed sequencing (i.e., with predetermined overlap or precedence relations between activities) is convex. We then show that the preemptive variant is polynomial, and we propose lower and upper bounds based on this relaxation. A flow-based mixed-integer linear programming formulation is presented, from which a branch-and-cut exact method and an insertion heuristic are derived. An exact dedicated branch-and-bound algorithm is also designed. Extensive computational experiments are carried out to compare the different approaches on evacuation planning instances and on general CTRTP-TW instances. The experiments also show the interest of the continuous model compared with a previously proposed discrete approximation. History: Accepted by Andrea Lodi, Area Editor for Design & Analysis of Algorithms—Discrete. Funding: This work was funded by the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange European Project 691161 GEO-SAFE (Geospatial based Environment for Optimisation Systems Addressing Fire Emergencie). This work has also been supported by ANITI, the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.0142 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2022.0142 ). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/ .

The relationship between disaster resilience and household food security in a disaster-prone area in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan

AbstractThis study explores the relationship between residents’ disaster resilience and potential household food security in the context of natural disasters. Disaster resilience capacity consists of absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and transformative capacity, while household food security is composed of food availability, accessibility, and utilization. Based on data from 539 questionnaires administered to residents in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, this study examines households’ disaster resilience capacity and food security conditions. The entropy method is adopted as a quantitative assessment approach to integrate the data, and a Tobit model is constructed to detect the correlation between households’ disaster resilience capacity and food security. We draw five main findings from the results. (1) Over half of the respondents do not have good food security; moreover, food accessibility is the poorest dimension, as reflected by low scores for water purification capacity and facility preparedness. (2) Most of the respondents do not have high disaster resilience capacity; their transformative capacity is the lowest, followed by absorptive and adaptive capacity. (3) There is a significant positive correlation between disaster resilience and household food security. (4) Disaster damage experience restrains residents’ food utilization. (5) The elderly and senior population may be exposed to food-borne diseases because of their low food utilization. This study provides insights into the influence of disaster resilience activities on household food security before a disaster hits. The study informs the debate on the association between disaster resilience and household food security so as to aid future disaster risk reduction management.

Investigating the Construction of a Post-earthquake Shelter Using the Super Adobe Method in Herat, Afghanistan

Earthquakes, as one of the most destructive natural disasters, have always posed significant challenges to humanity. The construction of temporary housing in post-earthquake conditions is very necessary and should be considered as a life-saving measure. To ensure the safety and health of the people affected by the earthquake, it is necessary to provide solutions for cheap, fast, and safe housing. Construction solutions for cheap and fast housing in times of crisis require the use of earthquake-resistant technologies. Among the types of post-earthquake temporary housing, housing construction using Super Adobe is one of the solutions that speed up the construction process and reduce costs. The purpose of this article is to investigate the need and construction of an emergency shelter using the Super Adobe method after the deadly earthquake in Herat, Afghanistan in 2023. The research paradigm is qualitative and comparative methods and logical analysis have been used in it. In the first part, the types of emergency shelters were compared and the construction of emergency shelters using the Super Adobe method in Herat was evaluated. Then 38 samples made in the Sanjab village of Herat were examined. The results of the research show that according to the geographical, economic, social, physical, and rural conditions of the region, the problems and challenges in the preparation of materials, and the construction of earthquake-resistant shelters, the Super Adobe method is the most suitable option for the construction of emergency shelters in this region. The ability to implement in a short time, the use of local materials, compatibility with the rural context, resistance to cold, heat, and climatic conditions of the region, resistance to earthquakes, low cost, and compatibility with sustainable rural development are the main reasons for the compatibility of this plan with the existing post-earthquake conditions.

Hockey babies: National Hockey League outcomes and short-term fertility spikes in Canada

Previous research shows that mood-altering events, such as sports results, elections outcomes and natural disasters, impact fertility, crime rate, and investor behaviour. In this paper, we use recent Canadian Birth Statistics and the National Hockey League (NHL) results to examine the link between sports events and short-term fertility spikes. In addition, using betting odds, we differentiate among unexpected wins, unexpected losses, and expected outcomes, as a test for the relevance of the Prospect Theory to this context. Our dataset is a daily panel, following all the seven Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas with a team in the NHL, from 2008 to 2019. In our panel fixed effects estimations, we account for the day of the week and all statutory federal and provincial holidays of Canada. In the estimations with raw NHL results, the coefficients of interest ultimately lose their statistical significance. In the specifications accounting for expectations, we find a statistically significant association with fertility for unexpected wins, and statistically insignificant coefficients for unexpected losses as well as expected NHL outcomes. In light of the results, we propose the greater likelihood of pre-game social gatherings on sports nights and celebratory sex after the euphoria of an unexpected win, as the possible channels of impact.

Practical Analysis of Stock Market Under ESG

In today's era, climate change brought about by the greenhouse effect is gradually bringing more and more economic losses and natural disasters. In order to mitigate the negative impact of climate change, many countries have jointly formulated a 1.5°C climate scenario, which has brought a lot of impact on the global economy and industry development (Henderson et al., 2020). At the same time, my client commissioned me to build a portfolio that complies with the 1.5°C climate scenario, and the shares must be included in the S&P 500 Net Zero 2050 Climate Transition ESG Index as of 30/09/2022. The total portfolio is $100,000, and the benchmark designates the S&P 500 Net Zero 2050 Climate Transition ESG Index. Because the investment horizon is short and only six weeks, I chose semi-active management in my portfolio management process, and the rebalancing method was selected as percentage rebalancing. Finally, based on macro and industry analysis and relative valuation and technical analysis of the corresponding stocks, I selected ten stocks: Starbucks Corporation, Tesla, Inc., Amgen Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Eversource Energy, The Coca-Cola Company, and Expeditors International of Washington, Inc., Trans Digm Group Incorporated， Netflix, Inc., S&P Global Inc. I calculated their respective shares using the Markowitz model and bought and rebalanced, but unfortunately, my portfolio did not work as expected. The sector index fell by 4.87% in the week of the investment term, but my portfolio fell by 7.45% and performed poorly. Among them, the collapse of Tesla due to special events and my previous judgment of Tesla were greatly affected, and although its share price was only 9.94%, its share price fell by 33.74%. Although the late-stage rebalancing gave me hope for the better, the short investment horizon became a significant obstacle to the improvement of my portfolio.

Improving Computer Vision-Based Wildfire Smoke Detection by Combining SE-ResNet with SVM

Wildfire is one of the most critical natural disasters that poses a serious threat to human lives as well as ecosystems. One issue hindering a high accuracy of computer vision-based wildfire detection is the potential for water mists and clouds to be marked as wildfire smoke due to the similar appearance in images, leading to an unacceptable high false alarm rate in real-world wildfire early warning cases. This paper proposes a novel hybrid wildfire smoke detection approach by combining the multi-layer ResNet architecture with SVM to extract the smoke image dynamic and static characteristics, respectively. The ResNet model is improved via the SE attention mechanism and fully convolutional network as SE-ResNet. A fusion decision procedure is proposed for wildfire early warning. The proposed detection method was tested on open datasets and achieved an accuracy of 98.99%. The comparisons with AlexNet, VGG-16, GoogleNet, SE-ResNet-50 and SVM further illustrate the improvements.

Assessing Supplier Disruption Risks Using a Modified Pythagorean Fuzzy SWARA–TOPSIS Approach

As the complexity and uncertainty of global supply chains escalate, disruptions have become an increasingly common challenge in supply chain management. Suppliers, who serve as essential connectors for the seamless movement of goods and materials critical to production and distribution, are often at the center of these disruptions, highlighting their significant impact on the overall stability of the supply chain. This study proposes an innovative approach to assessing supplier disruption risks by combining the Pythagorean Fuzzy Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (PF-SWARA) with the Pythagorean Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (PF-TOPSIS). By reviewing the literature and consulting with supply chain experts, eight key risk factors were identified. The PF-SWARA method then quantifies the significance of these risks, while a modified PF-TOPSIS technique calculates each supplier’s risk score, facilitating the prioritization of suppliers for targeted improvement. The findings of the study indicate that “natural disasters and geopolitical risks,” “financial instability,” and “delivery delays” emerge as the top three critical disruption risk factors. Suppliers facing higher disruption risks should, therefore, formulate improvement strategies that target these three areas.

Education of Internally Displaced Children in the Context of the Health Crisis Linked to the COVID 19 Pandemic in the Zamai Cultural Universe

Objective: The aim of this article is to analyse compliance with barrier measures in the fight against the Covid 19 pandemic in a context where internally displaced school-age children under the weight of forced displacement as a result of conflict crises (Boko Haram) and natural disasters are also forced to comply with barrier measures linked to the fight against the Covid 19 or Zamai Coronavirus pandemic. Method: Qualitative data was collected using standard anthropological data collection techniques, including in-depth individual interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs). An interview guide and a discussion guide corresponding to each of the targets were used to collect qualitative data. Direct observation was used to collect data on the environment of the informants, their behaviour and attitudes, their level of knowledge about the education of displaced school-age children and Covid 19. Discussion: Impoverishment refers to the loss of natural capital, man-made material capital, human capital and social capital. Nine risks or processes are at the root of the impoverishment of displaced persons: not having land, not having a job, not having a house, marginalisation, food insecurity, increased morbidity and mortality, loss of access to public goods and services, fraying of the social fabric and loss of educational opportunities. Conclusion: In various towns in the Far North Region, in this case Zamai, concentration camps have been set up to house IDPs. Initially intended as short-stay camps, most of them are confined there, sometimes for long periods, in generally difficult living conditions.

Digital Boundaries: A Review of Clinical and Ethical Issues in Telepsychology among Mental Health Professionals

With the COVID-19 epidemic starting in early 2020, the unintentional mass migration to online therapy has drastically changed the landscape. Because of this, mental health professionals need to be conscious of the fact that their traditional ethical obligations still hold even while using technology to offer a service. This scoping study examined the applicability of telepsychology among mental health practitioners as well as its ethical and clinical concerns. There is general agreement in this study that providing mental health treatments to clients via telepsychology is a realistic and practical option both before and after the epidemic. There was a clear pattern that the most prevalent clinical concerns were restricted nonverbal communication between the therapist and the client, communication difficulties in the therapeutic relationship, unsuitable to some mental health disorders, and clinician exhaustion. On the other side, privacy, and secrecy, insufficient telepsychology training and instruction, boundary-related concerns, insufficient telepsychology rules, and handling emergencies were significant ethical issues. These findings open the door to telepsychology, a workable method of providing mental health and psychosocial treatments that aim to reach clients across geographic boundaries and continue the transformative job of fostering change, healing, and growth among clients. Understanding these problems makes it easier for mental health practitioners to respond to future public health emergencies and other natural catastrophes

An Evaluation of Sustainable Power System Resilience in the Face of Severe Weather Conditions and Climate Changes: A Comprehensive Review of Current Advances

Natural disasters pose significant threats to power distribution systems, intensified by the increasing impacts of climate changes. Resilience-enhancement strategies are crucial in mitigating the resulting social and economic damages. Hence, this review paper presents a comprehensive exploration of weather management strategies, augmented by recent advancements in machine learning algorithms, to show a sustainable resilience assessment. By addressing the unique challenges posed by diverse weather conditions, we propose flexible and intelligent solutions to navigate disaster complications effectively. This proposition emphasizes sustainable practices that not only address immediate disaster complications, but also prioritize long-term resilience and adaptability. Furthermore, the focus extends to mitigation strategies and microgrid technologies adapted to distribution systems. Through statistical analysis and mathematical formulations, we highlight the critical role of these advancements in mitigating severe weather conditions and ensuring the system reliability.

Are Indian ports safe? Identifying, analysing and prioritizing the risks affecting India's major ports

Seaports are exposed to multiple risks that may affect security and operations. This research aims to develop a framework for identifying, ranking, and prioritizing the risks. Also, this study ranks the 12 major Indian ports based on the identified risk factors. The study follows an extensive literature review, prioritization by Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), and sensitivity analysis for robustness. Thirty-two risks were identified and classified into five categories: natural disasters, geographical risks, security risks, operational and financial risks, and socio-political risks. The analysis suggests that the most important risk that the ports in India should consider is natural disasters. The risk of cyclones and tsunamis occupied the first two ranks among the global risks. Operational and financial risks, such as complex and lengthy approval procedures and infrastructure risks, are ranked third and fourth. Mumbai is ranked first as the riskiest Indian port, followed by Kolkata, JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust), and Vishakapatnam Port

A disaster communication plan for Higher Education Institutions in the Island Province of Occidental Mindoro, Philippines

Natural disasters, as they impede development and exacerbate poverty, have been the foremost concern of developing countries such as the Philippines. With this, the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Management Act (RA 10121) highlights the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in disaster resiliency and requires the incorporation of disaster communication in their institutions. Since disaster communication is considered to be one of the most valuable assets during disasters, academic institutions are provided visibility, credibility, and concrete direction to address chaos and confusion and to secure the safety of their stakeholders. The study created Safeguard Against Natural Disasters of Academes Through Actions (SANDATA), a disaster communication plan for HEIs in Occidental Mindoro to provide disaster communication strategies that can be used by them in securing a disaster-resilient academic environment. The output of this study was materialized using factor and thematic analysis and through the 300 respondents assigned for the quantitative data and 30 respondents assigned for the qualitative data. These findings influenced the disaster communication strategies employed by HEIs under the disaster stages of the Crisis Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) Theory, stakeholders' identified communication challenges as experienced by them, and their recommendations for improving the existing strategies of their institutions.

Less Depression Associated with Social Support Among Older Urban Adults

ABSTRACT Objectives We examined the association between social and emotional support and screening for depression in older adults (aged 70 years and older) living in New York City during COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Between February and March 2022, 298 participants who had previously completed a random digital dial survey of landlines in New York City and consented to follow-up completed the second round survey. The outcome of interest – depression – was assessed using the PHQ-2. Results Participants had a mean age of 78 years (SE = 0.49), were majority (60.8%) female and 42.4% lived alone. Overall, 20.2% of participants screened likely for depression. In the multivariable logistic regression, compared to participants who reported “always or usually” receiving social and emotional support, those who reported receiving such support “sometimes” had 1.9 (p = .251) the odds of screening for depression, and those who reported “rarely or never” receiving social and emotional support had 4.9 (p = .003) the odds of screening likely for depression. Conclusion The findings highlight the importance of promoting social connectedness and support networks and indicate a potential mechanism for improving the prevention and management of depression in older adults during major health threats such as natural disasters, catastrophic weather, or other emergencies.

THE GENDERED IMPACTS OF NATURAL DISASTERS: A FOCUS ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Natural disasters have become increasingly common and intense in recent years due to human activity and climate change, with significant consequences. Women and children are especially vulnerable during and after natural disasters, with long-term physical, emotional, and psychological impacts. While climate change research has been ongoing for a long time, climate change has socio-economic repercussions and has impacted the ecosystem. While individual case studies are important, additional comparative studies that analyse the similarities and differences in natural disaster consequences across different locations and cultures are needed. The paper looks at how gendered the effects of natural disasters are, with a focus on the disproportionate burden on women and children. Due to climate change, several natural hazards will change in frequency, severity, timing, and location making the children and women in poor and developing countries more vulnerable and at risk. KEYWORDS: natural disasters, climate change, environmental factors, natural hazards, droughts, floods.

The ‘seismic library’: a tool for historical inquiry on natural disasters

The ‘seismic library’: a tool for historical inquiry on natural disasters

Harnessing climate services to support community resilience planning: lessons learned from a community-engaged approach to assessing NOAA’s National Water Model

IntroductionInland and coastal flooding and other water-based natural disasters are projected to increase in severity, frequency, and intensity as global temperatures rise, placing a growing number of US communities at risk. Governments at the local, state, and federal levels have been embracing resilience planning to better predict, mitigate, and adapt to such shocks and hazards. A growing number of climate services have been developed to aid communities engaged in these efforts to access, interpret, and make decisions with climate-related data and information. An important tool for potentially supporting this planning is the National Water Model (NWM), created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Water Center (NWC). The NWM is a river and streamflow model that can forecast conditions for the continental United States.MethodsHowever, community end-users were not being effectively engaged in ways that result in widespread tool use and adoption. From 2021 to 2023, seven geographically diverse US communities agreed to participate in a study to understand how the NWM might be applied in resilience planning. Interviews and collaborative sessions were conducted with NWC/NOAA staff and community resilience stakeholders in Burlington, VT; Cincinnati, OH; Portland, OR; Charlotte, NC; Boulder, CO; Minneapolis; MN; and Houston, TXResults and DiscussionResults provide an improved understanding of potential applications of the National Water Model and have identified actions to overcome the barriers to its use among municipal and regional resilience planners. This research yielded a set of recommendations, co-developed between the seven communities and NWC/ NOAA staff, for how these barriers could be overcome to facilitate wider use of the NWM and its data and visualization services in resilience planning. This study highlights the NWM’s applicability at shorter timescales in resilience planning and points to a more general need for climate services to accommodate near-, medium-, and longterm time frames. The study also found many community stakeholders who use water science and information in resilience planning have diverse disciplinarily backgrounds. Importantly, the majority were not trained hydrologists or water scientists, pointing to the critical need for climate service developers, including the NWC, to embrace co-development efforts that involve a wider range of end-users, including community resilience planners.