Natural Hazard Management Research Articles

Towards an Integrated Approach to Natural Hazards Risk Assessment Using GIS: With Reference to Bushfires

This paper develops a GIS-based integrated approach to risk assessment in natural hazards, with reference to bushfires. The challenges for undertaking this approach have three components: data integration, risk assessment tasks, and risk decision-making. First, data integration in GIS is a fundamental step for subsequent risk assessment tasks and risk decision-making. A series of spatial data integration issues within GIS such as geographical scales and data models are addressed. Particularly, the integration of both physical environmental data and socioeconomic data is examined with an example linking remotely sensed data and areal census data in GIS. Second, specific risk assessment tasks, such as hazard behavior simulation and vulnerability assessment, should be undertaken in order to understand complex hazard risks and provide support for risk decision-making. For risk assessment tasks involving heterogeneous data sources, the selection of spatial analysis units is important. Third, risk decision-making concerns spatial preferences and/or patterns, and a multicriteria evaluation (MCE)-GIS typology for risk decision-making is presented that incorporates three perspectives: spatial data types, data models, and methods development. Both conventional MCE methods and artificial intelligence-based methods with GIS are identified to facilitate spatial risk decision-making in a rational and interpretable way. Finally, the paper concludes that the integrated approach can be used to assist risk management of natural hazards, in theory and in practice.

Application of satellite remote sensing in natural hazard management: The Mount Mangart landslide case study

The use of remote sensing is becoming increasingly frequent in environmental studies. Recently, there has been almost no serious research of the environment performed without advanced image processing and analysis. One of the most important applications of remote sensing can be found in the case of natural disasters, where satellite imagery can be a valuable data source used in order to support rescue operations and damage estimation. With advanced studies, remote sensing can also be used to predict catastrophic events and to determine hazardous areas. This paper commences with a review of the remote sensing applications in natural hazard monitoring. Several case studies are presented, ranging from the El Ni@o devastation analysis and inundation area determination to forest fire detection and landslide observation. The Mount Mangart landslide case study is then described in greater detail. Some general remarks on landslide development are depicted and its consequences are described. A short outline of the 'Space and Major Disasters' Charter, which presented the framework for the remote sensing application to the event, is also given. Details on processing optical (SPOT, Landsat) and radar (ERS, RADARSAT) satellite imagery are presented. Both basic image interpretation and advanced GIS integration and analysis are described. The paper ends with a few general remarks on the usability of remote sensing in hazard studies and the 'Space and Major Disasters' Charter.

Rural Intelligent Transportation System Natural-Hazard Management on Low-Volume Roads

The growth of winter travel on alpine roads in the western United States has increased the risk to motorists and highway maintenance personnel owing to a variety of natural hazards. Hazards include snow and ice, avalanching snow, and blowing and drifting snow. The conditions call for attendant need for incident response. A substantial number of affected routes are low-volume rural winter roads. Configurations have been developed for rural intelligent transportation system (ITS) technology that can detect hazards and provide, autonomously and in real time, warnings to and traffic control actions for motorists, highway maintainers, and incident responders for roadway natural hazards. These warnings include on-site traffic control signing and road closure gates, in-vehicle audio alarms for agency maintenance and patrol vehicles, and notification to highway agency maintenance facilities or centralized multiagency dispatchers. These actions and notifications are initiated automatically from the remote rural sites and via manual intervention from off-site personnel, well removed from the rural roadway corridor itself. About 5 years of experience have been accumulated in using these rural ITS natural-hazard reduction systems, including snow avalanche detection and warning systems on Loveland Pass, Colorado; Hoback Canyon, Wyoming; and Banner Summit, Idaho. Automated road closure gates on the Teton Pass in Idaho and Wyoming now allow for remote road closure during heavy snow events. These cost-effective ITS natural-hazard systems are highly exportable for other processes that affect rural low-volume roadways, including landslide, flooding, high surf, high winds, loss of visibility, wildlife, and other natural hazards of this type.

Deux exemples de coop�ration entre �conomistes et ing�nieurs du CemagrefTwo examples of economist and engineer cooperation

Abstract We analyse the cooperative aspects of two projects carried out by economists and engineers within an applied research institute Cemagref. The first one involves both the research field and mathematical tools, the second one only the research field. In the case of water resource management, hydraulicians and economists are all concerned with the issue of time delay between the control variables and some of their effects on the state variables. One of the important current issues for the economists is to determine when the optimal exploitation of a renewable resource is sustainable, and in particular to work on the problem of the fall of the ground-water table in many of the most populated countries of the world. For hydraulicians time delay is a major concern when designing robust and stable control systems for irrigation canals. Both work for a better use of water resource in irrigation systems. The second research field consists of natural hazard management, a field for which economists still lack a comprehensive corpus of results. This make a pluridisciplinary approach more difficult to implement. The undoubted benefit that society as a whole would reap from a greater cooperation between engineers and economists, and its potential contribution to the improvement of economics and engineering, should encourage further pluridisciplinary projects.

Modelling alpine permafrost distribution, Val de Rechy, Valais Alps (Switzerland)

The spatial distribution of the alpine permafrost is modelled in the uppermost part of Val de Rechy (Valais Alps, Switzerland) with the use of a geographical information system (GIS). Two empirical-statistical models are compared and their validity tested by a set of bottom temperature of winter snow (BTS) measurements carried out in the field. One model can simulate the spatial distribution of the permafrost facing ground warming consecutive to climatic change. Local/regional maps of simulated permafrost distribution as presented in this paper can be useful in the context of a preventive approach for natural hazards management.

An Advanced Set Of Tools For The InformationManagement Of Natural Hazards

In the management of natural hazards, one of the major constraints to the effectiveness of interventions and relief actions is represented by the difficult circulation of reliable information among involved entities, on occurrence of any hazardous event. This, worsened by a poorly unified and homogeneous approach, could have a dramatic impact on planning and execution of safety procedures. In this context, DATAMAT is conceiving several initiatives that, starting from the concrete operational experience of civil protection entities, are producing an integrated set of tools in support of the decision process. The outstanding initiative presented in the paper is FORMIDABLE (Friendly Operational Risk Management through Interoperable Decision Aid Based on Local Events), a joint European enterprise aimed at standardising emergency management procedures and derive from that an interoperable system providing a standardised access to the information required for natural risks management. As repository of natural disasters related knowledge, FORMIDABLE will represent the main source for local authorities who will receive near-real time standardised operational tasks and scenario description. EO data will support high performance Internet GIS application, showing dynamic thematic view of the event scenario, through the integration of remotely sensed images with risk maps and the elaboration and analysis of dynamic damage assessment models. Furthermore, the paper presents two further examples of tools, aimed at prototyping specific aspects of the FORMIDABLE suite of decision aid systems: SIRECAM, a fully GIS-based decision support tool at regional level, supporting local civil protection authorities on hydrogeological hazards (floods, drought, landslide); DECIDE, a system integrating Earth Observation information in the decision support process for flood. Management Information Systems, C.A. Brebbia & P. Pascolo (Editors) © 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-815-5

Natural hazards in British Columbia: an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional challenge

Although British Columbia experiences many natural hazards, there is as yet no unified policy to promote natural hazard management in the province. The problem is not in the quantity and quality of geoscience assessment of natural hazards, but instead, it is suggested, in the isolation of that work from broader risk perspectives and in the lack of clarity of division of responsibilities between various levels of government. The example of recent changes in perception of the terrain stability problem illustrates how natural hazard problems are driven by social and political priorities rather than by geoscience priorities.

Feasibility of applying space-borne SAR interferometry for earthquake tectonic investigation

Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) techniques have recently become one of the most flexible and cost-effective Earth-observation tools for monitoring surface processes, including natural hazard monitoring and management tasks such as landslides, volcanic activities, and earthquake-related problems. This study investigates the feasibility of applying space-borne SAR interferometry to the monitoring of earthquake hazards and investigation of the earthquake-related tectonic processes, focusing on the investigation of the geological setting and associated tectonic processes in the Nahanni Earthquake area, NWT, Canada.

The Relationship of Emergency Management to Governmental Policies on Man-Made Technological Disasters

Emergency or management has traditionally emphasized natural hazards rather than man-made technological hazards. Section 102 of the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, defined and major disaster clearly in terms of natural phenomena, though some may be man-induced. Non-natural hazards are generalized as other catastrophe. Amendments proposed in 1982 would have given greater priority to non-natural hazards for funding if they had passed. Very few declarations were made directly for chemical emergencies under the Federal Disaster Relief Act or its state and local counterparts.' Love Canal and Times Beach were among these few federally declared disasters resulting from human activity.2 Unlike natural hazards management, the management of emergencies arising from man-made technological hazards is divided among several federal categorical environmental laws and state and local laws. While these laws incorporate strong regulatory and nonregulatory programs to prevent emergencies, measures for identifying and responding to emergencies are relatively weaker. As a result, during emergency events, agencies in charge typically have to compete with one another for resources. While Section 311 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Superfund partially remedy the resource problem for emergencies for specific chemicals and circumstances, they do not set up a management structure for all such emergencies. Thus, the two areas, man-made technological hazards and natural hazards, differ substantially in terms of their legislative and administrative base for emergency management. Natural hazard policy and programs directly incorporate and reference emergency management. In contrast, man-made technologies do not, so that the relationship between man-made technologies and emergency management has to be explicitly established.

The ecology of hazardousness, the experience of South America

In many parts of South America, the socio-economic condition of the population is such that in many respects the people, because of their vulnerable state, are a disaster waiting to occur. The triggering action of the disaster will be an extreme physical or biophysical event. If any advance is to be made in natural hazard management, then the focus must be upon people first. Halt the process of underdevelopment in South American societies and you have taken a major step forward in natural hazard management. The major concern of this paper is not so much with the competition for first place in hazard proneness in South America, but rather the elaboration of the total ecology of what we commonly designate as disasters, which ordinarily occur at the interface of extreme natural phenomena and vulnerable settlement patterns, and which should be seen, as the extreme situation which is implicit in the everyday condition of the population. Vulnerability is the key concept in this relationship. South American nations vary greatly in their hazard proneness, in the vulnerability of sectors in their societies, in the losses and general repercussions of hazardous events, and in their ability to cope effectively with the post-disaster situation, either alone or with international aid.

La predictibilidad en la gestión de riesgos naturales: Un enfoque epistemológico

El presente trabajo intenta mostrar las dificultades que entraña el hecho de poder ofrecer una predicción adecuada y exacta para la toma de decisiones en el ámbito de la gestión de riesgos naturales. Desde el punto de vista geográfico, se intenta hacer una descripción del proceso, del medio físico y humano, y las predicciones se quedarán en el ámbito de lo estadístico.El poder entender cuándo, cómo y dónde puede ocurrir un cambio en ambientes dinámicos se constituye en el primer problema que deben acometer los expertos en riesgos y desastres. Los sistemas se mueven, interaccionan entre ellos, aparecen y desaparecen, pero están regidos por leyes naturales y físicas que debemos ser capaces de comprender y de implementar en cualquier trabajo geográfico que requiera de una aproximación real a los procesos de toma de decisiones que eviten en la medida de lo posible las pérdidas de vidas humanas y materiales.