Post Disaster Research Articles

Disasters, disaster preparedness and post disaster recovery: Evidence from Caribbean firms

Firms are exposed to various kinds of risks such as man-made and natural disasters that can negatively affect their business. The objective of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of disasters, disaster preparedness, and post disaster recovery strategies and the private sector in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a region highly vulnerable to such impacts. A Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) was adopted using a novel database-the Innovation, Firm Performance, and Gender (IFPG) firm-level dataset conducted in the Caribbean in 2020 to estimate the production function as well as technical efficiency scores of firms, following which the efficiency scores were regressed against disaster preparedness and post disaster recovery strategies, and other firm-specific control variables using robust standard errors clustered at the country and sector level. The results indicate that disaster preparedness and post disaster recovery strategy affect technical efficiency. In particular firms with a post disaster recovery plan to resume operations after a disaster, firms with knowledge of which parts of their business need to be operational following a disaster, and firms that ensure that their suppliers have a post disaster recovery plan experience a positive effect on technical efficiency, while firms operating in a building that is able to withstand disasters negatively affects technical efficiency.

Significance of the “Coordination Headquarters for Healthcare and Medical Support” in Japan; comparison with Emergency Medical Team Coordination Cell (EMTCC)

Introduction:The Japan Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) was established in 2005. Although it had become possible to gather medical teams at an early stage in the fields of health and welfare, there had still been a lack of personnel. In 2017, the Japanese government decided to establish the Health and Medical Coordination Headquarters when we had major disasters. Not only the medical team, but also the public health nurse and the welfare team gathered at this headquarter, and activities that integrated health, medical care, and welfare started from an early stage. On the other hand, WHO indicates to establish EMTCC within the Ministry of Health, in order to manage and coordinate EMT activities and aggregate data.Method:The Japanese Headquarters and the EMTCC were compared in terms of their functions and issues.Results:In Japanese headquarters, the director of the local public health center will be the director, and the secretariat for the headquarters will be run by supporters. Participants in the headquarter meeting include leaders of public institutions involved in health risk management. Furthermore, leaders of unions such as medical, dentist, pharmacists and nurses on the side of supporters, leaders of medical, healthcare, and welfare will participate. To establish EMTCC, WHO dispatches a coordinator, information manager, and data analyst.EMTCC collects medical information by using Minimum Data Set (MDS), which is similar to Japanese Surveillance in post extreme emergencies and disasters (J-SPEED). The most significant difference is that EMTCC does not deal with health and welfare issues.Conclusion:Regarding medical care, information is summarized in a similar way at headquarters. These facts indicate the Japanese headquarters management experience is applicable to EMTCC.

Fine–Scale Spatiotemporal Distribution Assessment of Indoor Population Based on Single Buildings: A Case in Dongcheng Subdistrict, Xichang, China

Population exposure is an important element of disaster loss assessment. High–resolution spatiotemporal distribution assessment of population exposure could improve disaster preparation and reduce the risk. This study proposed a model for assessing the spatiotemporal distribution of indoor people at the scale of single buildings by distinguishing the differences in people densities for various functional buildings. The empirical study results in the Dongcheng Subdistrict, Xichang City, China, showed that this method could determine the indoor population change in different single buildings at different times of day and map fine–scale spatiotemporal distribution of the regional indoor population. Due to the difference in the use function of buildings and human activities, the distribution of indoor populations in different functional buildings changes significantly during the day. Compared with the spatiotemporal changes in the indoor population on non–weekdays, the changes were more obvious on weekdays. The change in indoor population exposure during the daytime is significantly stronger than that at night. The results could provide an important reference for regional disaster preparedness and post–disaster emergency rescue.

Emergency repair strategy of distribution network under wind disaster based on multidimensional importance evaluation

In order to enhance the power supply reliability of distribution network under wind disasters and provide assistance for distribution network operators to formulate post disaster repair strategies, this paper proposes an optimization method for key nodes and lines evaluation and distribution network repair strategy under wind disaster. Firstly, based on the complex network theory, we considered the status of nodes and lines in the topology and working state. The multi-dimensional evaluation indexes are proposed including improved node degree, node cohesion degree, node intermediate number, weighted line intermediate number, line transfer power flow entropy and line failure rate, etc. Then, the entropy weight method is used to objectively weight the six indicators, and TOPSIS algorithm is used to rank the comprehensive importance of nodes and lines in the distribution network. On this basis, the dynamic programming theory is used to optimize the emergency repair strategy of the fault distribution network after the wind disaster. And the problem of restoring as many key nodes and lines as possible in a short time is proposed. Finally, the method is applied to the IEEE 39 bus system network to verify the feasibility.

Occurrence of Disaster Events and their Impact in Nepal: Role of Government and Civil Society Organizations to Reduce the Disaster Risks

Nepal is highly vulnerable to multiple geological, hydro and meteorological hazards in which floods, landslides, fires, avalanches, glacial lakes outburst floods, droughts and earthquakes are predominant. Nepal has also been experiencing outbreak of epidemics and pandemic having high morbidity and mortality. Every day, on an average, 2 people die due to recurrent disasters. Situated in seismic zone, Nepal is prone to earthquake, and it had experienced several episodes of earthquake having losses of human lives and physical infrastructure. Climate change attributing significantly in extreme weather conditions resulting heavy rainfall, drought, fire, and glacial lake outburst floods. The disasters events have severe impact in socio-economic and health of community people creating problem in access, disrupting supply chain, damage, and destruction of service delivery outlets. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the disaster situation in country, their impact and assess the role of government of Nepal and civil society organizations in reducing the disaster risks. This paper has been prepared by reviewing the secondary data mainly government, UN and I/NGOs reports and research articles. Marginalized groups of the society are hardest hit by the disasters. Investing resources in preparedness and risk reduction pays off in saving lives and properties, investing 1 NPR in DRR is equivalent to 18 NPR during post disaster situation. A whole of society approach where preparedness, risk reduction, response, recovery, and reconstruction go simultaneously in building resilience nations to disasters. Development work should mandatorily apply environmental impact assessment and do no harm principles. The government of Nepal has developed DRM Act, policy, and strategic plan. Accountability framework, risk governance and risk education play a critical role to achieve outcomes stipulated in the strategic plan.

Networking Scheme for Power Grid System Based on Emergency Communication Vehicle and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Emergency communication vehicle and UAV are important equipment for power emergency disposal. Emergency communication vehicle (ECV) can quickly reach the disaster area with weak signal, no signal and no power supply. UAV has the advantages of flexible and repeatable post disaster data transmission. Combining the advantages of both, this paper proposes a network architecture based on ECV-UAV scheme. The experimental results show that the scheme can effectively improve the efficiency of power emergency disposal.

Research on optimization of post-earthquake restoration planning strategy of Jiuzhaigou world heritage site based on value correlation: from the perspective of heritage site administrators

ABSTRACT We conducted a questionnaire survey on heritage site managers to obtain the relationship between post disaster recovery and reconstruction strategies, protected area planning and value objects, and used the information model method to analyze and show the degree difference of this relationship. The research shows that i) cognitive correlation has been built between restoration strategies and all value objects, and the correlative identification complexities are different for different specific strategies. The specific strategy for “scenic spot restoration and industrial development” has the highest level of complexity of correlation identification, ii) the degrees of uncertainty for the value objects to be identified in the restoration strategies are different. The Tibetan villages are identified as the objects with the highest certainty and the lowest fluctuation, iii) the restoration strategies have responded the overall orders of the value object identification in the protected areas. The restoration strategy has more uncertainty and complexity fluctuation than identification of protected areas. Finally, the paper puts forward suggestions for sustainable restoration and development of the heritage sites, including strengthening the correlation between village evolution and heritage values, restoring the systematization of strategies, and planning the connection with overall value objects.

OlaRout: Optimal dropbox deployment based cluster routing for post disaster information exchange in a smart city

OlaRout: Optimal dropbox deployment based cluster routing for post disaster information exchange in a smart city

Vulnerability and recovery: Long-term mental and physical health trajectories following climate-related disasters

Extreme weather and climate-related disaster events are associated with a range of adverse health outcomes. People are not equally vulnerable to the adversity, experiencing varied patterns of long-term health trajectories in recovery depending on their vulnerabilities, capacities, and resiliencies. This study aims to identify latent mental and physical health trajectories and their associations with person- and place-based pre-disaster predictors. Using an Australian, population-based, longitudinal dataset spanning 2009–19, group-based multi-trajectory modelling was applied to identify the distinct mental, social, emotional, and physical health trajectories of people who had experienced damage to their home following a climate-related disaster event. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess a series of social vulnerability predictors (demographic, socioeconomic, housing, health, neighbourhood, and geographical) of health patterns. We identified three distinct health trajectories. Most individuals experienced small or minimal health impacts at the time of the disaster year followed by a fast recovery. However, one-fifth of the exposed population were severely affected during and post disaster. This cohort had the worst mental and physical health prior to the disaster and experienced the largest decreases in mental and physical health and the lowest recoveries. Pre-existing mental and physical conditions were the most substantial risk factors, increasing the probability of experiencing high impact and slow recovery by 61% for mental health and 51% for physical health. In addition, vulnerability in the form of housing affordability stress, lower household income, and lack of community attachment, participation and safety were also significant independent risk factors for ongoing post-disaster health problems. Critically, people's mental and physical health recovery is dependent on pre-disaster vulnerabilities in health, resource access, and capacities. These findings could assist policymakers and health practitioners to more effectively target people most at risk and design prevention and response strategies to prevent the exacerbation of poor health and wellbeing.

Sustainability assessment of economic recovery program in post disaster area at Susup Village, Central Bengkulu, Indonesia

This article addresses the sustainability of post disaster assistance program for economic recovery in the context of the 2019’s Flood and landslide in Bengkulu Province by presenting an analysis of its sustainability (e.g., Exit Strategy) of the economic recovery program. The purpose of this sustainability assessment were: first, to ensure that that the program will continue to run even though the program will be ended; and second, to ensure the process of business still running and the member of business group take initiative to have better motivation towards a better situation and increased their income. Data was gathered through Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and analysed using Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) approach. Based on the MDS analyses for all dimensions was resulted an index of 58.88%, meaning that the program was “moderately/sufficiently sustainable” for the business groups in Susup Village, Merigi Sakti District, Central Bengkulu

Toward reduction of detrimental effects of hurricanes using a social media data analytic Approach: How climate change is perceived?

During natural disasters, there is a noticeably increased use of social media sites such as Twitter. Substantial research on social media data use during disasters has been conducted in the past decade since various social media platforms have emerged and gained popularity. This research highlights a thorough examination of the textual content of users’ posts shared on Twitter across the 48 contiguous U.S. states (CONUS) during hurricanes Harvey (2017) and Dorian (2019). We processed and analyzed 35 million tweets by classifying them into the main topics of concern discussed on Twitter over the CONUS. Sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and topic classification are a few of the Artificial Intelligence techniques from Natural Language Processing (NLP) that we employed in this work to analyze the Twitter data. Applying the NLP techniques on this large volume of data, made it possible to classify the tweet content into distinct categories in order to reveal valuable information on social response to hurricanes and assist crisis management agencies and disaster responders during and post disasters. Furthermore, this study offers helpful insights on the way climate change is discussed on Twitter before, during and after hurricane Harvey and Dorian. The outcome of this study uncovers detailed information on social response to hurricanes which benefits disaster managers and responders in reducing the detrimental effects of such extreme events and enhancing community readiness when these events occur.

Effectiveness of post-disaster coping strategies among the farming households in the coastal districts of Odisha, India

Farmers in developing countries generally faced vulnerability in consumption due to income shocks caused by crop damage, price falls, disasters, etc. The ability to respond to such income shocks is determined by their asset structure labour endowment, access to credit and so on. Using information from 459 sample households in the three coastal districts of Odisha; India, this paper examines the effectiveness of ex-post coping strategies adopted by the farming households in the study regions. Based on wealth index score, we classified the sample households in to poor, medium and rich income groups for a deeper understanding of the impact floods on their consumption patterns. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression model was used for examining the effectiveness of post disaster coping strategies adopted the sample households. The results of regression model show that the practice of borrowing money from formal/informal sources is one of the most effective strategies resorted by the sample households in the study regions. Seasonal migration is an alternative strategy followed by poor and middle-income households in the study regions, whereas accessing to government or non-governmental assistance measures is an effective strategy on the part of richer households. Among the socio-economic characteristics, the educational attainment of household heads and the landholding size possessed by households have had a significant influence on narrowing down the consumption gaps. In this scenario, along with an effective implementation of welfare and employment generation programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a widen access to the formal loan market helps farmers reduce migration and provide a secure income to the people which, in turn, helps them reduce their relative consumption gaps.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING IN OLDER ADULTS AFTER MULTIPLE SEVERE WEATHER EVENTS

Abstract Catastrophic hurricanes and flooding threaten health and well-being, although the long-term consequences of these events for survivors are poorly understood. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the US Gulf Coast. Many lost homes in these storms and relocated permanently inland. In August of 2016, historic flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana devastated a 22-parish (county) region, resulting in widespread destruction and a second round of disaster-related losses for those who relocated to Baton Rouge after Katrina. The present research is part of a larger longitudinal study on health and well-being after multiple disasters. Cherry et al. (2021) reported that greater flood damage was associated with more symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress during the Wave 1 immediate impact phase. Here we examined symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at Wave 2, a follow-up assessment that occurred 9 (+/- 3) months after Wave 1 testing. Three flood exposure groups were compared: non-flooded (controls), single disaster (flooded in 2016) and double disaster (flooded in 2005 and again in 2016). Results indicated that symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress, which were elevated at Wave 1 for the single and double disaster groups relative to the non-flooded controls, were reduced at Wave 2 and did not differ from the controls. Correlation analyses revealed that age was negatively associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety, consistent with the inoculation view of post disaster psychological reactions. Implications of these data for understanding older adults’ psychological health after multiple disaster exposures are discussed.

Full-time scale resilience enhancement strategies for an integrated electricity-gas-transportation coupled system

The frequent occurrence of extreme disaster events with low probability and high risk poses a serious threat to the safe and stable operation of power grids. With the development of energy internet technology, the deep integration of power distribution, natural gas and transportation networks has opened a promising way for resilient distribution networks. This paper proposes a full-time scale resilience enhancement framework for an integrated electricity-gas-transportation coupled system oriented to energy internet. In this framework, a minimax regret robust optimization model considering the uncertainty of extreme disaster attacks is developed to make the line hardening strategy in the pre-disaster stage, which is solved by the column-and-constraint generation algorithm. Furthermore, the synthetic restoration model considering the co-optimization of dynamic dispatch of gas-fired units, network reconfiguration and damaged component repair is established, in which the coupling influence of the gas and transportation networks on the restoration strategy during the disaster and post disaster stages is taken into account. And the sequential cone programming method and generalized Benders decomposition algorithm is implemented to solve the above model. Finally, the proposed model and solution method are validated via a modified 33-bus power distribution network coupled with a 12-node transportation network and a 7-node gas network. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed minmax regret robust optimization model can achieve a pre-disaster defensive strategy with less conservativeness in contrast to the conventional robust optimization model. Specifically, the cost under the worst-case attacks by the former has reduced by 11.52–22.29% compared to the latter. Moreover, the influence of the interdependent critical infrastructure networks on the synthetic restoration strategy in the disaster and post-disaster stages has been investigated. In particular, the power output by gas-fired units has reduced by 2699 kW when considering the operation constraints of the gas network. Additionally, due to the time-varying characteristics of traffic flow and commuting time in the transportation network, the repair time for the damaged components is shortened by 1.09 h while the preparation time of crews changes from 2.5 to 1.5 h.

The Resilience of the Indigenous People Towards Natural Disasters: Case of Central Mountains of Papua

The resilience of the indigenous people of Papua towards natural disasters has been questioned because of the large number of casualties post disasters deaths which should have been handled differently considering their knowledge and closeness to nature; thus, it should be easy for them to adapt in times of natural changes. This study is aimed at investigating the resilience of the indigenous people of Papua in the central mountains of Papua towards disasters based on secondary data. Study results showed that the resilience of indigenous people of the central mountains of Papua towards disasters is more influenced by social factors than ecology since, generally, the ecological system in the disaster area in the central mountains of Papua has not experienced much change. The social factors are, among others, the impact of modern civilization, which has not been well adapted by the indigenous people, and the lack of skills of local stakeholders in disaster mitigation. Disaster mitigation should be in the form of improvement of the social condition of indigenous people of the central mountains area of Papua to perfect their civilization towards a more prosperous life

Compact Real-Time Control System for Autonomous Vehicle

Due to global warming, there is an increase in the number of natural disasters occurring around the world. With more disasters happening, post disaster search and rescue personnel are putting their life on the line more often in scouting out the post disaster site and sending in first aid supplies while waiting for rescue vehicles like fire trucks and ambulance to arrive. In Malaysia alone, the use of compact Autonomous Landed Vehicle (ALV) for this purpose is limited. There are many compact ALV that are being developed with microcontrollers and microprocessors such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi as the central control system, but they are fragile and can be damaged easily when used in harsh environments. In addition, multiple microcontrollers and microprocessors are needed for the ALV as parallel processing and limited gates are some of the common problems with microprocessors and microcontrollers. In this paper, a central control system using an FPGA is proposed together with the design of a prototype for the ALV. The ALV consists of three systems: Propulsion System, Sensor System, and Remote-Control System. These systems are integrated together with the Altera DE-115 board as the central control unit of the ALV. Verilog Hardware Description language (Verilog HDL) is used for designing the control system for the ALV. The proposed system is stable, low cost, allows parallel processing and the compact size of the ALV allows smooth manoeuvring through small areas of post disaster sites to scout out the area and send in first aid supplies to the victims.

Understanding the impacts of floods on learning quality, school facilities, and educational recovery in Indonesia.

This research is among the first pieces of work to use the comprehensive school safety (CSS) framework to assess the impacts of floods on quality learning and education infrastructure. The CSS framework is employed here to identify the level of disruption to education services following floods in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2013. The paper poses three key questions, concerning: (i) disruption to children's access to quality education during the flood emergency in 2013 and the early recovery phase; (ii) the impact of the floods on a school's physical infrastructure; and (iii) the effectiveness and level of success of the 2013 flood responses by relevant stakeholders. Combining quantitative and qualitative strategies, the paper examines the experiences of 100 schools in Jakarta. The findings suggest that the CSS framework offers a more nuanced approach to assessing post-disaster education needs. Moreover, it is also relevant for examining the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and relative losses in the education sector.

Pengembangan Kawasan Wisata Tsunami di Kota Banda Aceh (Studi Implementasi Kebijakan Qanun Aceh Nomor 8 Tahun 2013 Tentang Kepariwisataan)

This research is important because until now the local revenue of Kota Banda Aceh from tourism is still low, whereas there are still many tourism potentials that can still be dug for, if there is tourism activity is not lively and not festive and generally not maintained, including supporting facilities for such activities not well maintained. Many debates about tourism post disaster. During this time the disaster is considered a threat, but the facts on the ground show that many people are interested to see and enjoy the impact of the Tsunami disaster. The formulation of the problem in this research is how to arrange / facilitate the development of tourist attraction in Banda Aceh City, how to organize tourism training, how to maintain and preserve the tourist attraction in Banda Aceh City, how to organize guidance of the conscious society of tourism in Banda Aceh City, how to do promotion tour. This research uses qualitative approach. Because the researchers intend to get a picture of a profound phenomenon about a symptom. Technique of data collecting is by interview, observation and documentation study. the data source consists of primary data source and secondary data source. In conducting research of informant search done by purposive sampling technique. The informant consisted of the Head of the Tourism Office of Banda Aceh City, Secretary of Tourism Office, Kabid. Tourism, Sub-Head of Planning, Head of Marketing and Development Section, Owner of Hotel Arabia, Sub-district of Meuraxa, Public figure, Tourist owner Iboh, Hotel Owner of Tourism, Business Owner of Floating Ship Object. From the results of the research shows that the development of tourist attraction continues in galakkan by the city of Banda Aceh, the implementation of tourism training followed by the entrepreneurs and the community around the tourist attraction. Maintenance and preservation of tourist attraction in do not meet the expectations of visitors, the guidance of the community aware of tourism in greet the community is less serious, the promotion is not so vigorous and attract many tourists. From the result of the research, it can be concluded that the development of tsunami tourism area in Banda Aceh City still needs improvement and the government's attention for further development.

Design of transformable transitional shelter for post disaster relief

PurposeThe most important need after natural disasters is the sheltering. However, most of the existing temporary shelters do not meet all requirements for long-term use and not provide adequate flexibility within the space. This paper aims to develop a transitional postdisaster shelter transforming from a closed shape to an expanded form in response to changing functional and spatial needs of disaster victims. The study also proposes alternative unit combinations for various functions, and settlement layouts to create a comfortable living environment for occupants.Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology is based on theoretical and design frameworks which requires inductive and deductive approaches. Forming the background of the study, the theoretical framework consists of four parts which are literature review on temporary shelters presenting state-of-the-art; determination of design guidelines and strategies based on shelter standards; identification of technical requirements; and analysis of existing temporary shelters. Having three parts, the design framework includes design of transformable transitional shelter based on three-dimensional modeling, creation of different unit combinations to be used for various purposes and development of settlement layouts as case studies.FindingsThe analysis conducted in this study demonstrates that most of the existing temporary shelters have limited geometric configurations and major problems in terms of their performance, transportation and storage. On the other hand, the transformable shelter proposed by the authors can provide form and spatial flexibilities thanks to its expansion properties, occupy less space for transportation, easily be transported to any desired location in its compact state and be customized according to user needs. Several units can be combined either to serve larger families or to be used for different functions.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature as presenting not only a theoretical framework on temporary shelters but also a design framework on transformable shelter design for the ones who are willing to develop similar transformable shelters based on the determined guidelines, strategies and requirements.

Women’s Empowerment in Post-Conflict Housing Reconstruction in Palestine

The occurrence of disasters, especially in the post disaster phase, could be an opportunity to empower women in housing reconstruction. Despite that the disasters are on increase globally; they affect women and men differently. Women are still passive in disaster management and they have been found more vulnerable to disasters than men. This study provides insights into the experiences of women empowerment in post disaster housing reconstruction (PDHR) in the Gaza Strip-Palestine. The study used a questionnaire survey to obtain data from women who had been involved in post conflict housing reconstruction. The results indicated that, five of nine practices of women empowerment were determined statistically significant. The findings showed that, the top three practices for women empowerment are: ensuring rights of land titles for female-headed households in the PDHR, equal distribution of financial assistance to both men and women, and equal access to resources and information related to reconstruction. Gaza Strip lacks researches regarding women empowerment in general and in PDHR in particular. This study fills the knowledge gap relating to women empowerment in post conflict housing reconstruction. The study results established a basis for better understanding of the women empowerment and could minimize their vulnerabilities to future disasters.