Sustainable Disaster Management Research Articles

Kyoji Sassa, Hiroshi Fukuoka, Fawu Wang and Gonghui Wang (eds): Landslides: risk analysis and sustainable disaster management

Kyoji Sassa, Hiroshi Fukuoka, Fawu Wang and Gonghui Wang (eds): Landslides: risk analysis and sustainable disaster management

Portfolio Theory for Regional Disaster Analysis and Policy

Abstract My paper describes a portfolio theoretic framework for exploring the causes and consequences of major disruptions on regions and communities. The approach can be related to theories of financial portfolio management, optimal insurance, moral hazard, and ambiguous uncertainty, and the empirical literature on sustainable livelihoods, robust engineering, and disaster management. The present paper explains how Markowitz (1959) portfolio management theory may be adapted to the situation of a small region facing periodic and irregular disruptions in local and export markets, and used to select a portfolio of disaster mitigating strategies that maximize societal utility. This theory is implemented empirically using a computer simulation model. Model simulations show how the potential for major disruptions varies with economic policy, increasing rapidly with the risk-propensity of policy-makers or policies that increase the likelihood of concatenated events. Moreover, strategies that reduce ambiguity or ...

U.N. Plans Its Future in Space

At a meeting in Vienna last week, the United Nations adopted a declaration on space and human development that emphasizes the importance of space science and technology for improving human health, studying the environment, and helping sustainable development and disaster management. Although the declaration does not commit any country to a specific course of action, it provides a road map for cooperation among the U.N.9s member nations as well as technical and political recommendations for future space activities. Delegates also approved a voluntary fund to pay for the action plan that accompanies the declaration and suggested that countries be allowed loans from the World Bank to enable them to use the international space station.