Assessing the resilience of Delhi to climate-related disasters: a comprehensive approach

The study addresses disaster risks in Delhi through a resilience approach. It utilizes the Climate Disaster Resilience Index (CDRI) tool, which assesses disaster resilience from five dimensions: physical, social, economic, institutional, and natural. Each dimension comprises 5 parameters, and each parameter consists of 5 variables. The study is carried out in the nine revenue districts of Delhi and reveals that East Delhi is least resilient and New Delhi is most resilient. The CDRI analysis in East Delhi points out the urgent need to focus on key parameters such as housing and land use, population, intensity and frequency of natural hazards, ecosystem services, and land use in natural terms. On the other hand, New Delhi is the most resilient due to all five dimensions, where most significant parameters responsible for its high resilience are housing and land use, population, income, employment, intensity and frequency of natural hazards, ecosystem services, and land use in natural terms. In addition, the overall results of all nine districts show an inverse relationship between resilience score and population density. For example, districts with higher population density show low resilience and vice versa. Moreover, districts located on hazard-prone areas show low resilience. For example, East Delhi and North East Delhi scored low resilience because they both are situated on the Yamuna flood catchment areas. The study further develops key suggestions that are required to address disaster risk in all nine districts of Delhi and discusses future implications of CDRI to address city??s vulnerability. The approach??s distinctness is reflected through its consideration of micro-level diversities and presents some implications to resilience.     

Community readiness for a new tsunami warning system: quasi-experimental and benchmarking evaluation of a school education component

Youth preparedness for disasters is a growing area of research. However, studies to date have relied on cross-sectional, correlational research designs. The current study replicated aspects of the one other study to date that has used a quasi-experimental strategy to evaluate youth preparedness for disasters. This study evaluated whether children were more knowledgeable and prepared for hazards generally but also in more specific relation to the rollout of a new tsunami warning system. Using a pretest–posttest with benchmarking design, the study found that following a brief school education program, supplementing a larger community-wide effort, children reported significant gains in preparedness indicators including increased knowledge as well as increases in physical and psychosocial preparedness. Within group effect sizes compared favorably with those from the previous experimental study in this area used to benchmark current intervention-produced findings and produced hints that combining school education programs with larger community preparedness efforts can enhance preparedness. Given that this is only one of two experimentally-based studies in an area of research largely dominated by cross-sectional designs, future research should consider the use of experimental designs, including those that are pragmatic and fit with needs of the school. The current approach has limitations that need to be considered. However, it also has some real advantages, including being used more extensively in fieldwork studies that evaluate various types of interventions. Through increased use of experimental design strategies, researchers can then also have increased confidence that educational programs are the source of increases in disaster resilience in youth and their families.     

Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro,southern Italy

The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.     

Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro,southern Italy

The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.

     

Resilience to natural hazards: a geographic perspective

Resilience is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of natural disaster systems. This article presents the origin of resilience and provides an overview of its development to date, which draws on the wide literature on ecological science, social science, social–environmental system and natural hazards. From a geographic perspective, the model of disaster resilience of “Loss–Response” of Location (DRLRL) was created and disaster resilience was defined from three dimensional mode, which focused on the spatial, temporal scale of resilience and attributes of hazard-affected bodies. A geographic approach was put forward to measure the disaster resilience, including two properties of inherent resilience and adaptive resilience and a case study was implemented in order to validate this approach. This perspective would offer greater potential in application of resilience concept, especially in the process of integrated risk management and disaster recovery.     

Exploring disaster preparedness of students at university in Bangladesh

Natural Hazards - Adequate and effective disaster preparedness in each sector is indispensable to abate disaster impacts and intensify disaster resilience in Bangladesh for achieving sustainable...     

Disaster education for landslide risk reduction: an experience in a public school in Rio de Janeiro State,Brazil

Public policies for reducing the disaster risk associated with landslides in Brazil, based almost solely on the implementation of engineering works to stabilise hillsides, have proved ineffective, with this type of disaster becoming more common and more severe. There is therefore an urgent need to form a culture that encourages the public to participate directly in disaster management and develops community capacity, which requires a broad disaster education programme on formal, non-formal and informal levels. Given the recent approach to the topic, this study aims to contribute to the development of a disaster education methodology for landslides, based on an experience that was coordinated by the authors within formal education. The experience was implemented in a state school in the city of Niterói (Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil) which is recurrently affected by disasters associated with landslides. The issue of disasters associated with landslides was addressed in a one-semester course, using the theory of meaningful learning and a range of pedagogical tools in both theory and practical classes, for a total period of 16 h. The educational activities were preceded by a landslide risk perception survey and teacher training. The study concluded that the course promoted interactive and participatory learning, a connection to the real problem in the field and an affective relationship with the issue.     

Building resilience to natural hazards in Indonesia: progress and challenges in implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action

Over the last 50?years, the cost of natural disasters has increased globally and in Indonesia (EM-DAT 2012). We therefore need more systematic efforts in trying to reduce disaster risks. In 2005, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction created the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005?C2015: ??Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities??, in order to enable a more systematic planning, implementation and evaluation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities. In this paper, we examine Indonesia??s success in improving DRR by reviewing the country??s progress in implementing the HFA Priorities for Actions. This includes an analysis of the drivers, challenges and emerging issues in building resilience to natural hazards. The study is undertaken through literature reviews and interviews with 26 representatives of key organisations in DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA) in Indonesia. Our findings indicate that the building disaster resilience in Indonesia has been, to a large extent, driven by the existence of the necessary regulatory policies and frameworks and the participation of various non-government stakeholders. Impediments to process include a lack of capacity and capability for DRR at the local government level, a lack of systematic learning and a lack of commitment from government to mainstream DRR into broader development agendas. Emerging pressing issues that are likely to challenge future resilience building activities include the integration of DRR and CCA and urban risk governance.     

我国自然灾害评估中亟待解决的问题

减轻自然灾害是一项系统工程，它包括对自然灾害的监测、预报、评估、防灾、抗灾、救灾、恢复、教育、保险与综合管理。通过对我国自然灾害评估现状的分析，介绍了目前我国国家级、省级和城市级自然灾害评估中亟待解决的若干问题，认为由国家、地方、主管部门组织开展全国自然灾害区划、加强自然灾害综合预报、建立自然灾害与灾情预评估、灾害应急评估与灾情评定、灾害应急救助与救援管理系统、积极开展灾害保险与灾区恢复、灾害教育与宣传、实现科学化、现代化灾害管理、实现灾害信息共享、开展减灾效益评估及建立综合减灾系统等是我国目前自然灾害评估中亟待解决的问题。     

灾害恢复力研究进展综述

自20世纪以来,随着人口、资源与环境矛盾的日益加深,全球各区域的自然灾害成灾次数、经济损失和受灾人口明显增多,自然灾害灾情不断上升,灾害风险已经成为可持续发展的最大障碍。风险、脆弱性、恢复力和适应性相关的灾害综合管理和减灾作为实施可持续发展的重要途径,已被学术界、经济与社会界予以高度重视。在国际减灾十年（IDNDR）活动、国际减灾战略（ISDR）的相继实施的大背景下,国内外学者兴起了研究灾害脆弱性和恢复力的新一轮热潮。目前国内外对承灾体脆弱性的研究较多,但对于灾害恢复力的恢复力研究才刚刚起步,虽然承灾体的恢复力建设近年来也逐渐被认识到是减灾行动中的一个重要环节。20世纪70年代开始,恢复力这一概念首先从力学被引入生态领域,目前,它已经成为生态、灾害和气候变化等多个学科共同关注的对象。对恢复力的概念发展和国内外目前的研究动态进行了较全面的综述,论述了灾害恢复力的科学价值和重要性,分析了灾害脆弱性与灾害恢复力的关系,总结了恢复力评估的主要方法、特点和难点,并在此基础上对灾害恢复力未来研究进行了展望,提出了研究的关键问题并建议进行更深入的研究。     

Coupling sentiment and human mobility in natural disasters: a Twitter-based study of the 2014 South Napa Earthquake

Understanding population dynamics during natural disasters is important to build urban resilience in preparation for extreme events. Social media has emerged as an important source for disaster managers to identify dynamic polarity of sentiments over the course of disasters, to understand human mobility patterns, and to enhance decision making and disaster recovery efforts. Although there is a growing body of literature on sentiment and human mobility in disaster contexts, the spatiotemporal characteristics of sentiment and the relationship between sentiment and mobility over time have not been investigated in detail. This study therefore addresses this research gap and proposes a new lens to evaluate population dynamics during disasters by coupling sentiment and mobility. We collected 3.74 million geotagged tweets over 8 weeks to examine individuals’ sentiment and mobility before, during and after the M6.0 South Napa, California Earthquake in 2014. Our research results reveal that the average sentiment level decreases with the increasing intensity of the earthquake. We found that similar levels of sentiment tended to cluster in geographical space, and this spatial autocorrelation was significant over areas of different earthquake intensities. Moreover, we investigated the relationship between temporal dynamics of sentiment and mobility. We examined the trend and seasonality of the time series and found cointegration between the series. We included effects of the earthquake and built a segmented regression model to describe the time series finding that day-to-day changes in sentiment can either lead or lag daily changed mobility patterns. This study contributes a new lens to assess the dynamic process of disaster resilience unfolding over large spatial scales.     

Integrated risk assessment of multi-hazards in China

Maps of population exposure, vulnerability and risk to natural hazards are useful tools for designing and implementing disaster risk mitigation programs in China. The ranking of provinces by relative risk to natural hazards would provide a metric for prioritizing risk management strategies. Using provinces as our study unit, from the perspectives of hazard exposure, susceptibility, coping capacity and adaptive capacity, this study first constructed China’s disaster risk index for five types of major natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, droughts, low temperatures/snow and gale/hail. Then, the relative risk level at the provincial scale in China was assessed. Finally, the hotspots with the highest hazard exposure, vulnerability and risk were identified. The results showed that high exposure was a significant risk driver in China, whereas high vulnerability, especially social vulnerability, amplified the risk levels. Similar to the population exposure to disasters, the relative risk levels in the southwestern, central and northeastern regions of China were significantly higher than those in the eastern, northern and western regions. The high-risk regions or hotspots of multi-hazards were concentrated in southern China (less-developed regions), while the low-risk regions were mainly distributed in the eastern coastal areas (well-developed regions). Furthermore, a nonlinear relationship existed between the disaster risk level and poverty incidence as well as per capita GDP, demonstrating that disaster losses in middle-income areas are likely to increase if economic policies are not modified to account for the rising disaster risk. These findings further indicated that research on disaster risk should focus not only on hazards and exposure but also on the vulnerability to natural disasters. Thus, reducing vulnerability and population exposure to natural hazards would be an effective measure in mitigating the disaster risk at hotspots in China.     

How important are local inventive milieus: The role of birthplace,high school and university education

Using data on the entire population in combination with data on almost all individuals in Sweden listed as inventors, we study how the probability of being listed on a patent as inventor is influenced by the density of other future inventors residing in the same region. In this process, we control for demographic and sector effects along with the educational characteristics of parents. This approach allows us to trace how location history influences individuals’ inventive capacity. We focus on three types of influences: (a) future inventors in the municipality around the time of birth, (b) future inventors around the time of graduation from high school and (c) future inventors at graduation from higher education. We find suggestive evidence that co-locating with future inventors may impact the probability of becoming an inventor. The most consistent effect is found for place of higher education; some positive effects are also evident from birthplace, whereas no consistent positive effect can be derived from individuals’ high school location. Therefore, the formative influences mainly deriving from family upbringing, birth region and from local milieu effects arising from a conscious choice to attend a higher education affect the choice of becoming an inventor.     

自然变异与灾害过程的社会学研究

论述了自然变异及自然灾害与人类社会的互馈关系 ,探讨了社会条件控制下自然灾害的阶段性特点 ,提出了开展灾害社会学研究的使命。认为自然变异及自然灾害破坏人类社会的健康发展 ,但人类社会并不是完全被动的应付自然变异和自然灾害 ,而是对自然变异及自然灾害作出双向反响。一方面 ,采取科学的社会行为 ,积极抑制灾害活动 ,减轻自然灾害破坏损失 ;另一方面因政治腐败 ,纲纪松弛 ,经济衰退 ,社会混乱 ,或违背自然规律 ,盲目的社会经济活动 ,导致天灾与人祸并行 ,不仅加剧自然灾害 ,甚至导致许多全球性重大环境问题 ,对人类社会造成广泛而深远的影响。自然灾害不仅受自然条件控制 ,而且受人类社会的强烈影响 ,因此自然灾害除伴随自然条件发生复杂的周期性变化外 ,还伴随社会条件发生阶段性变化。自然灾害是一种自然社会现象 ,而且随着人类社会的持续发展 ,自然灾害的社会性越来越强烈。因此 ,在进一步加强灾害的自然科学研究的同时 ,开展社会学研究 ,对于发展灾害理论以及促进减灾事业的发展是十分必要的。     

Disaster resilience in a flood-impacted rural Australian town

This paper reports exploratory research conducted in a flood-impacted rural Australian town to identify the factors which residents perceived as supporting community resilience to disaster. There is a gap in this research area centred in the Australian disaster context. Since Australia is predicted to be highly impacted by the effects of climate change in the form of an increased incidence of flooding, an urgent need exists to examine the factors that confer resilience to disaster-impacted localities to inform suitable disaster mitigation and adaptation policies for the future. Because of the complexity of community resilience and its interrelationship with individual resilience, a multi-method approach was used: a demographic study to assess community stability and functioning before and after the flood disaster, focus group interviews to obtain from community members their views on what supported them and their community resilience and a survey to generalise the interview findings. Our operating hypothesis was that individuals remaining in the town post-flood were likely to be resilient to the flood disaster. The demographic study results pointed to a resilient community after the floods as they reflected stability in population numbers and socio-economic indicators. The interviews and survey showed that individual resilience was promoted by social connectedness and a sense of place, a factor that was also negatively linked to the desire to relocate from the community. The use of structural equation modelling of our results provided verification of prior research findings about the role of sense of place in supporting individuals’ resilience. Results are discussed in the context of future climate change adaptation policy.     

极端地质灾害与风险

极端地质灾害与风险是本文提出的一个概念.在地球演进过程中,极端地质灾害被认为是小概率事件.但这并不意味这种小概率的自然灾害只发生在遥远的未来,也不能排除这种事件发生在我们现在或者未来不久几代人中间.2008年汶川8.0级强震,吞噬了数万人的生命,大量的建筑被损毁,就是这种极端自然灾害的典型实例.它再一次向人类发出警告,...     

An examination of midwestern US cities’ preparedness for climate change and extreme hazards

Disasters continue to have a dramatic impact on lives, livelihoods and environments communities depend on. In response to these losses, the global community has developed various theories, assessment methodologies and policies aimed at reducing global losses. A contemporary outcome of these interventions is to build the disaster resilience. However, despite the disaster resilience-building endeavours espoused by policies, theories and methodologies, very little progress is being made in reducing disaster losses. This paper argues that a possible reason behind the limitations of current resilience-building policies and methodologies could be that most of these policies are based a mechanistic scientific paradigm that places an emphasis on system components that are perceived to build resilience and not the function of systems as a whole. This often leads to resilience-building initiatives that are based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This paper argues for the use of a complex adaptive systems approach to building resilience. This approach argues that contextual factors within different social systems will have a nonlinear affect on disaster resilience-building efforts. Therefore, it is crucial to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to more flexible approaches to building resilience. These hypotheses are tested by means of a correlation statistical analysis of agricultural communities in Southern Africa. Results of this analysis indicate that unique resilience profiles are evident in almost all of the communities studied. This indicates that resilience is not the same for everybody, and that resilience-building endeavours should be flexible enough to be adapted for different contexts.     

长江经济带水资源-水环境-社会经济复杂系统韧性调控模型及应用

水资源-水环境-社会经济复杂系统韧性研究是规避外来冲击和挑战、保持区域和平稳定发展的重要途径之一。借鉴投影寻踪和微分方程的思想构建了一种新的韧性调控模型, 对长江经济带整体和省级尺度1999—2018年间的水资源-水环境-社会经济复杂系统韧性及其调控因素进行了评估。结果表明: 长江经济带韧性水平以2011年为突变点, 2011年之前较为稳定, 2011年之后稳步提升; 影响韧性特征的因素在江西省和云南省为自然禀赋条件, 在上海市为科学技术水平和政府宏观政策, 而其他地区则经历了两者之间的过渡; 韧性的优控因素排序为适应性>恢复性>抵抗性, 且逐渐从抵抗性转移为适应性。     

中国城市主要自然灾害风险评价研究

本文依据灾害系统理论和中国自然灾害数据库,构建了反映城市承灾体的综合城市化水平（CL）指标,并在此基础上得到城市脆弱性水平指数。考虑对城市具有结构性破坏和易于造成交通灾情的主要灾种,即水灾、地震、滑坡—泥石流、台风、沙尘暴,构建了反映城市主要致灾因子的综合自然灾害强度（QC）指标,并得到城市综合自然灾害强度指数。据此,在定性分析的基础上,通过半定量计算,将中国城市主要自然灾害风险划分为高风险、较高风险、中等风险、较低风险、低风险5个等级,编制了中国城市自然灾害风险评价图,并对灾害链的综合风险评价作了进一步的探讨。     

Women’s empowerment following disaster: a longitudinal study of social change

This paper examines changes in gender relations in a small coastal community as a result of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami. Vulnerability and resilience are used as a conceptual framework to analyse these changes. Based on empirical evidence from a seven-year longitudinal study and quasi-ethnographic work, we explore changes in power relations at the different stages of the disaster and longer-term recovery as well as the conditions that fostered these changes. Our findings show distinct patterns of change. First, disasters can trigger long-lasting changes that challenge historical patriarchal relations. Second, while vulnerability increases following a disaster, resilience can potentially counteract women’s vulnerability. We propose that resilience can be a pathway to produce long-term changes in gender relations and empower women in the context of disasters.