Vulnerability to Hurricane Damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast Since 1950

We study hurricane risk on the U.S. Gulf Coast during 1950‐2005, estimating the wind damage and storm surge from every hurricane in this extended period. Wind damage is estimated from the known path and wind speeds of individual storms and calibrated to fit actual damage reports for a sample of Gulf Coast storms. Storm surge is estimated using the SLOSH model developed by NOAA. These models provide the first comprehensive overview of the hurricane storm hazard as it has been experienced over a fifty‐six‐year period. We link the estimated damage with information on the population and specific socio‐demographic components of the population (by age, race, and poverty status). Results show that white, young adult, and nonpoor populations have shifted over time away from zones with higher risk of wind damage, while more vulnerable population groups–the elderly, African Americans, and poor—have moved in the opposite direction. All groups have moved away from areas with high risk of storm surge since 1970. But in this case, perhaps because living near the water is still perceived as an amenity, those at highest risk are whites, elderly, and nonpoor households. Here exposure represents a trade‐off between the risk and the amenity.     

Ruralness,development and democracy: media,myths and the creation of meaning at Lake Cowal,New South Wales

The media play a vital role in translating new events and experiences into the textual forms that are communicated to the public. As a result, media narratives have become sites of contestation with opposing groups attempting to frame them in a way that suits their political purposes. When a gold mining proposal to be based at Lake Cowal was rejected by the NSW government for ‘environmental reasons’, the reaction of newspapers circulated in townships near the proposed mine site was analysed for the month following the announcement. A pro‐mining regional hegemony dominated the newspaper texts and drew on three powerful myths prevalent in Australian rural society: ‘the rural identity’, ‘the glory of development’, and ‘the duties of democracy’. The pro‐mining groups use these myths to make their interests appear the same as community interests in an effort to silence opposing views and obtain total community support. The manner in which powerful members of the pro‐mining group were permitted to use the newspapers for their own ends brings forth questions of power and objectivity in the media of contemporary society.     

Tasks,Strategies, and Cognitive Processes Associated With Navigational Map Reading: A Review Perspective*

All geographers use and may create maps in their professional activities. While perceived by some as merely tools to present spatial information, maps are actually complicated communication mechanisms. Many geographers spend tremendous amounts of time learning about verbal and written communication (how to speak, listen, read critically, and write effectively). But to many, one of the basic tools of geographic communication, the map, is a general source of unknown. Many previous papers have focused on how to create effective maps; this paper focuses on how people read and use navigation maps. Everyone completes map‐reading tasks, uses (often different) strategies, and processes information through cognitive processing. Geographers may benefit from understanding how they, as well as their map‐viewing public, process the information contained on their maps. This paper addresses terms and issues addressed in navigational map reading, specifically including tasks and strategies as well as the governing cognitive processes.     

Hispanic Immigrants' Vulnerabilities to Flood and Hurricane Hazards in Two United States Metropolitan Areas

Research reveals that disasters are disproportionately debilitating for marginalized social groups. Numerous studies have examined racial/ethnic dimensions of disaster vulnerability, but few have focused on Hispanic immigrants. More research on Hispanic immigrants is needed, since they constitute a major component of the Hispanic population—the largest and fastest‐growing minority group in the U.S.—and because they experience distinctive cultural and immigration status disadvantages. We examine the flood/hurricane vulnerabilities of Hispanic immigrants in comparison to U.S.–born Hispanics and non‐Hispanic whites. Using mixed methods to analyze data from 429 surveys and 31 interviews with residents living in flood zones, we examine differences in self‐protective action, risk perception, and hazard knowledge between the three groups in Houston and Miami. Hispanic immigrants exhibited lower levels of self‐protection and hazard knowledge, and higher perceptions of risk, which reflects their heightened vulnerability. Risk‐reduction programs should target the particular vulnerabilities of Hispanic immigrants, and future studies should examine their vulnerabilities in other contexts.     

Environmental risks associated with developing oil sands in southwestern Nigeria

Nigeria is in the advanced development stages of extracting its oil sands resources to boost national revenue and economic prosperity, like other countries in Sub‐Saharan Africa including the Republic of Congo and Madagascar. Compared to resource‐rich developed countries like Canada and America, the consequences of oil sands extraction is likely to be disastrous in countries like Nigeria that have a poor reputation for managing resources (as is the case with the petroleum sector). Using a mixed‐method approach—focus group discussions, interviews and observations—this paper addresses environmental concerns about oil sands extraction in Nigeria. Overall, the communities perceived oil sands development negatively, because of fears of loss of communal lands, biodiversity, water availability and quality, and pollution. They were angry with the previous administrations over the lack of communication, and were deprived of socio‐economic opportunities and pollution from prolonged delays in oil sands extraction. The way forward is to form sustainable partnerships between the government, communities, industry and other stakeholders to achieve responsible oil sands development—environmentally friendly development that meets climate obligations, addresses cumulative impacts, and acts in the best interest of host communities and Nigerians.     

Residential perspectives: the value of Floodplain‐ buyout open space

This mixed‐methods case study identifies how floodplain property acquisition—a buyout—impacts an urban environment at the neighborhood scale while considering the role of individual residents in formal and informal land‐use decision making. In floodplain buyouts, the reopening of urban space is enabled by federal structural drivers, primarily Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but it is repurposed as a cultural landscape constructed and produced by individuals. This research explores how residents perceive and ascribe values to the buyout landscape in Lexington, Kentucky. Enabled by federal funds, but left largely to their own devices, residents in Lexington adopted uses, ascribed values, and produced their own land‐use norms in each buyout neighborhood.     

下辽河平原浅层地下水环境风险评价及空间关联特征

以下辽河平原浅层地下水为研究对象,将自然灾害风险理论引入地下水环境风险评价,从脆弱性、功能性、胁迫性、适应性4个方面选取指标,构建地下水环境风险评价指标体系和模型。运用GIS空间分析方法对地下水环境风险进行评价,并对风险值进行空间关联特征研究。结果表明：① 研究区内地下水环境中度以上风险区占整个研究区面积的63.12%,其中高风险区占6.79%,较高风险区占18.96%,中等风险区占37.37%;较低风险区占21.98%,低风险区占14.90%。② 地下水环境风险最高的地区主要位于下辽河平原中部的新民市东北部、灯塔市、辽中县西部、黑山县部分地区及凌海市东南部。③ 研究区内地下水环境风险呈现较高的正相关性,相似性高的区域主要分布在中东和中西部风险高值区,以及东北和东南部风险低值区。研究成果丰富了地下水环境风险理论,对下辽河平原地下水环境保护实践具有一定的理论和实践意义。     

论气象灾害综合风险防范模式——2008年中国南方低温雨雪冰冻灾害的反思

2008年初我国南方遭受特大低温雨雪冰冻灾害,并造成了重大损失。基于媒体发布的气象预报信息和灾情数据,从综合风险防范的角度深入分析了此次灾害应急中暴露出的问题,主要包括气象灾害应急社会联动机制不完善、电力和交通部门应急响应滞后、气象灾害综合风险影响评估缺位、政府与民众之间的风险沟通不足等;同时提出了气象灾害综合风险链的概念,认为气象灾害作为致灾因子可能引发一系列灾害,在自然和人文因素的相互作用下形成综合风险链,具有很大的危害性。最后,从灾害过程的角度构建了气象灾害综合风险防范模式,认为当前特别要加强气象灾害综合风险评估,建立应急处置社会联动机制,风险沟通贯穿整个综合风险防范过程。     

Participatory risk mapping of garbage‐related issues in a rural mexican municipality

Garbage generation and garbage management are two critical human‐environmental issues in Mexico and across the globe. Yet, an understanding of garbage as a broader set of human environmental issues beyond generation and management is lacking, amid a significant urban bias on garbage research. Using a modified form of participatory risk mapping, a method that rank‐orders risks or issues by incidence and relative importance, this study highlights the diversity and heterogeneity of garbage‐related issues as reported by 433 respondents in the rural Mexican municipio of Coxcatlán, Puebla. Results show that burning, dumping, service provision, public cleanliness, and other issues affect rural households. When the data are stratified by place and demographics, and applied to inferential statistics, the results show a more nuanced, more place‐contingent picture of garbage‐related issues than simply the institutional narratives on generation and composition.     

The effects of hazard zone information on judgements about earthquake damage

This study investigates the extent to which people's views on the causes and preventability of earthquake damage might be influenced by their degree of exposure to hazard as well as what information they have been given about the hazard. The results show that the provision of hazard zoning information influences judgements on preventability and causes of damage, but this effect depends on the degree of hazard faced by residents. In low hazard zones, information leads to the view that causes are manageable, whereas in high hazard zones information may induce a degree of fatalism. The use of public information in risk management needs to take into account the degree of risk faced by the recipients.     

生态风险灰色评价模型及其在绿洲盐渍化农田生态系统中的应用

生态风险评价(ERA)是风险论与生态学、环境科学、地学等多学科相互交叉的新兴边缘学科.关于生态风险的定量评价和综合研究是目前国际上一个热点问题.文章在探讨生态风险评价的内涵和可操作性的基础上,试图就单个风险源给出一种实用的风险评价方法--盐渍化土壤的盐渍风险评价.将灰色系统理论应用于风险评价,构建了实用的生态风险评价模型,并对具体实例进行了计算分析.计算结果表明:在绿洲地区所选取的25个样区中,土地盐渍化风险很大的占8%,风险较大的占20%,风险一般的占44%,风险小的占28%,其中生态风险很大或较大者属土地盐渍化治理的重点地区.文中结果可作为绿洲农田系统盐渍化风险防范与化解的定量依据.     

Geographical Detectors‐Based Health Risk Assessment and its Application in the Neural Tube Defects Study of the Heshun Region,China

Physical environment, man‐made pollution, nutrition and their mutual interactions can be major causes of human diseases. These disease determinants have distinct spatial distributions across geographical units, so that their adequate study involves the investigation of the associated geographical strata. We propose four geographical detectors based on spatial variation analysis of the geographical strata to assess the environmental risks of health: the risk detector indicates where the risk areas are; the factor detector identifies factors that are responsible for the risk; the ecological detector discloses relative importance between the factors; and the interaction detector reveals whether the risk factors interact or lead to disease independently. In a real‐world study, the primary physical environment (watershed, lithozone and soil) was found to strongly control the neural tube defects (NTD) occurrences in the Heshun region (China). Basic nutrition (food) was found to be more important than man‐made pollution (chemical fertilizer) in the control of the spatial NTD pattern. Ancient materials released from geological faults and subsequently spread along slopes dramatically increase the NTD risk. These findings constitute valuable input to disease intervention strategies in the region of interest.     

When insurance and goodwill are not enough: Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) ratings,risk calculations and disaster resilience in Australia

ABSTRACT

Home and contents insurance is integral to household and community resilience against disasters. Yet many households are underinsured. While causes for underinsurance have been widely researched, changes to Australian building regulations in the last decade has established a new source of insurance miscalculations. Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) ratings can inflate rebuilding costs by 20% or more, yet BAL ratings remain obfuscated to homeowners and are notoriously confusing to navigate. After the October 2013 bushfires in New South Wales, the Blue Mountains Local Recovery Steering Group found that ‘information on the BAL process, the guidelines, the expected costs, the consulting experts and a property’s bushfire-prone status is literally all over the place’. This paper aims to provide clarity on the subject, tracing the precise socio-technical means through which disaster risk is perceived and assessed. The paper conceptualises insurance and risk ratings as calculative devices that provide both a technical solution to reduce financial losses and a philosophical tool for risk rationalisation. It then builds on interviews conducted with residents in the Blue Mountains affected by the 2013 bushfires, to ascertain how such calculative devices practically affect communities at risk. The paper concludes by outlining potential solutions to a confusing and costly problem in Australia, highlighting critical public awareness issues surround BAL ratings, which have profound insurance and wellbeing implications for people rebuilding and recovering from bushfire.     

多灾种风险评估方法述评——基于5份国际权威报告的对比分析

多灾种风险评估是制定综合风险防范战略的基础工作之一,而目前尚缺乏一套通用的多灾种风险评估方法。论文选取全球减少灾害风险评估报告、全球气候风险指数报告、世界风险管理指数报告、世界风险指数和世界自然灾害风险地图集等5份国际权威风险评估报告,从评估目的、评估内容、模型方法、评估结果等方面对比分析可知：(1) 5份报告评估目的各有侧重,其中4份评估报告构建了动态风险评估机制,能够实现评估报告的定期更新发布;(2)以风险要素的综合为表征的多灾种风险评估方法易于推广应用,但需要进一步提升指标可用性,并且采取更直观、易于理解的风险表征方式;(3) 5份报告评估结果中“一带一路”沿线国家(地区)的风险水平略高于全球水平,是全球灾害风险防范的重点;(4)综合来看,5份报告各有自身的优缺点,未来可以结合“多灾种叠加损失”“灾害链损失”等概念丰富多灾种风险评估的模型方法、指标体系与结果表征。     

Environmental governance through information: China and Vietnam

In the field of environmental governance information is starting to become increasingly important, not least because of globalization and the information and communication technologies revolution. The notion of informational governance is a recent coinage that acknowledges the (partial) switch from regulatory‐based forms of governance to information‐based modes. In the information‐rich centres and nodes of the network society, where information is widely produced, disseminated and accessible, this might prove analytically useful. But what are the contours of informational governance in information‐poor environments? This paper looks into the (limited) emergence of informational governance arrangements in environmental protection in two cases characterizing the informational periphery: China and Vietnam.     

WEST AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL NARRATIVES AND DEVELOPMENT‐VOLUNTEER PRAXIS*

ABSTRACT. Environmental narratives in Africa have been examined in a flurry of publications since the mid‐1990s. In this article we seek to offer insights into the role and motivations of volunteer development workers in perpetuating environmental narratives. We examine the factors that led to the questioning or nonquestioning of environment‐development discourses and their influence, if any, on the actual work undertaken by volunteers. As former development volunteers, we also explore the role that the development‐volunteer experience subsequently played in shaping our own research as academics. Our analysis is based largely on our tenure as U.S. Peace Corps volunteers in Mali from 1987 until 1989 and our later experiences as academics. We draw on our memories, interviews with former colleagues, and training materials to describe how volunteers were introduced to, and encouraged to act on, environmental problems in the West African Sudano‐Sahel. We adopt a reflexive approach to explore briefly how our experiences as volunteers influenced our research and writing as academics.     

地下水环境风险的模糊多指标分析方法

从影响地下水脆弱性的地质与水文地质条件、地貌特征、污染物性质、土地利用状况以及地下水社会价值功能等因素出发,筛选出22项评价指标,初步构建具有多层次结构特点的地下水环境风险评价指标体系。在将地下水环境风险定义为风险等级与风险重要性乘积的基础上,对风险等级与风险重要性等级的分级标准进行探讨,建立风险评价的模糊多属性决策分析模型。作为案例,将上述指标体系和评价模型应用于皖北3个城市浅层地下水环境风险的分析,取得较好效果,为地下水环境风险评价研究提供了新思路、新方法。     

Place ontologies and a new mobilities paradigm for understanding awareness of vulnerability to terrorism in American cities

There is increasing evidence that people interpret their risk from environmental hazards through places—such as urban neighborhoods. At the same time, heightened levels of mobility are theorized to be leading to a so-called “placeless society” and possibly nullifying theories of locality-based risk perception. The purpose of this study is to combine environmental risk-hazards scholarship with work in urban geography to explore the following question: is perception of vulnerability to terrorism influenced by place and mobility, and if it is, what is the relationship? Drawing on interviews with 93 householders in Boston, Massachusetts, I demonstrate that people perceive vulnerability via understanding the transportation environment as a place—not simply a conduit—and that these perceptions reflect larger societal structures, such as wealth and gender disparities, that combine with (im)mobility and human subjectivity to amplify or attenuate a person’s sense of vulnerability. These findings bring an understanding of subjective experience to the geography of transportation systems, which has not yet been theorized within the urban disaster literature.     

信息通讯技术对老年人的社区满意度影响路径——以南京市锁金社区为例

在中国老龄化进程加快以及智慧养老快速发展的背景下,如何运用信息通讯技术(ICT)提高老年人社区生活质量成为地理学与规划学等领域的关注热点。本文选取南京市首个智慧平台落户社区——锁金社区为实证调研对象,通过构建结构方程模型结合问卷调查,探究信息通讯技术对老年人的社区满意度影响路径,其中问卷内容主要包括个人特征属性、个人ICT使用情况、社会支持情况、社区满意度等。结果表明：老年人信息设备的拥有及使用越趋向多元化,其网络活动越频繁;受教育使用水平越高、使用互联网意愿更强烈的老年人其网络活动越频繁;信息通讯技术主要通过社交类网络活动促进老年人的家庭、邻里交往,提高老年人的社会支持,从而提升社区满意度;与社区建成环境相比,社会支持对于老年人的社区满意度影响更大。因此,合理运用信息通讯技术加强老年人与家人、邻里等的联系强度,是提高老年人社区生活质量的一条可行路径。研究结果对于智慧社区、智慧养老建设具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Editorial review

Abstract

This paper comprises the thoughts and perceptions of an interested outsider, an accountant and economist by training, who has recently chaired a Committee of Enquiry into the handling of geographical information. It focuses on the real barriers to getting more practical use from geographical information systems (GIS), most of which have research implications—but not of a technical nature. To an outsider GIS appears as a solution, or more strictly a tool, in search of a problem. Of course, there are numerous problems for GIS to tackle, but the difficulty is that those who have the problems are often either unaware of GIS and the questions they can deal with or, more seriously, are unaware that they have problems and of the questions they should be asking. GIS as a tool is about aiding managers to carry out their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and, more particularly, about better decision-making