Industry market reaction to natural disasters: do firm characteristics and disaster magnitude matter?

This study investigates the factors that drive US industry sectors’ response to domestic natural disasters for the period 1987–2018. In general, our results show that not all local industry portfolios experience more negative impacts than non-local industries. We find that location does matter, but the nature of the industry itself is also important. Moreover, results for firm size show that big firms outperform small firms, across many industry settings. Finally, disaster severity analysis reveals that industries react differently to disasters of different magnitudes, and the response also varies across the different disaster measures. Our findings provide a basis for development of equity reaction prediction in the event of natural disasters, thus mitigating the disaster risk.

     

Is multi-hazard mapping effective in assessing natural hazards and integrated watershed management?

Natural hazards are often studied in isolation.However,there is a great need to examine hazards holistically to better manage the complex of threats found in any region.Many regions of the world have complex hazard landscapes wherein risk from individual and/or multiple extreme events is omnipresent.Extensive parts of Iran experience a complex array of natural hazards-floods,earthquakes,landslides,forest fires,subsidence,and drought.The effectiveness of risk mitigation is in part a function of whether the complex of hazards can be collectively considered,visualized,and evaluated.This study develops and tests individual and collective multihazard risk maps for floods,landslides,and forest fires to visualize the spatial distribution of risk in Fars Province,southern Iran.To do this,two well-known machine-learning algorithms-SVM and MARS-are used to predict the distribution of these events.Past floods,landslides,and forest fires were surveyed and mapped.The locations of occurrence of these events(individually and collectively) were randomly separated into training(70%) and testing(30%) data sets.The conditioning factors(for floods,landslides,and forest fires) employed to model the risk distributions are aspect,elevation,drainage density,distance from faults,geology,LULC,profile curvature,annual mean rainfall,plan curvature,distance from man-made residential structures,distance from nearest river,distance from nearest road,slope gradient,soil types,mean annual temperature,and TWI.The outputs of the two models were assessed using receiver-operating-characteristic(ROC) curves,true-skill statistics(TSS),and the correlation and deviance values from each models for each hazard.The areas-under-the-curves(AUC) for the MARS model prediction were 76.0%,91.2%,and 90.1% for floods,landslides,and forest fires,respectively.Similarly,the AUCs for the SVM model were 75.5%,89.0%,and 91.5%.The TSS reveals that the MARS model was better able to predict landslide risk,but was less able to predict flood-risk patterns and forest-fire risk.Finally,the combination of flood,forest fire,and landslide risk maps yielded a multi-hazard susceptibility map for the province.The better predictive model indicated that 52.3% of the province was at-risk for at least one of these hazards.This multi-hazard map may yield valuable insight for land-use planning,sustainable development of infrastructure,and also integrated watershed management in Fars Province.     

Is there a tolerable level of risk from natural hazards in New Zealand?

Following the 2010 and 2011 earthquake and aftershocks in Canterbury, New Zealand, extensive research was carried out on the rockfall hazard to residential buildings on Christchurch's Port Hills. To determine which dwellings faced an unacceptable risk to life safety, the recommendation was made to adopt a tolerable threshold for individual risk of 1/10,000 p.a. (10^?4 p.a.). The 10^?4 p.a. threshold has subsequently been considered for application to other natural hazards. However, this threshold is far too high. It is about 35 times higher than the post-colonial historic average for natural hazards, it is 100 times greater than New Zealand's structural design standard for new buildings and it is 10–100 times greater than the risk tolerated by comparable jurisdictions for existing and new risks, respectively. A more appropriate threshold for the risk from natural hazards is within the range from 10^?5 p.a. for existing exposure to 10^?6 p.a. for new exposure. The reason for adopting this arbitrarily high threshold for rock roll hazard appeared to be to balance an overestimation of calculated risk given the large uncertainties inherent in the data. However, there are some concerns if this acceptance criterion is applied to other natural hazards where underlying risk might be more accurately estimated.     

Unconformity of red sandstones in north Vietnam: field evidence for Indosinian orogeny in northern Indochina?

We re-examine several unconformity sites in northwestern Vietnam where the Indosinian orogenesis has been defined. Field observations in the Black-River (Song Da) region, near Son La, demonstrate that red sandtones and conglomerates, reportedly of Cretaceous age, occur unconformably above schistosed epimetamorphic middle-Triassic sediments. A mesozoic unconformity thus really exists in this region, though the age of deformation is poorly contrained (upper Triassic to upper Cretaceous). In most places, however, the unconformity is strongly deformed, folded Triassic limestones are often thrusted onto the Cretaceous rocks. This implies that Tertiary deformations probably due to the India–Asia collision have been strong in the northern part of the Indochina block.     

Land-use planning for natural hazards in New Zealand: the setting,barriers, ‘burning issues’ and priority actions

Land-use planners have a critical role to play in building vibrant, sustainable and hazard resilient communities in New Zealand. The policy and legal setting for natural hazards planning provides a solid foundation for good practice. But there are many examples of ‘bad practice’ that result in unnecessary risks and, in some cases, exposure to repeat events and potentially devastating impacts. Much, therefore, remains to be done to improve hazards planning policy and practice in New Zealand. This article explores the questions: What role does land-use planning play in managing hazard risks in New Zealand; and what needs to be done to reduce hazard risks and build community resilience? The article starts by describing the milieu within which natural hazards planning takes place. It goes onto outline the stakeholders and institutional and legal setting for natural hazards planning in New Zealand, including barriers to realising the potential of natural hazards planning. This synthesis reveals a number of ‘burning issues’, including the need to: (a) Improve understanding about the nature of hazards; (b) Prioritise risk avoidance (reduction) measures; (c) Provide national guidance for communities exposed to repeat events and address the relocation issue and (d) Mainstream climate change adaptation. Each ‘burning issue’ is discussed, and priority actions are recommended to realise the potential of land-use planning to reduce natural hazard risks and build community resilience in New Zealand. Ultimately, the challenge is to develop a cooperative hazards governance approach that is founded on coordinated policies, laws and institutions, cooperative professional practice and collaborative communities.     

Phosphorus features in FT-IR spectra of natural organic matter

Fourier-Transform Infrared （FT-IR） spectroscopy has been used extensively to characterize natural organic matter （NOM）. Absorption bands at 1100-1000 cm^-1 in the FT-IR spectra of NOM have been frequently assigned to alcoholic and polysaccharide C-O stretching or to vibrations of SiO2-related impurities. However, these interpretations do not consider that a strong band associated with P-O bonds of phosphate also appears in the same region. We evaluated the correlation between absorbance in this region and P content of 19 NOM samples from terrestrial, aquatic and plant shoot sources. In the spectra of 10 humic and fulvic acid samples, shoulder to minor bands appeared around 1050 cm^-1. Absorbance intensity at 1050 cm^-1 （Y） was linearly related to P content （X） by the following： Y=4.38X＋0.3 l, with R2=0.90. We did not observe such a close correlation between absorbance and P content in two aquatic NOM samples. Apparently, this is because the aquatic NOM samples were concentrated by reverse osmosis, which would have concentrated not only humic and fulvic acids but also other soluble organic solutes present in natural waters. In the FT-IR spectra of seven dissolved organic matter （DOM） samples obtained from dried plant shoots, broad and/or multiple bands around 1075 cm^-1 were observed with a shoulder at 977 cm^-1. These characteristics were more like those of organic phosphate compounds （such as inositol hexaphosphate）. However, solution 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic analysis showed no significant amount of organic phosphate present in these samples.     

Exceedance probability of multiple natural hazards: risk assessment in China’s Yangtze River Delta

Natural Hazards - In recent years, greater attention has been given to advancing the theory and practice of assessing risk from multiple hazards. Most approaches calculate multi-hazard risk by...     

Payments for environmental services as neoliberal market-based forest conservation in Vietnam: Panacea or problem?

Recently in Vietnam, a coalition of international NGOs, donors and government officials have been promoting market-based forest conservation projects in the form of payments for environmental services (PES) as a win–win for both conservation and development objectives; Vietnam is now the first country in Southeast Asia with a national law on PES. This article provides a macro survey of how market-based instruments for forest conservation have expanded in Vietnam, particularly in relation to a long dominant state sector. Yet an assessment of Vietnam’s PES pilot projects indicates that they do not follow predicted orthodox “neoliberalization of nature” approaches in their use of market instruments, particularly in regards to privatization, retreat of the state, and capitalization of commodities. The article explores how it is that a strong state role in forest management can continue to dominate even in more market-oriented approaches. Finally, the article analyzes PES’s potential for success or failure in tackling the underlying causes for forest degradation. Ultimately, the article argues that PES is likely to be unable to tackle several of the key underlying causes for deforestation, namely, uneven land tenure and a lack of participation by local communities in conservation, given that PES is unlikely to be considerably different than past attempts at forest management.     

Identifying urban–rural differences in social vulnerability to natural hazards: a case study of China

Identifying and analyzing the urban–rural differences of social vulnerability to natural hazards is imperative to ensure that urbanization develops in a way that lessens the impacts of disasters and generate building resilient livelihoods in China. Using data from the 2000 and 2010 population censuses, this study conducted an assessment of the social vulnerability index (SVI) by applying the projection pursuit cluster model. The temporal and spatial changes of social vulnerability in urban and rural areas were then examined during China’s rapid urbanization period. An index of urban–rural differences in social vulnerability (SVI_D) was derived, and the global and local Moran’s I of the SVI_D were calculated to assess the spatial variation and association between the urban and rural SVI. In order to fully determine the impacts of urbanization in relation to social vulnerability, a spatial autoregressive model and Bivariate Moran’s I between urbanization and SVI were both calculated. The urban and rural SVI both displayed a steadily decreasing trend from 2000 to 2010, although the urban SVI was always larger than the rural SVI in the same year. In 17.5% of the prefectures, the rural SVI was larger than the urban SVI in 2000, but was smaller than the urban SVI in 2010. About 12.6% of the urban areas in the prefectures became less vulnerable than rural areas over the study period, while in more than 51.73% of the prefectures the urban–rural SVI gap decreased over the same period. The SVI_D values in all prefectures had a significantly positive spatial autocorrelation and spatial clusters were apparent. Over time, social vulnerability to natural hazards at the prefecture-level displayed a gathering–scattering pattern across China. Though a regional variation of social vulnerability developed during China’s rapid urbanization, the overall trend was for a steady reduction in social vulnerability in both urban and rural areas.

     

Innovative trend analysis of main agriculture natural hazards in China during 1989–2014

Natural Hazards - China is a country where the agricultural areas are frequently affected by natural hazards, and comprehending the change trends of natural hazards is of great significance to...     

Married couples’ decision-making about household natural hazard preparedness: a case study of hurricane hazards in Sarasota County,Florida

Natural Hazards - Survey-based studies of household natural hazard preparedness have often relied on individual-level data to predict household-level preparedness behaviors, in doing so neglecting...     

What do geologists do when the coronavirus bites? Ideas for educators

The spread of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has had a major effect on the way that geologists carry out their work—and particularly those engaged in educating the next generation of geologists. There are a number of resources available, and some, focussed on fostering interest in budding geologists, are presented here.     

Is soil natural organic matter a sink or source for mobile radioiodine (I) at the Savannah River Site?

¹²⁹I is one of the three major radiation risk contributors to the public as a consequence of past nuclear processing activities at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities. Elevated levels of ¹²⁹I are present in the surface soils of F-Area of Savannah River Site, which used to be an isotope separation facility for the production of nuclear weapons components. The ¹²⁹I in soils is thought to be bound predominantly to soil organic matter (SOM). Measurements of stable ¹²⁷I and radioactive ¹²⁹I in humic acids (HAs) and fulvic acids (FAs) obtained by five successive alkaline, two glycerol and one citric acid-alkaline extraction, demonstrated that these extractable humic substances (HS) together account for 54-56% and 46% of the total ¹²⁷I and ¹²⁹I in the soil, respectively. The remainder was likely bound to residual SOM. The iodine content (μg-I/g-C) generally decreased with each subsequent extract, while ¹²⁹I/¹²⁷I increased concurrently. The coincident variations in chemical compositions, aromaticity (estimated by UV spectroscopy), functional groups (e.g., aliphatic), degree of humification, relative migration in the hydrophobic interaction column, and molecular weight indicated that: (1) iodine in different HAs was bound to a small-size aromatic subunit (∼10 kDa); (2) the large-size subunit (∼90 kDa), which likely linked the small-size unit through some weak chemical forces (hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic or electrostatic interactions), determined the relative mobility of iodine bound to organic matter; (3) from the strong correlation between iodine content and aromaticity in the HAs, we suggested that iodine incorporation into the SOM via covalent aromatic C-I bond is the key mechanism controlling iodine behavior in this system. However, this relationship is not universal for all fractions of organic matter as evidenced from the different slopes of this relationship at the two sampling sites, as well as from the different relationships for HAs and FAs, respectively. These differences in iodination are due to different SOM molecular sizes, compositions, and availability of preferred iodination sites. ¹²⁹I in the soil downstream from the contaminated site and near a wetland abruptly dropped below our detection limit (0.5 pCi-¹²⁹I/g-soil), which suggests that the high SOM in the plume soil around the ¹²⁹I-contaminated F-Area might be a natural barrier to scavenge radioiodine released from the nuclear waste repository by forming organo-iodine compounds. Soil resuspension experiments showed that mobile ¹²⁹I was mostly associated with a low average molecular weight amphiphilic organic carrier (13.5-15 kDa). SOM clearly behaves as a sink for iodine at the Savannah River Site F-Area. However, this work demonstrates that a small fraction of the SOM can also behave as a source, namely that a small fraction that may be readily dispersible under some environmental conditions and presumably release iodine in the organic-colloidal form. This radioiodinated organo-colloid likely can get into the groundwater through infiltration or surface runoff where it might migrate further into the wetlands. Results from this study provide the geochemical basis for future ¹²⁹I migration controls, remediation, and/or land-groundwater management strategies.     

Place of life stories in labour geography: Why does it matter?

Labour geography foregrounds the role of workers in shaping geographies of work by paying attention to the larger actions of labour in response to the capital and state. It however pays less attention to the everyday geographies of labour and the complexities of the ‘social being’ in trying to understand workers motivations and responses. This review argues for labour geography to look beyond the factory gates to understand the nuanced politics of labour as relations get ‘reworked’ within a patriarchal-capitalist society. It argues for paying close attention to the life stories and experiences of workers, to create linkages between lives as waged workers in a formal workspace with the informal nature of work-life outside, without losing sight of the larger struggles of labour and global processes, to develop a more grounded understanding of worker’s agency and actions.     

Matrix protected organic matter in a river dominated margin: A possible mechanism to sequester terrestrial organic matter?

The provenance of organic matter in surface sediments from the northern Gulf of Mexico was investigated by analyzing the compositions of lipid biomarkers (n-alkanes, fatty acids, sterols) liberated after a series of chemical treatments designed to remove different organo-mineral matrix associations (i.e. freely extractable, base-hydrolyzable, unhydrolyzable). Bulk analyses of the organic matter (carbon content, carbon:nitrogen ratios, stable and radiocarbon isotopic analyses) were also performed on the intact sediments and their non-hydrolyzable, demineralized residue. We found recognizable lipids from distinct sources, including terrestrial vascular plants, bacteria and marine algae and zooplankton, within each of the isolated fractions. Based on the lipid signatures and bulk compositions, the organic matter within the unhydrolyzable fractions appeared to be the most diagenetically altered, was the oldest in age, and had the highest abundance of terrigenous lipids. In contrast, the base-hydrolyzable fraction was the most diagentically unaltered, had the youngest ages and was most enriched in N and marine lipids. Our results indicate that fresh, autochthonous organic matter is the most important contributor to base-hydrolyzable lipids, whereas highly altered allochthonous sources appear to be predominant source of unhydrolyzable lipids in the surface sediments from the Atchafalaya River shelf. Overall, the lipid biomarker signatures of intact sediments were biased towards the autochthonous source because many of the organic compounds indicative of degraded, terrigenous sources were protected from extraction and saponification by organo-mineral matrices. It is only after these protective matrices were removed by treatment with HCl and HF that these compounds became evident.     

People’s capacities in facing hazards and disasters: an overview

Natural Hazards - This article constitutes an effort towards providing an academic overview and grounding for the concept of capacities in the context of disaster studies and disaster risk...     

Why do people not learn from flood disasters? Evidence from Vietnam’s northwestern mountains

This article explores how the causes and impacts of a flood event as perceived by local people shape immediate responses and future mitigation efforts in mountainous northwest Vietnam. Local flood perception is contrasted with scientific perspectives to determine whether a singular flood event will trigger adjustments in mitigation strategies in an otherwise rarely flood-affected area. We present findings from interdisciplinary research drawing on both socioeconomic and biophysical data. Evidence suggests that individual farmers?? willingness to engage in flood mitigation is curbed by the common perception that flooding is caused by the interplay of a bundle of external factors, with climatic factors and water management failures being the most prominent ones. Most farmers did not link the severity of flooding to existing land use systems, thus underlining the lack of a sense of personal responsibility among farmers for flood mitigation measures. We conclude that local governments cannot depend on there being a sufficient degree of intrinsic motivation among farmers to make them implement soil conservation techniques to mitigate future flooding. Policy makers will need to design measures to raise farmers?? awareness of the complex interplay between land use and hydrology and to enhance collective action in soil conservation by providing appropriate incentives and implementing coherent long-term strategies.     

Yielding to high yields? Critiquing food security definitions and policy implications for ethnic minority livelihoods in upland Vietnam

Agricultural intensification is at the core of the current agrarian transition in Southeast Asia. New crop varieties promise higher productive outputs, but depend on significant increases in chemical inputs. In the highlands of northern Vietnam, we find that adopting hybrid maize is inevitably associated with an increasing dependence on cash for direct and indirect inputs and investments. This reliance on the cash economy is a new reality for semi-subsistence ethnic minority Hmong households, and provides evidence of the advancing agrarian transition in Vietnam’s remote northern highlands. While livelihood outcomes of hybrid seed adoption include increased maize yields, local farmers highlight numerous drawbacks, including unstable input prices, limited storage periods, pest concerns, and the increased reliance on cash. Strong preferences for the taste of traditional local maize, as well as concerns over regular harvests, lead many households to resist the full adoption of new hybrid varieties and redirect hybrid maize to livestock feed and household alcohol production instead. Thus while state policies extoll the virtues of high-yielding hybrid maize for poverty reduction, we find that food availability is an overemphasized element of household food security and upland agricultural development policies. Food security interventions must move beyond conceptualizing food security as a result of food availability alone, and also incorporate cultural acceptability of food, better understandings of hybrid maize cultivation challenges, and respect the seed diversity on which local livelihoods and food security rely.