Social vulnerability assessment for mitigation of local earthquake risk in Los Angeles County

Comprehensive hazard mitigation involves (1) understanding natural systems, (2) assessment of interactions within and between social systems and the built environment, and (3) understanding geo-spatial processes. To achieve this, local emergency managers must recognize variability in vulnerable populations exposed to hazards and develop place-based emergency plans accordingly. In this study, we assess whether cities in Los Angeles County are subject to disproportionally greater earthquake losses modeled from a M7.8 earthquake on the San Andreas fault. Furthermore, we analyze whether the variation in demographic and socioeconomic characteristics across cities is associated with the earthquake losses. We were able to explain 23.2?% of variance in economic losses by looking at the percentage of minority residents, income, and renter residents in a city [F(3,84)?=?8.47; p?<?.001]. Cities with primarily minority residents had greater economic losses when compared to cities with primarily White residents (b?=?1.01; p?<?.001). When looking at the association between demographic predictors and potential casualty rate, the percentage of Hispanic residents was positively associated with the potential casualty rate. We argue that knowledge of the relationship between earthquake hazard and the demographic characteristics of people in the area at risk is essential to mitigate the local impact from earthquakes. In other words, we apply social vulnerability assessment as part of a comprehensive risk management framework to accelerate recovery after an event. Local policy makers and the private sector can use this approach to gain a better understanding of a city??s social vulnerability and adapt their preparedness efforts accordingly.     

Analysis of the global tsunami data for vulnerability and risk assessment

For the assessment of tsunami risk and vulnerability, one has to make use of past tsunami observations. The most comprehensive tsunami databases for the world have been prepared by the National Geophysical Data Center of USA which are listed on their website for all the four oceans as well as the following marginal seas: Caribbean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Red Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The dataset goes back as far as the first century AD and lists the events on a confidence rating scale of 0–4; 0 being an erroneous entry and 4 being a definite tsunami. Based on these various datasets for different geographical areas, a comprehensive global dataset was prepared in this study, which included only tsunami events with confidence rating of 3 and 4, meaning either probable or definite. In this composite and abridged global tsunami database there is no distinction either according to geography or tsunami strength as implied by its impact on the coast. A simple and straightforward statistical analysis suggests an almost complete randomness and no patterns that can be used for future tsunami predictions with a few minor exceptions.     

Modeling the risk assessment of landslide-dammed lakes based on the emergency response measures in Wenchuan earthquake, 2008, China

With the rapid development of urbanization and climate change, the frequency and degree of the natural hazards and extreme weather events have increased, such as the earthquake, flood, and torrential rain. And the landslide-dammed lake as the secondary disaster of these hazards has become a major threat to many countries. So from twentieth century, many countries have begun to explore the effective emergency response method to reduce the danger of the landslide-dammed lake to the surrounded environment and people. Particularly in China, with successfully dealing with three high-risk landslide-dammed lakes in recent 10 years, the Chinese government has accumulated a great deal of experience in managing the landslide-dammed lakes. So in this paper, based on the Chinese and many other countries’ emergency response experience of successfully managing the landslide-dammed lakes, we build an outburst time–predicted model which can use the Dimensionless blockage index value to predict the outburst time of the landslide-dammed lakes. Based on the urgent time in the process of emergency response to the landslide-dammed lake, we build an integrated risk assessment model with the gray relational analysis and Technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution approach to evaluate the risk value and judge the risk level of the landslide-dammed lake from three aspects (the stability of the landslide-dammed lake, the hydrological environment, and the vulnerability factor of the surrounding environment). These two models can quickly and accurately determine the risk level of landslide-dammed lake in case of lack of complete and detailed data. So it would provide an important reference for government to make the scientific and effective emergency response plan to deal with the extremely high-risk landslide-dammed lake disasters in the future.     

Probabilistic earthquake risk assessment using CAPRA: application to the city of Barcelona, Spain

The risk evaluation model CAPRA (Comprehensive Approach to Probabilistic Risk Assessment) is a techno-scientific methodology and information platform, composed of tools for evaluating and communicating risk at various territorial levels. The model allows evaluating losses on exposed elements using probabilistic metrics, such as the loss exceedance curve, the expected annual loss and the probable maximum loss, useful for multi-hazard risk analyses. In this article, the process of probabilistic seismic risk analysis is described, explaining the main features of the CAPRA modules of hazard, vulnerability and risk estimation applied to the city of Barcelona, Spain. In addition, according to the physical risk results and the information on the socioeconomic indicators of the city, this article presents the holistic evaluation of seismic risk, which is a valuable result to facilitate the integrated risk management by the different stakeholders involved in risk reduction decision making.     

CEDLES: a framework for plugin-based applications for earthquake risk prediction and loss assessment

Natural Hazards - To evaluate the seismic risk and loss caused by an earthquake, many earthquake disaster loss assessment softwares have been developed. However, it is difficult to apply one...     

A probabilistic approach for earthquake risk assessment based on an engineering insurance portfolio

This paper presents the construction classification of the existing engineering covers in Taiwan. The exposure profile and variable vulnerability during different construction phases are established for some kinds of classes of construction. Finally, we present a method and framework to estimate the probable maximum loss of engineering insurance portfolio during an earthquake with consideration of the dynamic nature of structural changes and exposure values during a construction project.     

Geochemical patterns from local to global

The historical development of geochemical exploration is, in a sense, a process of progressive enlargement of areal coverage by exploration projects and progressive widening of sampling space. Along with this process, a hierarchy of geochemical patterns from small to large is gradually discovered and understood. In this paper, we try to summarize systematically the whole hierarchy of geochemical patterns from local, regional, provincial, megaprovincial to global, using examples obtained in China.Local anomalies (various types of dispersion halos, trains and fans) within areas not exceeding a few km², can be delineated when sampling is done with very close intervals in limited areas. Regional anomalies within areas of tens to hundreds km² and threshold values lower than local anomalies can be identified only when large areas of more than thousands of km² are mapped with wider space sampling. Geochemical provinces with areas of thousands or tens of thousands of km² can be discovered if even larger areas, of more than tens or hundreds of thousands of km², are covered with very low density sampling. More than millions of km² should be covered in order to discover geochemical megaprovinces somewhere in the world. Such megaprovinces are often associated with extraordinarily large mineral resources. If ultra-low density geochemical mapping can be carried out across national boundaries on a continental or global scale, we could find even broader geochemical patterns which will reflect the global tectonic features.The classification of geochemical patterns according to their sizes is necessary because it will be extremely useful in planning sampling layout in order to hit targets of certain size ranges. This in turn is arranged in different geochemical projects for achieving specific aims.     

基于随机理论的地下水环境风险评价

针对确定性模型难以描述含水层非均质空间分布的问题,提出基于随机理论的地下水环境风险评价方法。以矩形场地地下水污染风险评价为例,采用蒙特卡罗法生成大量渗透系数随机场,模拟含水层参数各种可能的非均质空间分布,在此基础上建立场地地下水流模型与溶质运移模型,分别计算污染物在地下水中的迁移转化情况。统计大量随机模拟中污染事故发生的频率,当模拟次数足够多时,污染频率收敛于污染概率,污染风险即通过污染概率体现出来。该方法将模型参数设为满足一定分布特征的随机变量,避免了确定性方法得出的武断的评价结果,可为工厂的选址、水源地的选址等工作提供科学指导。     

A comparison of selected global disaster risk assessment results

We compare country risk rankings derived from two recently published global disaster risk analyses. One set of country rankings is based on the Disaster Risk Index (DRI) developed by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Division of Early Warning and Assessment Global Resource Information Database project under a contract to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The other is based on an index of disaster mortality risk developed by the Global Natural Disaster Risk Hotspots project implemented by Columbia University, the World Bank and associated partners. We convert data from these sources into two comparable indexes of disaster mortality risk and rank countries according to the resulting values for a set of natural hazards common to both studies. The country rankings are moderately correlated, ranging from .41 to .56 for individual hazards to .31 for multi-hazard mortality risks. We identify the top 25 countries according to the mortality risk values we recomputed from each study’s results to show the degree to which countries are highly ranked in common. The numbers of countries common to both lists for individual hazards range from 7 to 16 out of 25. The correspondence among the top 25 ranked countries is lowest for earthquakes and floods. Only 6 out of 25 countries are common to both lists in the multi-hazard case. We suggest that while the convergence in the results for some hazards is encouraging, more work is needed to improve data and methods, particularly with respect to assessing the role of vulnerability in the creation of risk and the calculation of multi-hazard risks. The views expressed are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of SM2 Consulting Multi-Hazards and Risk Holistic Solutions or the United Nations Development Program.     

Adaptation of hurricane risk perception scale to earthquake risk perception and determining the factors affecting women's earthquake risk perception

Natural Hazards - Worldwide studies show that gender is an important variable affecting disaster risk perception and that women have high levels of disaster risk perception. The objective of this...     

5.12汶川地震堰塞湖危险性应急评估

5.12汶川地震诱发了33处堰塞湖,威胁下游居民安全。根据收集数据情况,选择堰塞湖的坝高、最大库容和坝体结构作为分级指标,建立了单个堰塞湖溃决危险性评估方法,对21个重点堰塞湖进行应急危险性评估,初步评估为1个处于极高危险、7个处于高危险、5个处于中危险、8个处于低危险。考虑同一流域堰塞湖群的联动效应,建立了流域堰塞湖危险性评估方法,相应提高部分堰塞湖的危险等级。为了方便排险安排,给出了高危险堰塞湖的危险性次序,从高到低依次有唐家山、老鹰岩、南坝、小岗剑上、肖家桥、唐家湾、罐子铺和岩羊滩。由于评估时间紧迫,最后提出了此次评估中存在的问题,并提出了改进建议。     

Climate change and increased risk for the insurance sector: a global perspective and an assessment for the Netherlands

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. As a consequence, economic losses caused by natural catastrophes could increase significantly. This will have considerable consequences for the insurance sector. On the one hand, increased risk from weather extremes requires assessing expected changes in damage and including adequate climate change projections in risk management. On the other hand, climate change can also bring new business opportunities for insurers. This paper gives an overview of the consequences of climate change for the insurance sector and discusses several strategies to cope with and adapt to increased risks. The particular focus is on the Dutch insurance sector, as the Netherlands is extremely vulnerable to climate change, especially with regard to extreme precipitation and flooding. Current risk sharing arrangements for weather risks are examined while potential new business opportunities, adaptation strategies, and public–private partnerships are identified.     

Uncertainties attached to global or local climate changes

The successive reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) illustrate an apparent contradiction. On the one hand, the large scale climatic change in response to the increase of greenhouse gases is structured following patterns which have remained surprisingly stable throughout the development of climate models. Already in the 1980s model simulations of climate change were characterized by a larger warming in polar areas and over the continents, and a tendency for precipitations to accentuate existing contrasts, with a drier climate in semiarid regions and more precipitations at mid-latitudes or near the Equator. On the other hand, models have made little progress in predicting more unanimously and more reliably the global amplitude of climate changes and their geographical distributions. This lack of progress is certainly linked with the role of the atmospheric dynamics in shaping up certain aspects of climate response, either small scales which affect atmospheric stratification, or synoptic scales, whose inherent complexity and nonlinear interactions also limit the possibility of more accurate regional predictions.     

Measuring earthquake risk concentration for hazard mitigation

One of the biggest impacts of a disaster is the effect it can have on community and regional housing and the ability of people, communities and regions to recover from the damages. Policy decisions involving investments in loss reduction measures and response and recovery are best informed by the integration of scientific and socioeconomic information. Natural scientists develop hazard scenarios for stakeholders and emergency officials to assess the impacts of a particular disaster outcome. Social scientists have found that housing losses and recovery affect individuals in lower socioeconomic status disproportionately. By combining socioeconomic status data from the US Census with an earthquake scenario for southern California, an event-driven conditional distribution of earthquake risk is used to prioritize investment decisions for earthquake hazard mitigation. Simulation of the damages in the scenario showed a statistically significant risk concentration in census tracts with large numbers of residents of lower socioeconomic status living in multi-family housing and mobile homes. An application of the approach is demonstrated in Los Angeles County as a decision criterion in a building retrofit program. The earthquake scenario was used to evaluate the economic benefits of a program for voluntary mitigation and a combined program of voluntary mitigation and regulated mitigation based on socioeconomic status (mandate requiring mitigation in census tracts meeting specific damage and income thresholds). Although the analysis is a hypothetical scenario based on a simulation of a great earthquake, the results and potential outcomes show that a regulated program with a socioeconomic decision criterion would have significant benefits to vulnerable populations.     

Application of health risk assessment method for geological environment at national and regional scales

Health risk, defined as possibility or probability of health damage, illness or death of humans due to exposure to risk factors in the environment, was derived for geological environment (soils) and estimated at national scale for the whole Europe and at more detailed regional scale for Slovak Republic. The assessment was based on data obtained from international geochemical mapping of Europe (Geochemical Atlas of the Europe—827 soil samples) and national geochemical mapping programme of the Slovak Republic (9,860 soil samples). The following chemical elements were evaluated: As, B, Ba, Be, Cd, Cu, F, Hg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se and Zn. The health risk assessment method was based on calculations of average daily doses of individual elements analysed in every collected soil sample. Exposure levels were set by using exposure parameters and reference doses from integrated databases of US EPA. The results of calculations were transformed into various sorts of maps (dot, pixel) to delineate areas where increased contents of risk elements can pose risk to human health. The average levels of chronic and carcinogenic risk are presented in the form of tables for single European countries and administrative units of Slovak republic. The results of European mapping (Geochemical Atlas of Europe) indicate that increased levels of potentially toxic elements in soil (mainly As, Pb and Ni) occur primarily in the countries of southern and western Europe. Such elements are associated with increased health risk for resident population. For the countries of northern Europe health risk was estimated at significantly lower level. Relatively high sampling density in Slovak Republic made it possible to calculate health risk at more detailed scale for individual administrative units (municipalities, provinces). The increased health risk level was found in areas well known for high soil contamination (e.g. mining areas).     

考虑基质吸力作用的Newmark改进模型在地震滑坡风险评价中的应用

传统的Newmark模型常对地下水位以上由负孔隙水压力提供的部分抗剪强度忽略不计,这对于滑动面的主要部分处在地下水位以下时较为合理,但对地下水位很深或考虑出现浅层滑动的坡体,其计算结果过于保守。因此,文章将Newmark累积位移模型扩展至非饱和土力学领域,在考虑基质吸力作用的基础上,改进了Newmark模型计算公式。分别利用Newmark传统模型和改进模型对甘肃礼县幅区域内的地震滑坡进行易发性分区,并在此基础上分别开展50年超越概率10%情况下的地震滑坡危险性分区和风险评价,最后利用ROC曲线对评价结果进行验证和比较。结果表明:改进模型所得易发区和危险区的计算结果明显优于传统模型计算结果;改进的模型所得风险区的计算结果虽然改进效果不明显,但仍优于传统模型计算结果。由于考虑基质吸力作用的Newmark改进模型充分发挥了基质吸力的贡献,使得计算结果更为合理,研究成果可为相关地区开展地震滑坡易发性分区、危险性分析和风险评价提供新的参考。     

The latin American city and the symbolic impact of built environment

Cities as crystalisations of civilizations represent symbolic impact in their layout and architecture. Built environment in this sense has an symbolic impact. Intending to understand a civilization it can be helpful to look at these symbols. This article tries to demonstrate the changing symbols in different historic periods of Latin America. Symbols were to be found in the urban morphology of even the precolumbian cities. They changed within the colonial era, and again during the different influences of French, British or North American domination. Today there can be noticed a decline of the traditional symbolic elements of towns. On the other hand there are certain symptoms of a crisis of self-identity of the Latin Americans. So even the diverse ideas how to define a new image are to be seen in the built environment of main cities of various states. shortened version of a presentation to the Meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers at Eugene, Oregon, September 12, 1986 I wish to thank my friend William S. Preston, Department of Geography, Calif. Polytechnic State Univ. San Luis Obispo, for his patience helping me to translate this article. It was a pleasure to have a competent translater and partner of discussion.     

Applied geomorphology and the impact of natural hazards on the built environment

This paper examines the scope and limitations of geomorphological investigation of the sites of architectural and engineering works. Various degrees of vulnerability, forms of impact, and types of applied geomorphological response are summarized. Aspects of land development and construction practice that may increase the vulnerability of buildings and structures to geomorphological hazards are discussed. Strengths and weaknesses of the geomorphological input to hazard mitigation are reviewed. Examples are described that show both negative and positive influences exerted by geomorphological site analysis on urban and regional planning for unstable terrains in Italy. It is concluded that societal choice, within the overall matrix of a society's culture (sensu largo), will influence the way in which vulnerability is managed at sites, and hence the scope for utilizing geomorphological analysis of the physical risks.     

Initiatives for earthquake disaster risk management in the Kathmandu Valley

Situated over the Himalayan tectonic zone, Kathmandu Valley as a lake in geological past has a long history of destructive earthquakes. In recent years, the earthquake risk of the valley has significantly increased due mainly to uncontrolled development, poor construction practices with no earthquake safety consideration, and lack of awareness among the general public and government authorities. Implementation of land use plan and building codes, strengthening of design and construction regulations, relocation of communities in risky areas, and conduction of public awareness programs are suitable means of earthquake disaster risk management practice. Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is still lacking earthquake disaster risk management plans. So, this paper highlights some initiatives adopted by both governmental and nongovernmental organizations of Nepal to manage earthquake disaster risk in the Kathmandu Valley. It provides some comprehensive information on recent initiatives of earthquake disaster risk management in the valley and also highlights the outcomes and challenges.     

Evidence for lithospheric detachment in the central Andes from local earthquake tomography

Data from three temporary seismic networks were merged for tomographic inversion. Although the deployments did not coincide in time, spatial overlap was achieved by re-occupying existing sites. Travel times and t operators of about 1600 earthquakes were inverted for 3D models of ν_p, ν_p/ν_s and P-wave attenuation (Q_p^− 1). All three attributes provide a consistent image of the entire subduction zone on a lithospheric scale. The tomographic images reveal low velocities and high attenuation in the crust and mantle underlying the Western Cordillera and most of the Puna plateau, indicative of weak rheology and mostly asthenospheric mantle. In contrast, forearc and eastern foreland are characterized by high Q_p values, corresponding to cold temperatures in accordance with thermal models. In the backarc, between 23°S and 24°S, a high velocity, high Q_p structure beneath the Eastern Cordillera and eastern Puna is interpreted as detaching continental lithosphere that has been thickened in the orogenic process. South of this structure, the mantle is characterized by low velocities, high ν_p/ν_s ratios, and low Q_p values. Here it is believed that lithosphere originally underlying Andean crust has already been removed. This is supported by new estimates of crustal thickness and volcanic activity.