Landslide catastrophes and disaster risk reduction: A GIS framework for landslide prevention and management

A detailed and accurate inventory map of landslides is crucial for quantitative hazard assessment and land planning. Traditional methods relying on change detection and object-oriented approaches have been criticized for their dependence on expert knowledge and subjective factors. Recent advancements in high-resolution satellite imagery, coupled with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, particularly data-driven deep learning algorithms (DL) such as convolutional neural networks (CNN), have provided rich feature indicators for landslide mapping, overcoming previous limitations. In this review paper, 77 representative DL-based landslide detection methods applied in various environments over the past seven years were examined. We analyze the structures of different DL networks, discuss on five main application scenarios, and assess both the advancements and limitations of DL in geological hazard analysis. The results indicated that the increasing number of articles per year reflects growing interest in landslide mapping by artificial intelligence, with U-Net-based structures gaining prominence due to their flexibility in feature extraction and generalization. Finally, we explored the hindrances of DL in landslide hazard research based on the above research content. Challenges such as black-box operations and sample dependence persist, warranting further theoretical research and future application of DL in landslide detection.     

The global migration of everyday life: Investigating the practice memories of Australian migrants

Social practice theories provide a unique platform for understanding how everyday practices become globalised through migration, spreading from one place to another, replacing local, often more sustainable, variations. Set in the context of the spreading of resource-intensive practices such as multiple daily showers, we explore the movement and migration of domestic practices, acknowledging that they are constantly shifting from one relatively stable form to another. Drawing on the phenomenon of human migration where, for various reasons, people move from one country to another, we argue that migrants ‘carry’ practices which can ‘travel’ between and across cultures, generations and living arrangements. People who migrate from one place to another are exposed to a greater range of practices than other more sedentary populations. On encountering new practices in the destination country, we propose the practices carried by migrants are subject to various forms of integration, disintegration and transferral across generations. Borrowing the idea of muscle memory from the biophysical sciences, we introduce ‘practice memory’ to explain how some practices thought to be ‘dead’ can be resurrected with relative ease. We also suggest that practice memory may explain how some practices can be performed in new contexts despite a person never having performed them before. We conclude by reflecting on how understanding these migratory processes, and the role of practice memory within them, offer new insights into how practices move and migrate from one time–space to another.     

Post-disaster cross-nation mutual aid in natural hazards: case analysis from sociology of disaster and disaster politics perspectives

Owing to natural climate change, disaster has become a frequent challenge for every nation. To restore social order quickly after disasters strike, cross-nation mutual aid, as an international reciprocal gesture of goodwill, should be able to cross borders and achieve its mission. Unfortunately, practice does not follow theory. Dilemmas that make it difficult for cross-nation mutual aid to accomplish its goals may transform into severe challenges. This study aims to identify possible solutions to difficulties mainly through thematic analysis of eight major disaster events, informed by perspectives from emergency management, sociology of disaster, and disaster politics. Moreover, this study explores these issues via the “one core, three operations” framework constructed by assistance provider, assistance receiver, and victims to provide possible strategies regarding mechanisms, politics, forms, and times, respectively.     

Bushfire and everyday life: Examining the awareness-action ‘gap’ in changing rural landscapes

In this paper we use the notion of ‘everyday life’ to critically examine an apparent ‘gap’ between bushfire risk awareness and preparedness amongst diverse landholders in rural landscapes affected by amenity-led in-migration in southeast Australia. Landholders were found to bring their own agency to bushfire preparedness in the relationships between everyday procedures, dilemmas, and tradeoffs. Consequently, regardless of landholders’ awareness levels, attitudes towards bushfire and natural resource management influence if, how, and to what extent landowners prepare for bushfires. We argue that not only is the ‘gap’ complex but also paradoxical in that it is both evident in, and constituted by, landholder attitudes and action and simultaneously dissolved in their practices and decision-making in everyday life. Three dilemmas of everyday life in particular were found to underpin these attitudes: costs (in terms of monetary and time values), gender roles, and priorities. Using a mixed-methods research approach, this simultaneous cultural construction and material nature of bushfire in everyday life is mapped out through landholders’ narratives and actions that embody living with fire on the land. The place of bushfire in landholders’ everyday life has direct relevance to recent international discussions of the vulnerability of the growing number of people living in bushfire-prone rural-urban interface areas.     

Understanding the culture of natural disaster preparedness: exploring the effect of experience and sociodemographic predictors

Natural Hazards - Understanding the culture of preparedness is essential to improve public policies and programs aimed to promote population preparedness to cope with natural hazards. The present...     

An NGO disaster relief network for small and medium-scale natural hazards in China

Natural Hazards - As China is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to small and medium-scale natural hazards (SMNHs), its NGOs have had a great deal of experience in dealing with...     

世界环境问题和中国减灾工作研究进展

环境和灾害是威胁人类生存的两大挑战性问题。由人类活动导致的自然环境破坏和恶化是一个长期累积的过程,类似于人体所患的慢性疾病,对其认识和解决不仅依靠多种条件,也需要很长时间的持久努力。自然灾害的发生一般是短时间内的突然事件,类似人体的急性疾病。为最大限度地减轻自然灾害给人类社会造成的损失,需要实施事先预防、灾前预警、灾时应急和灾后重建的系统工程,其中地球科学家的责任之一是找出有效的宣传演练,使社会各界充分认识灾害的危险性,做好必要的防灾准备。最近20 a来中国的减灾实践经验还说明,为进一步提高减灾的效益,要用科学观念指导各领域的减灾工作,在国家一级层次上要实行多部门协调、多学科合作的综合管理,并注重对灾害发生的规律性研究。例如对群发性灾害链过程及其潜在影响的估计,这对制定区域性可持续发展规划具有重要意义。     

Housing crisis after natural disaster: the aftermath of the November 1980 southern Italian earthquake

The problems of mass-homelessness created by the earthquake of 23 November 1980 in southern Italy were tackled by the Italian government in two phases, respectively involving resettlement of the survivors in temporary prefabricated homes and reconstruction of permanent housing. This paper firstly describes and evaluates the programme of temporary shelter provision, showing that, although it was successful in rehousing survivors, it has helped to alter the urban layout and architectural style of villages in the disaster area and, coupled with indiscriminate demolition of damaged buildings, has reduced the emphasis on permanent reconstruction. Special powers adopted by the government to achieve the resettlement are also evaluated. Next, the main reconstruction laws, which were passed about 6 months after the disaster, are examined. Large-scale financial provision for the reconstruction process is shown to have been tempered by bureaucratic delays, legal complexities and a certain amount of inequity in the distribution of funds. Aftershocks and subsequent earthquakes are described in terms of how they prolonged the psychological and physical emergency and helped to stimulate official preparedness for disaster relief. Finally, landslides, floods and other natural disasters occurring during the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake are shown to have had a cumulative effect that resulted in the formation, in 1982, of a Ministry for Civil Protection and the belated strengthening of national measures for disaster relief and prevention.     

A general model for promoting the integration of national natural resources management

A model is put forward to prescribe the processes and steps whereby governments can and should integrate their natural resources policies across the many different sectors involved. The model has developed from the analysis of policies for water resources, coastal zones and soil resources in OECD countries. Such a model can never be comprehensive but the one developed does help to pinpoint some of the reasons for the adverse impacts that occur where the appropriate institutional arrangements to promote policy integration are lacking. By stressing the links – or otherwise – between national policies and management practices on the ground it also highlights both the importance of having the appropriate data available to monitor policy integration, and the narrow range of policy instruments currently being deployed to minimise inter-sectoral conflict and thus to promote sustainable resources management.     

A novel strategy to determine the insurance and risk control plan for natural disaster risk management

This study presents an extended framework for the analysis of economic effects of natural disaster risk management. It also attempts to define and evaluate the optimal insurance arrangements. A model, the economic utility constrained-maximization model, is proposed. The purpose of this study is to establish a strategy for determining an insurance and risk control plan in which consideration is given to balancing the economic effects (e.g., decrease in costs due to damage) by disaster mitigation. Furthermore, these values are compared with risk control actions for purposes of prioritization, to provide data to help evaluate the benefit of each risk control action. Disaster insurance policy premiums in contrast are based on actuarial data taken from situations in which risk control measures are not employed. This can make such contracts unfair to responsible enterprise managers who must take risk control measures. This represents an unfair aspect of insurance policies. Enterprise managers should be able to determine the optimum arrangement between natural disaster risk control and insurance given their budget limitations. The optimal strategies aim at the best applicability and balance between risk control and insurance capability for the enterprise manager. Risk control measures can generate several risk control options for enterprise managers. Premium discounts by insurers are given in this model.     

Correction to: Discrete dynamical Pareto optimization model in the risk portfolio for natural disaster insurance in China

Natural Hazards - The original article, Discrete dynamical Pareto optimization model in the risk portfolio for natural disaster insurance in China, in Natural Hazards (2018) 90: 445–460, was...     

洪水灾害风险管理广义熵智能分析的理论框架

基于洪水灾害风险管理的背景分析,提出用广义分布函数及其广义熵理论统一描述、物理解析洪水灾害风险管理系统的各种不确定性信息。基于洪水灾害风险形成机制和风险管理理论与水利科学、信息科学、智能科学综合集成途径,提出由洪水灾害孕灾环境和致灾因子危险性广义熵智能分析、承灾体易损性广义熵智能分析、承灾体灾情广义熵智能分析和风险决策广义熵智能分析组成的洪水灾害风险管理广义熵智能分析的初步理论框架及其主要研究内容,在其它灾害风险管理中具有一定的参考应用价值。     

湖北省历史时期地震灾害统计特征及其减灾对策

文章以史料为据，对湖北省历史地震的地学规律、承灾体的特点及其减灾对策等问题进行了研究。结果表明，湖北省历史地震的地学规律主要表现在：(1)从时序特征看，地震活动涨落的时间非均匀性十分明显，大约300余a经历一个地震活动周期；年震区与年震率有明显的增大趋势；2．3月是地震相对多发季节，而汛期内地震未见明显增多；(2)从空间特征看，地震在空间上分布不均匀，多发生在活动性断裂的特殊构造部位及隆起、坳陷边缘地带；中强地震主要集中分布在鄂西与鄂东两片地区；地震与地质灾害在分布上有明显的耦合关系；(3)从地震种类看，过境性地震较多，源发性地震以构造地震为主；1949年以来，水库地震明显增多；(4)从震级来看，小地震为主，中、强地震不多，特大地震少见。湖北省地震灾害具有“自然灾害种类多、灾情较重；地震集中分布区大、中型水库多，地质灾害较严重；境内长江中游沿岸(宜昌-沙市)人口密集、经济发达，但大堤防洪、防震标准低，地震引发溃堤的潜在洪水灾害威胁大；民众防震意识淡薄，房屋与建筑工程防震能力差”等特征。针对以上特点，提出以下防灾策略：(1)提高民众防震减灾意识；(2)省内、外地震监测并举，提高预报能力；(3)并发灾研究、并发灾防治，建设有本省特色的减灾“预防文化”；(4)加强针对性专题研究，确定重点防震区域，提高综合防灾能力。     

Modeling the integrated roles of insurance and retrofit in managing natural disaster risk: a multi-stakeholder perspective

This paper introduces a new modeling framework to understand and improve regional natural disaster risk management in the USA, including the interactions among key stakeholders and between the two important risk management mechanisms of insurance and retrofit. The framework includes a stochastic programming optimization to represent insurer decisions, which interacts with a utility-based model of individual homeowners’ decisions to insure and/or retrofit. Reinsurer and government roles are represented as inputs, and the decision models are integrated with a detailed regional catastrophe loss estimation model. This modeling framework is applied to a full-scale, realistic case study for hurricane risk to residential buildings in Eastern North Carolina. Several alternative system configurations are considered that affect the incentives for adoption of alternative risk management methods. They include providing a government subsidy for insured homeowners to encourage retrofit, providing both a government subsidy and insurance rebate to reduce retrofit costs, and mandating insurance purchase with a cap on insurance premiums. For each configuration, outcomes are presented from the perspectives of all key stakeholders—primary insurer, homeowners (insured and uninsured, in high- and low-risk areas), reinsurers, and the government. Results suggest that it is possible to design policies in which all stakeholders can be better off simultaneously. Retrofit incentives for insured homeowners can be effective in linking and strengthening the benefits of retrofit and insurance. Mandatory insurance coupled with capped profit loading factors and possibly retrofit rebates from the insurer to the homeowner can also reduce overall system risk.     

More than a checkbox: engaging youth in disaster risk reduction and resilience in Canada

Fire has become one of the main disturbances in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. It is known that elevation influences the occurrence of fire events; however, this variable has been poorly studied, although it is of particularly relevance to the Mexican topography. The objective of this research was to analyze the altitudinal distribution of forest fires in Mexico over a period of 11 years. Elevation gradients were defined based on a Digital Elevation Model and the main ecoregions of the country: (1) shrubland and tropical forests (0–1000 masl), (2) grasslands (1001–2000 masl) and (3) temperate forests (>?2000 masl). Each ecoregion was divided into Climate Research Units and the number of fires per unit was quantified. The G Getis–Ord statistic was applied in order to define the spatial patterns presented by the fire events. A relationship between the occurrence of fires and the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomenon was also determined through a Pearson correlation. The results showed that the occurrence of fire events presented variability along elevation gradients, with elevation a determining factor in their occurrence. Gradient 3, with the highest elevation, had the greatest number of fires and also presented the largest area of fire event clustering. These results contribute to the knowledge of the spatial distribution of forest fires in Mexico and are of value to appropriate decision-making for effective fire management.

     

自然资源要素综合观测一体化平台建设探索与实践

自然资源要素综合观测一体化平台是集站网运维管理和观测数据采集、传输、保存、挖掘、共享及成果产品于一体的平台,是观测站网的核心.从总体框架、管理系统、特点及优势3方面介绍了自然资源要素综合观测一体化平台的建设情况;结合开展项目,通过数据集成、多源数据融合和模型加载应用阐述了自然资源要素综合观测一体化平台的建设实践;最后,对一体化平台今后工作的重点、方向和技术应用进行了展望.     

Wildfire as an increasingly common natural disaster facing Canada: understanding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire

Natural Hazards - On May 3, 2016, a wildfire swept into the city of Fort McMurray, Alberta. This natural disaster was significant in both its scale and impact, as the fire prompted a sudden onset...