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.     

Vulnerability of families and households to natural hazards: A case study of storm surge flooding in Sarasota County,Florida

The role that family and household structure, size, and ethnic/racial composition play in increasing or decreasing vulnerability to natural hazards, which has been missing from the literature, is investigated. The study first reviews the conceptual foundations of the relationships between families/households and natural hazards vulnerability and then employs a principal components analysis to uncover spatial variations in the vulnerability of families and households to hurricane storm surge hazards in Sarasota County, Florida. The analysis identifies and maps five principal components that explain approximately 83% of the variance in family/household population: nuclear families/households; Black families/households; nonfamily, young adult group households; Hispanic families/households; and Asian families/households. Comparison of storm surge risk maps with the locations of these families/households shows the relative vulnerability of each of these family/household categories, with elderly householders living alone on exposed barrier islands being the most vulnerable. The research suggests that family and household structures integrate several socio-demographic vulnerability indicators central to most social vulnerability assessments. Results indicate that future research and hazard mitigation policies should focus on families and households as core analytical units. Findings also suggest that recognizing the diversity of families and households is important to reducing vulnerability to natural hazards.     

Resilient Landscapes: The Reconstruction of Southeastern Connecticut Following the 1938 Hurricane

Following the 1938 hurricane that damaged much of the New England coast, New London, Connecticut, responded like most communities by leveraging federal and state funds to rebuild and augment engineered mitigation structures. Eighty years of subsequent storm experience, however, illustrates that a small number of nonstructural mitigation projects, especially private property acquisitions, have had significant long-term effects on New London's coastal resiliency, especially in the Ocean Beach neighborhood. Archival research identifies that these nonstructural mitigation projects were not initially intended to reduce hurricane or flooding risk but were aimed at removing structures determined to be public nuisances and reducing fire hazard. Therefore, New London's post-1938 mitigation experience underscores how community-scale mitigation planning following one disaster can greatly affect the outcome of future disasters. Analytically, New London's experience offers a compelling case study to critically compare two competing environmental mitigation approaches following the same disaster and to offer insight into the environmental legacies of both.     

Earth,Wind, and Fire: Wildfire Risk Perceptions in a Hurricane-Prone Environment

Wildfire is one of several potential disturbances that could have extraordinary impacts on individuals and communities in fire-prone areas. In this article we describe disturbance risk perceptions from interviews with residents in three Florida communities that face significant wildfire and hurricane risk. Although they live in areas characterized by emergency managers as having high wildfire risk and many participants have direct experience with wildfire, residents tended to share high hurricane and low wildfire risk perceptions. The different perceptions of risk seem linked to several factors: direct hurricane experience, different scales of impact, the local “hurricane culture,” effectiveness of local ordinances and development patterns, perceived predictability of the event, and perceived ability to control the event. This study shows that residents may perceive and act to reduce risk for one disturbance in relation to their perceptions, concern, and actions for another.     

Factors controlling the survival of coastal dunes during multiple hurricane impacts in 2004 and 2005: Santa Rosa barrier island, Florida

Santa Rosa Island is an 85 km-long, wave-dominated low-lying barrier island situated along the northwestern Florida coast, facing the Gulf of Mexico. The entire island was severely impacted by Ivan, a strong category 3 hurricane that made landfall about 45 km to the west in September of 2004. Ten months later in July of 2005, Dennis, another category 3 hurricane, made landfall about 30 km east of the western tip of the island. Santa Rosa Island is characterized by well-developed but relatively low dunefields, described in this paper as incipient and established dunes, based on the presence of grassy and woody types of vegetation, respectively. The dunes were severely eroded by the two hurricanes. This paper investigates the factors controlling the regional-scale destruction and survival of the dunefields.Dune survival is controlled by: 1) hurricane characteristics, including intensity, duration, and frequency, and 2) morphological parameters including width of the barrier island, height and width of the dunefields, vegetation type, distance of the dunes to the ocean, and continuity of the dunefields. Three processes of dune destruction are described including, from most to least severe, inundation, overwash, and scarping. The interaction of all the above factors determines the different dune responses to the storm impacts. In general, the extensive and densely woody vegetated dunefields near the bay-side shoreline survived the storms, while the discontinuous dunes with grassy vegetation near the Gulf shoreline were almost completely destroyed.     

An unusual ‘blood rain’ over the Canary Islands (Spain). The storm of January 1999

An intense storm, including strong winds, a dust storm, ‘blood rain’ and heavy rains affected the Canary Archipelago between 5 and 10 January 1999, producing damage valued at 156 million euros. The present paper analyses the weather conditions and sedimentological features of the dust. The resulting data provide a possible explanation of palaeoclimatic conditions essential for the stabilization of sand dunes in the eastern parts of the Canary Islands.     

Physical effects of hurricane bere upon Funafuti atoll,Tuvalu

Detailed aerial photograph analysis of the effects of hurricane Bebe (21 October 1972) on Funafuti atoll using ‘before and after’ photos plus ground truthing give a detailed picture of wind and water motions during passage of the cyclone. Interpretation of damage to coconut palms, motu (cay) and reef‐flat structures together with other directional indicators show that hurricane Bebe passed to the east of the atoll. Average wind and water‐flow directions were substantially different; wind directions changed during the cyclone's movement while wave and surge generated water flows remained more constant. A model showing wind and water motion associated with the storm is presented.     

Using spatial analysis and Bayesian network to model the vulnerability and make insurance pricing of catastrophic risk

Vulnerability refers to the degree of an individual subject to the damage arising from a catastrophic disaster. It is affected by multiple indicators that include hazard intensity, environment, and individual characteristics. The traditional area aggregate approach does not differentiate the individuals exposed to the disaster. In this article, we propose a new solution of modeling vulnerability. Our strategy is to use spatial analysis and Bayesian network (BN) to model vulnerability and make insurance pricing in a spatially explicit manner. Spatial analysis is employed to preprocess the data, for example kernel density analysis (KDA) is employed to quantify the influence of geo-features on catastrophic risk and relate such influence to spatial distance. BN provides a consistent platform to integrate a variety of indicators including those extracted by spatial analysis techniques to model uncertainty of vulnerability. Our approach can differentiate attributes of different individuals at a finer scale, integrate quantitative indicators from multiple-sources, and evaluate the vulnerability even with missing data. In the pilot study case of seismic risk, our approach obtains a spatially located result of vulnerability and makes an insurance price at a finer scale for the insured buildings. The result obtained with our method is informative for decision-makers to make a spatially located planning of buildings and allocation of resources before, during, and after the disasters.     

不同重现期下淮河流域暴雨洪涝灾害风险评价

为探讨不同重现期情景下淮河流域暴雨洪涝灾害风险变化,利用不同类型共20 种分布函数拟合得到最大日降水量结果,并将其作为致灾因子,结合其他11 种指标,定量化评价淮河流域不同重现期暴雨洪涝灾害风险。研究发现：① 淮河流域暴雨洪涝灾害高风险区为流域中上游干流蓄洪区及周边地势低洼地,流域中部、西南部以及东部部分地区为中高风险区,低风险区分布于流域北部与中南部。② 随重现期增加（10a 一遇至1000a 一遇）,最大日降水量空间分布变化为流域东部整体危险性逐渐减弱,西南部高值区域增幅较大;而最终淮河流域暴雨洪涝灾害风险区划变化则表现为中高风险区保持相对稳定;高风险区与低风险区逐渐缩小,占流域总面积分别由8.3%、42.4%减小至3.2%与30.8%,风险高值保持稳定但区域集中程度越来越明显;中风险区则由28.3%增加至40.9%;整体呈现“流域东部大灾减少、小灾不断,西部高值区遇水成灾,北部中南部相对安全”的空间分布变化格局。     

Floodscapes? A Reading of Space‐Making and Place‐Making Processes in Regions Affected by Flood Hazard

The study of flood hazard has been a key theme within the spatial analysis of natural hazards. A number of authors have expanded on this tradition by adopting a society‐oriented approach to risk perception. Thus a new framework has become available for exploring social response to risk and describing the relationship between human communities and hazards in terms of contemporary interpretative categories such as social representation and “stigmatization,” the latter defined as the process by which media and social actors mark places affected by disastrous events as dangerous and unsafe sites. This literature has made a vital contribution to the geographical reading of flood hazard, showing how flood risk generates both space‐ and place‐making processes. In this paper I discuss the relationship between these two processes, suggesting that the political response to flood hazard may be viewed as a hetero‐directed strategy that influences place‐making at a local level. I illustrate this perspective using a field research conducted in 2006–2007 on the Po River Basin in Piemonte, an Italian region with high flood risk that has been affected by a series of events in recent decades.     

A GIS-based approach to identify the spatial variability of social vulnerability to seismic hazard in Italy

This paper argues for a multidisciplinary framework to assess the relationship between environmental processes and social sciences that can be adapted to any geographic location. This includes both physical (earthquake hazard) and human (social vulnerability) dimensions in the context of disaster risk reduction. Disasters varies drastically depending on the local context. Indeed, the probability of a natural disaster having more devastating effects in one place than in another depends on the local vulnerability components of the affected society (cultural, social and economic). Therefore, there is an important correlation between the potential risk and the social resistance and resilience of a specific place, thus the disaster response varies according to the social fabric. In this context, the evaluation of social vulnerability is a crucial point in order to understand the ability of a society (studied at individual, household or community level) to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of natural disaster events. Within this framework, the paper discusses how it is possible to integrate social vulnerability into the seismic risk analysis in Italy. Specifically, socioeconomic indicators were used to assess and mapping social vulnerability index. Afterwards, a Geographic Information System (GIS) approach was applied to identify the spatial variability of social vulnerability to seismic hazard. Through the use of a risk matrix, the classes of a social vulnerability index map were combined with those of a seismic hazard map proposed by INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology). Finally, a qualitative social vulnerability exposure map to an earthquake hazard was produced, highlighting areas with high seismic and social vulnerability levels. Results suggest the importance of the integration of social vulnerability studies into seismic risk mitigation policies, emergency management and territorial planning to reduce the impact of disasters.     

Tropical Storm Gamma and the Mosquitia of eastern Honduras: a little-known story from the 2005 hurricane season

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was unprecedented in terms of storm activity in the United States, Mexico, Central America and Caribbean. Given the impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Honduran Mosquitia sparked little attention despite being hit by two hurricanes and a tropical storm in 2005. This article recounts the history of these storms in the Afro-Caribbean community of Batalla, drawing from public weather advisories and testimony of local residents obtained through participatory research. We contextualise this local history with results from the first paleotempestological study undertaken in the Mosquitia to shed light on long-term risk of catastrophic storms in the region and to demonstrate the value of integrating these two research approaches. Our findings contribute to recent ethnographic research on hazards by describing how a coastal people understand and respond to tropical cyclones and how landscape change influences the vulnerability of a coastal area. Although residents have not witnessed a storm as intense as those documented in the paleotempestological record, their knowledge and perceptions show how tropical cyclones can be disasters while leaving behind no sedimentary records. The paleotempestological evidence, however, reminds us that catastrophic hurricanes have struck the Mosquitia in the past and will do so again in the future. Understanding the interactions between contemporary human perceptions and responses and long-term hurricane risk provides insight for emergency managers and local stakeholders to better prepare for such a catastrophic event.     

新奥尔良飓风灾难与华南沿海台风暴潮

分析了新奥尔良的地理环境,概述了卡特里娜飓风与丽塔飓风及其对新奥尔良的影响.简述了华南沿海的台风暴潮灾害情况,提出了新奥尔良飓风灾难对华南沿海的几点警示:(1)加强提高防御台风暴潮灾害的认识;(2)保护好沿海抗御台风暴潮的"前沿阵地;(3)加强和完善防台风暴潮应急预案;(4)应对台风暴潮要充分考虑全球环境变化.     

A County‐Level Risk Assessment of the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

This paper undertakes a risk assessment of coastal counties in the Gulf of Mexico impacted by the 2010 Deep Water Horizon oil spill. The study evaluates hazard risk from the perspective of community resilience, social capital, and access to resources. The proposed hazard risk location model re‐specifies risk as a function of hazard, exposure, and coping ability. The model employs an autoregressive function and a threshold analysis to develop a place‐based risk assessment. The results indicate that spatial variation in risk levels coincides with locational differences in social capital across the study area. Geographical proximity to the spill, population density, and unemployment rate are also key factors in determining overall risk. Furthermore, temporal variation in risk levels is determined by exposure to previous hazard events and changes in the business cycle.     

Patterns and Controls of Hurricane-Caused Forest Damage: A Landscape-Scale Analysis of Treefall Direction Following Hurricane Katrina∗

To clarify broad-scale patterns and controls of treefall directionality from Hurricane Katrina, we examined fall directions across a 4,500 km² landscape mosaic in southern Mississippi using georeferenced, planar-rectified aerial photographs. Analyses using directional statistics, measures of local spatial autocorrelation, and general linear modeling indicated that treefall was significantly directional for nearly all of our locations and constrained primarily by mesoscale surface wind directions and landscape setting. None of our plots exhibited fall angles consistent with damage caused by wind reversals following the passage of the storm or by microbursts or tornadoes spawned by the hurricane. When coupled with results from other studies focused on hurricane-caused damage, these results suggest that it is possible to develop empirical, landscape-scale models of wind impacts or stand vulnerability using basic site information (e.g., topography, soils), biotic conditions (e.g., land cover, forest attributes), and generalized, but readily available, estimates of surface wind flow patterns.     

气候变化背景下中国风暴潮灾害风险及适应对策研究进展

风暴潮是沿海地区在强烈的大气扰动条件下产生的异常增水现象,并受海平面上升等因素的影响。中国风暴潮灾害频繁,其中尤以东南沿海地区发生频率较高,灾害损失严重。本文从风暴潮灾害的危险性、承灾体的易损性、综合风险区划3个方面系统总结风暴潮灾害的研究进展及存在的主要问题;并以风暴潮灾情特征及风险评估为基础,探讨气候变化对风暴潮灾害风险的影响及其适应对策。气候变化引起的海平面上升将影响风暴潮的趋势、周期及风险区域,因而亟待开展结合海平面上升等因素的综合风险评估。充分考虑气候变化背景下沿海地区自然条件变化及社会经济发展状况,注重短期与长期相结合,完善风险评估体系。为适度、有序的适应气候变化下风暴潮灾害风险,中国在应急预警机制、工程防御及政策法规等适应能力建设方面不断完善,以提高风暴潮灾害的防灾减灾能力。     

A decadal historical satellite data analysis for flood hazard evaluation: A case study of Bihar (North India)

Flood is one of the major recurrent natural disasters faced by the state of Bihar in north India. In the present study the authors assess the severity of flood hazard in Bihar, using 128 decadal historical satellite datasets acquired during different flood magnitudes during 1998 to 2010. The satellite‐based observations have been analysed in conjunction with the hydrological data, for assessing the frequency of inundation, severity of flood hazard and cropped land under flood hazard. This study assesses the spatial distribution of flooding and creation of systematic flood hazard database, which can be analysed from a spatial dimension in GIS. It is observed that about 24.56 lakh ha of the state's area and about 15.85 lakh ha of the cropped area are vulnerable to flood hazard. North Bihar is more vulnerable to flooding; 8 of the 10 areas identified as worst flood‐affected districts lie in this region.     

沿海港口自然灾害风险评价

以多灾种复合为背景,选取沿海城市中重要的基础设施——港口为研究区域,包括大连港、天津港、青岛港、上海港、宁波—舟山港、厦门港、深圳港、广州港,从危险性、暴露性和脆弱性等方面选取指标,探讨构建了沿海港口自然灾害风险评价指标体系与评估模型:评价结果为:沿海港口的灾害风险指数相差较大,风险值在空间上表现出长江三角洲沿岸>珠江三角洲沿岸>环渤海沿岸:评价结果可以为沿海港口防灾减灾提供理论依据。     

Spatial patterns of ice storm disturbance on a forested landscape in the Appalachian Mountains, Virginia

Ice storms (major freezing rain events) periodically disturb forests in eastern North America. The damage may vary spatially, especially in complex terrain. This study uses satellite imagery to investigate spatial heterogeneity of forest damage caused by ice storms that affected the Appalachian Mountains, Virginia during 1994. The results display a region-scale (southwest-to-northeast) gradient in damage that apparently corresponds to a gradient in the depth of ice that accumulated during the storms. Damage also varied topographically, particularly by aspect. Damage was most extensive on east-, southeast- and south-facing slopes; at middle elevations; and on slopes of moderate steepness.     

城市山洪灾害风险评价——以云南省文山县城为例

山洪灾害风险评价对于减灾防灾决策和管理非常重要。本文介绍基于遥感和GIS方法的应用,探讨一种快速、简便而且较为准确的城市山洪灾害风险评价方法。以发生于1998年7月26日文山城20年一遇山洪灾害为实例,将GIS的数字高程模型与实测的山洪水位和洪峰流量结合进行淹没分析,研究表明采用该方法可以模拟准确山洪泛滥范围,并计算淹没水深分布。根据不同水深指标,应用GIS工具完成了山洪灾害危险分区。本研究利用高分辨率遥感影像提供承灾体类型的可靠和准确数据用于易损性分析和期望损失评估的价值计算。根据典型区财产损失的抽样调查,建立了不同承灾体类型与水深的关系,并确定其损失率;应用GIS空间数据处理和分析的集成方法完成了复杂的损失评估。在此基础上,按期望损失程度进行分区划分而完成山洪风险评价。研究结果表明基于GIS和RS方法进行山洪风险评价效果良好,值得推广应用于其他洪水泛滥区。