Disaster Management

George Spencer-Brown developed a unique system of notation that uses distinction as its most basic unit. We may use this system in order to explain the way the world of appearances emerges out of the primordial experience. I advise the reader who is not mathematically oriented to skim through those few sections that may seem too purely mathematical.

Laws of Form

Sentiment analysis of Twitter data during critical events through Bayesian networks classifiers

During disease outbreaks, women endure additional burdens associated with paid and unpaid work, often without consideration or the alleviation of other life responsibilities. This paper draws on the concept of the triple burden in theorizing the gender divisions in productive and reproductive work and community activities in the context of disaster. Events that include famine, war, natural disaster or disease outbreak are all well documented as increasing women’s vulnerability to a worsening of gendered burdens. In the case of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, this is no different. Focussing on Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia, the four vignettes in this paper serve to highlight the intersections between Covid-19 and gendered burdens, particularly in frontline work, unpaid care work and community activities. While pre-disaster gender burdens are well established as strong, our analysis during the early months of the pandemic indicates that women’s burdens are escalating. We estimate that women will endure a worsening of their burdens until the pandemic is well under control, and for a long time after. Public policy and health efforts have not sufficiently acknowledged the issues concerned with the associations between gender and disease outbreaks.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/5/87/pdf

Covid-19 and women's triple burden: Vignettes from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia

This paper reviews the concept of adaptation of human communities to global changes, especially climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity and vulnerability. It focuses on scholarship that contributes to practical implementation of adaptations at the community scale. In numerous social science fields, adaptations are considered as responses to risks associated with the interaction of environmental hazards and human vulnerability or adaptive capacity. In the climate change field, adaptation analyses have been undertaken for several distinct purposes. Impact assessments assume adaptations to estimate damages to longer term climate scenarios with and without adjustments. Evaluations of specified adaptation options aim to identify preferred measures. Vulnerability indices seek to provide relative vulnerability scores for countries, regions or communities. The main purpose of participatory vulnerability assessments is to identify adaptation strategies that are feasible and practical in communities. The distinctive features of adaptation analyses with this purpose are outlined, and common elements of this approach are described. Practical adaptation initiatives tend to focus on risks that are already problematic, climate is considered together with other environmental and social stresses, and adaptations are mostly integrated or mainstreamed into other resource management, disaster preparedness and sustainable development programs.

/pdf/adaptation-adaptive-capacity-and-vulnerability-of-climate-397twpx3t9.pdf

Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability of climate change

This paper examines changes in gender relations in a small coastal community as a result of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami. Vulnerability and resilience are used as a conceptual framework to analyse these changes. Based on empirical evidence from a seven-year longitudinal study and quasi-ethnographic work, we explore changes in power relations at the different stages of the disaster and longer-term recovery as well as the conditions that fostered these changes. Our findings show distinct patterns of change. First, disasters can trigger long-lasting changes that challenge historical patriarchal relations. Second, while vulnerability increases following a disaster, resilience can potentially counteract women’s vulnerability. We propose that resilience can be a pathway to produce long-term changes in gender relations and empower women in the context of disasters.

/pdf/women-s-empowerment-following-disaster-a-longitudinal-study-1q76o7ee44.pdf

Women’s empowerment following disaster: A longitudinal study of social change

This paper examines the role of community resilience during the emergency response after the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami. El Morro – a fishing community that managed to survive the tsunami in the Talcahuano region – is used as a case study. Despite the magnitude of the catastrophe and the mistaken tsunami warning, there were no reports of casualties. We conducted qualitative research over a six-month period consisting of: semi-structured interviews; observation; informal conversations; documentary and social media review; to explore the resilience capacities and resources that were activated in the community to cope with the disaster. Our findings show that community resilience played an important role during the response period, especially in the absence of external aid. Communities are not merely passive victims of disasters, they are active agents. Resilience capacities such as sense of community, local knowledge, social capital, organisation, cooperation, and trust contributed to the survival of the entire community during the first days after the disaster. The lessons from the El Morro community can be useful for improving emergency management and disaster response in small-scale communities.

Community resilience in response to the 2010 tsunami in Chile: The survival of a small-scale fishing community

This paper examines the short and long-term societal impact of prolonged power outages caused by a disaster, and the way of coping that the community develops. Community resilience is used as a conceptual framework to analyse the community responses to power outages following the 2010 Chile earthquake. Based on empirical evidence from longitudinal qualitative research we explore the resilience capacities and resources deployed in five low-income communities within Talcahuano, one of the cities most heavily affected by the power outage. Our research reveals that community resilience attenuates the negative consequences of power outages during the response and recovery periods. However, external assistance is required to reduce the short and long-term societal impact of prolonged outages. Policy recommendations and guidelines are provided on how to increase community resilience and reduce the negative impact of long-lasting power outages.

Community resilience to power outages after disaster: A case study of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami

The role of communities in coping with natural disasters: Lessons from the 2010 Chile Earthquake and Tsunami

This research examines the level of citizen satisfaction for the housing solution provided during the reconstruction process, after the Chile earthquake and tsunami, on 27 February 2010, in Dichato Bay, through a multidisciplinary approach. This implied, on the one hand, the application of a survey aimed at determining the level of agreement or disagreement with the reconstruction programme; and, on the other hand, an architectural and urban study, based on an analysis of the planimetric design and the location of the housing received by the beneficiaries, to outline the relation between the fulfilment of technical aspects and the social perception of satisfaction. The main results reflect a positive regard for the reconstruction plan, as well as a limited relation between the level of user satisfaction and the final housing solution provided.

Jenny Moreno

Papers

Women’s empowerment following disaster: A longitudinal study of social change

Community resilience in response to the 2010 tsunami in Chile: The survival of a small-scale fishing community

Community resilience to power outages after disaster: A case study of the 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami

The role of communities in coping with natural disasters: Lessons from the 2010 Chile Earthquake and Tsunami

Designing happiness? A close-up to the housing reconstruction process after the Chile earthquake and tsunami, on 27 February 2010