Natural disaster

About: Natural disaster is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5456 publications have been published within this topic receiving 104808 citations. The topic is also known as: natural calamity & natural hazard.

Mitigating Natural Disasters through Collective Action: The Effectiveness of Tsunami Early Warnings

Abstract: [Author Affiliation]Monica P Escaleras, *Florida Atlantic University, Department of Economics, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA; mescaler@fau.edu; corresponding authorCharles A Register, [dagger]Florida Atlantic University, Department of Economics, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA; charles.register@fau.edu[Acknowledgment]We thank Vadym Volosovych and Shu Lin for their comments, Paula Dunbar of NOAA/NESDIS National Geophysical Data Center for her assistance with data collection, Brian Anyzeski for his assistance with geographic elements of this study, and seminar participants at Florida Atlantic University and the 2006 Southern Economic Association meetings for their suggestions. Special thanks are in order for Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis, director of UNESCO's International Tsunami Information Center from 1974 to 1992, without whose assistance this project could not have been completed. We also thank John Pepper, coeditor, and two anonymous referees of this journal for their many useful comments. Finally, we thank Eileen Smith and Eileen Schneider for their editorial assistance. Remaining errors are our own.1. IntroductionWhile not the most prevalent of all the natural disasters plaguing humankind, tsunamis have proven more devastating in their potential than any of the others. Tsunamis occur for a variety of reasons, including landslides and submarine volcanic and seismic activity, though by far the most common cause is the latter. This type of tsunami may be generated any time tectonic plates scrub together beneath a body of water severely enough to cause one plate to drive beneath another, a process known as subduction. When this occurs, the seabed buckles, thrusting a column of water upward. Once the column reaches the surface, this mass of water or set of waves races at speeds sometimes in excess of 700 km/h, potentially devastating any adjacent land areas.Because Earth's surface is made up of constantly shifting tectonic plates, an earthquake-generated tsunami may occur almost anywhere there is a large mass of water. While potentially striking all of the world's oceans and seas, tsunamis are most common in the Pacific basin; although, the rapid development of coastal areas of the past decades has increased the devastating potential of tsunamis, these great waves and humankind share a long history. Our earliest evidence of a tsunami shows that one occurred in the Aegean Sea in 1480 BC from the volcanic explosion on the island of Santorini, which effectively wiped out the thriving Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. More recently, since 1966 alone, there have been 202 tsunamis worldwide (see Figure 1, which identifies the primary area, known as the tsunami's run-up, where each of these events had its greatest impact). The worst of these was caused by the megathrust earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004, the epicenter of which was only about 30 km from the shores of the densely populated Indonesian island of Sumatra. The subduction of the oceanic India-Australia tectonic plate beneath the Burma subplate of the continental Eurasia plate caused the seabed to suddenly and violently rise by some 10 m, generating the series of waves that claimed the lives of about 150,000 individuals in Indonesia alone and as many as 290,000 individuals in total.Figure 1 Tsunamis Worldwide 1966-2004 (Figure omitted. See article image.)Given the widespread nature and destructive potential of tsunamis, it is surprising that much of the world lacks even the most rudimentary of tsunami warning systems, especially because such systems are not particularly expensive to establish and have been in place in the Pacific for more than 50 years.1 Of the many potential explanations for the lack of global coverage, two are interrelated and most closely tied to the present study and deal with the collective good nature of warning systems and their effectiveness. …

Daily Variation in Natural Disaster Casualties: Information Flows, Safety, and Opportunity Costs in Tornado Versus Hurricane Strikes

Abstract: Casualties from natural disasters may depend on the day of the week they strike. With data from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS), daily variation in hurricane and tornado casualties from 5,043 tornado and 2,455 hurricane time/place events is analyzed. Hurricane forecasts provide at-risk populations with considerable lead time. Such lead time allows strategic behavior in choosing protective measures under hurricane threat; opportunity costs in terms of lost income are higher during weekdays than during weekends. On the other hand, the lead time provided by tornadoes is near zero; hence tornados generate no opportunity costs. Tornado casualties are related to risk information flows, which are higher during workdays than during leisure periods, and are related to sheltering-in-place opportunities, which are better in permanent buildings like businesses and schools. Consistent with theoretical expectations, random effects negative binomial regression results indicate that tornado events occurring on the workdays of Monday through Thursday are significantly less lethal than tornados that occur on weekends. In direct contrast, and also consistent with theory, the expected count of hurricane casualties increases significantly with weekday occurrences. The policy implications of observed daily variation in tornado and hurricane events are considered.

Resilience and brittleness in the ALERTA RIO system: a field study about the decision-making of forecasters

Abstract: Natural disasters, particularly those triggered by heavy rainfall, may cause major damage and death. However, if an accurate early warning is issued, the damage can be mitigated. In Latin America and Brazil, characteristics of socioeconomic development often lead to a disorderly growth of cities and, consequently, occupation and irregular construction in risk areas. Therefore, forecasts of heavy rainfall, as well as preventative and mitigatory actions based on meteorological data/alerts, are essential to saving lives and minimizing material loss. An event that would have benefited from such actions is that which occurred in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro in January 2011, when over 800 people lost their lives. This work describes the first research initiative on resilience engineering domain in systems to forecast heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro. The results indicate important sources of brittleness in the system that supports the work of meteorologists, mainly related to the technical and organizational framework, and suggests that the main source of resilience in dealing with critical situations is the tacit knowledge of experts.

Nargis and Haiyan: The Politics of Natural Disaster Management in Myanmar and the Philippines

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of two of the gravest natural disasters in contemporary Asian history: Cyclone Nargis, which devastated parts of Myanmar in May 2008, and Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in November 2013. It addresses the role played by greatly divergent governance structures, noting that governance failures led to the exacerbation of the disasters in both cases. The paper explores the links between the national government as the primary duty-bearer for good governance and natural disaster risk management, examining institutions, infrastructures, education and budgetary allocations in each country; seeking the underlying causes of inefficient disaster management. This includes the extent to which each government fell short in its response even though each country is regularly exposed to typhoons and tropical storms. In each case the findings are that the national resilience and government preparedness efforts to reduce the impact of natural disasters were insufficient, and ...

Taking a punch: Building a more resilient Australia

Abstract: The Australian Government is undertaking a comprehensive review of homeland and border security arrangements in Australia. The review, being undertaken by the former Secretary of the Department of Defence, Ric Smith, will report midyear. In response to 9/11, there’s been considerable planning and investment of resources by the Australian Government focused on Australia’s capacity to prevent, respond to and recover from a major terrorist attack in our homeland. The focus on disrupting the planning of terrorist acts, or to disrupt them once underway, has obscured the potential for much greater deaths and casualties caused by extreme natural disasters and therefore the need for an all-hazards risk approach in understanding and responding to all associated risks: if Cyclone Larry had impacted on Cairns in March 2006, not Innisfail, in conjunction with a king tide and storm surge this could have been Australia’s Hurricane Katrina. A terrorism attack in Australia remains without question a distinct possibility, but assessed against the risk of probability, we have more to fear from natural disasters, which are not exceptional events. More importantly, when it comes to time spent planning and resources applied to managing risks on an all-hazards basis, there hasn’t been sufficient effort to engage the Australian community on what Australians can do for themselves in the face of high consequence events like terrorism and extreme natural disasters. This paper examines how Australia can bounce back from all hazards, not just terrorism. The paper recommends a number of specific measures to a build a more resilient Australia.