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Hello:
I'm trying to find annual time series data for the population "at risk" from flooding in the U.S. I'd like to contrast what I expect to be an indication of the growing need or demand for streamflow information with the declining level of resources and gauges in the USGS national stream gauge program.
On the FEMA web site I can find the time series showing the monotonic increase in the number of NFIP policies and premiums, but I thought a population measure (consistently defined) would be most evocative. I was struck by recent media reports that the population at risk from wildfires has increased by a factor of "x" in the last "n" years. It struck me that we should be able to intersect "flood risk" polygons with population data in a similar fashion.
In other words, does anyone have or know of any data on the increase of the number of people living in or near flood zones? Any suggestions you and your colleagues have would be appreciated.
My e-mail at the NC WRRI is Stu_Schwartz@ncsu.edu. Thanks again.
Best,[Received the following from Dusan Sakulski of the National Disaster Management Centre of the Republic of South Africa - http://sandmc.pwv.gov.za.]
Last year I initiated development of a National Disaster Hazard and Vulnerability Atlas (http://sandmc.pwv.gov.za/atlas). A primary part of that project is to develop environmental/disaster hazard and vulnerability indicators, as well as to perform risk analyses and develop risk-related indicators. What is this all about?
The increase in the frequency of disasters and their associated damage in the SADEC region is part of a worldwide trend, resulting from growing vulnerability that may reflect changing climate patterns. Global risks seem to be increasing.
These trends make it all the more necessary for South Africa to develop and implement a National Disaster Hazard and Vulnerability Atlas. The main idea is to design and develop a database-driven, web-enabled, interactive "virtual book," consisting of various "chapters," such as drought, flood, cyclones, storms. Such an atlas will enable users to search and select various data, images, maps, graphs, to perform different analyses, to run certain models, and to print their own page of the Atlas.
For details about the goals and scope of this project, contact:
Dusan Sakulski
Research Centre for Implementation of the Innovative
Technologies in Disaster Management (ReCent)
National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC)
Republic of South Africa
Tel.: ++ 27 (0)12 334 0432;
++ 27 (0)12 334 0667;
++ 27 (0)82 856 6263
Fax: ++ 27 (0)12 334 0810
E-mail: dusan.sakulski@ndmc.pwv.gov.za
WWW: http://sandmc.pwv.gov.za
Submissions are invited for a special issue of Seismological Research Letters (SRL) devoted to the topic of education and outreach in seismology. Papers on a wide range of subjects are invited, including both formal (K-12 to graduate) and informal efforts (such as museum displays, web pages, and other public outreach efforts). International submissions are encouraged. The issue will be co-edited by Rob Mellors (San Diego State University) and Lisa Wald (USGS Earthquake Hazards Team), and individuals are urged to contact one of the co-editors prior to submission. Submissions are due by September 30, 2002, to Rob Mellors at the Department of Geological Sciences, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182; e-mail: rmellors@geology.sdsu.edu.
How adequate are the fire suppression and emergency services in your community? Can your services handle today's risks and hazards effectively? What guidelines or benchmarks do you follow for evaluating these services? These questions, along with many others, will be discussed during an upcoming Internet symposium sponsored by the Public Entity Risk Institute September 23-27, 2002. The program is free and all-electronic. To enroll in the symposium, see: http://www.riskinstitute.org/symposium_signup.asp.
The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) urgently requires the following positions to be filled:
1) Director, Regional Programs
2) Program Manager, AUDMP
3) Urban Networking Manager, AUDMP
4) Urban Information Manager, AUDMP
5) Manager, PDP
For more details see: http://www.adpc.ait.ac.th. Only short listed candidates will be contacted. Please submit your resume and the application form (which can be downloaded from the web site) to: adpcjobs@ait.ac.th.
The City of Eugene, Oregon, is recruiting an emergency manager ($47,840 - $59,612 per year). Responsibilities: Plans, organizes and manages the city's emergency preparedness program, including overseeing the development, implementation, and evaluation of the city's emergency preparedness program, plans, and services. Closing Date: July 26, 2002. Detailed description and requirements are available from Human Resource and Risk Services. Download an application packet from the City's Web site at: http://www.ci.eugene.or.us; request an application packet by calling (541) 682-5061; or e-mailing: application.requests@ci.eugene.or.us. The city of Eugene values diversity in its work force and is committed to affirmative action.
The Northumbria Disaster Management and Sustainable Development Programme is seeking a lecturer or senior lecturer in disaster management. The appointment will be filled by September 2002 and will provide teaching and research support to a vibrant program. Suitable candidates will have prior teaching experience, a Ph.D., and experience with disaster management and its links to development issues. Closing date: July 8, 2002. See: http://online.unn.ac.uk/central_departments/vacancies/ vac_detail.asp?VacancyID=235 for more information
.
The General Direction of Civil Protection, in collaboration with the National Geographic Institute of Spain, has carried out a program (SES 2002) whose objective is to develop a methodology to simulate the effects of an earthquake in Spain. The goal of the program is to create a tool for a quick loss estimation that may be used for civil emergency plans. For more information, see: http://www.proteccioncivil.org (the site is in Spanish); or contact: Luis Miguel Barranco, Natural Risks Department, General Direction of Civil Protection, Madrid, Spain; tel.: 34.91.4304723; e-mail: lmbarran@procivil.mir.es.
The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) has created an on-line library to offer both timely and timeless material on risk management concerns of interest to local governments, nonprofits, and small businesses. The library, housing a growing collection of in-depth articles, is actively seeking contributions for its virtual shelves. Articles that address the following areas are being sought: disaster response and recovery, risk management, risk financing and insurance, human resources, and workers' compensation. Visit the library at: http://www.riskinstitute.org/lib.asp.
To propose or submit an article, contact PERI's Claire Reiss: (703) 352-1846; e-mail: creiss@riskinstitute.org.
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) has agreed to host an "orphan" session on hazards-related issues during its upcoming Annual Meeting March 4-8 2003, in New Orleans, Louisiana (official conference notification to come later). Jayajit Chakraborty of the Department of Geography at the University of South Florida has agreed to organize the session and collect all hazards-related papers for submission to the AAG conference prior to the official conference deadline. The deadline for anyone wishing to submit a paper for inclusion in a hazards session organized by Jay is September 25, 2002. For more information e-mail: jchakrab@chuma1.cas.usf.edu; or contact: Jayajit Chakraborty, Department of Geography, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avene, SOC 107, Tampa, FL 33620.
[Below are some new or updated Internet resources we've discovered. For an extensive list of useful Internet sites dealing with hazards, see http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/sites/sites.html]
http://meted.ucar.edu/modules.htm
The COMET Program (which we've mentioned several times before)
produces highly interactive, self-paced multimedia modules that are
made available to the entire meteorological hazards community either
in Web-based or CD-ROM formats. These modules are provided in several
topic areas, including human and social aspects on weather hazards.
This page also provides links to many related Web-based learning
modules available from other sources.
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/hurricane_tracks
The Historical Hurricane Tracks tool is a cooperative effort of
the NOAA Coastal Services Center and the NOAA Tropical Prediction
Center/National Hurricane Center. This new mapping application allows
users to query and display 150 years of data from the National
Hurricane Center's Tropical Cyclone Best Track data set. The ability
to plot user-defined portions of the data set, combined with the
ability to download credible and reliable data, will enhance knowledge
of hurricane climatology for any location within the Atlantic Basin.
The web site includes text documents detailing particular storm events
and graphs showing historical population data versus hurricane strikes
for coastal counties from Texas to Maine. For more information
contact: Ethan Gibney, Hazards Group, GIS Integration and Development
at NOAA Coastal Services Center; e-mail Ethan.Gibney@noaa.gov.
http://www.ucsusa.org/gulf
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announces an interactive
web feature entitled Confronting Climate Change in the Gulf Coast
Region: Prospects for Sustaining our Ecological Heritage. The web
site section contains a wealth of information on climate change, as
well as an in-depth look at the potential impacts of climate change on
Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. One of its
features examines the water cycle and how humans interact with it in
the Gulf Coast region. A second feature explores the extensive
potential consequences of sea-level rise in a region comprised of flat
topography. A final feature tells the stories of individual residents
and visitors and how their daily lives may be impacted by climate
change. For more information contact: Jason Mathers, Sound Science
Initiative Project Assistant, Global Environment Program at UCS;
e-mail: jmathers@ucsusa.org.
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/car/index.html
The U.S. EPA has released the United States of America's Third
National Communication under the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change report. The report contains the results of a
cabinet-level review of U.S. climate change policy. President Bush
requested working groups to develop innovative approaches that would:
1) be consistent with the goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere; 2) be sufficiently flexible to allow
for new findings; 3) support continued economic growth and prosperity;
4) provide market-based incentives; 5) incorporate technological
advances; and 6) promote global participation.
http://books.nap.edu/html/countering_terrorism/ndr_summary.pdf
A summary of the Countering Terrorism: Lessons Learned from
Natural and Technical Disasters forum sponsored by the National
Academy Press has now been released and is available for distribution
in PDF format.
http://www.house.gov/maloney/crsreport.pdf
A congressional research report, titled Federal Disaster
Policies After Terrorists Strike: Issues and Options for Congress was
recently released by New York members of Congress. The report details
current questions about federal policy with regard to disaster
assistance and allegations of deficient administrative decisions
related to the September 11 terrorist attacks. The report also
provides historical and legislative background on these issues and
presents policy options for consideration by Congress in evaluating
current disaster recovery authorities.
http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/nattrans/ntuseland/essays/fire.htm
History with Fire in Its Eye: An Introduction to Fire in America,
by Stephen J. Pyne, the noted fire historian at Arizona State University,
has been posted to the World Wide Web. The essay, which includes primary
resources, fire reports, photos, links, and more, is part of the web
guide Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History, which
provides essays by scholars to provide updated content, discussion
guidance, and teaching resources for high school teachers.
http://www.gadr.giees.uncc.edu
Although under construction, the web site for the Global Alliance
for Disaster Reduction (GADR) is up and running, and the developers
are looking for comments and suggestions on their emerging site. GADR
is headquartered at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, under
the institutional leadership of the Global Institute for Energy and
Environmental Systems (GIEES). It has evolved as an "epistemic
community" of more than 1000 experts on disaster reduction and related
aspects of sustainable development, representing regional, national,
and international organizations and institutions. GADR is creating
seven global regional "blueprints for change," and preliminary drafts
of those blueprints are now available from this site.
[Below are some recent announcements received by the Natural Hazards Center. A comprehensive list of upcoming hazards-related meetings and training is available from our World Wide Web site: http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/conf.html]
Regional Workshop on Best Practices in Urban Disaster Mitigation: Lessons Learned from the Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program and Other Initiatives. Host: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC). Bali, Indonesia: September 24-26, 2002. See: http://www.adpc.ait.ac.th/audmp/rllw/default.html. Interested individuals are invited to submit papers for presentation. Submission of one-page summaries are due August 2, 2002; draft papers are due August 9, 2002; selected paper final submissions are due August 23, 2002. For more information about paper submission, e-mail: audmp@ait.ac.th.
Second European Congress on Emergency Medicine. Host: Slovenian Society for Emergency Medicine. Potoroz, Slovenia: September 28- October 2, 2002. Abstracts due July 10, 2002. See: http://www.ssem-society.si/firstann.htm; or contact: Mojca Sojar, Kongres d.o.o., ECEM Secretariat, C. Dolomitskega odreda 44, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; tel: +386 1 257-4555; fax: +386 1 257-6303; e- mail: kongres@siol.net.
Wilton Park Conference on Preparing for Natural Disasters: Reducing the Risks. West Sussex, U.K.: September 9-11, 2002. Hosts: IFRC, DFID and the U.K. Advisory Committee on National Disaster Reduction. The conference will bring together 60-70 people from a large number of countries involved in preventing disasters and mitigating their effects, sharing best practice and identifying areas where policy and practice could be improved. See: http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk; or contact: Bernadette McBride, +44 1903 817765; e-mail: Bernadette.mcbride@wiltonpark.org.uk.
International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) 2002 Annual Meeting. Columbus, Ohio: October 12-16, 2002. See: http://www.iaem.com/2002_mid-year_program.html; or contact: IAEM, 111 Park Place, Falls Church, VA 22046; (703) 538-1795; fax: (703) 241- 5603; e-mail: info@iaem.com.
74th Annual Meeting Eastern Section, Seismological Society of America (SSA). Host: Weston Observatory and Department of Geology and Geophysics, Boston College. Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts: October 20 22, 2002. Abstract submission deadline: September 13, 2002. For information on abstract submission and general conference information, see: http://www.bc.edu/esssa; or contact: Alan Kafka (kafka@bc.edu) or John Ebel (ebel@bc.edu).
Emergency Response 2002 Conference and Exhibition. Host: Rotor and Wing [formerly Search and Rescue] Magazine. Jacksonville, Florida: December 11-13,2002. See: http://www.emergencyresponse2002.com.
ERES 2003 Fourth International Conference on Earthquake Resistant Engineering Structures. Ancona, Italy: September 22-24, 2003. See: http://www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2003/eres03/index.html. Paper Deadline: 28 March 2003. Contact: Conference Secretariat, ERES 2003,Wessex Institute of Technology, Ashurst Lodge, Ashurst Southampton, SO40 7AA, U.K.; tel: 44 (0) 238 029 3223; fax: 44 (0) 238 029 2853; e-mail: gcossutta@wessex.ac.uk
.
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