International/Global Track

2008 Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop

The Role of Engineering Science in Mitigating Large-Scale Hazards

Moderator
Susan K. Tubbesing, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI)
Panelists
James E. Beavers, University of Tennessee
Jay Love, Degenkolb Engineers
Sue McNeil, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
Recorder
Andrea Dargush, Innovative Emergency Management, Inc.

Summary
The following questions were proposed to the speakers:

  • The implementation of technical/engineering knowledge is challenged on a number of fronts. Could you discuss some of the technical limitations, as well as other factors, that influence the effectiveness of engineering knowledge in disaster reduction?
  • New engineering techniques, new materials, and other high tech advances offer great potential for loss reduction, but often come at high financial cost. Who should pay for their benefits? Building owners, the municipality or community, or society at large through taxes, etc.?
  • In what ways has engineering science increased our vulnerability to natural disaster? Are we dealing with the long-term risks posed by increased reliance on technological innovation better today than we have in the past?

Beavers described a self-conducted analysis of the historical media assessments of engineering achievement—many of those collected reflected positively-perceived public contributions by the engineering profession. He followed by summarizing the engineers’ credo to do all for the public good. Many in the profession remain true to this credo and dedicate professional efforts to this end. He further referenced recent UN statistics that describe current urban population growth, the associated potential risk to communities due to natural and man-made disasters and the burden it adds to the engineering profession. Applications of new technology have been often blocked by costs, lack of understanding, and aversion to risk.

Love reviewed the responsibility of engineers empirically—specifically in light of California Senate Bill 1953 and the obligation it places on engineering and healthcare professionals as they strive to meet mandates to upgrade statewide healthcare facilities. He went on to describe the reluctance of U.S. engineers to adopt innovative engineering approaches, such as base isolation, which has been very effective in other countries. He discussed the cultural and political barriers engineers face in using approaches that can cost-effectively advance life safety construction and design. Engineers must address issues of public understanding and acceptance, life safety, time, and cost in meeting goals. Finding financial resources to effectively address these objectives is challenging.

Specific examples of similar California engineering works in progress were summarized, referencing potential impacts on communities and the role regulations can play in employing, advancing, or limiting innovation. Reduction of damages because of a nonstructural component system failure was emphasized as an area where significant progress in recovery and damage cost reduction could be made. While positive changes could be more easily demonstrated and implemented, improvements are often not readily embraced.

McNeil, a systems engineer and newly-appointed director of the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, encouraged increased interaction between engineering and the social science community when dealing with disaster reduction. She recommended a truly interdisciplinary approach to examining engineering efforts and provided several examples, including topical transportation engineering and transportation system health management. Focusing on the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, she stressed the importance of intelligent site planning for future engineering endeavors.

Following the brief presentations, several questions and issues were discussed by session attendees, including the following:

  • The application of a systems approach to review structural safety of healthcare facilities
  • Timely and insightful review of land use policies in siting and the subsequent design and construction decisions
  • Attentive review of past applications of innovative engineering and assessment of its effectiveness (e.g., fire-retardant roof tiles in the Oakland, California, wildfire) 
  • Addressing underlying presumptions, e.g., the general public’s mindset that the government and/or technology will “take care of us”
  • Attention to inter-organizational decision process stove-piping that potentially prohibits or limits communication about possible mitigation approaches and consequent engineering design/construction/retrofit decisions
  • Investigation of incentives needed to encourage engineering innovation
  • Critical attention to building owner communication and education regarding engineering issues
  • Increasing recognition of risk and liability and associated exposure are of paramount importance
A look ahead to performance-based design, an evolving engineering approach, could make a difference in conveying the importance of new engineering approaches

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Gender Specific Disaster Efforts

Moderator:
Laurie Laughy Pearce, University of British Columbia
Panelists
 Bethany L. Brown, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
Elaine Enarson, Brandon University
Emmanuel David, University of Colorado at Boulder
Roxane Richter, University of the Witwatersrand
Recorder
 Lynne Letukas, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center

Summary
The panel was asked to focus on the following questions:

  • How can the use of tools or interventions during or after disaster decrease the vulnerability of women while respecting their strength and resiliency?
  • There is often a fine line between engaging women in a strength-based approach and simply adding to their (often disproportionate) workload. How can research assist women and men in achieving equitable work distribution and contribute to overall recovery?
  • The realization that gender- and disaster-related issues exist is not something new. While there is always more to learn, in many cases what we know would help women hasn’t been implemented by those responding to disasters. When looking at the results of your research, what changes need to occur to translate key findings to action?
  • Based on your research, what areas for future research do you believe would be most useful from a North American and global perspective?

Roxane Ritcher’s research explores gender-focused strategies and intersections in a medical context. Specifically, she is interested in issues of gender, social justice, and health care and examining gender-based differences in emergency management and disaster relief planning.

Women have different disaster experiences than men and need different treatment and care. Some of these differences include resource access, gender division of labor, perception of disaster risk, social isolation, and increased post disaster burdens or chores.

There is a focus on sexual, biological, and physiological differences, but there is little focus on gender differences that help shape self-efficiency. We need to strengthen gender equity in disaster by looking at power and women. Ultimately, she believes we need to take a proactive approach to caring for women. After a disaster, women need drug counseling, domestic abuse counseling, OB-GYN care, ultrasounds, breast feeding supplies, feminine hygiene products, and clean underwear, among other things. She suggests distributing fact sheets so information is readily available to women and having supplies and services available following disaster. In addition, these gender savvy programs must be created with women, rather than for them.

Bethany Brown’s research uses resource dependency theory to explore how organizations respond to disaster response and recovery. Disasters affect groups and organizations differently. Organizations such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and domestic violence shelters routinely struggle to provide service. Staff burnout is typically high. It is important to understand that during crises when organizations are under acute resource shortages.

Brown examines three shelters in Louisiana—two of which were impacted by Hurricane Katrina and one affected by Hurricane Rita. One organization underwent significant changes following the disaster, one maintained its structure, and one underwent some change.

Brown’s findings show that dealing with intimate partner violence created a rich array of social capital networks that enabled these organizations to deal with crisis. Networks and capital gained over the years allows organizations to successfully evaluate resources before the storm and fare remarkably well, given their vulnerability before the storm. Her findings show organizations have knowledge and social networks to share with local, state, and federal organizations that could build strength on different levels.

Emmanuel David’s research focuses on the emergence of three upper-class women’s groups following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. David found that white, upper-class women were organizing in ways different than groups with fewer resources, many of which were focused on trying to return home or dealing with insurance companies.

A housewife started the first group, which was organized to clean up the streets. It began informally before thousands of volunteers joined the wealthy women. After a year, the organization had moved more than 250,000 tons of debris, and shifted to anti-littering campaigns. David said that, although this organization helped the community, we should be concerned about women doing unpaid work without the state taking over some of the activity.

The second was a group of upper-class women who sought to unify the levee board system. The third group was made up of self-organized women who flew to Washington, D.C., to pressure lawmakers to see the devastation in New Orleans first hand. In only 20 days, these wealthy women raised enough money to charter a plane to DC. Although most of the women were white and wealthy, there were some from economically, culturally, and racially diverse backgrounds. They delivered invitations to lobbyists and congress by hand. At the time of the invitation, more than 87 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives had not visited New Orleans, but by Fall 2007, more than over 120 representatives and 50 senators had taken them up on the offer. This research shows that it is important to recognize women with resources are powerful and have the ability to pressure lawmakers to bring about changes in law and policy.

Elaine Enarson’s research focuses on the creation of tools and resources for women. Enarson said checklists and resources are important for disaster preparedness, but was skeptical about how comprehensive they are and who uses them. She advocated for moving beyond checklists and getting emergency managers, researchers, and policy makers more involved in gender issues before a disaster. She pointed out that checklists are not cross-national and that research should examine checklists in different contexts. Checklists are typically sector-based and focus on one area when many areas are combined. Involving women as active partners in creating checklists and sharing knowledge with emergency managers and policy makers would be beneficial. The best checklists are not just response-oriented.

Questions/Comments:

  • Checklists can be problematic because of font size and because people don’t read them.
  • There was concern about too much discussion and too little action—gender cannot be synonymous with women. There is also a breakdown of race and culture. Women must take responsibility for their own preparedness and educate family and peers.
  • We need to look at the gender disadvantage the same way we would with disadvantages in other populations.
  • It is important to get more men interested in gender issues
  • Issues surrounding power and gender are very important. We should talk more about gender and women power relations and their role in influencing outcomes
  • We need more longitudinal and comparative work in gender and recovery

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The Urbanization Challenge

Moderator
Bill Anderson, National Research Council
Panelists
Monalisa Chatterjee, Rutgers University
Philip Berke, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Richard Eisner, Fritz Institute
Recorder
Hillary Smith, University of Florida

Summary
Panelists were asked the following questions to frame the discussion of the challenges of urbanization:

  1. What makes some areas disaster risk hot spots?
  2. What role does social stratification play in the distribution of risk among groups in urban settings?
  3. What is the role of government, the private sector, and civil society in enhancing disaster resilience in cities?
  4. What kind of research on urbanization and disaster risk is most needed to fill important gaps in knowledge?

Urbanization is a growing phenomenon. The opportunities provided by cities in education, employment, health care, and infrastructure has led to unprecedented rural-to-urban migration. Along with this shift, there are increases in vulnerability and resilience. It is important to remember that cities, urban populations, and informal settlements are not homogenous. The high concentration of opportunities and services provided are not equally distributed amongst the population.

All urban areas have potential for disaster, but some are at higher risk than others. The degree of risk is attributable to a dynamic combination of social and ecological factors. Social factors include stratification across ethnicity, class, isolation, and social networks. Social stratification does not just play a role in the distribution of risk and losses, but also the means of recovery. Increasing disparity can lead to decreased communication connectivity. Lack of communication causes increased isolation and disaster impact. It is also important to note that stratification is not inherently negative. Its dynamic nature can put groups at risk in one situation, but provide resilience in another.

The location of some cities put populations at high risk from natural processes. The advantages of transportation and the appeal of aesthetics have led to growth along coastlines, rivers, and seismically-active areas. Along with poor choice of location, human-constructed environments have changed natural ecosystem defenses. The mismanagement of natural resources and land has led to the destruction of the natural mitigation offered by wetlands, mangroves, and dunes.
             
The government, private sector, and civil society need to increase preparedness, partnership, and communication across communities and regions. Engaging all sectors is a necessity to address current and evolving gaps. Increases in research and connectivity are essential to understanding the total spectrum of disaster impacts. Enhanced partnerships will provide safety networks to reduce losses.

Future research should focus on vulnerable communities and the organizations that serve them by using longitudinal studies to better understand how to manage them. Collaboration between academics, as well as data sharing and coordination, could help establish standards and a holistic perspective; this could be accomplished by establishing a global network of living laboratories.
           
At this point there are no “model cities” for integrating solutions to the urbanization challenge. On a smaller scale, communities have created integrated disaster resilience that could be applied to a larger scale. The United Nations estimates 95 percent of the growth in the next 100 years will be in cities of less than 500,000 people. This leaves opportunities for smart growth with proper national and sector-wide planning.

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Remote Sensing of Catastrophic Events

Moderator
Steve Ambrose, NASA
Panelists
Bruce Davis, NASA Stennis Space Center
Charles Huyck, ImageCat Inc.
Pamela S. Showalter, Texas State University–San Marcos
Thomas J. Cova, University of Utah
Recorder
Eric C. Tate, University of South Carolina

Summary
Panelists were asked to focus on the following questions:

  • Government often addresses the role of providing remote sensing, but the private sector plays an important role in many ways. What is government doing right or wrong in ensuring the private sector is a full partner in public-private partnerships in remote sensing?
  • GIS capabilities have come a long way in the last few years, but we often find disaster response and recovery agencies don’t use it effectively. How can GIS be better integrated in both social and technical society, locally and internationally?
  • Climate change brings new questions of how society will adapt to changes. We have to deal with growing population and dwindling natural resources, particularly in the urban environment. How can we use remote sensing to better understand risks and help decision makers help society adapt to future climate extremes?

Remote sensing is pervasive in all phases of the emergency management cycle. Traditionally, the primary roles of government have been the provision and maintenance of data. Governments at various levels served, in essence, as data stewards. These roles, however, are increasingly being assumed by the private sector, with prominent examples including Google Earth, Doppler radar, and telecommunication companies. The increased availability of remotely sensed data is changing the control of information and leading to greater democratization of data.

The broad challenge in increasing use of GIS data is providing the right information to the right people in the right time frame. Success stories in have shared certain qualities, including:

  • Products that are simple in their presentation and without recommendations;
  • Data provided in meaningful time frames, depending on usage ranging from operational (hours, days) to tactical (weeks) to strategic (months, years);
  • Portable outputs—paper maps are still needed;
  • Emergency managers with technical knowledge, teamed with GIS analysts who have some understanding of emergency management

Going forward, government should work to increase the availability of data. Data sharing is usually ubiquitous during an event and in its immediate aftermath, but then tends to fade as the recovery process progresses. One impediment is the need, especially at the local level, for government to recover costs. More value-added services are needed in the private sector for the business model to work. One example is Google Maps Street View. In the near future, we can expect to have mobile devices that know where you are, with places such as restaurants and businesses indexed by location. As these public and private trends emerge, it will be important for the public to be vigilant about the protection of privacy rights.

Largely unaddressed by the panel was the use of remotely sensed data in adapting to impacts of climate change. The discussion period included more comments than questions. Audience members touched on the lack of high-resolution data in developing nations, trends pointing toward PDAs and cell phones becoming ubiquitous, and the lack of archival of perishable post-disaster data. One repeatedly-voiced theme was the challenges of incorporating remotely sensed data in response activities where emergency managers may not be technologically savvy and lack understanding of the data, techniques, and costs.

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