Research and Practice Highlights

When this nation sought to promote nuclear power to its citizenry, it promised “electricity too cheap to meter!” No one could anticipate how industry disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could create such fear of the nuclear power industry in the minds of the public, or how the Three Mile Island mishap and the Chernobyl disaster would provide lessons learned and applied to the nuclear power industry decades later. Understanding how lessons learned from past experience are remembered in a nuclear power station provided insights into that organization’s collective memory. My research provides results of a study that sought to understand how operating experience of significant organizational mishaps are disseminated in the training function of one nuclear power station. The findings of this study are relevant to other industries using complex technologies. 

In recent decades, scholars have significantly advanced our understanding of factors that shape disaster vulnerability among older adults. However, researchers have not paid sufficient attention to these individuals’ subjective experiences of disaster or the role they play in responding to such events. Further, little is known about how elders recover from extreme events over the long term. I address these gaps in the literature by exploring disaster response and recovery among older adults who were affected by the 2013 floods in Boulder County, Colorado.

My research draws upon data collected through 42 interviews with flood survivors aged 60 years and older, 30 interviews with key community stakeholders, and content analysis of more than 100 items. I find that networks of senior-serving organizations and the social capital accessible through them can play an integral role in circumventing barriers to elders’ recovery. However, these resources are contingent upon the community setting. I analyze seniors’ narratives to highlight the ways in which they utilize social ties to cope with challenges and adapt to changing conditions in the post-disaster environment. Additionally, I explain how the recovery process unfolds within and is thus shaped by community conditions. Finally, I identify factors that influence seniors’ capacity for individual resilience and contributions to community resilience. This research complicates the discourse about disaster vulnerability and calls attention to the importance of engaging seniors as conscious stakeholders in disaster settings rather than dismissing them as passive victims.

Disaster preparedness among vulnerable populations, such as those that are homebound, is important to a community’s resiliency. Agencies working with the homebound are tasked with supporting preparedness, often with complex and lengthy guidelines. Toolkits translate best practices into evidence-based care, which may address the complexity of existing guidelines. This study examines the utility of a Disaster Preparedness Toolkit amongst Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Home-Based Primary Care (HBPC) programs. An on-line survey of all VHA HBPC programs across the United States was used to request feedback about the Toolkit’s helpfulness and relevance. Information about the HBPC program respondent’s length of time with the HBPC program and the frequency with which the program had to implement a disaster protocol provided further contextual information. The responses (N=77) indicated that helpfulness of the Toolkit was associated with fewer years with the HBPC program (p<0.05). Of those who implemented their program’s disaster protocol most frequently, half reported their program to be very robust (p<0.05) and two-thirds strongly agreed that the Toolkit was relevant. Conversely, of those who implemented very infrequently or never, 23 percent strongly agreed that the topics covered in the Toolkit were relevant to their work (p<0.05). The HBPC Disaster Preparedness Toolkit helps support programs as they fulfill their preparedness responsibilities, especially for programs that implement disaster protocols most frequently and for practitioners that are fairly new to their position in HBPC. Furthermore, engaging all members of the team with their specific expertise could serve to strengthen a patient’s personal preparedness plan.

The United States faces significant challenges to enhance the resilience and protection of its critical infrastructure and ultimately strengthen the resilience of the Nation. Impacts from natural hazards and manmade threats to the Nation’s critical infrastructure systems are of particular concern. Enhancing the protection and resilience of U.S. infrastructure has emerged as an urgent goal particularly challenging due to the complexity of these systems.

Argonne National Laboratory’s (Argonne) Resilient Infrastructure Initiative seeks to promote computation, engineering, and analytic approaches for reducing the risk and detrimental consequences from natural hazards and long-term challenges, such as climate change. The vision of Argonne’s Resilient Infrastructure Initiative is to advance the science and technology needed to enable the resilient design of future infrastructure systems. To achieve this vision, Argonne is focused on three goals:

Goal 1: Build Innovative National Capabilities – Develop next-generation infrastructure models that properly consider all hazards and integrate dependencies and interdependencies among lifeline infrastructure systems.

Goal 2: Create Resilient Infrastructure User Facility – Build upon and serve as the integrator in applying science and engineering to deliver infrastructure analyses to government agencies, private sector partners, and non-governmental and research organizations.

Goal 3: Drive Development of New Materials and Technologies – Drive development of new materials and technologies through simulations and standards development.

As part of this Initiative, Argonne’s first research and development project focused on automating and integrating existing electric power and natural gas systems modeling to anticipate cascading failures of critical infrastructure systems and support the analysis of infrastructure security and resilience.

For more information, please see http://www.anl.gov/egs/group/resilient-infrastructure.

When faced with natural disasters, communities respond in diverse ways, with processes that reflect their cultures, needs, and the extent of damage incurred by the community. Local-level processes drive decisions about mitigating future flood risks, such as if, how, and where to rebuild, as well as changes in zoning practices, building codes, and public outreach programs. 

By following the response to catastrophic floods that happened in September 2013 in Colorado, across seven flood-affected communities, we examine how communities are recovering, the processes they are using during recovery, and the resulting policy changes that take place. Our initial findings suggest that the extent of policy learning may depend on how communities engage with stakeholders and the public in post-disaster recovery; how differences in extent of damages and resource capacity have led to a diversity of venues and participatory processes to manage flold recovery across the case communities; and how coalitions of stakeholders working to advocate for policy change focused on community flood recovery are likely to form after emergency response is concluded, and more likely to form in communities with prior political participation and homogenous populations. Additionally, state government entities are working to create collaborative coalitions seemingly to encourage such social capital production, but these top-down coalitions do not appear to be achieving the same type of policy success as the organic coalitions that have emerged in some communities.

This research focuses on the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods of social vulnerability analysis aligned with greater inclusion of underrepresented communities in the hazard assessment process. Based on work in Guyana, South America, it facilitates and describes Guyana's effort to integrate local and regional governments into hazard analysis. Representatives of the national disaster management body, local and regional governments, and indigenous communities are involved from hazard identification and ranking to vulnerability analyses.

So far these analyses have revealed high levels of physical vulnerability for critical facilities, data gaps, negative externalities across state borders and indigenous populations, and general exclusion of indigenous communities from the regional planning process. Outputs are currently being used by the national disaster management organization’s operations and training staff in the study areas. The research continues to strive for the necessary balance to integrate hazard assessments in policy making at all levels; successfully marrying academic research and local policy development.

My current interest lies in the juncture of popular culture, women's networks and disaster risk management, especially around communication, public education, and outreach. The new Disaster Quilting Project website I created stems from a long-standing interest in how textile artists have reflected on human rights and social justice issues and increasingly on environmental hazards and disasters of all kinds. 

The disaster quilting project is internet-based, building on my previous research on women's disaster work, community mobilization, long-term recovery and post-disaster leadership. Appreciating the many functions and diverse forms of disaster quilting, as a speaker on the Memorializing Disaster: Monuments, Quilts, and Other Markers panel, I will focus during this short illustrated talk on how disaster quilters memorialize disasters of different kinds and why it matters. I look forward to facilitating a conversation about how practitioners and quilting networks might collaborate in the interest of creative and grounded disaster risk reduction.

This project examines the potential for quantifying the degree of social disruption and varying paths toward system restabilization by using data routinely collected by municipalities. Social disruption was measured by studying monthly patterns of water consumption, sales tax revenue, and crime data following the 2013 EF-5 Moore, Oklahoma tornado and the July and August 2012 wildfires in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Using two similar cities experiencing different disaster agents provided an opportunity to establish important similarities and differences in the level of social disruption created and how this disruption is manifested in the different “rhythms of life” within a city. This research was grounded on previous work related to social time, social routine, and disaster. This study documents how different components of both cities re-established the rhythm of life resulting in a similar but new normal.

People and governments worldwide want to provide help when disaster strikes. While international assistance and partnerships are seen most often during natural disasters, countries also help during chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) accidents, such as the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi reactor accident, or intentional acts, like the 1995 sarin gas attacks in Tokyo.

Despite having the will and the capabilities to help, international response sometimes fails to realize its full potential. Around the world, those in national governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations seek to build resilience to and better responses for CBRN events to (1) save lives and alleviate or minimize human suffering; and (2) deter intentional attacks through a stronger, more effective response.

The National Academy of Sciences is partnering with Japan’s National Research Institute for Earth Sciences and Disaster Reduction (NIED) and Niigata University (NU) to organize an exercise to improve international resilience to CBRN events. This cooperative effort will culminate in a scenario-based tabletop exercise in 2017 that involves a fictional major chemical event in the Tokyo area, as well as related cascading events. It will emphasize the roles of communication, coordination, and information sharing among responders and assisting organizations, and participants will identify multinational approaches for building resilience and more efficient responses to CBRN events.

This project aims to include specialization (chemical or biological or radiological/nuclear) into existing all-hazards preparedness and response, enhance communication and coordination among government and non-government resources and capabilities in the international context, share technical data and information in a timely manner (which includes documenting lessons learned from experiences), and identify alternative strategies for strengthening international partnership for improved CBRN resilience.

The Infrastructure and Climate Network (ICNet) is a novel National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network (RCN) of over 100 academics, students, and public and private practitioners who are dedicated to accelerating climate science and engineering research in the Northeastern United States. The ICNet was established in October 2012 to address the challenge of linking emerging climate science information more successfully to the needs of infrastructure engineering design research, education and practice. This project focuses on climate change and sea level rise impacts and adaptation for sustainable bridges, roads, and transportation networks. Through the collaboration across the disciplines, ICNet has explored novel ways of portraying climate model findings in practice-relevant formats, developed model examples of using climate model output for applied transportation problems, produced a series of accessible webinars on understanding the climate science, the use of GCM and downscaled model information and the issue of extreme event trends, and conducted four annual workshops for a growing network of academic, state and federal agency and professional participants. 

Access to these materials is at www.theicnet.org NSF Award #1231326, 10/1/2012—9/30/2016.

Increased global and local capabilities, strategically coordinated by national governments, can economically enhance Disaster Risk Management (DRM).

DRM is undergoing noteworthy changes, reflecting the broader shifts in global and local levels of governance. At the global level two significant changes are of interest: (1) the shift from monolithic structures of global governance to a wide range of organizations that can be brought together for specific purposes and (2) the emergence of a globalized system of DRM, with technological, organizational, and institutional capacities enhancing DRM’s ability as a unit in near real time across the globe. At the local level there is an increase in ability to govern and develop creative solutions for complex problems that follow rapid urbanization. The importance of getting the global–local interface to work in tandem has been highlighted by recent large scale disasters. From a broad view, a strategic role is becoming clearer at the national level for enhancing the relationships between the global and local levels. Through the influence of a globalized system of DRM, the local level can significantly improve its capacity without the heavy investment that might have been required to develop these capacities in isolation. One key to achieving this is a diffusion of DRM higher education, supported by an enhanced system of information flow.

Project Metropole is a cooperative NSF and Belmont Forum/G8 action research project involving coastal city research sites in the United States, England, and Brazil. The American lead is at the University of South Florida, College of Marine Science. 

The project goes beyond studying beliefs about climate change impacts, to engaging stakeholders in analysis of the benefits and costs of taking action to reduce future losses and the issue of how to pay for action. In partnership with local authorities in each site, the research team develops detailed models of expected cumulative damages to study area property from storm surge and sea level rise to the year 2060, using the COAST tool (Coastal Adaptation to Sealevel rise Tool) originally developed at the New England Environmental Finance Center to visualize and communicate findings to local stakeholders. Stakeholder groups participated with the research teams in choosing key parameters for adaptation projects (i.e., hazard mitigation) which included flood proofing, elevation, retreat buyouts or seawalls depending on the sites. Avoided losses versus adaptation costs over time are reviewed with participants who provide preferences for action and public finance strategies for funding. 

Results in the completed U.S. segment show strong preferences for local finance approaches that meet the “rational nexus” test—raising funding from those who benefit from hazard reduction rather than from general revenue sources. This raises issues because climate adaptation has broad and intergenerational benefits, but the results also show some willingness to use long-term bonding for mitigation investments.

When the terrorist attacks struck New York City on September 11, 2001, boat operators and waterfront workers quickly realized that they had the skills, the equipment, and the opportunity to take definite, immediate action in responding to the most significant destructive event in the United States in decades. For many of them, they were “doing what needed to be done.”

This study shows how people, many of whom were volunteers, mobilized rescue efforts in various improvised and spontaneous ways on that fateful date. Through fieldwork and interviews with 100 people involved in event, this book provides remarkable insight into the evacuation and its larger implications for the entire practice of disaster management. They come away making a strong case for the Emergent Human Resource Model of disasters.

The authors ultimately examine how people—as individuals, groups, and formal organizations—pull together to respond to and recover from startling, destructive events. This study asks, What can these people and lessons teach us about not only surviving but thriving in the face of calamity? Among the answers is an exploration of the role of identify and master status, the importance of shared knowledge, rule breaking with vigilance, and a culture of flexibility.

This research examines the dynamics of risk communication during 2015 South Korea Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS) outbreak response. South Korea suffered from MERS, a novel infectious disease in 2015 and the outbreak resulted in the quarantine of 17,000 people, 186 cases confirmed, and a death toll of 38. After the national public health authority failed to control the transmission of infectious disease from the first-confirmed patient, While the Korean national government and agencies have the overall responsibility for the MERS response, it is unclear as to how the principal agency had to coordinate the joint efforts from all levels of governments. The paper identifies the pattern of the intergovernmental communication network based on a survey of 169 governmental organizations. The analysis results of the network data show that national and subnational governments build closed-knitted structures and directly interact with high-status organizations in order to secure core information during the outbreak response. In addition, semi-structured interviews with eleven South Korea officials highlight administrative challenges of intergovernmental communication that the governmental organizations confronted during the outbreak response. The interviewees reported that governmental agencies suffered from different organizational goals and different information standards, and the limitations of information system. The research findings contributes to the understandings about the interactions across organizations in addressing the needs of the public health emergencies that require intensive information exchange. The lessons from the findings will provide important lessons in the public health emergencies in South Korea as well as other countries. 

On September 4, 2011, a wildfire ignited in Bastrop County, Texas, resulting in losses of 34,068 acres of land and 1,645 homes and two deaths. At the request of the Texas Department of State Health Services Health Service Region 7 and the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management, Community Assessments for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) were conducted in the weeks following the wildfire and again 3 1/2 years later to assess both the immediate and long-term public health and preparedness impacts of the wildfire. 

The objective of these assessments was to learn more about the trajectory of disaster recovery, including rebuilding, evacuation, household emergency planning, and mental and physical health outcomes among both adults and children. In 2015, households exposed to the 2011 wildfires were significantly more likely to have established a family meeting place and evacuation route, to have confidence in the local government's ability to respond to disaster, and to report symptoms of depression and higher stress. Preferred sources of local news and information, methods of emergency communication, and evacuation locations were assessed and could be leveraged to inform future disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery activities. Longitudinal assessments using the CASPER method can provide actionable information for improved planning, preparedness, and recovery to public health and emergency management agencies and community residents.

We have installed a dense network of 84 accelerometers in central Himalayas covering a window of about 100 Km X 45 Km. These sensors are streaming data 24/7 through OFC cable to our central station at Roorkee. All sensors have been connected and integrated to the central server located at IIT Roorkee by using Earthworm platform. Earthworm, developed by United States Geological Survey, is an open source program where several modules are available and need based modules can be developed in-house. Using this functionality of Earthworm, the central server has been configured and EEW system for Northern India has been developed by using and modifying already available program as per our need and requirement. A module first picks the onset of earthquake then calculates peak displacement (Pd), peak velocity (Pv) and peak acceleration (Pa) of P-wave for a three second time window. Other modules estimate the epicentral distance, focal depth and size of earthquake. If all the parameters are satisfied it creates an earthquake report file. For decision making, if the weighted average of the estimated magnitude from four nearest stations is found to be greater than 5.5, report files are created in a directory named ISSUE_WARNING while other reports for which estimated magnitude is less than 5.5, files are created in different directory named WATCH. This system is capable of issuing warnings in about 70 seconds to Delhi and in several tens of seconds to number of thickly populated cities of the region. As of now, we are working on dissemination of EEW warning within the campus of our institute using sirens connected through intranet.

Comprehensive storm surge protection infrastructure systems have proven effective in protecting coastal communities from flooding. Due to size and required system contiguity issues, many systems have resulted in adverse ecological and cultural effects such as disturbances to water exchange, increased land cover conversion, habitat fragmentation, physical and visual coastal disconnection, decreased beach area and challenges to commercial and tourism activities.

This research investigates landscape integration strategies for a proposed comprehensive storm protection system for the Houston-Galveston region of Texas. This system, called the Ike Dike (Named after Hurricane Ike in 2008), is a projected six-billion dollar coastal spine which projects to protect a region with  more than six million people and the nation’s second-busiest port from a 10,000-year flood. While the protection of the population is the primary goal of the coastal spine, integration of the infrastructure into the landscape is also a key objective. Multi-functional strategies and program options are being established to achieve this integration including a mixture of fortified dunes, seawalls and channel gates.

This research evaluates both structural and non-structural mechanisms for ecologically and culturally integrating the proposed surge protection infrastructure. Evidence is drawn from case study comparisons of related efforts in the Netherlands. This evidence is then applied to Galveston Island, Texas, as a test site. Results suggest that the surge infrastructure could be implemented with relatively minimal impact on connectivity and natural processes while increasing development opportunities if non-structural mechanisms are emphasized.

My proposed project explores how vulnerable individuals, specifically Hispanic women living in Leadville, Colorado. and working in nearby ski resorts understand their risk to hazards, the concepts of resilience and disaster recovery, and how these perceptions align with the assumptions and constructs on which current conceptualizations of resilience are based at the state level.

This case study will contribute to the vulnerability literature and resilience literature through examining the relationship between vulnerable individuals and their experiences with disasters, the burdens they deal with on a daily basis, and the resources they may mobilize during disasters and afterward.

By examining these factors, this study will also contribute to a concrete understanding of how building resilience in vulnerable communities, specifically in Colorado, can either facilitate or hinder their disaster recovery through, for example, conflating survival and resilience and thereby masking their continued vulnerability.

Controversy surrounding the latest technological advancements in oil and gas development is on the rise, but little is known about the relationship between how communities perceive the various risks and benefits of this development and how the development itself and perceived risks influence community stress and disruption. In an effort to fill this gap in the literature, this research analyzes the relationship between (1) how communities perceive the various risks of unconventional oil and gas development and (2) how the development itself and perceived risks influence community stress and disruption.

Using a combination of in-depth interviews and household telephone surveys, this research examines: (1) how community attachment, identity, sense of place, and ties to the natural environment affect beliefs and attitudes about oil and gas development activities; (2) how individuals and groups in communities evaluate risks of induced seismicity in the context of other risks; (3) what factors influence decision-making processes related to support/lack of support for oil and gas development; (4) what, if any, relationships exist between beliefs about oil and gas development, individual and collective stress, and social disruption; (5) what, if any, relationships exist between documented physical impacts of oil and gas development and risk perceptions; and (6) what, if any relationships exist between beliefs about economic impacts of oil and gas development and perceptions of risk.

On April 20, 2010, the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. Located about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the rig collapsed and ruptured its wellhead. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the event a “spill of national significance” and before the well was sealed almost three months later, an estimated 3.19 million barrels flowed into the Gulf and oiled more than 950 miles of the northern Gulf Coast. Similar to the aftermath of other human caused or technological disasters and toxic contamination events, there was initial and ongoing uncertainty surrounding the environmental, economic, and health impacts related to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DHOS).

This National Science Foundation-funded research examined the relationship between psychosocial stress (i.e., anxiety, uncertainty, social disruption, and psychological stress) and compensation processes—claims, settlement, and litigation activities—associated with the DHOS. In 2013, three years after the oil spill, this project collected data through a household telephone survey of 1,216 residents of coastal Alabama. Questions gathered information about involvement with claims, settlement, and litigation activities; vulnerability and exposure to the spill; ties to resources; resource loss and gain; perceptions of risk and recreancy; and psychological stress as measured by the Impact of Event Scale. Regression analysis revealed that the strongest contributors to stress were being part of the compensation process, resource loss, and concerns about oiled harvest areas and air quality.

This National Science Foundation-funded study examines the social impacts of the failure of a coal fly ash retention pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee in December 2008. This research examined social impacts associated with the coal ash spill—with a focus on social capital and psychosocial stress outcomes. Specifically, this project explored how experience with the disaster event; concerns about economic impacts, environmental damage; health; social disruption; community involvement; political engagement; institutional distrust; and sociodemographic characteristics are related to psychosocial stress. The longitudinal panel study included qualitative interviews (in 2011) and self-administered household surveys conducted at two points in time (2011 and 2014). The 2011 survey yielded a data set with 1,840 responses from residents of Roane and Anderson Counties in Tennessee; the 2014 survey obtained data from 1,263 of the original study participants.

This study involved exploratory research to examine the effectiveness of the tsunami awareness short video, The First Sue Nami, created by the Art Center College of Design for the Science Application for Risk Reduction division of the U.S. Geological Survey. The project involved developing and implementing an evaluation approach to provide data to inform future messaging and communication strategies for tsunami awareness and protective actions in target populations.

Overall, statistically significant differences were found in participants’ awareness of tsunami hazards, warning signs, and protective actions prior to (Time 1) and following their viewing of the Sue Nami video (Time 2). These findings indicate that participants reported higher levels of tsunami awareness after watching the Sue Nami video. Data also suggest that overall retention of this information was maintained four weeks (Time 3) after the initial viewing of the video. There were no statistically significant differences in tsunami awareness between the study participants who watched the Sue Nami video three times as compared to participants who viewed the educational video only once. There were also no statistically significant differences in levels of tsunami awareness at any of the three points in time between study participants aged 18-34 (the target audience for the video) and those aged 35+. Being Hispanic or Latino or not Hispanic or Latino did not appear to have an impact on participants’ reported tsunami awareness as measured by the Sue Nami questionnaire in this study.

This study will provide a conceptual and empirical base for the analysis of dynamic resilience—the ability to recover rapidly from a disaster. The focus is primarily on decisions and processes related to investment in repair and reconstruction:  whether to reinvest, where to reinvest, and how much and in what form, including reducing vulnerability to future disasters.  The research involves the development of a conceptual framework, the collection of primary data through a survey of businesses affected by SuperStorm Sandy in New York City as a case study, and statistical analyses of investment and its implications at the level of the individual business, economic sectors, and the regional economy.

The study will be the first to analyze these investment decisions  in relation to a comprehensive set of variables relating to investment needs, sources of funds, financial market conditions, future demand for their products, opportunities, ability to innovate, and key firm and community characteristics. We employ a series of research strategies and data sources to address these questions, including the use of data from aerial reconnaissance and satellite imagery to delimit areas of impact; microeconomic and ecological-economic analyses of investment; a survey of a randomly selected representative sample of businesses in the New York City region; macroeconomic modeling; and the collection and analysis of a range of relevant indicators from secondary sources. 

This study is sponsored by a grant form the U.S. National Science Foundation.

• Through an intersectional framework we can see the similar nature of the origins of environmental justice and disaster vulnerability research, as they stem from interlocking systems of oppression

• In this framework, the social impacts of disasters are born from pre-existing environmental justice conditions in a society

• This approach allows for a more holistic understanding of environmental harms and disaster vulnerabilities, to develop more than just planning, preparedness, response, and recovery and equitable outcomes in relation to the costs and benefits of environmental risks and disasters

This paper explores the origins and expansions of environmental justice and disaster vulnerability literature, and proposes the utilization of an intersectional framework as a tool for addressing a similar issue—subdisciplinary areas of research that have moved forward on parallel, yet infrequently overlapping paths. I explore both practical and theoretical issues that stem from the disconnect between environmental justice and disaster vulnerability literatures, positing that through a sociological lens all disasters exist first as issues of environmental justice. 

Furthermore, I propose that a systematic discussion on interlocking systems of oppressions gets at the root of issues in both literatures, and has the potential to merge and improve these literatures at a critical time when climate science suggests we will see increasing rates of environmental risks, hazards, and disasters—and as a result, environmental migration. By utilizing an intersectional framework to merge these areas of research, we can develop a more holistic understanding of environmental harms and disaster vulnerabilities, to develop more just planning, preparedness, response, and recovery and equitable outcomes in relation to the costs and benefits of environmental risks and disasters. 

The Pacific Northwest is ill-prepared for the impending subduction zone earthquake because the last one struck before Euro-American settlement. Responsiveness to this hazard must be spun up among diverse constituents in the absence of first-hand experience. Simple and consistent messaging is a mainstay of public service announcements like those used in anti-smoking, anti-drunk driving, or condom use campaigns. However, appropriate earthquake preparations depend strongly on individual circumstances, and true resilience-building requires cooperation at a variety of scales. Thus, simple earthquake preparation prescriptions are either seriously incomplete or too generic to be very useful: they suffer from weak “push.” On the other hand, few busy citizens besieged by more immediate concerns will seek detailed information from websites or informational videos. However straightforward and easy to understand such materials may be, their “pull” is weak.

Building on studies of framing, persuasion, source-trust, and entertainment-education, we are mapping out a narrative-based, multi-media campaign whose imaginary but information-rich story arc spans the future Cascadia event. The fictional format allows diverse circumstances and decision pathways to be played out and experienced emotionally, albeit from a safe distance. By emphasizing strategies mirroring entertainment programming and leveraging new media communication structures (e.g., memes, trailers, or websites curating storyworld content), we aim to increase the “pull” of earthquake messaging. We are currently researching content based on current thinking in science, engineering, emergency management, and disaster studies; plotting the campaign’s storyline and structure; and beginning to test the psychological efficacy of existing and preliminary new media pieces.

Two current research projects described here focus on different perceptions of disasters. The first project investigates underlying factors of tornado risk perception. This research tests the influence of latent factors (weather salience, information seeking behaviors, degrees of tornado experience) alongside typical factors (gender, race/ethnicity, place of origin) on the dependent variable, risk perception. Survey data (N=501) is analyzed through structural equation models. The analysis controls for the effects of warning color scheme and respondent location, which is one unique aspect. Additionally, most risk perception studies engage chronic hazards and vague threats. This project bridges risk perception and warning response literatures by investigating a rapid onset hazard within a precise warning context. (Collaborators include Kevin Ash, University of South Florida, and Gregg Bowser, Obsidian Analysis).

The second study explores residents’ perceptions about long-term recovery, posing two basic questions: What does recovery mean to residents? And how do residents’ assessments of recovery compare to assessments based on quantitative indicators? Mississippi Coast residents (N=34) impacted by Hurricane Katrina participated in photo elicitation and semi-structured interviews in 2013-2014. Discourse analysis identified six distinct meanings of recovery. Participants (N=28) also engaged in participatory mapping to locate community features illustrative of recovery successes and failures. Using Geographical Information System (GIS) aggregation and self-organizing maps, recovery speed and outcome indicators computed from residents’ mapped features were compared against tract-level quantitative indicators (housing construction, repopulation, home repair, home sales). Study findings make theoretical and methodological contributions to recovery knowledge. (Research was directed by Susan Cutter, University of South Carolina, NSF-DDRI #1301830).

Technological hazards include industrial (e.g., chemical spill, radiation), transportation, and other miscellaneous ones (structural failure, explosions). Such hazards are human-induced threats to living organisms and environments. Reducing the impact of manmade hazards involves all phases of emergency management, such as emergency/disaster preparedness for, response to, mitigation of, and recovery from disasters. Effective and efficient emergency management requires scientific risk assessments at proper spatial and temporal scales. 

This research aims to develop an expected risk analysis model, including a base sub-model (BM) and a location quotient sub-model (QM), for nearly 200 countries of the world, using the technological disasters recorded in the EM-DAT database for the period 1900–2013. The models produce consistent estimates of country-level expected risks in fatalities, injuries, persons affected, and economic losses. The sub-models are compared using their results to the observed tech hazard impacts. The comparison in scatter plots and correlations indicates that the sub-models perform well because the results from BM and QM are very consistent between them and against the observed data. The country spatial distributions of technological risks also align well with the actual tech disaster occurrences and outcomes. The Asian countries (India, China, Bangladesh, and Japan), the North American countries (US, Mexico, and Canada), the European nations (Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Belgium), African countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, and Congo) and Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Turkey, and Egypt) are among the world top hot spots. The models suggest that they are reasonably good alternatives to existing risk analysis models.

Over decades, at least in the development assistance projects in developing countries and more recently in some international disaster response programs, lessons have been learned about the importance of knowledge of the cultures (both the ‘providing culture’ and ‘recipient culture’) and of local participation in the decision-making and how these approaches improve effectiveness of the assistance. Presenting even more challenges are those situations in cultures and countries where conflict is already a factor, when a natural or man-made disaster occurs.

Using participatory methodologies and action research in floods in Bangladesh, an earthquake in Pakistan/Kashmir and war reconstruction in Afghanistan, fulltime practitioner and independent consultant social anthropologist Jane Thomas, acts as an facilitator, advocate, intermediary or broker between the outside helpers (donor agencies, NGOs, consulting firms, governments, experts) and those who need the help. This research is then used to mobilize communities and guide assistance projects to get desired results. One particular project is highlighted, the USAID Pakistan Earthquake Reconstruction and Recovery Program, which depended heavily on in-depth research and practice with engineers to integrate cultural, social and technical considerations in reconstruction and recovery.

A main strength of the action research approach is empowerment of the communities even in conflict and/or disaster. It follows the premise that while constructing (or reconstructing), for example, their own road (houses, school, irrigation channel, clinic, tree nursery, playground, library, event, idea, proposal, plan, activity, etc.) members are also building their community institution, supporting their own (disaster) recovery and may equip and motivate them for more development of their own choice.

Community involvement is increasingly being recognized as an important component of activities that take place throughout the hazards cycle. As a consequence, both government and the private sector have made investments in community engagement activities. For instance, FEMA has integrated a “whole community” approach in its policies and programs aimed at reducing disaster risk. Despite these increased investments, however, there remains a paucity of research that details the specific outcomes of whole community approaches. As such, there remains no systematically gathered evidence that indicates what the returns are on such investments, constituting a need to develop a framework for evaluating and assessing whole community approaches and the subsequent benefits of these efforts.

In response to this need, the Natural Hazards Center, in partnership with Resources For the Future, has initiated a project with the following goals: to develop approaches for assessing the return on investment (ROI) of whole community engagement in emergency management; to employ those approaches in a pilot community that will be selected in consultation with FEMA; and to develop a suite of products to inform the emergency management and disaster risk communities of developments in the field and provide guidance on the use of ROI methods.

The project outcomes are intended to not only develop a pioneering methodological framework, but also to empirically establish the wide range of direct and indirect benefits associated with whole community engagement, and furthermore, to develop streamlined and accessible materials for practitioners involved in whole community emergency management and risk reduction.

According to a 2002 study that cited a National Fire Incidence Reporting System dataset, as many as 8,400 dump and landfill fires or thermal anomalies have been annually reported in the United States (FEMA 2002). This paper studies a Subsurface Smoldering Event (SSE) reported on December 23, 2010, at the Bridgeton Sanitary Landfill in northwest St. Louis County, Missouri, using Landsat Thermal Infrared (TIR) raster data downloaded from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) database. These data were digitally processed with ArcGIS 10.2 and Erdas Imagine 2015 raster imaging software to render and detect changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST) before and after the incident was reported by the owners of the facility. Thirteen scenes of Landsat 5 and 8 data between 2003 and 2015 winter months (coldest months on record: November–March) were processed with the above mentioned software to derive At-Satellite Surface Temperature for a temporal comparison. Analyses of scenes recorded between 2009 and 2011 indicate a clear change and increase found in LST for the landfill in question. More current scenes between 2013 and 2015 show that the SSE has subsided but is still active. Furthermore, the SSE has also concentrated in the southeast sector of the landfill. 

The purpose of this research is to shed light on the distinctive experiences and needs of a population that is poorly understood, particularly with respect to disasters and their effects. Although homeless populations are mentioned in studies of disaster vulnerability, discussions of their unique experiences, capacities, and vulnerabilities are often referred to tangentially. In an effort to address this gap in the literature, this research explores the experiences of pre-disaster homeless individuals and homeless service organizations (HSOs) during and following the 2013 Boulder floods. In so doing, I draw upon over 75 hours of participant observation at HSOs, 25 interviews with community stakeholders (e.g., staff from HSOs and public officials), and 27 interviews with homeless individuals who were present during the floods. 

 This study is significant in that it will help to broaden the scope of knowledge on vulnerable groups, specifically homeless persons, in sociological studies of disaster. Furthermore, this research may also serve social service organizations and local officials in Boulder and other communities by informing and potentially guiding future policy decisions pertaining to disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery for homeless communities. The broader implications of this research speak to the growing need to understand the structural factors that create risk and vulnerability while simultaneously hindering efforts to enhance resilience. In an effort to bridge knowledge gaps between research and practice, I offer recommendations for HSOs in preparing for disaster. These recommendations, co-constructed with HSOs, may also be applicable to other community-based, non-profit social service organizations.

Agencies tasked with managing public resources must decide how to distribute those resources, drawing on their expertise while also weighing input from the public. This paper evaluates whether agencies respond to the salience of major events by mitigating risk closer in time and space to those events. We test for this manifestation of the salience of risk using wildfire mitigation in the Western US. We find that wildfire mitigation projects are placed close to fires that are close to human populations. This evidence of salience shows that the public shapes agency behavior in ways that may not be optimally responsive to risk.

In this research, physical disaster risk for houses and green houses were assessed based on flood, wind and snow damage, which are over 99 percent of the total natural disaster damage. Physical disaster risk is estimated by classifying the damage ratio of houses and greenhouses according to their amount of hazard. The damage ratio is calculated through vulnerability of houses and green houses that are exposed to natural disaster risk and intensity of hazard such as water depth, wind velocity and snow depth. Natural disaster vulnerability of houses and greenhouses developed by Ministry of Public Safety and Security (MPSS) and National Disaster Management Institute (NDMI) was used for this study. Also, the following: flood inundation, wind velocity, snow depth map were developed to calculate the intensity of a hazard. Physical risk is composed of 4 classifications according to the damage ratio. A value of 0 for the physical disaster risk under damage ratio indicates a safe status, a range between 0 to 20 percent signifies a warning, while a range of 20 percent but less than 80 percent symbolizes a status of dangerous and last but not the least a damage ratio higher than 80 percent results for a severely dangerous area.

Acknowledgement: This research was supported by a grant [MPSS-NH-2013-62] through the Natural Hazard Mitigation Research Group funded by Ministry of Public Safety and Security of Korean government.