Research and Practice Highlights

The objective of this research is to develop new knowledge about migrants during the COVID-19 outbreak to enhance overall crisis management practices and risk mitigation strategies in U.S. college towns. The study aims to answer one main research question: “How did the COVID-19 outbreak impact the well-being of migrants in Gainesville, Florida?”. A qualitative methodology, involving semi-structured interviews, was chosen as part of an exploratory approach to the phenomenon being studied. In addition to reflecting on their struggles during the pandemic, the interviewees were asked about different symptoms of depression that they might have suffered from during the outbreak, and symptoms of anxiety disorders that they might be suffering from currently. The questions were based on previously validated questionnaire tools (PHQ-9 and GAD-7). The data collected were thematically analyzed, where the process involved a combination of deductive and inductive coding. Six main themes were found; emotional struggles, social and financial challenges, discrimination and inequality, lack of government and institutional support, communication challenges, and concerns about the COVID-19 Delta variant and the future. The research findings provide insight into the experience of culturally different groups who are underrepresented in disaster and pandemic studies. Our results show that the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the migrants’ well-being in the U.S. has been unique and significant. We also found that in order to have effective and equitable crisis management strategies, condemning racism repeatedly and publicly should be an essential part of the city’s response to COVID-19.

ShakeAlert is a U.S. Geological Survey-operated earthquake early warning (EEW) system currently available in California, Oregon, and Washington. The sensor-based system detects significant earthquakes quickly so that warnings can be issued before shaking arrives. The extra seconds of warning that ShakeAlert can provide allows people to take protective actions and automated systems to shut down. As part of a larger effort to expand the use of EEW by individuals and institutions, our study seeks to understand whether K-12 schools on the West Coast are ready, willing, and able to implement EEW. In Spring 2022, our team will distribute an online survey to all school district superintendents in Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington. The survey—which has been pilot tested by earthquake researchers, school district leaders, and state emergency managers across the four-state region—will collect data on: earthquake experience; earthquake safety, drills, and warnings in schools; knowledge and current use of ShakeAlert; adoption and funding of EEW; potential EEW opportunities in schools; potential EEW barriers in schools; EEW delivery channels; preferences for alert messaging; tolerance for false and missed alerts; and respondent and school district characteristics. Results from this survey will help to inform strategies to increase ShakeAlert uptake in K-12 schools, as well as the integration of this new technology into existing school drills and emergency plans. The ultimate goal of this longitudinal, multi-phase project is to advance the safety of school children and staff in earthquakes.

Abidjan’s climate conditions have worsened over time due to climate change, particularly in terms of two main shifts, floods, and droughts. In this essay, I analyze what was the main resilience issue that did not facilitate Abidjan to recover from one of its most recent floods in 2018. I argue that the lack of institutional preparedness and planned response at the local and national levels affected Abidjan’s response to the 2018 floods that the Ivory Coast suffered. The ineffective response caused the displacement of people to inland regions, economic suffering of families relying on family businesses, and disruption to social networks, affecting the city’s overall social capital. 

I included 20 mixed interviews in which I asked about the different responses to flooding by the local, the national, and the international institutions. The goal was to pursue an interdisciplinary model that looked at the institutional response and the possible areas where improvement is needed. Then, I looked at flood indicators, which helped me to create an ArcGIS map of Abidjan resilience to flood vulnerability per borough, divided into the different neighborhoods of the Ivory Coast capital. Lastly, I used the Flood Resilience Index (FRI) to analyze the overall qualitative resilience of Abidjan based on existing qualitative indicators. My findings point out that the role of international organizations was the most effective at assisting and contributing to a faster recovery in Abidjan, although it was not enough to counteract the lack of preparedness and inefficiency in Abidjan’s recovery process.

Natural disasters generate tremendous amounts of debris that negatively impact communities and overwhelm waste management infrastructure. Reasonable debris forecasts and estimates are critical to anticipate the management and disposal needs of a community following a disaster. However, detailed post-disaster waste data is often unavailable. In this study, a novel set of post-disaster waste in Beaumont following Hurricane Harvey, which included debris tonnages and coordinate locations of each debris removal in residential areas, were collected and investigated. The dataset was utilized to examine the factors that influenced debris generation, the amount of debris generated, and how those amounts compared to estimates from standard debris forecasting and estimation methods. The study found that elevation and proximity to flooding hazard played a significant role in the type of flooding experienced, and, in turn, the amount of debris generated. Areas in Beaumont that experienced inundation from river flooding rather than strictly urban flooding had higher water depths in homes and generated greater amounts of debris. The debris generated was overpredicted by standard debris forecasting and estimation methods. However, current forecasting and estimation methods are not meant to estimate debris from urban flooding. Urban flooding is an increasingly prevalent issue in many areas following a natural disaster and forecasting and estimation methods that consider urban flooding should be developed.

Many buildings were constructed before seismic standards or before current regulations and each building must be assessed for its seismic safety. Damage to buildings from earthquakes can endanger people's lives and cause economic losses. The fragility of each building needs to be determined before deciding on the precautions to be taken. When inspecting a large building stock, rapid visual screening (RVS) methods are used because detailed vulnerability assessment methods are computationally expensive and costly to assess each building. RVS methods must be implemented in order to decrease the damage that may occur during an earthquake. In this study, the effectiveness of building damage prediction using machine learning was investigated as a case study. The developed model was trained and tested using post-earthquake rapid visual building inspection data acquired after the 2009 Italy earthquake. This study revealed that the estimated building damage states correlated well with those determined after the earthquake.

Over the course of the pandemic, contact tracing emerged as a fundamental mitigation strategy to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Although increasing vaccination rates is the most effective strategy to reduce the presence of the virus. The emergency approval of vaccines, early in 2021, has brought forth concerns about how to determine one’s status, amid challenges to access and lack of trust to pharmaceutical solutions to minimize the spread. In NYS, two mobile applications have been introduced to assist with mitigation of COVID-19.  COVID Alert NY is a voluntary, anonymous contact tracing app. Excelsior Pass is a voluntary app that provides fast secure proof of vaccination. A key challenge to effective use of these apps relates to social policies that determine an individual's autonomy to participate. As such, cultural differences and social norms often govern citizens’ choice to adopt and use these apps.  Over the course of March and April in 2022, our team conducted focus groups with over 60 individuals, using the Antecedent-Privacy Concerns-Outcomes (APCO) framework and the perceived usefulness construct. Additionally, we recruited 100 individuals from Amazon Mechanical Turk located in New York State to answer a survey we developed to gather user perception of contact tracing methods/apps. Our findings explore what factors influence the individual level adoption of these apps, with particular focus on disparities in perception based on age and racial and ethnic minorities. The impact of our study will assist with effective mitigation efforts and the reduction of health disparities for future infectious disease outbreaks.

The HayWired earthquake scenario, led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), anticipates the impacts of a hypothetical, detailed, and scientifically plausible magnitude-7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault and its aftershocks. Publications related to the scenario highlight the societal consequences of damages and disruptions expected to result from such an event, including impacts to socially vulnerable populations. Although the USGS has established relationships with many of the potential audiences for HayWired throughout the scenario’s development, the agency has recently sought to emphasize inclusive engagement with diverse cultural and ethnic populations and other socially marginalized communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. As part of this strategy, the USGS partnered with the Natural Hazards Center (NHC) and the Bill Anderson Fund (BAF) to develop earthquake-related information products that are tailored for these communities and the organizations that serve them.

An interdisciplinary group of six BAF Fellows worked closely with HayWired and NHC personnel to: 1) conduct an environmental scan that identified stakeholder organizations and priority areas; 2) analyze publicly available documentation about selected organizations and conduct outreach to their representatives; 3) synthesize these analyses into summary profiles (also known as design personas) that highlight stakeholder motivations, priorities, competencies, and other key information; and 4) create six information products tailored to six categories of stakeholder organizations and their constituencies. These categories include:

•    Energy and environmental justice organizations

•    Grassroots community-based organizations

•    Mutual aid networks

•    Financial security programs for lower-income communities

•    Chambers of commerce

•    Public and mental health organizations

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released updates to the State and Local Mitigation Planning Policy Guides (policies). They are the official interpretation of the mitigation planning requirements in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act), as amended and other federal statutes as well in federal regulations, specifically Title 44 Code of Federal Regulations Part 201 Mitigation Planning.

Changes reflected in the 2022 update include:

• Inclusion of priorities, such as planning for future conditions, climate change, equity, resilience, and building codes

• Updated guidance and procedures that support states seeking enhanced status. Enhanced states demonstrate a comprehensive mitigation program and capability to manage additional federal mitigation funding

• Incorporation of new FEMA grant programs, such as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Post-Fire, and Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dam

• Strengthened connection with Fire Mitigation Assistance Grants

• Alignment with national initiatives and programs including the National Mitigation Investment Strategy

• Renewed focus on resilience to support communities in creating holistic plans that will help the whole community understand the importance of mitigation and develop mitigation actions based on current and future risks and capabilities

The updated policies become effective for all plan approvals one-year from the official releases. This provides for a one-year transition period for state and local governments to meet the new requirements for plans in process and new plans.

To learn more, visit FEMA’s Policy Update web page. 

The research study analyzed the impacts of Hurricane Harvey on the Houston metropolitan area from August 2017 to December 2017. It captured population activity data in the form of unique visits to points-of-interest (POIs). The selected POIs include essential and nonessential services, such as grocery stores, gasoline stations, education centers, and entertainment facilities, which could mitigate the negative impacts of a disaster or signal a return to normalcy in the affected community. These visits serve as a proxy to understand the combined effects of perturbations in lifestyle, the built environment, and businesses. Thus, the research methodology captures population activity through fluctuations in visits to quantity community resilience through three resilience metrics: (1) systemic impact is the maximum percentage change in the disruption of visits; (2) duration of impact is the number of days until visits return to baseline levels; (3) general resilience (GR) considers both systemic impact and duration of impact to generate a unitless measurement of resilience for the POIs. High resilience was categorized with low systemic impact, short duration of impact, and high GR, in contrast to low resilience. The results indicated that religious organizations, building supplies and dealers, and grocery stores had high resilience whereas entertainment centers and medical facilities had low resilience. Such resilience metrics bring valuable insight into prioritizing resource allocation and system restoration following a disaster. In addition, a similar approach could be applied to other communities and disaster contexts. 

The New Delhi International Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (ICDRI) in May 2022 highlighted work from the first authored CDRI Fellowship 2021-22 in a one-minute video. From that meeting, a white paper building on: 1) the published paper Reducing Indian Disaster Fatality by Ham Club Station in District EOCs; 2) Fail-Proof and Frugal Ham Emergency Communication and 2.1) Ham Club Station at Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India forthcoming in The International Emergency Management Society Annual Conference 2021 Proceedings; 3) Ham Club Station within District EOCs to Reduce Disaster Mortality presented at the 5th World Congress on Disaster Management 2021 will be published; 4) Celebrating 100 Years of Amateur Radio in India –Day 2 Hamfest India 2021 presentation video recording and 5) Abstract on Participatory Action Research to Install Amateur Radio Equipment within District EOCs submitted for ISA-RC39 Researchers Meeting, will be written. The paper will remove security apprehensions that the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing of the Indian Ministry of Communication may have about pre-installing amateur radio station within district emergency operation centers (EOC). Pre-installing amateur radio stations are akin to urban fire-fighting hydrant systems, which fire fighters operate. Similarly, during impeding or present communication failure during a disaster, amateur radio operators will go to district EOC and restore emergency communication. The outcome will be reduction of mortality, morbidity, and infrastructure losses. Equipment investment of only ~$3m or Rs33Crores is required for ~739 Indian district EOCs, a small amount given the maximum social benefit return.

Disaster studies and structural institutions like the media and government tend to focus on particular demographics when understanding vulnerability and victimhood, excluding many individuals in unique positions in the social and global stratification system. Black women stand at a unique juncture of having multiple converging identities and existing in numerous intersecting conditions, resulting in distinctive experiences. This project focuses on Black women from the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) who personally experienced the 2017 hurricane season. Specifically using focus group data, this study uses the intersectionality theory to highlight the barriers that disenfranchised groups face on multidimensional axes, thus providing context into creating more equitable programming and policies for disaster response and recovery. Findings illuminated complex and cascading consequences these communities face from continuous environmental hazards and disasters without the proper economic and political protections to limit their exposure to risks. Some consequences included an increase in post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other signs of suffering resulting in increased anxiety and distrust in local government officials and planning, issues with evacuation and forced displacement, or finding adequate shelter as housing infrastructure is fairly antiquated.

Small-scale public facilities such as rills, which are smaller than streams and brooks, the bridges and the diversion weir established in rills, and roads for accessing village and agricultural activities are established through the New Village Movement during the development period in the 1970s. These rills are old and at increased risk of collapse with increased rainfall due to climate change, which is contributing to higher casualties and property damage. All characteristics data, including watershed and risks information of the small-scale public facilities established by 50 local governments in Korea, are collected to evaluate whether existing design codes are suitable for climate change and changes in the local community environment. Existing facilities were installed according to the existing design codes for road and stream maintenance. This study enhances the design code for small-scale public facilities through the evaluation of existing codes, adding operational management guidelines, and mid-term comprehensive planning. It is expected that new design codes can be used for mid-term comprehensive planning to detect and set priorities for hazardous facilities, restoration of facilities to adapt to climate change, and support the sustainable development of local communities.

The Disaster Prevention and Protection Consultation Committee of the Executive Yuan (DPPCC) in Taiwan, made of 35 professionals from central government, academia, and NGOs, met from October 2020 -February 2022 and chose Disaster Management for Digital Transformation as the topic of its 10th policy recommendation. Through 23 meetings, they identified three steps to prioritize topics of disaster management for digital transformation. 1) Classified purpose of disaster management based on the current disaster management plans; capturing the whole picture of disaster management, avoiding the problem of “not seeing the forest for the trees,” and emphasizing purpose-oriented rather than technology-oriented digital transformation of disaster management. As a result, we identified 13 purposes. 2) Designed a questionnaire on the current situation of digital transformation of disaster management and collected data from 16 major governmental agencies of disaster management in July 2021. 3) Based on the results from the aforementioned steps, DPPCC gave suggestions on the aspects of the current system, training, execution, and data. DPPCC also recommended four priority topics for demonstrating a digital transformation of disaster management: (1) a people-centered topic, especially those related to volunteers, disaster relief, emergency medical, schools, and communities. (2) improvement of disaster management command center decision support system, e.g., establishing the user feedback mechanism and identifying priority functions in different stages of disasters. (3) Large-scale disaster simulation and exercise, e.g., linking disaster loss analyses to management, and developing simulation-based compound disaster drills. (4) Recovery and reconstruction, e.g., digital integrated databases of buildings and of disaster victims.

Since 2020, the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction in Taiwan has developed an online tool (https://drrstat.ncdr.nat.gov.tw/evaluation/evacuation) to achieve data-based disaster evacuation and shelter preparedness for local governments. This tool has two main functions: 1) the display of historical data and 2) estimation. This data includes the number of people who evacuated and sheltered during all typhoon or heavy rain events since 2011 and the number of warnings issued for possible floods. Users can select the data by region, disaster event, types of typhoon track, typhoon intensity classification, or year. This site also includes data since 2005 for warnings issued for possible landslides. Secondly, this site provides multiple methods to estimate the number of people in each county who would evacuate or need shelters based on historical data or the number of people who resided in potential disaster areas. Then the tool could further estimate the size of shelter space and volume of different types of supplies (e.g., food, bedding, and sanitary facilities) these people need when they are in shelters. The tool also compares the size of shelter space needed to that currently provided by the local governments and assigns a warning if the former is larger than the latter.

This study was to understand disaster risk of social welfare institutions for elders and disabled people in Taiwan over time. The National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) and Department of Social Affairs conducted a survey in 2011 about disaster risk of social welfare institutions. There were 991 (93.76% of the total) institutions that responded. The overlap of hazard and exposure was measured by disaster experiences and environment characteristics (e.g., near a cracked retaining wall, low-lying area, and aged buildings). The vulnerability was expressed by 1) power backup or shelter plan, 2) if there is no evacuation space above the second floor during a flood, and 3) the employee-resident ratio. Since 2013, several policies have been implemented, including the requirement of a disaster management plan and a disaster exercise annually. Then from 2017 to 2020, NCDR collected again the abovementioned information and 670 of the 991 responded. Comparing the two sets of results, the aged buildings decreased and there were more institutions having a shelter plan. There were no apparent differences in other aspects of hazard, exposure, or vulnerabilities. The disaster managers can further discuss if there is a need to find strategies to improve other aspects.

Marginalized populations are more likely to be vulnerable to disasters due to problems of geography and resources. These communities are considerably disadvantaged by a devolution of responsibility by government and having to do more with less. The combination of various demographic factors influenced by systemic racism and ill-fitting policies for rural areas affects the ability of these communities to mount comprehensive preparedness and mitigation efforts in the face of disasters. Yet, somehow, these communities have survived repeated impacts from disasters. This reality coupled with whether the participatory model program, the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), successful in predominantly white rural communities is also successful in rural communities of color, has not been thoroughly studied ad investigated.

This two-phased sequential mixed methods study research will examine the functionality of CERTs as a participatory planning tool for not only emergency management but for wider planning, community development, and community resilience in rural communities of color. The intent of this research will be to assess if there is a relationship between the existence of CERTs, household preparedness, race, and the spatiality of counties across the United States using regression analysis. The qualitative component will use ethnographic and participatory action research methods to explore best practices in rural resilience, hazard mitigation planning, and emergency management. Implications for practice include the development of a transformative product to better support planners and allied professionals to engage and partner with rural communities at risk.

It is crucial to ensure the safety of people with special needs in large-scale emergencies, especially those with disabilities and the chronically ill. Usually, those people stay in nursing homes. Those residents are significantly vulnerable to disaster impacts due to their mobility limitations, medical conditions, and daily assistance needs. Nursing homes have become one of the critical infrastructures that must remain operating after catastrophic events. A few studies have highlighted an urgent need for systematic vulnerability assessments to identify risks that are most likely to have an impact on healthcare facilities. However, these assessments are usually an all-hazard approach or single-agency based, and the evaluation results are only for healthcare organizations to develop their own emergency response plans and drills. Furthermore, recent earthquake events have shown the deficiencies in nursing homes’ abilities to prepare for and respond to catastrophic events. Likewise, the cascading effects of a major earthquake require a shared responsibility of regional health care system and disaster response coordination. 

This study explores a quantitative approach to seismic vulnerability assessment of nursing homes from a municipality perspective. With the integration of exposure and sensitivity analysis, an aggregate risk matrix is used to determine the most vulnerable areas in twelve municipalities in Taiwan. The findings would help local authorities to prioritize their emergency planning efforts based on understanding the attributable seismic risk and the geographical distribution of high-risk institutions. It also can facilitate collaboration among emergency services, health care system, resources suppliers, and evacuation or shelter-in-place decisions process.

For decades, social scientists have sought to understand how to best communicate information about disaster risk to a diverse public. While there is now a substantial body of research literature around this topic, this growing knowledge base does not always make it into the hands of hazard mitigation practitioners who could apply these lessons in their community engagement efforts. This means that core principles of risk communication are not always adopted and socially vulnerable populations—those that face disproportionate disaster risk due to a variety of historical, social, economic, and political conditions—may not receive actionable communications about disaster risk. This project is designed to close this research-to-practice gap and educate and empower a new generation of risk communication leaders.

Over the past three years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Natural Hazards Center partnered to develop evidence-based guidance that synthesizes existing risk communication research. To date, the team has produced an annotated bibliography, a guidebook that provides examples of key risk communication principles in action, and worksheets to help practitioners to apply the principles. Most recently, the team developed a six-session training course that incorporates three core evidence-based hazard risk communication principles for socially vulnerable populations. This interactive course is designed to guide practitioners in applying the risk communication principles to their own flood risk engagement activities. Through pre- and post-course evaluations, the Natural Hazards Center team will assess the effectiveness of the course, and associated materials, at facilitating the translation of research into practice.

As society is faced with increasingly complex and uncertainty-laden decisions, risk literacy is increasingly becoming a necessity for everyday life. Risk education represents a unique opportunity to address this need from the ground up. A risk education curriculum can be crafted to supplement traditional curriculum standards at various education levels by relying on well-established pedagogical approaches to equip students with the necessary skills for sound decision-making. Here we discuss a set of modules we've designed to introduce risk concepts to secondary school students while covering concepts related to regional natural hazards. We review best practices for implementing risk education in the classroom. Furthermore, we discuss the potential applications for risk education for other audiences. 

When governments confront the challenges of climate change and extreme wildfires they often fail to embrace and engage farmworkers, in particular, undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous migrants. They are disproportionately affected by racial discrimination, exploitation, economic hardships, less English and Spanish proficiency, and fear of deportation. Yet, few studies examine the consequences of disaster for undocumented migrants. In this project, we study how wildfires and agriculture pass programs can exacerbate existing inequities in Sonoma County, California.

This study explores the physical factors related to healthcare access that affect the social vulnerability of Puerto Rican communities. This effort includes the identification of key variables—such as transportation access, infrastructure capacity, and medical capacities—that measure the physical conditions to access healthcare. Through an empirical analysis of publicly available data in Puerto Rico, the study aims at exploring how these factors affect social vulnerability. 

This work studies healthcare access from a transportation engineering perspective and how these physical conditions, which are at the risk of failing after a disaster, affect the most vulnerable communities. By estimating the relationship between the physical factors and social vulnerability through data analysis, the public health and disaster responders can use existing datasets to identify the most socially vulnerable communities and tackle their immediate needs. 

The main empirical finding will help propose transportation-related strategies that prioritize the needs of the socially vulnerable communities. These findings are complemented with data collected from in-depth interviews and focus groups. As a result, this research will provide public health strategies that improve the urgent healthcare needs following a natural disaster.

The conceptualization of social equity in emergency management has been subjective to the user of the term. While the vagueness of the concept provides fertile grounds for intellectual debate, the failure to arrive at a single definition leads to an inability to measure it as a programmatic or policy goal. For emergency management, how scholars define social equity is profoundly important for assessing and making recommendations related to governmental practices that have the concept as its guiding principle. However, within emergency management literature, the concept of social equity is typically conflated with social vulnerability. Although these concepts are related, they are not the same. 

To address this detrimental definitional situation, our research systematically analyzes 15 years of social equity peer-reviewed articles in ten highly-ranked emergency management journals. Through the analysis of 68 articles, it is observed that the frequency of articles mentioning the term social equity has increased in the past two years. However, only five studies either define or operationalize social equity and nine studies provide potential indicators for measuring its presence in very specific emergency management-related activities. As a byproduct of the analysis, we synthesize a definition of social equity in the context of emergency management based on a combination of the analyzed literature and commonly accepted public administration notions of social equity. Along these lines, we propose six separate indicators for measuring the presence of social equity in emergency management activities that can be used at various levels of analysis and across a wide range of contexts. 

Climate change increases the likelihood of contemporaneous extreme events. Compounding hazards create cascading impacts through interconnected food, energy, and water (FEW) systems, with significant implications for community health resilience. Using a community-based participatory research approach with community leaders from Añasco, Puerto Rico, we co-developed: i) an assessment protocol to understand the relationships between food, energy, and water insecurities, social capital, and community health resilience, ii) a process-oriented tool to support communities and health practitioners in co-producing context-specific assessments that enhance community preparedness to extreme events, and iii) a transdisciplinary framework explicating the roles of social capital in enhancing food, energy, and water security for positive public health outcomes.

Mobile and manufactured homes are a critical source of affordable housing for 22 million people in the United States but are often located in places that are vulnerable to disasters. An analysis by Headwaters Economics found that, nationally, one in seven mobile homes is located in an area with high flood risk, compared to one in 10 for all other housing types. The five states with the highest share of census tracts with both high flood risk and high mobile home density are West Virginia (46.1%), Louisiana (20.7%), Idaho (18.8%), Oregon (17.9%), and Montana (17.7%).

Mobile home residents who are exposed to flooding often have additional layers of vulnerabilities that compound the impacts from disasters. Mobile home residents are more likely to face barriers in accessing federal and state assistance and more likely to experience long-term recovery problems. Damaged mobile homes and affordable housing are often the slowest housing type to be rebuilt after a flood (if ever), prompting displacement and other social and economic consequences that reverberate throughout the community. 

Disaster recovery programs rarely account for the unique social and regulatory barriers facing mobile home residents. To tackle the challenges of climate change, new approaches that link disaster recovery, affordable housing, and resilience are needed. Programs must prioritize short-term needs of residents in mobile homes while also investing in longer-term solutions that decrease flood risk and ensure people have access to safe, secure, and affordable housing.

View the full research brief and interactive map here.

Much of the current disaster literature adopts a social vulnerability perspective, which considers how political, social, and economic factors influence pre-disaster preparation and post-disaster recovery. Even with this focus, however, there remains a lack of literature on immigrant populations and their long-term recovery trajectories. As such, this project involves a long-term, intersectional, multi-level analysis of Mexican immigrant women and their disproportionate vulnerability in post-disaster recovery. My research builds on previous fieldwork I conducted in 2019 in Houston, Texas after Hurricane Harvey, which focused on the role of community-based organizations in assisting Mexican immigrant community members move forward in post-Harvey housing recovery despite what I term anti-immigrant policies. Future data collection will include: a) content analysis of disaster policy in the U.S.; b) follow-up semi-structured interviews with community-based organizations to assess the progression of Mexican immigrants’ recovery, particularly in light of the subsequent tropical storms and the COVID-19 pandemic that have impacted the Mexican immigrant community in Houston since Harvey’s landfall in 2017; and c) semi-structured interviews with Mexican immigrant women to understand their recovery from their point of view. The long-term nature of this study will provide a unique opportunity to elucidate the lived reality of compound disasters for Mexican immigrant women and those who provide service on their behalf. Overall, this project will address the challenges for and the needs of Mexican immigrants in post-disaster recovery. Findings will be of value to stakeholders involved in post-disaster recovery work.

Communities in Puerto Rico saw their populations shrink after Hurricane María in 2017. Of the archipelago’s 884 census tracts, 613 (69.3%) experienced a net population loss, with an average population loss per tract of 161 people. To understand the relationship between social vulnerability and post-disaster population loss, informed by theories of environmental migration, I compare a measure of social vulnerability in Puerto Rico to population change in each census tract. This study also provides an opportunity to evaluate the validity of the social vulnerability index (SVI) in the context of Puerto Rico. Through six regression models, I find that the current 15-variable SVI significantly predicts greater population losses for more vulnerable areas in Puerto Rico; the most vulnerable tracts lost 70 more people when compared to tracts at the median. However, using factor analysis to create a revised 9-variable SVI produces an even larger effect size when predicting population loss, where the most vulnerable tracts lost about 302 more people than the least vulnerable. These results suggest that a revised 9-variable SVI may have higher external validity for the context of Puerto Rico and could serve as a foundation for a more culturally-grounded measure of vulnerability, reflecting local experiences with disaster. This is the first study to test the relationship between a social vulnerability index and population change in Puerto Rico. These findings highlight the need for additional research on the link between social vulnerability and post-disaster migration and underscore the importance of using locally-specific measures of social vulnerability.

Climate change and climate-induced disasters have catastrophic influences on human-animal bonds. Scientific evidence confirms the animal industry as the main emitter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and most particularly of methane, the real source of these higher temperatures seen worldwide. If we are to stop global warming we must imperatively do more than curb but bring animal-based protein to a full stop. Impact analysis confirms animal farming and its correlated industry hoard far too much energy and natural resources for its yield of second-hand protein. Of particular concern is its use, and pollution of freshwater adding to its already appalling carbon footprint. This vicious cycle of climate change also brings disease to animals and humans, all the while costing tremendously in loss of natural or built environments. As the COVID-19 pandemic lingers its lessons are strikingly clearer: all humans, in this very era must rethink how we contribute (or not) to upheavals and disasters via our true footprint on fellow humans, animals, and plants. To advance their future, humans must individually and collectively re-evaluate their need for all that they source from animals. Settling for environmentally, non-animal-generated proteins or other products ingredient, will change our carbon habits, fundamentally mitigating climate change and holistically promoting the development of resilient and sustainable societies. Our future truly stands on what we put on our plates! Consequently producing sustainably our means of nutrition via organic, low-carbon habits will truly lead us to an ethical, constructive, green, and prosperous lifestyle on our shared planet!

The Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization (RDPO)  is a partnership of government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private-sector stakeholders in the Portland Metropolitan Region created to increase the region’s resilience to disasters. They have developed a multi-phase approach to analyze the resilience of its regional food system. The first phase was a scoping study to prioritize hazards, engage the community, identify key project partners and surface other ongoing initiatives. RDPO engaged the Feeding Cities Group to apply their disaster risk mitigation framework, which helps metropolitan leaders identify critical areas of weakness in their food system and prioritize the most important interventions needed for disaster risk mitigation. The framework is centered on equity, analyzing food supply and access at the neighborhood level to identify variances in impact for specific communities.

Comprehensive food system resilience involves adaptation as well as mitigation—robust interventions across the entire food system globally to mitigate negative impacts locally. Disaster risk mitigation has a narrower purview, focusing on near-term, regional interventions to mitigate the impact of various types of natural disasters.

The scoping study clearly established that a comprehensive assessment of the vulnerability of the Portland regional food system is needed. Although the pandemic mobilized many stakeholders to address food insecurity and food system vulnerabilities, there was a gap in hazard planning and a lack of leadership. The study also identified six priority hazards and mapped relevant stakeholders, especially those that may serve as future research and planning partners.