Dynamics and Impact of Interacting Hazards Workshop

THE DYNAMICS AND IMPACT OF INTERACTING HAZARDS WORKSHOP

Co-organized between UCL, KCL, and Southampton University

London, UK (14 February 2013)

On 14 February 2013, the First Dynamics and Impact of Interacting Hazards Workshop was convened as a collaborative effort between three PhD students – Mirianna Budimir (University of Southampton), Melanie Duncan (University College London), and Joel Gill (King's College London). The workshop, hosted this year by the UCL Aon Benfield Hazard Centre, aimed to explore current research into interacting hazards and future collaborative opportunities, as well as emphasising the importance of hazard interactions.

This one day workshop was attended by 20 participants from academia, industry and the public sector, with representatives from six universities in the UK and Europe. Short presentations were delivered on themes including defining a multi-hazard approach, tools and methodologies to constrain hazard interactions, and the effective integration of hazard interaction knowledge into hazard assessments.

Interspersed between these presentations, a large amount of time was given for small (often very animated) group discussions, with each smaller group reporting back to the larger set of participants. Discussions were wide ranging, sharing ideas about different types of evidence for interacting hazards, balancing the complexities of interacting hazards research with the needs of stakeholders, and the importance of assessing uncertainty.

  

 

The workshop highlighted the importance of interacting hazards research, as well as the challenges of retaining focus within such a broad topic. It also verified the importance of ensuring a standard terminology is developed and used within the emerging field of multi-hazard research. The convenors will be publishing a full workshop report on the interacting hazards website (www.interactinghazards.com), and hope to organise further workshops in the future.

Landslides following Guatemala earthquake

Initial reports of landslides from the 7th November 2012 7.4M earthquake of the coast of Guatemala suggest they have become a 'significant problem'.

Please see Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience Blog for a more detailed post. I will hopefully follow up as more becomes known.

Interacting Natural Hazards Workshop/Conference

Announcing a great upcoming conference on interacting and cascading hazards:

The Dynamics and Impact of Interacting Natural Hazards

An interdisciplinary workshop on current research and future directions

14^th‒15^th February 2013

To be held at: University College London, London, UK

Convened by University College London, King’s College London, and the University of Southampton. 

Many populated areas are affected by more than one natural hazard, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, floods, storms, and wildfires. Different hazards can overlap in time and location, so that the total impact on a community is increased by interactions between the hazards. Example of interaction types include:

·         One hazard triggering another or a cascade of hazards

(e.g., an earthquake triggering a landslide, which dams a river and causes flooding).

·         One hazard changing the probability of another occurring

(e.g., a wildfire removing vegetation and increasing the probability of landslides during storms).

·         Temporal changes in vulnerability during successive hazards

(e.g., the damage to buildings during an earthquake may increase both the building and human population’s’ vulnerability to subsequent hazards, such as hurricanes or tsunamis).

Hazard assessments tend to focus on the impact of single hazards and so overlook the cumulative impact of interacting hazards. To advance current methods of assessment it is, therefore, essential to improve the characterisation and modelling of hazard interactions and their impacts. The results should be of immediate value to governmental and non-governmental agencies and to business.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

This two-day workshop will bring together field practitioners, researchers and representatives from the academic, humanitarian, development, governmental and business sectors in order to evaluate the practical applications of current research and to define key directions for future investigations into the interaction of natural hazards. Although all relevant research is welcome, specific themes will be:

·         Methods for measuring or analysing the interactions between hazards

·         Evaluating and mitigating the impact of hazard interactions

·         Understanding temporal and spatial changes in vulnerability

·         Strategies for future interdisciplinary research in hazard interactions

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words for oral or poster presentations in the specific themes above. Details and formatting guidelines for the submission of abstracts can be found on the conference website (details below). Abstracts may include a key figure or table. We anticipate that the conference will include a range of session types, and therefore the number of oral contributions may be restricted in order to encourage extended discussion. The registration process allows you to submit “Points for Discussion” which will be used to provide a framework for discussion and other interactive sessions.

The deadline for registration and the submission of abstracts and discussion points is 14^th December 2012. There is a provisional limit of 40 places. To register, please complete the registration form at:

www.interactinghazards.com/workshop-information/registration

For further information and details, please see the website at www.interactinghazards.com or contact Mirianna Budimir at mirianna.budimir@interactinghazards.com.

We look forward to your contributions

Mirianna Budimir, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton

Melanie Duncan, AON Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, University College London  

Joel Gill, Department of Geography, King’s College London

Interesting news this summer

Landslide Fatalities

Dave Petley has recently published an online paper in Geology on "Global patterns of loss of life from landslides".

See here for cumulative frequency landslide fatality data over the past 10 years - with earthquake-induced fatalities and without.


Earthquake Secondary Hazards

Researchers at Durham University, UK, spearheaded by Alexander Densmore and Mark Allen, are investigating the cascading effect of earthquakes in a project "When the Shaking Stops". This is primarily looking at the effect of earthquakes on landslides and river basin changes, the secondary effects of large earthquakes.


Hurricane Vulnerability
A recent study by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, based in Boulder, Colorado, has found that people are more vulnerable to hurricanes further inland from the coast in the USA than previously thought. This is mostly due to people being less prepared to deal with hurricanes than those who live on the coast. A 2000 study found that this was "often as the result of intense rain, flooding, mudslides, and tornadoes" - which I would consider cascading hazards.

Maplecroft's Natural Hazards Risk Atlas 2012

In August, Maplecroft published their new Natural Hazards Risk Atlas 2012. This excerpt is taken directly from their website:

"Maplecroft’s Natural Hazards Risk Atlas 2012 is designed to help business, investors and international organisations compare the risks of natural hazards within 197 countries and assess their resilience during and after the occurrence of a natural hazard. The Atlas includes indices and interactive subnational maps of 12 natural hazard risks, as well as scorecards for all countries. In addition, the Atlas also measures countries’ overall economic exposure and socio-economic resilience to natural hazards."

What is great about htis map is that although it on a global scale, the resolution is much finer than national-level. It also appears to take a social perspective on natural hazards. I haven't been able to uncover much detail however about what indices were used and exactly how the map was created. It is unclear how the 12 hazards were collated - aggregated or whether interacting effects were taken into consideration. Although it was probably not the latter..... Something to improve on in the future?

New Review Paper on Mult-Hazard Risk and Cascading Hazards

I have recently come across a new paper out in July this year reviewing multi-hazard risk (including cascading hazards). This is a great paper written by Melanie Kappes, who I met at the EGU in 2011. It covers the current available literature on the subject and identifies challenges in dealing with multi-hazards. It is the first of it's kind to synthesise the current state of research and point the way forward to common issues which will need to be dealt with in the future of this field.

Particularly for my own research, there is a section on cascading hazards ('dealing with relations between hazard types') that gathers together all references to these phenomena in the literature. Several different approaches to investigating cascading events are outlined such as interaction matrixes and event trees. And it is always comforting to know that noone has published work on what you are researching for your PhD! There's always a little worrying thought that the research may have slipped past without you noticing.

For anyone who is interested in cascading hazards, this is a key paper and an ideal starting point to follow the references. I wish this had been available in my first year of PhD, and had intended to write a similar paper on the sme topic later this year as it was really needed for the field.

I hope the paper helps people as much as it has helped me.

Kappes, M., Keiler, M., Elverfeldt, K., and Glade, T., (2012), "Challenges of analyzing multi-hazard risk: a review", Nat Hazards.



(Thanks to J.Gill for making me aware of the paper!)

37th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop

I have recently returned from the 37^th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado, organised by the Natural Hazards Centre, Boulder. I presented a poster on my recent research into ‘Global Cascading Hazard Casualty Modelling: Earthquake-Triggered Landslides’. I hope to write up my research soon and get it published and will update here with any further news.

There were no sessions on cascading or linked hazards specifically, but I would like to share some of my impressions of the main messages to come from the workshop.

1.       The workshop was mainly from a more human geography/social science standpoint, so one of the key messages was: it’s all about the people. Science is definitely necessary, but at the end of the day, can only get us so far because it is where hazards interact with humans that disasters are formed. The decisions people on the ground make (whether it is the local authorities, or the local communities or individuals) often are the key determinant as to whether an event becomes a disaster or whether people survive and progress. How prepared people are and their mental state often affects the outcome of a hazard event.

Therefore it is important to empower the people who are going to experience hazards to be able to take control and responsibility for themselves. By engaging with locals, developing a community spirit with strong leaders, people have a better chance of survival and also potential to improve after an event, during reconstruction.

2.       There was also a call for more holistic research and well-rounded individuals in disaster preparedness and response. The nature of research requires people to have a narrow focus in their repertoire. However, in practice, more people with a breadth and depth of knowledge are needed.

 

3.       Communication between specialities and researchers are needed, as well as between researchers and practitioners.  We need to learn from each other. Researchers need to communicate their results to the practitioners, and practitioners need to communicate to the researchers what they need to be investigated.

Overall the workshop was incredibly informative, dynamic and interesting. Emphasis was put onto discussions in the sessions and networking at lunch and break times. The people were friendly and open to discussion and sharing of knowledge. It has encouraged and reinforced my aim to work in this field in my future career (post-PhD) and provided a well-needed push at this half-way point in my PhD.

I wish I could attend next year’s workshop, but my PhD funding won’t stretch far enough. I will just have to put together a great conference next year with Joel Gill (King’s College London) and Melanie Duncan (UCL) on the topic of cascading hazards. Watch this space for further details….