News in Japan - November

USA:
Mississippi River could leave farmland stranded

If the Mississippi River continues to go unchecked, the farmland on Dogtooth Bend peninsula may be only accessible by boat. According to a University of Illinois study, each successive flood carves a deeper channel across the narrow neck of the peninsula. This floodwater shortcut threatens to permanently reroute the Mississippi River, leaving Dogtooth Bend an island rather than a peninsula. Repeatedly repairing the levee breaches, building a bridge over the shortcut created by the flooding, or letting the Mississippi chart its own course are some solutions to the problem.

Netherlands: 

New Dutch drama, ‘if the levees breach’: http://www.npo.nl/series/artikelen/als-de-dijken-breken

Grand scale evacuations at Marken during 'crisis practice Waterwolf' (Dutch)

Website visualizing floods in the Netherlands: http://www.overstroomik.nl/

Cadzand-Beach most closely resembles Omaha Beach (Dutch) For the first time enormous Xblocs, an innovation of construction consortium BAM, are applied in the Netherlands. They must protect the hinterland from so-called super storms that may arise from a combination of sea level rise and climate change. The probability of such a super storm is 1 percent in a hundred years. That seems low, but without proper protection the flood damages can amount to more than one hundred billion euro. The three-dimensional shapes can be linked to each other similar to Lego-blocks, so that the connection of the resulting dam becomes extra strong. But by the openness persisting between the Xblocs, the barrier absorbs the enormous power of the super waves instead of being averted. The slender palisades also reduces the required material. A ‘small’ Xbloc consists of 1.5 cubic meters of concrete, a large one of 4 cubic meters. That is only one-third of the material which would be required for massive concrete blocks of the same size. "The gaps between the Xblocs creates space for all kinds of marine life. Small micro-organisms can settle here, but also fish and crabs find shelter. We considered mixing the concrete with shell grit, so that a large surface would be created with better adherence, but that was really too expensive." Research at Rijkswaterstaat in 2003 showed that the force with which the waves hit the shore is greater than previously thought. At nine locations along the Dutch coast dunes or dikes had to be reinforced to be able to withstand a superstorm. When Minister Schultz van Haegen (Infrastructure and Environment) formally closed the work in Cadzand today, all the weak links will have been restored.

News in Japan - October

USA

Sandy's surge topped by 'rogue' 1950 storm in some areas

Colorado River Delta flows help birds, plants, groundwater

Other

Watersheds Lost Up to 22% of Their Forests in 14 Years. Here’s How it Affects Your Water Supply High erosion deteriorates water quality and reduces reservoir capacity, increasing the cost of water treatment and the risk of contamination. High erosion risk is usually linked to erodible soil, intense rainfall, steep topography and conversion of forest and other natural lands to pasture, cropland and more.

How fast will we need to adapt to climate change? Using sea-level rise as a case study, researchers at Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology have developed a quantitative model that considers different rates of sea-level rise, in addition to economic factors, and shows how consideration of rates of change affect optimal adaptation strategies. If the sea level will rise slowly, it could still make sense to build near the shoreline, but if the sea level is going to rise quickly, then a buffer zone along the shoreline might make more sense. "It is a very different thing to adapt to a sea level that is three feet higher if you think that sea level will rise no farther after that, than to adapt to a sea-level rise that is three feet higher with the expectation that the seas will keep rising," remarked Soheil Shayegh, a former Carnegie postdoc and lead author of the study.

Reservoirs play substantial role in global warming The world's reservoirs are an underappreciated source of greenhouse gases, producing the equivalent of roughly 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide a year, or 1.3 percent of all greenhouse gases produced by humans.

Evaluating forecasting models for predicting rainfall from tropical cyclones more than 50 percent of the deaths associated with hurricanes from 1970 to 2004 were caused by fresh water flooding. And from 1981 to 2011, hurricane damage accounted for almost half -- $417.9 billion -- of the total monetary damage from all weather and climate disasters during that same time period (adjusted for inflation to 2011 dollars). Current models can forecast both where and how much rainfall a tropical cyclone will produce up to two days in advance. However, the forecast's accuracy decreased significantly when the prediction window increased to five days.

Hurricane Matthew is just the latest unnatural disaster to strike Haiti At least 1,000 people were killed when Hurricane Matthew battered the Tiburon peninsula in Haiti last week, destroying houses and displacing tens of thousands. Other experts describe disasters as “manifestations of unresolved development problems”. Therefore, disasters are not a natural phenomenon. Humans play a central role. As a result, a natural hazard such as Hurricane Matthew impacts each country in its path differently. We know that development, imposed by external forces that exploit the local labour force is not in the interest of the marginalised. A failure to respect human rights, local needs, the environment and human-environment relations simply creates disaster risk.

Scientists find link between tropical storms and decline of river deltas Lead researcher Professor Stephen Darby of the University of Southampton said: “Our study is the first to show the significant role tropical storms play in delivering sediment to large river deltas.  We show that although human impacts affect the amount of sediment in a river – cyclonic activity is also a very important contributing factor. These results are very significant because the Mekong’s sediment load is already declining as a result of upstream damming and other human impacts such as sand mining. Understanding the role played by changes in tropical cyclone climatology gives us a broader knowledge of the threats facing this delta and others like it around the world.” 

Greenland may be losing ice even faster than we thought

Receding glaciers in Bolivia leave communities at risk  A new study published in The Cryosphere, an European Geosciences Union journal, has found that Bolivian glaciers shrunk by 43% between 1986 and 2014, and will continue to diminish if temperatures in the region continue to increase. "On top of that, glacier recession is leaving lakes that could burst and wash away villages or infrastructure downstream," says lead-author Simon Cook, a lecturer at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.

Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 1

Along with now graduated Dr. Nasif Ahsan, I was invited to give a lecture to our new M.Sc. students as part of the course "Basic Concepts of Integrated Flood Risk management (IFRM)". This part of the course centers around the Pressure and Release (PAR) model, as developed by Ben Wisner, Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, and Ian Davis in their publication "At Risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters" (Routledge, London & NY, 2004). 

The concept behind the PAR model is that disasters occurs when societal vulnerability coincides with (natural) hazards.The only way to reduce risk is reduction of vulnerability, rather than the hazard itself. This concept is explained in the images below.

For the lecture we each focused on how the PAR model could be applied to our home countries, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. I added an interactive component in which the students developed their own version of the PAR model for floods in the Netherlands.

 

News in Japan - August

USA

Adaptation to climate risks: Political affiliation matters. Study takes into account perceptions of New York City residents after Superstorm Sandy A new study reveals that those who affiliate with the Democratic Party have different views than those who vote Republican on the following issues: the likelihood of floods occurring, adopting protection measures, and expectations of disaster relief from the government. Key findings:

• Democrats' perception of their probability of experiencing flood damage is significantly higher than Republicans'. They are also more likely to expect climate change to increase the flood risk they face in the future.
• Democrats are also more likely to invest in individual flood protection measures.
• Less than half of Democrats and a third of Republicans trust the government to address the flood risk posed in their area of residence.
• 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood.

Interestingly, given the above, the researchers find no difference in flood insurance adoption.

Hurricanes are worse, but experience, gender and politics determine if you believe it Despite ample evidence that Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger, research found that people's view of future storm threat is based on their hurricane experience, gender and political affiliation. This could affect how policymakers and scientists communicate the increasing deadliness of hurricanes as a result of climate change.

For those displaced in historic Louisiana floods, an uncertain future

Other

New meta-analysis shows engineered hard shorelines are a threat to ecosystems (global)  Hardened shorelines reduce species diversity, abundance. "Biodiversity was 23% lower along shorelines with seawalls when compared with that of natural shorelines," observed the authors. Moreover, Gittman and her colleagues noted that overall organism abundance was 45% lower in seawalled areas. One potentially encouraging finding was that biological diversity and the abundance of organisms were not demonstrably altered by other forms of shoreline hardening, such as riprap and breakwaters. The authors report that "some shore-protection structures may serve as surrogate habitats for native epibiota where natural hard substrates, such as oyster reefs and mussel beds, have been lost to overharvest, erosion, and poor water quality." However, Gittman and her colleagues caution that such structures may enable invasive species or have other unintended consequences.

Flooding and drought in opposing mountain ranges

Geological data provide support for legendary Chinese flood

A film about flooding, and what we can do now (UK)

Published paper

The Journal of Disaster Research has published an article by Nasif Ahsan, myself, and others, titled "A Systematic Review of the Factors Affecting the Cyclone Evacuation Decision Process in Bangladesh". It is freely available at the JDR website, after creating a free account.

Abstract

Researchers are investigating a broad spectrum of factors affecting positively and/or negatively the evacuation decision-making process occurring after people at risk receive cyclone warnings and advisories. Previous studies suggest that early warnings themselves do not propagate evacuation processes to be investigated but, rather, that human risk perceptions do so. This in turn encourages the socio-psychological dimensions of risk perception to be evaluated, which must be done within a country’s own cultural context. In applying content analysis here, we review the literature on evacuation decision-making processes during rapid onset hazards, i.e., tropical cyclones, in coastal Bangladesh. We focus on three broad overlapping themes – early warning, risk perception, and evacuation decision-making. Major content-analysis findings suggest that two things – a lack of credibility in early warning messages and an inefficient dissemination process – tend to affect the risk perception of people at risk and are likely to eventually determine the success of evacuation decision-making. Findings also show that different socioeconomic and socio-cultural issues related to risk perception appear to be more influential than formal warning messages in propagating decisions to evacuate during a cyclone. Based on these results, we suggest specific policy recommendations for improving local evacuation efficiency.

Journal ref: Journal of Disaster Research, August 2016, 11(4), 742-753
Received: 31 May 2016
Accepted: 14 July 2016
Released: 1 August 2016
DOI: 10.20965/jdr.2016.p0742
Impact Factor pending

News in Japan - July

Japan

Joso city video and fund raiser (Japanese)

USA

Scientists release recommendations for building land in coastal Louisiana Sediment diversions should be operated on a pulse that mimics the natural flood cycle of the Mississippi River, which includes taking full advantage of winter flood peaks from November through February when the greatest concentration of sediment is available in the river to sustain the coastal wetlands, as well as operating in the spring when sand needed for building land is at its highest. Operations plans should include robust monitoring and flexibility for adjustments based on rapidly changing conditions, such as hurricanes and other events.

A recent collaborative research effort seeks to highlight this enclave of stability against the stark reality of Louisiana's predominantly sediment-starved, sinking deltaic systems.

 Mixed response: Floodwaters return to the Colorado River but can release greenhouse gases Deliberately flooding riverbeds left parched by dams has great potential to restore wetlands but may also have a significant unintended consequence: the release of greenhouse gases. When a large dry riverbed is flooded, these greenhouse gases are released into the water, and presumably to the atmosphere. However, re-wetting the delta may support the growth of native plants, which typically are better able to absorb and store carbon than invasive species, and may offset the carbon dioxide and methane released by flooding.

California droughts caused mainly by changes in wind, not moisture

Netherlands

Dutch parliament adopts unique risk standards for flood protection

Other

Mitigating floods with an electronic brain Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a biologically-inspired method of computing that can receive large amounts of data, find patterns, learn from them and then develop predictions for future events. They have been proposed as a useful tool to process the complex relationships between large amounts of data related to the transformation of rainfall into runoff. This relationship is one of the most difficult hydrological problems faced by water resource managers. Researchers at Universiti Putra Malaysia "taught" an ANN to predict daily runoff for the Bertam River into the Ringlet Reservoir 200 km north of Kuala Lumpur. They collected daily rainfall and stream flow data from the Bertam River catchment area over a ten-year period, from 2003 to 2012, and estimated daily water evaporation using temperature data collected from the nearest station to the reservoir. Seventy percent of this data was input into the model to "train" it while the remaining 30% of the data was used to test the model's accuracy using statistical evaluation measurements. The ANN was developed to map the relationship between rainfall and runoff. The more factors used, the more accurate the results. The ANN was able to predict river stream flow into the reservoir with 76% accuracy.

Model for predicting coastal storm damage in the North Sea (UK)

Sustainable Cities: Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Design (video)

Consortium to build flood warning system for all Balkan countries along Sava river

RESTORING NATURAL DEFENSES TO HELP COMMUNITIES IN COASTAL FLOODPLAINS ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE

News in Japan - June

USA

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? Researchers look for ways to predict response to hurricane evacuation orders (USA)

"Social and environmental cues influence behavior," said Sarah DeYoung, postdoctoral researcher at DRC who was the lead author of that paper and has just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia. "But we understand, too, the temporal nature of that," Davidson said. "It's not like people make a decision on Day 1 and follow through with that. They see what happens and change their minds, too."

Flooding kills at least 23 in West Virginia (USA)

New study shows impact of human-made structures on Louisiana's coastal wetlands - Researchers use satellite data to quantify wetland loss

Netherlands

https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to flood/mudflow.

Other

Sudden onset of storm in Germany as viewed from racetrack

Heavy rain in Germany leads to 4 deaths (Dutch) Over 40 people were rescued from life threatening situations. One of the four victims was a male firefighter. The weekend before 35 people were struck by lightning.

Thousands of evacuations due to floods in France (Dutch) Over 5,500 people were evacuated, firefighters responded to 10,500 calls for help, and one 86 year old woman reportedly drowned.

Europe flooding: Five dead as waters rise in Germany and France

El Nino made a nuisance of itself in 2015
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)

Vulnerable people

Revamped labor guidelines to issue sterner warning against LGBT discrimination (Japan)

News in Japan - June

USA

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? Researchers look for ways to predict response to hurricane evacuation orders (USA)

"Social and environmental cues influence behavior," said Sarah DeYoung, postdoctoral researcher at DRC who was the lead author of that paper and has just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia. "But we understand, too, the temporal nature of that," Davidson said. "It's not like people make a decision on Day 1 and follow through with that. They see what happens and change their minds, too."

Flooding kills at least 23 in West Virginia (USA)

New study shows impact of human-made structures on Louisiana's coastal wetlands - Researchers use satellite data to quantify wetland loss

Netherlands

https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to flood/mudflow.

Other

Sudden onset of storm in Germany as viewed from racetrack

Heavy rain in Germany leads to 4 deaths (Dutch) Over 40 people were rescued from life threatening situations. One of the four victims was a male firefighter. The weekend before 35 people were struck by lightning.

Thousands of evacuations due to floods in France (Dutch) Over 5,500 people were evacuated, firefighters responded to 10,500 calls for help, and one 86 year old woman reportedly drowned.

Europe flooding: Five dead as waters rise in Germany and France

El Nino made a nuisance of itself in 2015
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)

Vulnerable people

Revamped labor guidelines to issue sterner warning against LGBT discrimination (Japan)

ICWRER day 2

The second day of the International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research in Kyoto featured two keynote speeches. The first, from Prof. Hubert Savenije from the Dutch Delft University of Technology, touched upon drought models and root zone storage. He explained how different drought models led to opposite results for the Netherlands, and a local model often functioned better than a global one. He further set out his theory how most of the traditional ground storage models did not account for root storage correctly. These models assume that plants would use the entire soil depth to grow roots in, when in practice this was not the optimal growth strategy for plants. In fact, especially in moist areas, there is no need for plants to have deep roots as they can already gather enough moisture from the top soil layer, and then invest more in growing above ground. 

ICWRER day 1

The International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research opened on Sunday, June 5th with a welcome icebreaker. The actual conference was opened the next day with a keynote speech from Prof. Eiichi Nakakita from the Kyoto University, who spoke on the SOUSEI project, that ICHARM is also a part of, which has as goal to integrate research activities on climate change and natural hazards.  

Another presentation of importance today was given by Guillermo Q. Tabios III, who chaired the topic of Sustainable Water Resources Management (G14). His presentation was titled "Multipurpose, Single High Dam versus Multiple Dam System for Balog-Balog Irrigation Project in the Philippines", and detailed the costs and water usages of several dams in the Philippines.

News in Japan - May

Japan:

80% of SDF big choppers couldn’t fly for Kumamoto mainly because they were undergoing emergency checks

Gov't to call for beefing up support for foreign visitors in disaster (Japan) Tourism organizations should get the picture of the locations of evacuation centers as well as hospitals that can accept foreigners, according to the planned request. The guidelines state examples of foreign language terms regarding evacuation and advice, and urge making use of volunteer interpreters and preparation of emergency meals that can be provided to Muslims.

The Benefits of Cyclones

It's been over a year since the World Water Forum in Korea, where one of the members of the typhoon committee argued the necessity of studying the benefits of cyclones, which I since then did. Preceding a presentation at the 7th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research  in Kyoto, June 5-9, I here provide an overview of the literary findings of benefits of cyclones.

Cyclones often cause heavy damages and destruction to infrastructure and human lives, but the potential benefits of cyclones remain understudied. Several of these benefits could serve as an integral part of ecosystem based disaster risk reduction plans, when viewed as ecosystem services. For this purpose, we examined how the benefits of cyclones could be valued as ecosystem services. In phase one of this study, we scrutinized existing studies regarding potential benefits of cyclones.

The image shows a compilation of the 14 benefits of cyclones as described in the gathered studies on the topic, which we organized by approximate location (troposphere, biosphere, epipelagic zone) and order (cause and effect) of occurrence. More details follow after the break below.

News in Japan - April

GEJET:

Court finds Miyagi City responsible for tsunami death of student

Haunting Photographs of Residents Returning to Daily Activities in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone

Court dismisses demand to halt Sendai reactors A Japanese high court has dismissed a request by residents to suspend operations of 2 nuclear reactors at the Sendai nuclear plant in southwestern Japan. The Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court gave its decision on Wednesday.

USA:

5 Dead in Houston as Flash Floods Leave Thousands Stranded and Without Power All five victims were found inside vehicles submerged in high floodwaters. “Houston residents should avoid travel at all costs today.”

Greenspoint Evacuees Grapple With Uncertainty of What Comes Next (USA)

Quake risk in parts of central U.S. as high as in fault-filled California 

Disaster plans often neglect historic preservation (USA) In Florida, for instance, they found that 23% of the sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places are located in a 100-year floodplain. Most communities have not integrated historic preservation into their disaster management plans. Their survey of state hazard mitigation plans found just 40 percent included a representative from historic preservation on the core planning team while 60 percent did not. "Many disaster mitigation plans make no mention of historic resources," Rumbach said. "As more and more communities bank on historic resources to benefit the local economy, this needs to be remedied." Economics aside, he said, many communities draw a sense of identity from these historic sites and can become unmoored when they are damaged or destroyed.

Increased flooding, accelerated sea-level rise in Miami over last decade, new study shows

Netherlands:

Dutch public works department reinforces coastline at Zandvoort (Dutch) 2.4 million cubic meters of sand are being applied to the coast of Zandvoort and Bloemendaal. This previously happened in 2004 and 2008. The sand is deposited 750 meters from the beach at a depth of five meters. Wind, waves and currents then gradually spread the sand towards the beach. The work takes place over a length of 7.5 kilometers along the coastline, without disrupting beach visitors.

Snow in North of Netherlands and Randstad (Dutch) including fierce hail storms, leading to serious traffic accidents.

Asian Water Cycle Symposium 2016 (AWCS2016) - Day 2

Day 2 of the Asian Water Cycle Symposium began with a drought session featuring former ICHARM member Dr. Ali Chavoshian, who is now Director of the RCUWM in Iran. Given the high number of people affected by droughts, an Integrated Drought Monitoring/Prediction System in West and Central Asia is promoted. This system will:

1. Providing drought information based on multiple indicators and data sources including satellite observations and local ground-based data.
2. Providing multi-model multi-index seasonal drought prediction information for the region.  
3. Develop a user-friendly system for dissemination of the Drought information. 

PhD student Yohei Sawada from the Tokyo University introduced a monitoring system including the Leaf Area Index.

Asian Water Cycle Symposium 2016 (AWCS2016) - Day 1

The Asian Water Cycle Symposium was held at the Takeda Hall of Tokyo University, partly in commemoration of ICHARM's 10 year anniversary. Over 100 visitors from in and outside Japan joined to share experiences of water related issues in their countries.

News in Japan - February

USA:

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself—Not Here, Anyway (USA). After discussions and deliberation between cities, states, and the federal government, many of these flood-damaged and flood-prone lands were converted into open space through government acquisitions, or “buyouts.” After 1993, parks and fields were created where homes had once stood. These areas were now easier to maintain and protect. Children could play football or soccer. Families could picnic in the summertime and build snowmen in the winter.

Record Missouri flooding was manmade calamity, scientist says Most news reports blamed it on the heavy rain, but a professor of earth and planetary sciences says analysis of the flood data shows much of the damage was due to recent modifications to the river. The flood on the middle Mississippi River, in turn, was remarkable for its short duration and the time of year. "It was essentially a winter flash flood on a continental-scale river," Criss said. "The Mississippi has been so channelized and leveed close to St. Louis that it now responds like a much smaller river." "In the meantime," he said, "inaccurate Federal Emergency Management Agency flood frequencies based on the assumption that today's river will behave as it has in the past greatly underestimate our real flood risk and lead to inappropriate development in floodways and floodplains." "The heavy rainfall was probably related to El Niño, and possibly intensified by global warming. But new records were set only in areas that have undergone intense development, which is known to magnify floods and shorten their timescales. "People want to blame the rain, but this is mostly us," Criss said. "It's a manmade disaster." During the New Year's flood, roughly 7,000 buildings near St. Louis were damaged, two interstate highways were closed for several days, the community of Valley Park was evacuated, and two Metropolitan Sewer District plants were swamped so that sewage was dumped directly into the water. The flood killed more than 20 people in Missouri and Illinois, caused several hundred million dollars of damage, and left millions of tons of debris in its wake.

The best way to protect us from climate change? Save our ecosystems There is now clear evidence that intact forests have a positive influence on both planetary climate and local weather regimes. Forests also provide shelter from extreme weather events, and are home to a host of other valuable ecosystems that are important to human populations as sources of food, medicine and timber. In Vietnam, 12,000 hectares of mangroves have been planted at a cost of US$1.1 million, but saving the US$7.3 million per year that would have been spent on maintaining dykes. In Louisiana, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 led to an examination of how coastal salt marshes might have reduced some of the wave energy in the hurricane-associated storm surges. Data have now confirmed that salt marshes would have significantly reduced the impact of those surges, and stabilised the shoreline against further insult, at far less cost than engineered coastal defences. With this data in hand, discussions are now beginning around how to restore the Louisiana salt marshes to insulate against future extreme weather events.

Flavour of Dutch dialogues gets into 1 billion dollar US disaster resilience plans Morris has been closely involved in the competition and emphasises the tremendous Dutch influence in these projects. In particular, he mentions the climate adaptive approach that focusses on disaster prevention, and on the involvement of many stakeholders right from the start. "This is a distinct Dutch approach to urban planning", says Morris. "Also the involvement of landscape architecture shows the Dutch influence in these projects". "With the two competitions the housing department provokes the states and the local communities to think about their future and the social-economic development. The US is well organized on reactive disaster response. The competitions made them think of the future and long term planning for smart investments." 

Netherlands:

First high water to pass over to the new side channel in Lent (Dutch)

Vulnerable People:

Survey reveals money, health fears of single Japanese women in nonstaff jobs

Other:

India caste unrest: Ten million without water in Delhi

UNISDR Science and Technology Roadmap

Terms of Reference of the Scientific and Technical Partnership for the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030

Reconnecting a River A case study of conservation efforts in Mexico's Colorado River Delta

NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures in 2015

Floods are natural, they don't have to lead to disasters

Four billion people face severe water scarcity, new research finds

Nature Crucial to Combatting Impact of Climate Change on Water

Cyclone Winston: Death toll rises to 29 as clear-up begins

A map of the most vulnerable places on the planet

Thousands of pieces of data demonstrate that sea levels, extreme phenomena are evolving independently

Salt marshes will persist despite rising seas, study predicts

UN agricultural agency helps Pakistan cope with natural disasters such as floods, quakes, droughts

With a 21 percent share of the national gross domestic product (GDP) and a 45 percent share of Pakistan's total workforce, it is crucial that agriculture be able to prevent and mitigate the impact of disasters.

Human-made climate change helped cause south of England floods, say scientists anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk of the once-a-century wet January in 2014 by 43% (uncertainty range: 0-160%). The heightened risk of rainfall found in the meteorological modelling led to an increase in the peak 30-day river flow of 21% (uncertainty range: -17-133%) and about 1,000 more properties at risk of flooding (uncertainty range: -4,000-8,000).

Borrowed Time on Disappearing Land (Bangladesh) “These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States.” Making matters worse, much of what the Bangladeshi government is doing to stave off the coming deluge — raising levees, dredging canals, pumping water — deepens the threat of inundation in the long term. In an analysis of decades of tidal records published in October, Dr. Pethick found that high tides in Bangladesh were rising 10 times faster than the global average. He predicted that seas in Bangladesh could rise as much as 13 feet by 2100, four times the global average. “The reaction among Bangladeshi government officials has been to tell me that I must be wrong,” he said. “That’s completely understandable, but it also means they have no hope of preparing themselves.” “There is no doubt that preparations within Bangladesh have been utterly inadequate, but any such preparations are bound to fail because the problem is far too big for any single government,” said Tariq A. Karim, Bangladesh’s ambassador to India. “We need a regional and, better yet, a global solution. The family reunited on the road the next day after the children spent a harrowing night avoiding snakes that had sought higher ground, too. They drank rainwater until rescuers arrived a day or two later with bottled water, food and other supplies. In the weeks after the storm, the women of Dakope found firewood by wading into the raging river and pushing their toes into the muddy bottom. They walked hours to buy drinking water. “I don’t want to stay here (slums) for too long,” Mr. Gazi said. “If we can save some money, then we’ll go back. I’ll work on a piece of land and try to make it fertile again.” But the chances of finding fertile land in his home village, where the salty rivers have eaten away acre upon acre, are almost zero.

UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030

On Thursday, ICHARM's PhD student Md. Nasif Ahsan presented a poster at the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 in Geneva, Switzerland. 

The poster was titled "The challenges and opportunities of early warning messages aimed at evacuation compliance: A case report following Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh" and was presented in work stream 2, Understanding disaster risk, risk assessment and early warning. The results are partially based on our previously published paper, 'Factors affecting the evacuation decisions of coastal households during Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh'. I am proud to have collaborated on this poster and very happy about all the constructive discussions that followed Nasif's presentation. 

IWA Water Wiki Blog post on published article

As mentioned last month, the journal Water Policy has published an article by Sangeun Lee and myself titled "Assessing the vulnerability of different age groups regarding flood fatalities: case study in the Philippines".

This journal is connected to the IWA Water Wiki Blog, which has over 30,000 visitors per month and features many international articles, books and case studies on water related topics. One example is the freely downloadable ebook on Integrated River Basin Governance.

I had the opportunity to write a blog post for the IWA Water Wiki Blog on our last publication, which you can read here.

Published Paper

The journal Water Policy has published an article by Sangeun Lee and myself titled "Assessing the vulnerability of different age groups regarding flood fatalities: case study in the Philippines". It is now available online in final form (a previous version was available in May). Although this publication is not open access, full PDF copies are available upon request.

Abstract (adapted to adjust html codes to proper screen coding)
This study aimed to identify age groups vulnerable to flood fatalities and quantify their vulnerability by means of statistical methods. First, the study obtained data of 122 victims directly resulting from five flood disasters in the Philippines over the period 2010–2013 which was used to compare the number of flood fatalities in each age group with the population numbers. The chi-square goodness-of-fit test shows that only one age group, people aged less than and up to 70, was vulnerable to flood fatalities. Vulnerabilities of people aged less than and up to 70 and over 70, respectively, were quantified in terms of mortality, i.e., the ratio of flood fatalities and affected people. This study obtained two lognormal distribution curves moderately describing histograms built with samples on the mortality of the two age groups. Based on probabilistic parameters of the selected lognormal distribution curves, the study concludes that people aged less than and up to 70 have more than three times the vulnerability to the risk of flood fatality than people aged over 70. It is also suggested that the age dependency ratio, which is widely used to consider demographic vulnerability in flood vulnerability studies, should not be applied to the Philippines.

Journal ref: Water Policy, December 2015, 17 (6) 1045-1061
Received: 12 May 2014
Accepted in revised form: 19 February 2015
Published online (uncorrected proof): 13 April 2015
Available online: 17 December 2015
DOI:10.2166/wp.2015.089
Impact Factor 2014: 0.833

Published paper

Environmental Hazards has published the article 'Factors affecting the evacuation decisions of coastal households during Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh', of which I am proud to be co-author.

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Abstract
Despite sincere efforts by concerned agencies and recent improvements in hazard warnings, thousands of at-risk people did not evacuate during Aila, a category-I tropical cyclone that struck southwestern coastal Bangladesh in 2009. This study investigated the responses of the people affected by Aila to cyclone warnings and associated evacuation orders, and unveiled behavioural aspects that explain why they did or did not comply with the evacuation orders. Utilising the primary data collected from 420 households living in the severely affected coastal sub-district Koyra, located in Khulna District, this study found that although more than 97% of the households had received cyclone warnings and evacuation orders before Aila's landfall, only around 26% had evacuated. We also examined this study's empirical findings for factors that had dissuaded people from complying with the evacuation orders. Relevant test statistics along with results from principal component analysis suggested that the significant and systematic absenteeism of households from disaster preparedness training appears to be one of the key determinants that affected their evacuation decisions, along with factors related to warning messages, the attributes of cyclone shelters, risk perception, and socioeconomic aspects. A number of recommendations are also presented in this study for people at risk to improve their evacuation rates in future emergencies, not only to save their own lives but also to save their livestock.


Journal ref: Environmental Hazards
Authors: Md. Nasif Ahsan, Kuniyoshi Takeuchi, Karina Vink & Jeroen Warner
Volume 15, Issue 1, 2016, pages 16-42
Received: 7 January 2015
Accepted: 28 October 2015
Published online: 26 November 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2015.1114912
2014 Impact Factor: 0.868