My colleagues have just published an article in the Journal of Disaster Research, titled "The 2015 Flood Impact due to the Overflow and Dike Breach of Kinu River in Joso City, Japan" (doi: 10.20965/jdr.2016.p1112). You can access the full article for free by registering on the website for free as a member. This article discusses not only the geographic features making the area prone to flooding, but also the lead time to evacuation per district.
Abstract:
Heavy rainfall in September 2015 inundated the Kinu River basin and caused an overflow and dike breach of the river in the eastern part of Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The area, which is bounded by the Kinu and Kokai Rivers, experienced deep inundation of more than 2.5 m, which continued for more than 3 days at the maximum level. Although the estimated maximum inundation depth and duration were basically related to the elevation and distribution of topographic surfaces, strong flood flow washed buildings away near the overflow and dike breach sites and caused deep inundation even though these sites were located on a relatively higher natural levee. In addition, serious damages such as interruption of emergency transportation routes and deep inundation over floor level occurred, isolating evacuation centers and important facilities including a municipal hall and hospitals. Few residents utilized the pre-prepared flood hazard map or understood the local geography, and evacuation orders were not fully transmitted to the local residents, which might have increased the flood’s impact.
Showing posts with label Flood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flood. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
News in Japan - November
USA:
Mississippi River could leave farmland stranded
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
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.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 3
Our students this year are a diverse group of meteorologists, engineers, government officers, hydrologists, dam operators, infrastructure analysts, and researchers, coming from Brazil, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. As such we received a great diversity of suggestions during the interactive part of the lecture. For this part, I divided the students in three groups to each work on a different type of flood affecting the Netherlands: oceanic storm surges, river floods, and heavy precipitation.
The goal of the exercise was to develop safe conditions for each type of flood, as integrated in the PAR model. This would allow students to actively familiarize themselves with the PAR model as preparation for their course assignments, stimulate group discussions, and have them consider the cross-cultural transferability of disaster risk reduction measures.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 2
To prepare students for their PAR model exercise, I explained briefly about the conditions in the Netherlands and the three types of flood we might face. Below is a selection of the presented slides.
I developed a pressure model for floods in the Netherlands as shown below (click to enlarge). It was up to the students to develop safe conditions to increase the progression of safety, countering a different type of flood in the Netherlands.
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.
Friday, September 30, 2016
News in Japan - September
Japan
It seemed to miss
Japan altogether before coming back with a vengeance:
USA
Other
How
plant roots sense, react to soil flooding Researchers
have just discovered a mechanism that allows a plant to adjust its water status
and growth according to different soil flooding conditions. The results of this
study describe how roots sense and respond to soil oxygen and potassium levels
jointly, so as to change their water uptake capacity. Aside from their
scientific importance, these findings could make it possible to optimize crop
flood tolerance.
http://aqua-monitor.appspot.com/
Vulnerable people
Floods
severely affect children, young people Research
with flood-affected children reveals serious impacts on well-being but also a
desire to take on a role in flood risk management. Factors impacting on
children's well-being include: loss of valued personal and family possessions,
friendship networks, familiar spaces, education; experience of fear, anxiety,
poverty, isolation, unfairness, destruction, stress, uncertainty, being
ignored/misunderstood; lack of sleep and recreation; deterioration in diet,
space and housing conditions; lack of flood education provision in schools for
children and all staff. The study shows that having an active role in flood
risk management actually helps with children's recovery. Yet current flood and
emergency planning policy either ignores children or positions them as
'vulnerable', rather than treating them as citizens in their own right. The
report proposes children should be given more information before, during and
after flooding because they have a right to know how to prepare, what to expect
and how they can contribute.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
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.
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.
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.
Friday, July 29, 2016
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.
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.
Netherlands
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.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
News in Japan - June
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."
Netherlands
https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to
flood/mudflow.
Other
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.
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)
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
"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."
Netherlands
https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to
flood/mudflow.
Other
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.
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)
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)
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
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.
Monday, June 6, 2016
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.
Friday, May 27, 2016
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.
Friday, May 6, 2016
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.
Friday, April 29, 2016
News in Japan - April
GEJET:
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.”
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
News in Japan - March
GEJET:
Japan marks 5 years since the 3/11 disaster The Reconstruction Agency says at least 3,407 people died in 10 prefectures due to health problems and other reasons related to their lives as evacuees. The agency adds that as of February 12th, more than 174,000 people were living in temporary, rental or other housing as evacuees.
The Fukushima cleanup will take generations The cleanup team is still struggling to halt the buildup of contaminated water, and the techniques and equipment needed to locate, extract, and dispose of the melted fuel have yet to be developed. Given these challenges, many experts are convinced that the decommissioning process will take far longer than the official 40-year timetable-perhaps as long as a century. Rainwater and groundwater have continued to pour into the damaged basements of Units 1-4, where it mixes with the highly radioactive cooling water already inside the buildings. The pillars of TEPCO's water management efforts to date are two systems for channeling groundwater away from the contaminated basements and releasing it into the ocean relatively free of radioactive contaminants. One, the groundwater bypass system, collects water in wells dug between the reactor buildings and the hills to the west. The water is pumped up from the wells, tested, and eventually released into the ocean. The other, called the subdrain system, uses wells dug around the perimeter of the reactor buildings. So far, TEPCO has discharged some 230,000 tons of water into the ocean using these two methods combined. Even so, groundwater continues to pour into the buildings' basements at the rate of about 150 tons a day.
Lessons from Fukushima An RJIF study of hospital responses to the disaster found medical care for the afflicted was only able to continue at significantly reduced capacity because kizuna — social solidarity built upon people-to-people bonds, social networks and personal contacts — swung into action to mobilise armies of volunteers in forming the core engine of recovery. It was the residents of Fukushima who heroically banded together to manage the crisis. ‘[I]t is an unfortunate reality that in 2011 Japan had to resort to kizuna, even during the initial phase of crisis management, due to inadequate centralised management…Japan must now look beyond kizuna and build a crisis response apparatus that doesn’t overly rely on the goodwill of the Japanese people’. The people of Japan deserve better than having to rely on kizuna next time round. ‘To date, the NRA has received safety review applications for a total of 25 of the 43 existing commercial reactors’, Koppenborg reports. Commercial interests now have to face up to the NRA’s new regulatory teeth. It appears unlikely that further applications will be made and not all of these 25 applications can count on being successful. But ‘if Japan is to meet its goal of generating 20–22 per cent of its power through nuclear energy by 2030 it needs to reopen 30 reactors’, says Koppenborg. Richard Samuels argues that ‘perhaps the most striking development in the weeks and months after the devastation was how champions of existing institutions, practices, preferences and ideas — even those that failed so spectacularly and so indisputably — rallied to define the lessons that would be drawn. Political entrepreneurs from every corner framed the catastrophe to justify, legitimate, fortify and sell their pre-existing preferences. Japanese politics became a competition for control of who would define the heroes and the villains of the tragedy — and for the power to determine what would come next. Five years on, the 3.11 master narrative is still under construction’. This mindset is a key obstacle in the political gridlock that blocks improved disaster preparedness and strengthening Japan’s crisis management system as well as a more wholehearted approach to renewable energy sources.
Japan’s 3.11 master narrative still under construction In short, few agreed on policy alternatives, but everyone insisted that 3.11 proved they had been right all along. So where are we five years later? Were civic activists who argued that systemic dysfunctions in Japan can now be fixed correct? Or was one parliamentarian right when he suggested that 3.11, as colossal as it was, may not have been big enough to stimulate substantive institutional change? The evidence is mixed. The popularity of the Abe administration notwithstanding, opinion polls in the years after 3.11 suggest that the public is disillusioned with government. In 2013 large majorities reported that they believed reconstruction funds were wasted. Trust in government increased for a time, but recent data show that it has fallen and is below the global average.
Japan:
LDP to tackle 'taboo' of expanding foreign labor force Japan's ruling party kicks off a debate this month on whether to expand the pool of foreign workers to cope with a graying, shrinking population, challenging a longstanding "taboo" on immigration. But rather than rely on immigration, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to focus on drawing more women and elderly into the workforce to fill the gaps, and has made raising Japan's rock-bottom birthrate a priority. The only way to ensure growth was to increase the size of the workforce, Kimura said in an interview, adding that monetary and fiscal policies were reaching the limit of their capacity to spur growth.
USA:
Single By Choice: Why Fewer American Women Are Married Than Ever Before When I say "the choice to not marry," that doesn't always translate into "I am a woman and I am deciding that I am not going to get married," or "I am rejecting marriage." The choice to not marry can also mean: "I would really like to marry or to fall in love or to meet someone, but I haven't met someone who I feel is going to improve on the life that I am building and making on my own." One of the most startling statistics is that today only 20 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 are married, and that compares to 60 percent in 1960. The other figure that I find very startling, in part because it was so resilient for so long, is the median age of first marriage for women. From the time they started recording it — which was 1890 — until 1980, that median age of first marriage for women fluctuated only between 20 and 22. In 1990 it jumped to over 23, which is a huge jump from having been in that small range for so long. Today, for women, it is over 27. So if you're just looking at the sort of historical picture, there's this relatively flat line for almost 100 years and now there's not just a jump over that line, but way over that line.
Research will help policymakers plan for sea level rise (USA) A new study could help protect more than 13 million American homes that will be threatened by rising sea levels by the end of the century. It is the first major study to assess the risk from rising seas using year 2100 population forecasts for all 319 coastal counties in the continental US. Previous impact assessments use current population figures to assess long-term effects of coastal flooding.
Wetland enhancement in Midwest could help reduce catastrophic floods of the future (USA) New financial models and flood management policies may be needed to actually accomplish this. If just 1.5 percent of the land were used for wetlands, the peak flow of the overall watershed could be reduced by up to 17.5 percent.
Netherlands:
Other:
When sea levels rise, damage costs rise even faster A team of scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now provides a method to quantify monetary losses from coastal floods under sea-level rise. For the first time, the scientists show that the damage costs consistently increase at a higher rate than the sea-level rise itself.
Citizen science to prevent the effects of floods (Spain) Researchers from UPM are involved in the development of a mobile phone application that allows user to share information about floods and their effects aiming to help researchers.
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.
Climate change is a potent element in the deadly brew of disaster risk Are we getting better at managing disasters, or are we actually reducing disaster risk? There is a significant difference between the two, and addressing that difference should have a profound impact on development. at least 90% of disasters linked to natural hazards are climate related. Mortality is declining in many places because of better disaster management andmore effective use of early warning systems. But more needs to be done to reduce risk comprehensively, including by tackling the compounding factors of poverty and inequality, rapid and unplanned urbanisation, damage to eco-systems, and poor risk governance. More national disaster loss databases to guide investments should be established.
Paris prepares for possible deluge similar to 1910 Great Flood More than 100 years ago, the Seine River rose 8m above its usual level following months of high rainfall, causing the catastrophe known as the Great Flood of Paris. There were no deaths but it took around 35 days for the water to clear.
Each year there is a one in 100 chance that a flood of that scale will occur in Paris again. The exercise will be carried out as if the river levels are rising by 50cm each day, allowing 900 emergency personnel, 150 police officers and 40 emergency vehicles to practice the necessary steps they will have to take. The exercise will also test how almost 90 public and private institutions such as hospitals, energy firms and waste disposal companies cope with the situation. “The difference between 1910 [and now] is that at that time we didn’t have telephone lines, the subway or electrics running underground. Now... if you have water [underground], everything will [go] down". The flood could cover an area measuring 500sq/km and affect the 830,000 people who live in the zone. More than 430,000 homes would be exposed to water as well as 100,000 businesses. Rectifying the damage could cost the city up to £15.5 billion.
Speeding up accuracy of flood risk assessment (Australia) The new method tested by the research team is aimed at providing a highly accurate assessment at a much faster rate. The method (known as hybrid causative events, or HCE) relies on an algorithm that knocks out all of the unnecessary information used by the slower, continuous simulation approach -- such as long, dry periods without rainfall. It might take another five years or so for this method to be available to industry.
Adaptation to increasing flood risk in Europe should aim to reduce impact Scientists investigated the benefits of four adaptation measures to reduce the increasing flood risk in Europe under state-of-the-art global warming projections under a high-end climate scenario. Adaptation measures include the rise of flood protections, reduction of the peak flows through water retention, reduction of vulnerability and relocation to safer areas. According to the study, adaptation efforts should favour measures targeted at reducing the impacts of floods, such as relocation and vulnerability reduction, rather than trying to avoid them. Reducing vulnerability includes early warning systems, dry and wet flood proofing, and floating buildings, among others. Conversely, adaptation plans only based on rising flood protections have the effect of reducing the frequency of small floods and exposing the society to less-frequent but catastrophic floods and potentially long recovery processes.
Can improved agricultural practices help combat climate change? Did you know that over half of global non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are accountable to agriculture?
'Unprecedented' storms and floods are more common than we think (UK) They conclude that 21st-century flood events such as Storm Desmond are not exceptional or unprecedented in terms of their frequency or magnitude, and that flood frequency and flood risk forecasts would be improved by including data from flood deposits dating back hundreds of years. "Conventional methods of analysing river flow gauge records cannot answer these questions because upland catchments usually have no or very short records of water levels of around 30 or 40 years. In fact, recent careful scientific analysis of palaeoflood deposits (flood deposits dating back hundreds of years) in the UK uplands shows that 21st-century floods are not unprecedented in terms of both their frequency (they were more frequent before 1960) and magnitude (the biggest events occurred during the 17th–19th centuries)." Professor John Lewin from the University of Aberystwyth said: "What is needed, is far more resilience for already-developed floodplains, and much more serious insistence that future floodplain development should be virtually curtailed. Somewhere along the line floodplain development has been allowed by local authorities and the UK government to continue regardless."
Vulnerable people:
One-third of working women in Japan sexually harassed: study The study, released Tuesday and the first of its kind, examined responses from more than 9,600 women employees, submitted by mail or online. The response rate was 18%. Of the respondents, 29% said they had suffered sexual harassment. The most common type of harassment was having their appearance or age become the focus of conversation, at 54%. The next most common was unwanted touching at 40%, followed by sexually related questions at 38%. Twenty-seven percent were asked out for meals and dates.
Few women in higher management Netherlands (Dutch) Results from the report http://www.grantthornton.global/globalassets/wib_turning_promise_into_practice.pdf show that only 18% of positions in higher management are held by women in the Netherlands. Japan scores lowest of researched countries with 7%, and Russia highest with 45%.
Japan rejects U.N. panel view on 'comfort women' Japan rejected on Tuesday a U.N. panel's view that Tokyo should take into consideration the opinions of so-called comfort women in implementing a bilateral agreement reached with South Korea last year. "The (panel's) conclusion does not sufficiently reflect the Japanese government's explanation and is regrettable," Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said Monday the agreement did not fully adopt a victim-centered approach to address the issue of women who were procured for Japan's wartime military brothels.
1 in 29 babies born in Japan in 2014 had non-Japanese parent The number of babies whose parents are both non-Japanese totaled about 15,000, compared with 20,000 who were born to Japanese and non-Japanese couples, according to the ministry data.
How People Learn to Become Resilient If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount? Not all of the at-risk children reacted to stress in the same way. Two-thirds of them “developed serious learning or behavior problems by the age of ten, or had delinquency records, mental health problems, or teen-age pregnancies by the age of eighteen.” But the remaining third developed into “competent, confident, and caring young adults.” They had attained academic, domestic, and social success—and they were always ready to capitalize on new opportunities that arose. A resilient child might have a strong bond with a supportive caregiver, parent, teacher, or other mentor-like figure. But another, quite large set of elements was psychological, and had to do with how the children responded to the environment. The resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group. One of the central elements of resilience, Bonanno has found, is perception: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic.” Werner found that resilient individuals were far more likely to report having sources of spiritual and religious support than those who weren’t. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects. Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.”
First gender identity disorder doctors certified in Japan The society eventually hopes to make the cost of hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, which is currently fully shouldered by the patients, covered by national health insurance.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Meeting between ICHARM and World Bank/GFDRR at Tokyo University
Today a meeting was held at the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), U-Tokyo,
Komaba campus, between members of ICHARM and the World Bank/GFDRR to determine future project collaboration.
We first received a demonstration at the lab of Prof. Kitsuregawa, where the supercomputers of DIAS (Data Integration and Analysis System) are housed. During this visit, Prof. Koike (director of ICHARM), Prof. Kitsuregawa, and their team members at U-Tokyo briefly explained the background and current activities of DIAS, showing actual
meteorological observations. Data uploading and quality checking by
data providers was emphasized from the perspective of their ownership. The benefit of national ownership is that we countries will provide operational maintenance with appropriate update and logistics.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
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:
- Providing drought information based on multiple indicators and data sources including satellite observations and local ground-based data.
- Providing multi-model multi-index seasonal drought prediction information for the region.
- 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.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
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.
Monday, February 29, 2016
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:
Vulnerable People:
Other:
Terms of Reference of the Scientific and Technical Partnership for the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030
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.
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