Toward Wildfire Alternatives: Mitigating Wildfire Risk Through Landscape-Based Resilience

Wildfires are widely viewed as key evolving inputs of Mediterranean ecosystem. But anthropogenic climate changes and other socioecological recessions have transformed normal wildfire into megafire, especially under the intensifying challenges posed by agricultural abandonment and the rapid growth of tourism. So that the paradigm shift is needed...

A Data-Driven Approach to Disaster Resilience in Communication Networks

Communication networks are critical in business, government, and even our day-to-day life. A prolonged communication outage can have devastating effects, particularly during and after a disaster. Unfortunately, our communication infrastructure is still vulnerable to natural disasters and other events that damage multiple network components...

Early-Warning-Driven Approach for Network Protection Against Earthquakes

Natural disasters can significantly disturb communication networks. There are examples of events causing massive connectivity failures in the past, such as the Great East Japan Earthquake. Network protection mechanisms have been developed to cope with the destructive power of natural disasters and mitigate their impact on connections...

The impact of spatial resolution and satellite data type characteristics on Automated Damage Assessment using a Convolutional Neural Network

Satellite data, such as optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery, can provide information about the location and level of destruction caused by natural hazards. This information is essential to optimise the rescue mission logistics by humanitarian aid organisations and save people in need. Currently, many Automatic Damage Assessment (ADA)...

Risk assessment of large-scale winter sports sites in the context of a natural disaster

Accidents induced by natural disasters at sports sites may cause catastrophic loss of great concern. However, previous studies on risk assessments of sports sites have only focused on operational risk and equipment failure. With the frequent occurrence of extreme disasters, the risk of domino chains caused by natural disasters at large-scale...

Revitalizing Philipsburg: Towards a sustainable, densified, and vibrant neighbourhood.

In 2017 the island Sint Maarten was hit by hurricane Irma. Approximately ninety-one per cent of the build environment was damaged. This made the existing housing shortage, caused by a growing population, even more significant. Now, three years later, the residential area of Philipsburg is mostly deserted. With the departure of its residents, the...

‘A Relief to be relieved’ by relieved Community - A building learning center: Promoting hurricane-proof building knowledge among communities on Sint Maarten. A way to optimised and self-sufficient disaster relief on Sint Maarten (and beyond).

The primary objective of the project is to not only manifest the gigantic challenges of recovering after hurricane Irma which took place in 2017 but also to point out the socioeconomic disarray in the island before the hurricane itself. <br/>Irma clearly had a tremendous influence on numerous issues. However, the island had been struggling with...

Bethlehem: from exploitation to ecosystem service

Bethlehem - from exploitation to ecosystem service, is a project based on Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. The lower social classes of Sint Maarten experience trouble with their building culture, especially in combination with the reoccurring hurricanes and earthquakes. Vulnerable communities mostly rely on self or communal building, since both...

Rethinking the Territory of Concepción Chile: A resilient and strategic planning for a vulnerable urban coastal system

This research aims to re-envision the city, understanding it as a living system where change creates growth and renewal, and where uncertainty is our new normal. The continuous struggle between cities and nature, forces human settlements to look for stability and safety, trying to control the dynamics and flows of underlying landscapes. In Chile...

The role of data and information sharing when slow-onset natural disasters and conflict collide

The frequency and severity of natural disasters is increasing worldwide, leading to a growing number of people struggling to survive. While climate related natural disasters affect large portions of the world, communities who are already struggling to survive due to conflict, insecurity or poverty are hit the most. In fragile states, slowly...

AFDR | Architecture For Disaster Relief: Design to robotic production system for disaster management

Explores the possibility of developing robotic building system and long-duration architecture solutions with the aim to re-settle post disaster environments, through digital driven design parameters, material and numeric controlled technology research and experimentation through scale models and prototypes

Towards a Governance Structure for the Data-Driven Prioritization of Humanitarian Aid: A data ecosystem approach

The incidence of natural disasters worldwide is increasing. As a result, there is a growing number of people in need, whereas limited resources to help these people are available. It is therefore important to effectively and efficiently prioritize the most vulnerable people in the preparedness phase, and the most affected people in the response...

The Influence of Herding on Departure Choice in Case of an Evacuation: Design and Analysis of a Serious Gaming Experimental Set-up

Extensive research is available on travel choice behaviour which occurs during evacuations in case of natural disasters. Due to the disadvantages of existing data collection techniques, more research is needed to better understand evacuation choice behaviour. The main objective of this thesis is twofold: (1) to develop, apply and assess a new...

A survey of strategies for communication networks to protect against large-scale natural disasters

Recent natural disasters have revealed that emergency networks presently cannot disseminate the necessary disaster information, making it difficult to deploy and coordinate relief operations. These disasters have reinforced the knowledge that telecommunication networks constitute a critical infrastructure of our society, and the urgency in...

Disaster management in practice- concerning 5th ICC&GIS flood and evacuation of 92 participants

This paper describes lessons learned during the floods in 2014 in Bulgaria where a large group of professionals and researchers working in early warning and crises management (EWCM) got involved. The paper describes the site and the chronological order of the events, which disturbed the Seminar on EWCM, June, 2014.<br/>Due to heavy rain the...

MAFURIKO: Design of Nzoia Basin location based flood game

Every 2 to 7 years, Kenya experiences a reoccurrence of El-Niño rains leading to loss of life and massive damage to property. The 1997/98 El-Niño floods affected 1.5 million persons and led to an estimated USD 1.2 billion infrastructural damage, USD 236 million agricultural damage and USD 9 million on other losses (property, soil erosion,...

Risk construction and social vulnerability in an Italian Alpine Region. Country Report Italy

The report presents the findings of focus-groups and questionnaire surveys in settlements at flood-risk and recently flooded, respectively. As far as the quantitative surveys are concerned, data regard the sites located in the Trento, Bolzano/Bozen and Udine areas

Central provinces initiative, partnership to mitigate natural disasters in Central Vietnam: Summary report

Evaluation on mitigation of natural disasters, mainly floods, in Central Vietnam, results of the findings of the mission, policy planning, disaster response, sustainability, donor response, prioritized list of mitigation projects, empowerment of communities that live with floods,