Graham A. Tobin

Natural Hazards: Explanation and Integration

Natural Hazards and Disasters: When Potential Becomes Reality. Physical Dimensions of Natural Hazards. Perception Studies: The Individual in Natural Hazards. Behavioural Studies: Community Attitudes and Adjustment. Public Policy and Natural Hazards. The Economic Impacts of Hazards and Disasters. Risk.

Sustainability and community resilience: the holy grail of hazards planning?

Recent hazard literature frequently refers to sustainability and resilience as the guiding principles behind effective hazard planning. Certainly, structurally organizing communities to minimize effects of disasters and to recover quickly by restoring socio-economic vitality are laudable goals. However, while anticipating such outcomes is relatively easy from a theoretical standpoint, practical implementation of comprehensive plans is much more elusive. Indeed, relationships between community sustainability/resilience and hazards are complex involving many social, economic, political and physical factors. A conceptual framework for analysis of sustainability and resilience, then, is described based on three theoretical models, a mitigation model, a recovery model, and a structural-cognitive model. This framework is examined using data from Florida, USA, where local context, social and political activities, and economic concerns present difficulties in application. The question remains, therefore, to what extent can communities truly develop sustainable and resilient characteristics?

Community Resilience and Volcano Hazard: The Eruption of Tungurahua and Evacuation of the Faldas in Ecuador

Official response to explosive volcano hazards usually involves evacuation of local inhabitants to safe shelters. Enforcement is often difficult and problems can be exacerbated when major eruptions do not ensue. Families are deprived of livelihoods and pressure to return to hazardous areas builds. Concomitantly, prevailing socio-economic and political conditions limit activities and can influence vulnerability. This paper addresses these issues, examining an ongoing volcano hazard (Tungurahua) in Ecuador where contextual realities significantly constrain responses. Fieldwork involved interviewing government officials, selecting focus groups and conducting surveys of evacuees in four locations: a temporary shelter, a permanent resettlement, with returnees and with a control group. Differences in perceptions of risk and health conditions, and in the potential for economic recovery were found among groups with different evacuation experiences. The long-term goal is to develop a model of community resilience in long-term stress environments.

Efficient and effective? The 100-year flood in the communication and perception of flood risk

Abstract This paper presents a synopsis of several terms used to describe US policys benchmark flood and a preliminary study of how such terms are interpreted. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in a flood prone community with residents living in and out of official flood plains. Comparable questions regarding uncertainty, perceived need for protection, and concern were asked in connection with four descriptive methods: a 100-year flood; a flood with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year; a flood with a 26 percent chance of occurring in 30 years; and a flood risk map. Statistical analysis and qualitative observation showed a disjuncture between understanding and persuasion, potential problems with the 26 percent chance method, and a preference for concrete references in describing risk.

Applied Hydrology, McGraw‐Hill Series in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering

Applied Hydrology is a valuable contribution to the literature. It is clearly written and meets all goals described by the authors. The book is intended as an upper level undergraduate or graduate level text but will also serve well as a reference handbook for applied hydrologists. The book is divided into three parts. The first, on hydrological processes, comprises six chapters which examine different elements of the hydrologic system. For the most part, these chapters are descriptive, providing background information and outlining basic principles pertinent to hydrology. Topics range from atmospheric processes to surface and subsurface flows. Finally, hydrologic measurement is discussed in chapter six.

Volcanic hazard or economic destitution: hard choices in Banos, Ecuador

Abstract In 1999, the entire population of tourism-dependent Baños, Ecuador, some 16,000 people, was evacuated in anticipation of a violent eruption of Mount Tungurahua. Subsequently, many areas in the risk zone experienced heavy ash falls, lahars, and landslides, although no cataclysmic events occurred. Many small rural communities were also evacuated. While these communities became impacted by the hazard, Baños avoided most direct effects. Conditions for all evacuees were grim, and their conditions compounded because Ecuador was simultaneously undergoing profound economic and political crises. Absent livelihood alternatives, community leaders from Baños organized a return to their town even though it remained under an evacuation order. An aggressive campaign brought tourists and more residents back and Baños revived economically; however, this was achieved at the cost of hazard awareness among both groups, tourists and residents, and public safety became compromised.

Predicting Levels of Postdisaster Stress in Adults Following the 1993 Floods in the Upper Midwest

Studies of mental health have indicated that the stress associated with living in hazardous areas is related, in part, to economic status, gender, kinship relationships, physical health, sociopsychological traits, community structure, and familiarity or experience with the hazard. This research modeled stress variability as manifested through expressed levels of anxiety, depression, and day-to-day function-ability in a flood-prone environment. A telephone questionnaire was used to collect data from adult flood victims in a medium-size midwestern town, 3 months after the floods of 1993, as part of a comprehensive survey of how stress fluctuates over time. Standard measures of anxiety, depression, and stress were incorporated into the survey instrument for comparison purposes. A large percentage (71%) of respondents displayed symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Traditional predictors were not significant, for stress symptoms appeared equally across gender, income, and age stratifications. The results showed that previous health conditions, particularly anxiety, employment status, and propensity to interpret the flood negatively were significant predictors for high levels of post disaster stress.

Cross-Cultural and Site-Based Influences on Demographic, Well-being, and Social Network Predictors of Risk Perception in Hazard and Disaster Settings in Ecuador and Mexico

Although virtually all comparative research about risk perception focuses on which hazards are of concern to people in different culture groups, much can be gained by focusing on predictors of levels of risk perception in various countries and places. In this case, we examine standard and novel predictors of risk perception in seven sites among communities affected by a flood in Mexico (one site) and volcanic eruptions in Mexico (one site) and Ecuador (five sites). We conducted more than 450 interviews with questions about how people feel at the time (after the disaster) regarding what happened in the past, their current concerns, and their expectations for the future. We explore how aspects of the context in which people live have an effect on how strongly people perceive natural hazards in relationship with demographic, well-being, and social network factors. Generally, our research indicates that levels of risk perception for past, present, and future aspects of a specific hazard are similar across these two countries and seven sites. However, these contexts produced different predictors of risk perception—in other words, there was little overlap between sites in the variables that predicted the past, present, or future aspects of risk perception in each site. Generally, current stress was related to perception of past danger of an event in the Mexican sites, but not in Ecuador; network variables were mainly important for perception of past danger (rather than future or present danger), although specific network correlates varied from site to site across the countries.

The effectiveness of street sweepers in removing pollutants from road surfaces in Florida.

ABSTRACT To test the effectiveness of street sweepers in the sandy-surfaced, subtropical Florida Peninsula, a controlled experiment was set up to compare the effectiveness of two different sweeper types in removing sediments, heavy metals, and organic constituents from a paved surface. Both a rotary brush and a regenerative air sweeper were tested on an asphalt roadway. The results indicate that rotary brush sweepers are more effective in removing total sediment loads from roads in this type of environment. However, the chemical analyses proved somewhat inconclusive. Each sweeper was effective in removing particular chemicals off streets, but neither sweeper proved better in all categories. Nevertheless, the rotary brush sweeper was most effective in removing the total sediment load off streets and is therefore recommended for use in areas covered with coarse sediments in the local drainage basin.

Catastrophic flooding and the response of the real estate market

Abstract In February 1986, the levee of the Yuba River broke, flooding the towns of Linda and Olivehurst in northern California. Besides the personal tragedies, were economic disasters. Property values of the houses plummeted. While theories of natural hazards predict that the market will capitalize the risk of flooding into the value of residential property, in areas where the probability is low the risk may be ignored. Factors are the history of past floods, socioeconomic conditions, and the real estate market. Housing prices in Linda and Olivehurst did drop (effectively to zero) immediately after the flood, then recovered relatively quickly to a level significantly lower than before the catastrophe. This suggests that the previous prices did not fully capitalize the risk of this intermittent hazard.