James E. Daniell

A review of multiple natural hazards and risks in Germany

Although Germany is not among the most hazard-prone regions of the world, it does experience various natural hazards that have caused considerable economic and human losses in the past. Moreover, risk due to natural hazards is expected to increase in several regions of Germany if efficient risk management is not able to accommodate global changes. The most important natural hazards, in terms of past human and economic damage they caused, are storms, floods, extreme temperatures and earthquakes. They all show a pronounced spatial and temporal variability. In the present article, a review of these natural hazards, associated risks and their management in Germany is provided. This review reveals that event and risk analyses, as well as risk management, predominantly focus on one single hazard, generally not considering the cascading and conjoint effects in a full multi-hazard and risks approach. However, risk management would need integrated multi-risk analyses to identify, understand, quantify and compare different natural hazards and their impacts, as well as their interactions.

Framework for Systemic Socio-economic Vulnerability and Loss Assessment

A unified approach for modeling shelter needs and health impacts caused by earthquake damage which integrates social vulnerability into the physical systems modeling approaches has been developed. The shelter needs and health impact models discussed here bring together the state-of-the-art casualty and displaced population estimation models into a comprehensive modeling approach based on multi-criteria decision support, which provides decision makers with a dynamic platform to capture post-disaster emergency shelter demand and health impact decisions. The focus in the shelter needs model is to obtain shelter demand as a consequence of building usability, building habitability and social vulnerability of the affected population rather than building damage alone. The shelter model simulates households’ decision-making and considers physical, socio-economic, climatic, spatial and temporal factors in addition to modeled building damage states. The health impact model combines a new semi-empirical methodology for casualty estimation with models of health impact vulnerability, and transportation accessibility to obtain a holistic assessment of health impacts in the emergency period after earthquakes.

Losses Associated with Secondary Effects in Earthquakes

The number of earthquakes with high damage and high losses has been limited to around 100 events since 1900. Looking at historical losses from 1900 onwards, we see that around 100 key earthquakes (or around 1% of damaging earthquakes) have caused around 93% of losses. What is indeed interesting about this statistic is that within these events, secondary effects have played a major role, causing around 40% of economic losses and fatalities as compared to shaking effects. Disaggregation of secondary effect economic losses and fatalities demonstrating the relative influence of historical losses from direct earthquake shaking in comparison to tsunami, fire, landslides, liquefaction, fault rupture and other type losses is important if we are to understand the key causes post-earthquake. The trends and major event impacts of secondary effects are explored in terms of their historic impact as well as looking to improved ways to disaggregate them through two case studies of the Tohoku 2011 event for earthquake, tsunami, liquefaction, fire and the nuclear impact; as well as the Chilean 1960 earthquake and tsunami event.

Indirect Loss Potential Index for Natural Disasters for National and Subnational Analysis

Abstract There is no simple method to calculate indirect losses. However, key components of indirect losses can be examined rapidly using an indicator framework. The framework introduced in this study allows relative ranking of specific portfolios (e.g., selection of firms), countries, or provinces. A selection of suitable indicators has been undertaken for the indirect economic loss potential on both a country (level 1) and for Japan at a province (level 2) comparison. This was done using the available Japan data set that comprises much of the specific literature on indirect losses. The result is a map that denominates relative indirect losses. This map could be used in combination with, for example, a traditional downtime model to provide differentiation between various businesses that are dependent on business from others. In addition, it provides a framework for the application of various concepts such as the building characteristics associated with downtime. The index is relative rather than absolute and to calculate tangible losses, business income information needs to be compared with business interruption downtime. The current index provides a first-order model for obtaining a ranking of the vulnerability of countries and provinces to indirect loss potential informed by the detailed studies of indirect losses of past historic events and typical inputs used in other more complex methodologies.

A semi-probabilistic procedure for developing societal risk function

Seismic risk is typically quantified probabilistically for a single asset or evaluated through regional loss assessment for selected earthquake events. Ideally, a recurrence relationship for a loss quantity, economic loss or casualty, can be obtained for risk-informed decision-making. This can be achieved by a fully stochastic approach, for which a large amount of input information is required, whilst there is usually a lack of transparency that might hinder repeatability of the outputs. Hence, the objective of this paper is to introduce a simple and unambiguous procedure for developing parametric societal risk function based on rigorous loss modelling of response-specific probabilistic scenarios. This is then illustrated for the Greater Melbourne Region with fatality as the loss quantity. The proposed semi-probabilistic procedure can be extended to other loss quantities, as well as evaluating societal risk of other natural hazards or multiple hazards.

The smart cluster method: Adaptive earthquake cluster identification and analysis in strong seismic regions

Earthquake clustering is an essential part of almost any statistical analysis of spatial and temporal properties of seismic activity. The nature of earthquake clusters and subsequent declustering of earthquake catalogues plays a crucial role in determining the magnitude-dependent earthquake return period and its respective spatial variation for probabilistic seismic hazard assessment. This study introduces the Smart Cluster Method (SCM), a new methodology to identify earthquake clusters, which uses an adaptive point process for spatio-temporal cluster identification. It utilises the magnitude-dependent spatio-temporal earthquake density to adjust the search properties, subsequently analyses the identified clusters to determine directional variation and adjusts its search space with respect to directional properties. In the case of rapid subsequent ruptures like the 1992 Landers sequence or the 2010–2011 Darfield-Christchurch sequence, a reclassification procedure is applied to disassemble subsequent ruptures using near-field searches, nearest neighbour classification and temporal splitting. The method is capable of identifying and classifying earthquake clusters in space and time. It has been tested and validated using earthquake data from California and New Zealand. A total of more than 1500 clusters have been found in both regions since 1980 with Mmin = 2.0. Utilising the knowledge of cluster classification, the method has been adjusted to provide an earthquake declustering algorithm, which has been compared to existing methods. Its performance is comparable to established methodologies. The analysis of earthquake clustering statistics lead to various new and updated correlation functions, e.g. for ratios between mainshock and strongest aftershock and general aftershock activity metrics.

Future scenarios for earthquake and flood risk in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

We report on a regional flood and earthquake risk assessment for 33 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Flood and earthquake risk were defined in terms of affected population and affected gross domestic product (GDP). Earthquake risk was also quantified in terms of fatalities and capital loss. Estimates of future population and GDP affected by earthquakes vary significantly among five shared socioeconomic pathways that are used to represent population and GDP in 2030 and 2080. There is a linear relationship between the future relative change in a nations exposure (population or GDP) and its future relative change in annual average population or GDP affected by earthquakes. The evolution of flood hazard was quantified using a flood model with boundary conditions derived from five different general circulation models and two representative concentration pathways, and changes in population and GDP were quantified using two shared socioeconomic pathways. There is a nonlinear relationship between the future relative change in a nations exposure (population or GDP) and its future relative change in its annual average population or GDP affected by floods. Six regions can be defined for positive and negative relative change in population that designate whether climate change can temper, counter, or reinforce relative changes in flood risk produced by changes in population or exposure. The departure from the one-to-one relationship between a relative change in a nations population or GDP and its relative change in flood risk could be used to inform further efforts at flood mitigation and adaptation.

Chapter 4 Near-Real-Time Analysis of Publicly Communicated Disaster Response Information

Analysis of a disaster event can identify strengths and weaknesses of the response implemented by the disaster management system; however, analysis does not typically occur until after the response phase is over. The result is that knowledge gained can only benefit future responses rather than the response under investigation. This article argues that there is an opportunity to conduct analysis while the response is operational due to the increasing availability of information within hours and days of a disaster event. Hence, this article introduces a methodology for analyzing publicly communicated disaster response information in near-real-time. A classification scheme for the disaster information needs of the public has been developed to facilitate analysis and has led to the establishment of best observed practice standards for content and timeliness. By comparing the information shared with the public within days of a disaster to these standards, information gaps are revealed that can be investigated further. The result is identification of potential deficiencies in communicating critical disaster response information to the public at a time when they can still be corrected.

How Useful is Early Warning and Can It Be Made More Effective

The methods to detect the development of a large earthquake at an early time and to issue an appropriate warning have made great progress. Nevertheless, for population centers at risk, warnings can generally be issued only about 5–10 s before the strong shaking arrives. Systems and facilities that can benefit from a warning with such a short lead time include: Transportation systems, fire departments, medical facilities, schools, industrial plants, petroleum and gas pipelines, elevators, and power plants. However, for the population at home in vulnerable apartment buildings or at work in office buildings and factories that may not have been built following modern codes, the warning is too short for a person to reach a safe place. Although taking cover under a table can protect a person from falling objects, a structurally strong Earthquake Protection Unit (EPU) is required to save lives and limbs in a partially collapsing building. If a culture of earthquake awareness and the knowledge of early warning capabilities were developed, in which strong earthquakes closets could be bought in the lumber yard like tornado shelters, then the fine advances in earthquakes early warning could result in lives saved.