Margarida Queirós

Numerical modelling and evacuation strategies for tsunami awareness: lessons from the 2012 Haida Gwaii Tsunami

On October 28, 2012, an earthquake occurred offshore Canada, with a magnitude Mw of 7.8, triggering a tsunami that propagated through the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami numerical model results show it would not be expected to generate widespread inundation on Hawaii. Yet, two hours after the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) issued a tsunami warning to the state of Hawaii. Since the state was hit by several tsunamis in the past, regular siren exercises, tsunami hazard maps and other prevention measures are available for public use, revealing that residents are well prepared regarding tsunami evacuation procedures. Nevertheless, residents and tourists evacuated mostly by car, and because of that, heavy traffic was reported, showing that it was a non-viable option for evacuation. The tsunami caused minor damages on the coastline, and several car accidents were reported, with one fatality. In recent years, there has been a remarkable interest in tsunami impacts. However, if risk planners seem to be very knowledgeable about how to avoid or mitigate their potential harmful effects, they seem to disregard its integration with other sectors of human activity and other social factors.

Evacuation Exercises and Simulations Toward Improving Safety at Public Buildings

An evacuation exercise was conducted at a teaching and research institute of Lisbon University, where 64 first year graduate students participated. Videos were recorded during the exercise in order to analyze the students’ behavior. At the end of the activity students answered a questionnaire. In addition, computer simulations of the evacuation were carried out to compare the theoretical behavior with the experimental one. The results show that although about 90% of the students have participated in drills, some had an inappropriate behavior during the evacuation, such as stopping or walking too slowly. Simulation results show that these kinds of behavior delayed the evacuation by about 5 s. Furthermore, the comparison between experimental results and simulations has highlighted the necessity of studying and developing models capable of reproducing, to some extent, those behaviors considered to be incorrect during an evacuation. These kinds of models might be used to assess the evacuation time considering also the level of training of the population.

Edward Soja: geographical imaginations from the margins to the core

Before his sad and untimely death in November 2015, Edward Soja was one of the leading urban theorists in the world. His inspired trilogy on the “postmetropolitan transition” in urban studies, whic...

Desarrollo urbano sostenible en la agenda de cohesión territorial europea: Política de Ciudades Polis XXI, Portugal

En este articulo se reflexiona sobre las politicas de desarrollo urbano sostenible en Europa y sus reflejos en Portugal, dando especial enfoque a la Politica de Ciudades Polis XXI portuguesa, como un instrumento que tiende a seguir recientes orientaciones de politica territorial y urbana en Europa. Se procura demostrar que este es un instrumento innovador y multidimensional de desarrollo urbano sostenible, estimulador de procesos interactivos de coordinacion y agregacion de actores en torno de objetivos y proyectos comunes (arreglos de gobernanza), senalando que las politicas de ordenacion territorial estan tendiendo hacia la institucionalizacion, cooperacion y cohesion territorial. A partir de una seleccion de experiencias resultantes de la aplicacion del instrumento Politica de Ciudades Polis XXI, en Portugal, se busca concluir sobre cuales son sus efectos y que aspectos son cruciales para transferencias de conocimiento y experiencias de colaboracion institucional y cohesion en otras regiones y ciudades e 304 Margarida Queiros identificar cuales son los desafios de los instrumentos de politica territorial con incidencia en las areas urbanas para el futuro