Why we prefer small adjustments

This blog is related to Dr. David Bieri’s talk about financial resilience and question “Why we (as a society) try to pursue our goals or changes we want to see through small adjustments to economic policy, rather than by changing our institutions, which are a product of our ideas and values and so presumably subject to our direct control.”

As financial sector is strongly connected with the real world, it reflects our ideas and behavior which has a huge impact to shape its resilience. Our ideas are materialized through the creation of right institutions to implement them. I think the problem lies in our way of thinking which is evolutionary or sort of learning by doing from our mistakes. This has made us prefer adjustment in the policy and systems without going fundamental changes and bring revolutionary ideas which might yield a completely new set of institutions.  Another reason could be the system inertia. Basically, the financial sector is a conglomerate of multiple institutions with varied interests. As a result, it is reluctant to accommodate new changes and rather prefers minor adjustments.

Use of social media in natural disaster #NepalQuake2015

Social media especially Facebook and Twitter are very important and useful open source tools before, during, and after the natural disaster to assess the vulnerability before the event, to map preliminary damage, locate victims and critical services especially hospitals during the event, and coordinate response and recovery activities after the disaster occurs. These tools are very useful in an area where long-term data are not available, and critical infrastructure and resources are not mapped. In general, maps and disaster-related information are based on complex methodologies such as geospatial techniques which are not easily readable for the general public because of many associated jargons. These complex information should be processed into simple language first and then communicate to the wider public to be better prepared for any disaster events. Facebook and Twitter could be a useful and efficient tool to communicate such message to the public as nowadays virtually everyone possess hand-held devices with them.

During Nepal earthquake 2015, Facebook and Twitter were widely used for many purposes: first, it was the most important tool to get updates of their beloved ones and immediate family members. Second, it was efficiently used to gather damage information from the distant villages and needy communities for the relief distribution. Third, it was best utilized to gather volunteers to coordinate response and recovery in Kathmandu and most importantly to the rural villages. Facebook groups and twitter hashtags were used to mobilize youth in different activities. Fourth, public were asked to provide, if they have any related to earthquake damages such as damage location, photos, and further information which were later processed by the team of experts to prepare situation maps assisting relief distribution and other response activities. Based on open data voluntarily contributed by the public, satellite images and GIS data, such maps were extremely useful for the government and international aid agencies to coordinate their efforts.

Induced seismicity

Induced seismicity due to deep well injection is a very new topic for me as I had learned only about environmental risks in newspapers. Induced seismicity can create a wide range of problems for engineers, designers, scientists, and the community such as the requirement of new building codes, construction practices, regular monitoring of the seismic activities, and changes in policy at concerned levels. This can result in extra spending of federal monies which otherwise could have been spent on other development projects.

One of the strong argument to back enhanced oil recovery is, it is a huge job driver in some of the states in the US. It is quite true, but we need to carefully think about the effects such as induced seismicity in the vicinities. Such effects, for example, may generate fear in the market and result in an increment of the premium of house insurance which is an extra burden to the homeowners. Also, people prefer stronger buildings to lessen the risks from natural hazards. It is easy to implement new building codes for the newer building, but it would be tough for the existing ones. Then the primary question is who is going to pay for that? If all the profits are taken by the companies it is unfair for the homeowners to pay such external costs. If we can internalize external costs into the system, we can allow enhanced oil recovery.   

DRRM Group 1 Update

Julia:

This week I have been reading up on the background and history of Nepal's seismicity. I did this because it seemed to fit in really well with the guest lecture from last week, which was all about earthquakes and seismology. I have been learning about the geology in Nepal and why it is so prone to earthquakes. Apparently Nepal is not only located right on top of a very seismically active fault, but it was also built on top of the extremely soft earth. The land consists mainly of sand, clay and gravel. Researchers dug down into the earth and found that the soil in the central part of Katmandu is very soft up to a depth of about 20 meters.

Laura and Sanam:

This past week we met to discuss our group partnership. Given the time constraints, we had to cut our portion down a bit and get more focus. For our portion, we'll be examining geospatial techniques (GIS, remote sensing and GPS) in disaster response. Laura will be coming at it from the perspective of an emergency manager, rather than an economist; while Sanam will put his expertise in geography and local perceptions reflected by his community members during and after the event. We'll look into the ways in which GIS can be used in emergency management, then look at how it was actually used in Nepal by a disaster response agency. Then, we can see if there are any potential holes that GIS could help fill.

Modeling sustainability

The quantitative modeling of sustainability using an interdisciplinary approach enables us to understand and connect top-down and bottom-up approaches to measure sustainability. The Interdisciplinary approach is very useful to address social problems but is generally limited by the poor understanding of the concepts across the disciplines. For instance, the term ‘disaster resilience’ is understood in different ways in different disciplines. Another challenge of such work is scaling issues. Some models are quite useful to describe community characteristics at the local level but are not helpful while up scaling to regional and national level. The same is true while scaling down global models to understand the intricacies of the systems.

From the evolutionary resilience perspective as put by Dr. Davoudi in her last lecture, the main challenge remains in modeling or quantitatively assessing the intentionality of human actions. In general, quantitative models are overly deterministic which does not allow for human interventions into the systems. In addition, power and politics in the society are so prevailing that a quantitative model cannot accurately predict the relationships. Although, Dr. Little describes about the orientors and indicators to assess and enhance sustainability, the right representation of qualitative social indicators in a social context is always debatable. 

Saffir-Simpson Scale

Saffir-Simpson Scale is a useful index in a sense that it can help people, researcher, emergency managers, and policy makers to understand the severity of the hurricane wind and prepare accordingly. Based on the scale, one can perceive the strength of the wind and its associated damage in the infrastructure. But this has a couple of problems associated with it. Firstly, the scale is totally dependent in the wind speed and does not include other characteristics of hurricanes such as flood range, storm surge, and rainfall. Also, it does not tell about the size of the wind field. A lower category hurricane with larger wind field could have significant damage. In addition, it is not quite useful about the impacts on rural vs urban area, and developing vs developed nations as the quality of buildings are hugely differed accordingly. In summary, it can be used but need to communicate the meaning of the category to the people so that they can well understand and not confused and panic during the event.  

DRRM: Nepal Group Update

From Julia:

This week I have been working on gathering information on earthquake resistant housing. I have found several very helpful resources and a few good pictures as well that I think will be useful during our presentation. I have also been looking for information on the urban/rural divide in Nepal after the earthquake. This part of my research appears to have much less information available. Since we decided last week that we would be the first group to present, I want to have all of my research done in the next few weeks so I can spend time preparing for the presentation.

From Laura:

In examining the use of GIS in disaster planning, it was pretty apparent that geo-intel is commonly used for disaster response. However, it seems that the kind of information used in planning aid dispersion tends to be rather simple relational information. The Incident Command Structure (ICS), the national method for managing disasters, already has capability to expand GIS analysis into planning methods for disasters. However, there seems to be a dearth of knowledge as it relates to using more quantitative methods to predict need in disasters. There seems to be little available on research relating to how to predict need following disasters based on geographical information.

With the rural/urban divide, I spent part of this week examining how the food supply chain was affected in the Nepal earthquake. The World Food Programme has some information relating to food security in Nepal, but it'll take a bit more research to look into all of the effects. Additionally, I found an article on the Economist this week that detailed some of the current geo-political issues affecting Nepal after the earthquake. Following the September 20th passage of the new Nepal constitution, protests have occurred over anger from the formation of new states which left some afraid that they would become even more politically marginalized. The bloody protests stand in stark contrast to April when Nepal was united in grief after the earthquake. The political acrimony partly comes from the government's lack of a plan for rebuilding the economy. In small rural villages, millions endured recent monsoon rains without proper housing, waiting for aid the government had promised. Further political resolution will require the Nepalese government to critically examine the exacerbated differences in the rural/urban divide.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21667979-new-constitution-fuels-strife-charter-fights

From Sanam:

This week I collected more information about how geospatial techniques were used in rescue and recovery in NepalQuake. Also, information about how governmental, non-governmental and international agencies coordinated and collaborated to facilitate the rescue and recovery in the remote part of the country where no disaster related information were available readily. In addition, I looked for some literature on the earthquake resistant housing standards. Although, there are building codes available in some of the metropolitan town including capital Kathmandu, there is a very low level of implementation. The human settlement in steep slopes and traditional buildings were primarily responsible for the mortality in the rural part whereas low level of implementation of building codes in the urban centers are responsible for the most of the damages. During the literature collection, I found that the newly formed reconstruction authority has brought the new definition and classification of land use in the country which would be, if implemented well, the entry point to make communities safer and more resilient. 

DRRM: Landslides and infrastructure in Nepal

For this week DRRM, I am taking an example of Sunkoshi landslide and its impact on infrastructure. Due to heavy rainfall, in the early morning of August 2, 2014, a landslide occurred at Jure village of Sindhupalchowk district, the northern part of the country. It killed 156 people and blocked the Sunkoshi river forming an artificial lake. About 2 dozens houses were swept away by the landslide and 2.6-megawatt hydropower station was completely submerged in the backflow of the river. The lake was about 3 km long and an estimated 7 million cubic meters volume was stored in the lake which lasted for 38 days. It destroyed about 5 kilometers of Araniko highway, the main and only one trade link to China. The average trade from this route is about US$ 400,000 per day which means US$ 15.2 million were lost. It also damaged power supply infrastructure of several hydropower projects inducing more power cut hours in the capital and other parts of the country.

Landslide:
Source: http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2014/08/02/sunkoshi-1/

The artificial lake submerging hydropower station.
Source: https://twitter.com/bewitchkapil

Landslide is the deadliest natural disasters in the country. Moreover, due to fragile geology and human occupation and their interactions have made the middle Himalayan region more vulnerable to natural disasters. Landslides and floods are common phenomena during the monsoon season. Particularly, Sunkoshi valley has experienced numerous large floods and landslides in the last three decades. In addition, the settlement along the highway which runs in the bank of Sunkoshi river has been dramatically increased in last two decades.

A landslide above Jure in 2013; the same landslide after the event on August 2, 2014.
Source: http://www.icimod.org/?q=14356

Although we cannot control natural hazards such as landslides and floods, certainly there are many ways to mitigate their adverse impacts on lives, livelihoods, and physical infrastructures. For this purpose, the information and knowledge from the past events would be of immense help to support disaster risk reduction. Such information would be invaluable for the preparation of hazard map, hazard zonation, and land use planning for the future. Also, with the help of remote sensing and automatic weather station, meteorological and hydrological variables can be measured. Such data can eventually be feed into hydrological models to prepare and install early warning systems in the region. Such activities would increase the community resilience and be prepared for the future disaster to save lives and economy in the tiny Himalayan country.  

DRRM Week 4: Personal Resilience

Personally, I feel that I follow the panarchy model of adaptive cycle in terms of personal resilience. Learning from the past mistakes, I try to re-organize myself to achieve a new set of goals which are mainly aimed for longer terms than the previous one. I try to turn a crisis into an opportunity with better and detailed work plan gained through academic learnings and practical experiences.

Evolutionary resilience: I believe that there are multiple levels of equilibrium within the systems in which it can bounce back. In addition, it can bounce back to ‘new normal’ as the previous situation would not be acceptable for the people who are living in the disaster-prone areas. However, the evolutionary resilience does not define the geographic perspective well. As disaster resilience analysis requires assimilation of physical as well as socio-economic information from many unique geographic locations, we need to consider both spatial and temporal perspectives.

DRRM Week 3: Hazard, Risk and Disaster

What is Risk?

The risk in geography is defined as the likelihood of a hazard event occurring and creating the loss. It is the actual exposure of something of human value to a hazard and is often measured as the product of the probability of an event happening and potential loss.

 (Source:http://www.backgroundalpha.com/Images/Combinaison_englais.jpg)

Difference between Hazard and Disaster?

Hazard is a naturally occurring or human induced process which has a potential to create a loss. Disaster is an actual event which has severely impacted people, communities, and systems.  Hazard is primarily understood in a physical dimension whereas disaster has social dimensions. For instance, avalanche or flood in a remote Himalayan mountain is just a hazard but if it impacts downstream population and societies, it becomes a disaster.

Hazard, Risk and Disaster in Nepali context:

Nepal is situated in an active tectonic belt. The Indian tectonic plate is submerging towards Tibetan plate and hence still raising. As it is the youngest mountain in the world, natural processes are active in the region. Hence, landslides, floods, earthquakes, snow avalanche, soil erosion etc. are common which is further intensified by the concentrated south Asian monsoonal process. In addition, more than 30 million people are living in the country. As most of the high mountain regions are not livable due to permanent snow, population are concentrated in marginal locations of hills and southern plains of the country. The dependency of the people in the limited resources has exposed them to disproportionate risk to natural disasters. The recent development pattern such as road construction and infrastructure development has added more risks. These crisscrossed mountains are hampered by such processes. As a result, the landslide is the deadliest disaster in terms of natural hazard mortality while people often consider that earthquake and floods are notorious. The natural process and exposure of the societies to the natural process make the Nepal one of the vulnerable countries in the world.

A rural house destroyed by April 25, 2015 Earthquake

Short-term and long-term physical, environmental, and economic impacts of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake of magnitude 9.0 hit the northeast coastal areas of Japan. This earthquake, commonly called as Tohoku earthquake, generated massive tsunami wave resulting coastal inundation in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures, and most importantly, nuclear meltdown of Fukushima nuclear plant. Hence, this triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear) killed so many people. As of August 10, 2015, 15, 892 people are killed, 6,152 people are injured and 2,573 people are still missing¹. About 124,664 buildings were completely devastated whereas 274,641 buildings were partially collapsed having significant impacts on other infrastructures as well. This disaster damaged 116 bridges, 4,198 section of roads, 29 segments of railways and induced 207 landslides in the affected region.

The striking difference of this earthquake is the nuclear power plant crisis. After the Chernobyl disaster in 1984, this event created heated debates about the dependency of energy supply on nuclear power. Also, concerns were raised worldwide regarding the safety standards to combat such mega events. Krausmann and Cruz (2013)² studied the impacts of earthquake and tsunami on chemical industry where they concluded that this event dramatically highlighted the vulnerability to natural hazard triggered technological (Natech) accidents of a well prepared countries like Japan and suggested to revisit the current practices and policies to safeguard surroundings from such facilities. The same report highlights the disproportionate impact of chemical industries in the different location within the affected region. For instance, no lives were lost in Chiba industrial complex while four people were killed in Sendai refinery.

2015 Gorkha Earthquake and its impact on Nepalese economy

On April 25, 2015, Nepal was struck by 7.6 magnitude earthquake during noon having epicenter 75 km west to the capital town Kathmandu. The catastrophic earthquake claimed about 9,000 lives and injured about 23,000 people throughout the country. So far, more than 400 aftershocks greater than 4.0 magnitudes are recorded, including 6.8 on May 12 which further exacerbated the situation. Out of 75 districts, 31 districts are affected and14 districts including capital town are worst hit.

More than a million houses are destroyed by the earthquake. Mostly traditional buildings in the rural districts are reduced to rubble. Historical monuments, temples, and shrines are destroyed. The tourism sector is heavily impacted as there was a big avalanche in the Everest and Langtang regions. The only highway connecting Nepal and China was obstructed causing huge loose on bilateral trades. 

Preliminary seismic risk assessment of Dharan city in eastern Nepal using Landsat images

Poster presentation at 2015 GIS and Remote Sensing Research Symposium, Virginia Tech

April 10, 2015

Nepal lies in the southern slopes of the Himalayan range, which is one of the most active mountain ranges in the world. The Himalayan range was formed due to collisions between the Indian and Tibetan plates. As a result, there is a presence of active faults that pose constant threats of the earthquake in the country. Nepal has a long history of destructive earthquakes each occurring in 100 years interval. The latest hit was on August 20, 1988, which devastated the entire Eastern region and part of the Central regions. It was 6.5 magnitude in Richter scale. It claimed 721 human lives, injured 6,553 people and damaged other developmental infrastructures (Nepal Disaster Report 2011). Earthquake risk and vulnerability assessment are primarily based on two things: location and magnitude of earthquakes, and pattern of human settlement and building types. So far, we have good understanding about the active seismic zones but we cannot accurately predict the magnitude and time of the earthquake. Hence, to minimize the earthquake risk, we need to reduce the social vulnerability related with human settlement and building types. This work aims to understand how the human settlement has been increased in one of the eastern city of Nepal, Dharan, using Landsat sequential images and are exposed to constant threat of earthquake risk.

To download poster pdf: https://goo.gl/fKIMaU

#Hokies4Nepal: Earthquake 2015 fundraising campaign

We, Nepalese Student Association at Virginia Tech are coordinating the fund-raising program at Blacksburg campus to help communities at Nuwakot district. Nuwakot is one of the hardest hit districts, north to capital city Kathmandu. So far, about 1,100 lives are claimed, about 1,500 people injured, and 60,000 houses are completely destroyed.

(Photo: Devi Gnyawali)

The details of the fundraising campaign can be found at 

http://www.nepal.org.vt.edu/nepalearthquake2015/