Evacuation Shelter Decision Method Considering Non-Cooperative Evacuee Behavior to Support the Disaster Weak

In disaster situations, special support for the disaster weak are crucial to keep them safe. Common evacuation strategies guide individuals to the shelters closest to their present locations. If evacuees are unevenly distributed across areas, some shelters will not be able to accommodate all arriving evacuees due to the limited capacity of shelters. To tackle this, the existing method decides the destinations for each evacuee considering congestion in disaster areas. However, this method does not consider the disaster weak and can be burdensome for them. Giving that the priority to the disaster weak for shelter decision would be effective to lessen burdens for them, but not all evacuees follow the guidance. When a shelter accepts arriving evacuees unconditionally, some evacuees are rejected, causing a delay in evacuation. If the disaster weak are rejected, the delay will be increased. In this paper, we propose two evacuation shelter decision methods considering the capacity of shelters, the disaster weak, and evacuees’ selfish behavior to realize quick evacuation for the disaster weak: (1) Fixed-rate Reduction Method (FRM), which reduces the assignment number of evacuees less than the capacity at the same percentage to all shelters. (2) Simulation-based Reduction Method (SRM), which reduces the assignment number to shelters that will be crowded based on simulation of an evacuation scenario. Then, these methods decide the destinations for evacuees, with the priority given to the disaster weak. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed methods, we conducted multi-agent simulation assuming the scenario of evacuation of 30,000 visitors for the Gion Festival including the disaster weak. Through the simulation, we compared our methods with conventional methods including the nearest shelter selection method and the exiting method. As a result, our methods can reduce evacuation time of the disaster weak compared to conventional methods with sufficient cooperation by evacuees.

Development of a Multi-Criteria Evaluation Framework and Its Application for Earthquake Shelter Selection

The importance of designated earthquake shelters has been emphasized in South Korea. However, the lack of an appropriate evaluation process for shelter candidates often leads to an ad-hoc selection of earthquake shelters, resulting in inefficient disaster management. To address this issue, this study proposes an evaluation framework based on multi-criteria decision-making to measure the suitability of earthquake shelters quantitatively. First, available indicators for shelter evaluation are extracted from the relevant literature, which are then streamlined and grouped using text mining to represent evaluation areas. Next, the selected indicators are standardized to the same value scale, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to derive the relative importance of each evaluation area to compute the weighted sum total score of each candidate. The developed evaluation framework is applied to a case study of earthquake shelter selection in the city of Songdo-dong. The results show that there are additional shelter candidates suitable for earthquake evacuation in addition to the current designated shelters. This study can serve as a basis for objective shelter selection that would improve the identification and utility of designated shelters.

A Typhoon Shelter Selection and Evacuee Allocation Model: A Case Study of Macao (SAR), China

Typhoon disaster represent one of the most prominent threats to public safety in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China and can cause severe economic losses and casualties. Prior to the landing of typhoons, affected people should be evacuated to shelters as soon as possible; this is crucial to prevent injuries and deaths. Various models aim to solve this problem, but the characteristics of disasters and evacuees are often overlooked. This study proposes a model based on the influence of a typhoon and its impact on evacuees. The model’s objective is to minimize the total evacuation distance, taking into account the distance constraint. The model is solved using the spatial analysis tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It is then applied in Macao to solve the evacuation process for Typhoon Mangkhut 2018. The result is an evacuee allocation plan that can help the government organize evacuation efficiently. Furthermore, the number of evacuees allocated to shelters is compared with shelter capacities, which can inform government shelter construction in the future.

Emergency shelter selection in the context of seismic risk. Case study – Bucharest, Romania

<p>Big cities are prone to suffer important losses, both economic and human, in case of a risk occurrence. Bucharest is the most vulnerable European capital to earthquakes due to its exposure, being located about 130 km from the main seismic region of the country – Vrancea Region, and also due to its high physical and social vulnerability.</p><p>Based on the past experiences and on the present development of the city, there is an urge to find and to develop measures and policies for seismic risk mitigation. The first step in this direction, which is also the aim of the present work, is to assess the current situation regarding the vulnerability of the city and to understand the dimension of the losses throughout the city in case of a major earthquake event.</p><p>In this study we discuss the best locations to deploy shelters which can provide first-aid and temporary residence for those who lost their homes after an earthquake event. Our research is based on estimating the losses at a detailed scale and by knowing the limitations of the infrastructure (including emergency hospitals and roads) and of the public services (like the firefighters, ambulances, police, medical care etc.).</p><p>Social, economic and housing quality criteria were integrated in a multicriteria analysis in order to assess the most vulnerability hotspots at city level and to estimate losses. The results showed the presence of two extended areas, situated in the south-west and the western part of the city, with high vulnerability scores and high potential losses. These two areas were introduced into a new multicriteria analysis for finding suitable locations that can be used as indoor and outdoor shelters.</p><p>Our study is a step forward to increase the preparedness of the population, that will know where to go in case of need. It will also help the authorities that will better allocate their resources and overall mitigate the seismic risk.</p>

Conflictual influence of humidity during shelter selection of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana)

In collective decision-making, when confronted with different options, groups usually show a more marked preference for one of the options than do isolated individuals. This results from the amplification of individual preferences by social interactions within the group. We show, in an unusual counter-example, that when facing a binary choice between shelters with different relative humidities, isolated cockroaches of the species Periplaneta americana select the wettest shelter, while groups select the driest one. This inversion of selection results from a conflictual influence of humidity on the probabilities of entering and leaving each shelter. It is shown that the individual probability of entering the wettest shelter is higher than the group probability and is increased by previous entries and exits. The probability of leaving each shelter decreases in the population due to social interactions, but this decrease is less pronounced in the wettest shelter, suggesting weaker social interactions. A theoretical model is developed and highlights the existence of tipping points dependent on population size, beyond which an inversion of selection of a resting place is observed.

Multi-Period Evacuation Shelter Selection considering Dynamic Hazards Assessment

Natural phenomena may lead to a huge disaster that is affected by triggering phenomenon and the following phenomena that occured afterward. Nevertheless, following single scenario of disaster to create a disaster emergency plan might lead to an incomparable estimation of risk. The decision maker could reduce the risk and perform an efficient evacuation, By understanding disaster prone area based on hazard assessment. This study proposed a multi-period shelter selection and relocation by considering possible impact due to cascading effect and secondary disaster. The objective was to minimize the cost associated with transport and relocation shelter during the evacuation process. A simple yet powerful Simulated Annealing was proposed to solve the model. This study compared the cost that occurred based on two approaches, hazard assessment map, and radius based map. The result showed that model with hazard map generated a better result in comparison with radius based map. Hazard map could offer different subsets of the shelters identified in the first stage to be selected, thereby producing a minimum number of evacuees.

Supportive release techniques provide no reintroduction benefit when efficacy and uptake is low

Release methods can influence the outcome of reintroductions. We tested the effect of delayed, immediate and supplementary food/shelter release treatments on the reintroduction of brushtail possums Trichosurus vulpecula to an environment in which introduced predators, particularly foxes, were subject to control. Monitoring of 48 radio-collared possums over 3 months revealed that immediate release possums settled into a stable range significantly faster than other groups, but there were no differences in survival, dispersal distance, reproduction or body condition. Ten days after release possums from all treatment groups had lost body mass, but by day 60 most were heavier than at the time of translocation. After release, possums sometimes used shelter sites easily accessible to predators, but within 3 weeks they regularly selected safer shelter. Risky shelter selection and loss of condition immediately after release suggests that supplementary food and shelter could be beneficial, but supportive measures were rarely used or did not have the desired effect. In an environment with higher predator densities, risky shelter selection could lead to high post-release predation, and mass loss could encourage animals to forage in riskier ways, further increasing vulnerability. In these environments effective uptake of supplementary food and shelter could reduce predation risk, but supplementary measures would need to be presented in a way that maximises uptake. In contrast, if post-release predation risk is low then supportive measures may not be required. Innovative methods for providing post-release support should continue to be developed for reintroductions to areas where supportive measures are needed.