Measuring capacities and protecting communities: strengthening regional resilience in the flooded industrial area in Thailand

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to measure the capacities and identify the vulnerabilities of the communities to contribute to their flood disaster risk management. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaire-style surveys and interviews in the four target communities and 25 critical facilities have been used. Their flood experience is also collected to explore the practical risk management solutions and preserve those as their local assets. Findings Findings show the capacity gaps among the target communities. For instance, the relatively populated urbanized communities tend to have high capacities. On the other hand, the not-so-populated farmer-based communities have low capacities, tending to focus more on droughts than floods, and lack scientific information. This research also identifies vulnerability groups and critical facility locations on the map with narratives. Originality/value The findings enable the communities to clarify their updated capacities, examine the vulnerabilities, identify the risks with possible hazard information and guide them to cope with flood risk to protect them with self, mutual and public help. This study can contribute to other industrial parks/estates in Thailand and anywhere in the world as an insightful reference to build resilient industrial complex areas.

Results of fundamental and applied seismological research in the Magadan region in 2016-2020

The results of fundamental and applied research, carried out by Magadan Branch of GS RAS during 2016-2020 in Magadan and Chukotka regions are presenting. Estimation of Seismic hazard of Russia’s Northeast (Magadan region) and seismic hazard maps for recurrence periods of 500, 1000 and 5000 years in scale close to that of detailed seismic zoning (DSZ) were made in cooperation with Institute of the Earth’s Physics RAS. In course of this work the estimation of initial seismic intensity and parameters of possible ground shaking in areas of critical facilities of Magadan region were made. For all of them a seismic micro zonation was carried out with methods of direct earthquake registration and comparing acoustic impedance. As result, a seismic amplification and intensity of seismic impact on the soils under main critical facilities were obtaining. The research results are shown on detailed seismic zoning maps that are basic for building projects of objects above.

Seismic Liquefaction Risk Assessment of Critical Facilities in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Kathmandu Valley lies in an active tectonic zone, meaning that earthquakes are common in the region. The most recent was the Gorkha Nepal earthquake, measuring 7.8 Mw. Past earthquakes caused soil liquefaction in the valley with severe damages and destruction of existing critical infrastructures. As for such infrastructures, the road network, health facilities, schools and airports are considered. This paper presents a liquefaction susceptibility map. This map was obtained by computing the liquefaction potential index (LPI) for several boreholes with SPT measurements and clustering the areas with similar values of LPI. Moreover, the locations of existing critical infrastructures were reported on this risk map. Therefore, we noted that 42% of the road network and 16% of the airport area are in zones of very high liquefaction susceptibility, while 60%, 54%, and 64% of health facilities, schools and colleges are in very high liquefaction zones, respectively. This indicates that most of the critical facilities in the valley are at serious risk of liquefaction during a major earthquake and therefore should be retrofitted for their proper functioning during such disasters.

Distributed Energy-Resource Design Method to Improve Energy Security in Critical Facilities

This paper presents a user-friendly design method for accurately sizing the distributed energy resources of a stand-alone microgrid to meet the critical load demands of a military, commercial, industrial, or residential facility when utility power is not available. The microgrid combines renewable resources such as photovoltaics (PV) with an energy-storage system to increase energy security for facilities with critical loads. The design method’s novelty complies with IEEE Standards 1562 and 1013, and addresses resilience, which is not taken into account in existing design methods. Several case studies simulated with a physics-based model validate the proposed design method and demonstrate how resilience can be included in the design process. Additionally, the design and the simulations were validated by 24 h laboratory experiments conducted on a microgrid assembled using commercial off-the-shelf components.

Earthquake loss alerts to save victims

<p>Large earthquakes are unavoidable because globally the plate motions accumulate stress, which leads to ruptures of the crustal rocks hundreds of kilometers long. In developed areas, this brings buildings to collapse, which injures and kills occupants. Potential rescuers are never well informed about the extent of an earthquake disaster because communication along the rupture is interrupted. We have documented that the underestimate of fatality numbers lasts for at least the crucial first few days, often for weeks. For earthquakes that cause thousands of casualties, the extent of underestimation is usually an order of magnitude. To reduce this uncertainty of whether help is required and how much, we have assembled a data set and constructed algorithms to estimate the number of fatalities and injured within  an hour of any earthquake worldwide in the computer tool QLARM. Our estimates of the population and the makeup of the built environment comes from government and internet sources. For large earthquakes, the hypocenter and magnitude is calculated and distributed by the GEOFON group at the Geoforschungszentrum (GFZ) in Potsdam, Germany and the Geological Survey (USGS) in Golden, USA within 6 to 10 minutes. Based on this information, the QLARM operator responds with an estimate of the number of casualties within 30 minutes of the earthquake, on average. These estimates are available to anyone by email alerts without charge. Since 2003, the QLARM operator has issued more than 1,000 casualty alerts at any time of the day pro bono. The USGS delivers a similar service called PAGER, which is based on different data sets and algorithms. The two loss estimates are usually close, which should give governments and news organizations confidence that these alerts are to be taken seriously. The QLARM research group also publishes research results, estimating the likely numbers of future casualties in repeats of historical large earthquakes. In such efforts the QLARM group has discovered that, contrary to the general assumption, the rural population suffers more by an order of magnitude under very large earthquakes than the urban population. It is also clear that the poorer segment of the population in cities and countryside suffer more than the affluent members of society because the former’s houses are weaker and collapse more readily. To be even more useful, a worldwide data set of hospitals and schools is needed in order to provide first responders with locations and likely damage to these critical facilities. Crucially, reliable school location data would enable first responders to focus rescue efforts on schoolchildren who die beneath the rubble of their schools in the hundreds to thousands in large earthquakes. Unfortunately, such data are not available from official sources in most developing countries, and we are not aware of good alternatives. The data on schools in open data platforms such as OpenStreetMap is sporadic. UNICEF runs a global school mapping initiative, but we have been unable to obtain their assistance to date.</p>

Systemic criticality—a new assessment concept improving the evidence basis for CI protection

With high certainty, extreme weather events will intensify in their impact within the next 10 years due to climate change-induced increases in hazard probability of occurrence and simultaneous increases in socio-economic vulnerability. Data from previous mega-disasters show that losses from disruptions of critical services surpass the value of direct damages in the exposed areas because critical infrastructures [CI] are increasingly (inter-) dependent. Local events may have global impacts. Systemic criticality, which describes the relevance of a critical infrastructure due to its positioning within the system, needs to be addressed to reduce the likelihood of cascading effects. This paper presents novel approaches to operationalise and assess systemic criticality. Firstly, the paper introduces systemic cascade potential as a measurement of systemic criticality. It takes the relevance of a sector and the relevance of its interdependencies into account to generate a relative value of systemic importance for a CI sector. Secondly, an exemplary sectoral assessment of the road network allows reflecting the spatial manifestation of the first level of cascading effects. It analyses the impact of traffic interruptions on the accessibility of critical facilities to point out the systemically most critical segments of the municipal road network. To further operationalise the spatial dimension of criticality, a normative assertion determining the worthiness of protection of system components is required. A nationwide spatial flood protection plan incorporates this aspect in Germany for the first time. Its formal approval process was initiated in February 2020.