The role of concurrent engineering in resilient critical infrastructures during disasters

The world has complex mega-cities and interdependent infrastructures. This complication in infrastructure relations makes it sensitive to disasters and failures. Cascading failure causes blackouts for the whole system of infrastructures during disasters and the lack of performance of the emergency management stakeholders is clear during a disaster due to the complexity of the system. This research aimed to develop a new concurrent engineering model following the total recovery effort. The objectives of this research were to identify the clustered intervention utilized in the field of resilience and developing a cross-functional intervention network to enhance the resilience of societies during a disaster. Content analysis was employed to classify and categorize the intervention in the main divisions and sub-divisions and the grouping of stakeholders. The transposing system was employed to develop an integrated model. The result of this research showed that the operations division achieved the highest weight of information interchange during the response to improve the resilience of the system. The committee of logistics and the committee of rescue and relief needed the widest bandwidth of information flow in the concurrent engineering (CE) model. The contributed CE model helped the stakeholders provide a resilient response system. The final model and the relative share value of exchanging information for each workgroup can speed up recovery actions. This research found that concurrent engineering (CE) is a viable concept to be implemented as a strategy for emergency management. The result of this research can help policymakers achieve a collaborative teamwork environment and to improve resilience factors during emergency circumstances for critical infrastructures.

The Class of Social Capital: A Case Study in Barpak Village Coping and Recovering Process after the Gorkha Earthquake 2015

Social capital is one most important attribution of a resilient community. It is manifested in a human relationship or network between the community member such as family, friends, relatives, neighbourhood, membership on a formal and informal group of society, colleague and so on. This article is about the role of Social Capital to cope at the time of Gorkha Earthquake 2015 in Barpak Village. The article is based on the primary data, which is collected through the interview with 28 ordinary people and a leader of Barpak Village after the Gorkha Earthquake 2015. In this article, I focused on a few key areas of social capital such as family, friendship and neighbourhood, people's involvement in the local level institution, job pattern or profession of a villager, social norm and value as responsibility for fellow community member, collective mobilization in the aftermath of the earthquake. In the Course of my research I found the reality that social capital also closely tied with economic capital. In the rescue and relief time social capital work for all villagers or community members. But when villagers started to rebuild their house, economic capital became a core of social capital.

Role of Reducing the Vulnerability of Urban Texture in the Capacity of Relief and Rescue Operation after a Possible Earthquake in the District 5 of Isfahan, Iran

INTRODUCTION: Despite the progress of urbanization, earthquake as one of the most important natural hazards threatens most cities in the world. Accordingly, managing and reducing the vulnerability of cities to this disaster, as well as the planned relief and rescue operation, are of particular importance. The city of Isfahan, Iran, is one of the areas which requires proper attention and planning due to its high population density and vulnerability. In this regard, this study was conducted to identify the physical texture vulnerability of the District 5 of Isfahan to earthquakes and its impact during rescue and relief operations. METHODS: To conduct the research, the indices of access to green space, building density, population density, distance from the fault, distance from relief centers, access to roads and arteries, and width of roads were selected due to their frequency in studies conducted on the vulnerability of cities and scores given by specialists. Finally, the critical areas of the region were determined by weighting each of the indices using the analytic hierarchy process method in Expert Choice software (version 11) and examining the vulnerability of the region in the Geographic Information System. FINDINGS: It was revealed that 68% of the area had a suitable density of green space, and 73% and 88% of the region had low building and population densities, respectively. Moreover, 76% of the area had good access to relief centers and the whole area had proper passages. Finally, it was found that no faults passed through this area, and the impact of adjacent faults caused this area to be in a moderate situation in terms of vulnerability. CONCLUSION: The critical areas were determined by overlaying each of the vulnerability layers of the city and applying their degree of importance. The results showed that 6% and 18% of the areas were in critical and highly vulnerable conditions, respectively. Therefore, rescue and relief operations would be performed with an acceptable capacity after such disasters as earthquakes.

Mountain Disasters and Rescue Mechanism in Nepal

Geographically, Nepal is divided into three regions, namely; the Terai, the hills, and the mountains. Nepal is prone to many types of disasters due to the various causes and one of the main causes is its geographic setting. Some disasters and hazards are prevalent to all over the country, some are area specific. Mountain and high altitude hazards are unique in nature and have distinct features and they pose several challenges for the rescue and relief operations. Disasters in mountain regions of Nepal have multi-dimensional effects on human life, property and the environment. The paper analyzes the mountain disasters, their nature and their impacts. It also focuses on the institutional as well as legal arrangements regarding disaster rescue. For this purpose, a qualitative descriptive and analytical method is applied to achieve the desired objectives of the study. This paper depends upon the secondary source of data available in several works of literature; journal articles, books, news articles, government reports, and websites. The paper finds that the frequencies of mountain disasters are low in comparison to other parts of Nepal, but they are diverse and complex. There are institutional and legal mechanisms for disaster risk reduction, but they are not adequate to respond mountain disasters effectively. All security agencies along with private sectors involving in mountain search and rescue operations do not have sufficient mountain-specific rescue units, training, and logistics.

The implications of international rescue and relief operations for domestic regulatory regimes—lessons from the 2011 East Japan Earthquake

This article attempts to reveal how and why international rescue and relief operations had difficulties, following the 2011 East Japan earthquake, in being smoothly received in a country like Japan with well-prepared domestic natural disaster response mechanisms as well as highly regulated economy and society. To this end, the article examines lessons and challenges from the operations by foreign rescue and relief assistance teams then tries to present possible solutions and prescriptions for adjustment and improvement of inter-state frameworks as well as domestic laws and regulations. Issues are generally analogous to trade and investment liberalisation as well as inter-state deregulatory endeavours, which may give some insights in addressing post-disaster regulatory and procedural impediments.

Sefid Sang Earthquake Measuring 6 on the Richter Scale in Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran, 2017: Challenges and Operations

INTRODUCTION: The present article aimed to study field observations of the 2017 Sefid Sang earthquake, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran, measuring 6 on the Richter scale with the approach of assessing the behaviors and performing a short analysis on the rescue and relief operations. METHODS: This qualitative study has followed the conceptual analysis approach to research. The sample population was selected with purposive sampling technique from the affected villages of Brashak, Karghash Olya, Drakht Bid, Kelate Menar, Kelate Hajikar, Kharzar, and Chah Mazar to study the behavior and knowledge of the affected people. A goal-based sampling was also applied among the operational managers who were directly engaged in the relief and rescue operations. This research benefited the focus group’s viewpoints. The necessary data were gathered from the answers given to the open questions. The process of research data analysis was in the light of phases proposed by Granheim and Lanman. FINDINGS: The results of this study showed that the disaster preparedness index coefficient among the residents of affected and surrounding villages was low which seriously required enhancement. It was also found out the affected people lacked necessary awareness about general training on the subject of disaster resiliency. Although Red Crescent’s role of disaster response in the context of implementation had been effective, it was found that its other roles of advocacy and support could be more effective than its implementation role. CONCLUSION: Observation also showed that cultural diversity was being observed and respected by rescue and relief workers; however, such a critical issue was not observed and respected the same by other organizations, consequently aggravating the cooperation and coordination atmosphere

Developing a Web Based Decision Support System for Disaster Management on Aila Affected Area of Koyra Upazila

Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone countries of the world and has been subjected to frequent natural disasters in many forms, particularly cyclonic storms and storm surges. The low-lying coastal areas are particularly vulnerable, thus placing these population, infrastructure, agriculture, livestock and economic development in a high-risk situation. The situation calls for an effective cyclone warning and dissemination system. With a view to address that this research intends to develop and manage a website containing all the information for helping in taking decision about disaster management. As its common knowledge that disaster victims need immediate, efficient and effective rescue and relief services, this system will provide relief and rescue workers with a platform easy to use, fast to search, retrieve and access information and most importantly will help in preventing the duplication of relief works. Overall, proper co-ordination will be ensured among the existing organization seems to be lacking due to the shortage of effective information dissemination system.