A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, February 2015. / Due to its geographical location, poor economic situation and geological features that are characterised by mostly mountainous terrain, Lesotho is vulnerable to hazardous events associated with climate, such as drought, floods, heavy snow, and severe frost. This research explores factors underlying spatial vulnerability of places to natural hazards in south-western Lesotho. Prior vulnerability assessments in Lesotho have investigated vulnerability in terms of identifying populations that are most food insecure and vulnerable to hunger. By broadening the scope of vulnerability to include biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics, the study emphasises the concept of place vulnerability as a foundation for understanding Lesotho’s vulnerability to natural hazards. Spatial orientation of vulnerability within a geographical area provides an easy way for planners and decision makers to identify areas that may require additional resources in order to prepare for disasters. To date, no quantitatively based vulnerability assessment has been undertaken in Lesotho, so this study is one of the first to assess place vulnerability to natural hazards in Lesotho using GIS and it emphasise the role of geography of a place.

A massive tsunami hit Aceh in December 26, 2004. It was one of the biggest natural disasters of the century. The tsunami’s unprecedented destruction of the area attracted the biggest influx ever of international aid and highlighted the nearly non-existent social service system at local levels. The abundance of international aid served as an impetus for the Indonesian government to review their social service system. This is the first time that resources from international aid in Indonesia were allocated for professionalization of social workers. This dissertation utilizes a qualitative narrative analysis to explore the questions: How do Indonesian social workers understand and express their experience of the social work professionalization process post-2004 tsunami? How do they interpret the process of professionalization? How do the systems available influence their professional interpretation of the experience and affect their strategies to gain public recognition and resources to claim professional jurisdiction in a society? Interviews were conducted of fifteen Indonesian social workers who were involved in the 2004 tsunami recovery efforts and are still active in the social work professionalization efforts today. The findings show that the international aid and 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia was the impetus for professionalization of social work in Indonesia. This study explores how Indonesian social workers understand and interpret their experience during the tsunami 2004 recovery efforts using Abbott’s system of professions concepts to frame the professionalization process as impacted by international aid during the 2004 tsunami. The findings revolve around formal public recognition, community sanction and a systematic knowledge base in Indonesia’s social work professionalization process.

Today, there is a growing number of buildings in a neighborhood and business parks that are utilizing renewable energy generation, to reduce their electric bill and carbon footprint. The most current way of implementing a renewable energy generation is to use solar panels or a windmill to generate power; then use a charge controller connected to a battery bank to store power. Once stored, the user can then access a clean source of power from these batteries instead of the main power grid. This type of power structure is utilizing a single module system in respect of one building. As the industry of renewable power generation continues to increase, we start to see a new way of implementing the infrastructure of the power system. Instead of having just individual buildings generating power, storing power, using power, and selling power there is a fifth step that can be added, sharing power. The idea of multiple buildings connected to each other to share power has been named a microgrid by the power community. With this ability to share power in a microgrid system, a catastrophic event which cause shutdowns of power production can be better managed. This paper then discusses the data from simulations and a built physical model of a resilient microgrid utilizing these principles.

The purpose of this research activity is to determine how cultural astronomy manages natural disasters in the local communities. Study Area: Mahikeng in North West Province among the Barolong boora Tshidi. Indigenous people have contributed the least to world greenhouse gas emission and have the smallest ecological footprints on Earth. Yet they suffer the worst impacts not only of climate change, but also from some of the international mitigation measures being taken. Impacts on climate change affect people negatively, these may include droughts, floods, increased diseases in people, plants as well as animals, biodiversity extinct, high mortality rate, increased food insecurity to mention a few. This study aims to describe how knowledge of cultural astronomy manages natural disasters within our local communities. In this dissertation the history of Barolong using their knowledge of cultural astronomy to manage natural disasters is gradually fading away because of non-recognition of our knowledge custodians as they do not hold any formal education and those who have it only ended at primary level. Democracy brought a sense of mental decolonization unto us as South Africans. This brought light to some of our village members to acknowledge their identity which includes their customs and beliefs. This study unearthed that local communities have the rich indigenous knowledge to sustain their lives that is how some villages are able to prepare and manage natural disasters without the knowledge of cultural astronomy only. They practice other measures which also sustain them and are also easy to be passed on orally from generation to generation. In Barolong communities the knowledge of sky readers is regarded to be very important, it is information that can be relied on because sky readers are always correct. In addition, African traditional religious nature and structure endorses the practice to be acknowledged and be taken as African identity. In the light of the above, and after taking comments by the members of the communities, recommendations are made for an integrated study framework between the local knowledge and modern technologies or information of astronomy. It is also recommended that there should be proper documentation which is not distorted before it can be totally extinct. / Thesis (M.(Indigenous Knowledge Systems) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2014

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the unpredictability of climate change and natural disasters impact the risk perception of Swedish companies. The literature chapter that has been elaborated in this study describes theories that are associated with effects of climate change and natural disasters, risk management and knowledge. Further on, the research has been conducted with a qualitative method in order to gain a profounder understanding of the topic and how it influences the risk perception of Swedish companies. The study has further on been following a abductive research approach since the area of research was rather unexplored.  We present the results of our study by answering to the research questions in the conclusion chapter that have been derived from the analysis. Furthermore, the conclusion chapter involves that the risks perception of the studied companies differentiates depending on the level and type on knowledge that the companies hold.

Advisor name noted incorrectly on document as "Bordertsky". / The objective of this thesis is to review and analyze the current Command and Control communications used by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and provide best business practices of Emergency Preparedness and Response Systems capable of responding to all public health emergencies, act of terrorism and mass casualty incidents. Natural and man-made disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, plane crashes, high-rise building collapses, or major nuclear facility malfunctions, pose an ever-present danger challenge to public emergency services. In order to manage such disasters in a rapid and highly efficient and coordinated manner, the optimal provisions of information concerning any crisis situation is an essential pre-requisite. Local Police, Fire departments, Public Health Department, Civil Defense, Military and other emergency response organizations must react efficiently yet individually but most importantly, in a coordinated manner. These results in the necessity for both intra and inter organization coordination at several hierarchy levels. Since coordination requires current information, such information must be communicated within and between organizations in real-time, the need arises for an integrated communication and information system solely designated or disaster management that provides processing of relevant efficient, reliable and secure exchange of information.

CHDS State/Local / Understanding and identifying critical public health human capital needs and their appropriate knowledge base for homeland security is necessary to help our Nation to prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism and natural disasters. Understanding what deficiencies exist by specializations and identifying an appropriate knowledge base for these individuals is necessary to meet the future force requirements to support homeland security. Personal interviews were conducted with 24 individuals throughout Tennessee and various components of the federal government. This was done to discern what these professionals believe are the necessary specializations to respond to homeland security mandates and the education these specialists needed to discharge their duties. For this study, public health was defined as: any individuals responsible for safeguarding and enhancing the health of the community in relation to homeland security. This is consistent with Dennis Raphaelâ s definition which defined public health as â the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting the health of the population through organized efforts of societyâ 1. The results of this study may help aid policymakers to attract, train, retrain and retain the appropriate cadre of professionals necessary to support the public health mission relating to homeland security. / Project/Program Manager, Oak Ridge National Laboratory/UT-Battelle, Oak Ridge

Disaster management and insurance are of increasing significance in today’s world. Every year, natural disasters cause tens of thousands of deaths and tens of billions of dollars worth of losses. The figures available from international agencies such as the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies and from major transnational insurance and reinsurance corporations meeting in Davos every year under the World Economic Forum show that mortality rates have been fairly consistent, whilst the number of recognized catastrophic events, and even more, the size of economic losses, have rapidly increased. This research examines the difficult task to successfully mobilize the requisite financing for adaption. Traditionally, governments have endorsed ex-post financing instruments. This research argues that there is substantial value in shifting to a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy that stresses the combination of a broader distribution of risk and the implementation of ex-ante financing instruments as the most effective way to achieve coherent financial protection. This research analyzes the diversity of national disaster risk governance across East Asia from the comparative perspective of the national disaster management plans implemented by the governments of Taiwan, Japan and China to handle the rising costs of natural disasters. This research aims to provide a research platform to assist policy development design to increase government financial preparedness for catastrophe risks. Disaster management studies are not a discipline per se, but a field of study borrowing to several disciplines of social sciences from economics to geography. Since government responses to threatening disaster situations are what draw the attention of this research, it makes sense to consider problem-solving theories of political science as the most appropriate theoretical settings to locate this analysis. Therefore, the theoretical foundations of functionalism and disaster theory serve as a theoretical support. Using a descriptive approach, this research favors a qualitative type of methodology. The primary sources consulted during the fieldwork, as well as the information gathered as evidence, demonstrate that the governments of Taiwan, Japan and China have taken a series of measures and actions to tackle the financial costs of natural disasters, including the elaboration of legal frameworks, the enactment of budgetary rules and the development of local support and private participation. However, despite the efforts and policies adopted, these governments continue to bear the financial burden of handling the majority of economic losses, and to resort to post-disaster financing instruments to assume their financial responsibility. This research concludes that, given their exposure to natural disasters and the rising costs associated with these events, the governments of Taiwan, Japan and China have no choice but to shift towards effective national disaster risk governance that will promote private coverage and preserve public finances.

'Natural' disasters have traditionally been viewed as the result of an extreme physical environment. A radical backlash against this dominant view, in the nineteen seventies and eighties, moved the debate to the opposite extreme and in doing so replaced physical with social determinism. Vulnerability analysis is proposed as a methodology that bridges these extremes. It takes into account individual decision making, social milieu and physical hazard when describing human habitation in areas of volcanic activity. It is argued that vulnerability should be defined in terms of universal human needs in order to avoid it simply being a measure of the chance of death and injury or losing its meaning in the uncertainty of cultural relativism. Once vulnerability is identified it is important to explore why it has come to exist. A contextual theory of vulnerability change is presented. Vulnerability to volcanic activity was explored in the area around Mt. Etna in Sicily (Italy) and Furnas volcano San Miguel in the Azores (Portugal) using a case study methodology. This included: collecting data through interviews (semistructured and structured) and field surveying, utilising census and other secondary data sources, and examining historical documents and texts. The volcanic hazard on Mt. Etna is related to regular (4-7 years) effusive lava flows which threaten property and land rather than people. Living in a European state, it is likely that a victim of Mt. Etna will have their basic needs provided for in the long-term and therefore they are not vulnerable. In contrast the irregular explosive eruptions of Furnas, last eruption 1630, not only damage property and land but also endanger lives. The limited ability of individuals to protect themselves in the event of an eruption and organisations to aid them in this means that, in spite of state insurance, many around Furnas are vulnerable. The production of vulnerability around Etna and Furnas is strongly related to the socio-economic nature of the region and wider European and global contexts. Opportunities and constraints that exist across socio-physical space encourage behaviour and forms of life which, in tum, produce various levels of vulnerability. Individuals seem to cognitively diminish their perceptions of this threat within a context of social representations of low risk. They, and society as a whole, rarely seem to engage directly with the risk itself.

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, LA, causing catastrophic damage to the metropolitan area. The hurricane also exposed many of the racial, ethnic, and class-based vulnerabilities experienced by many New Orleanians. However, as is typically the case, gender was ignored in most media accounts in the aftermath of the disaster. This project examines the gendered dimensions of the disaster experience using New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina as a case study. Evidence from University of New Orleans Survey Research data indicates various gender differences from the initial response to the recovery efforts months later. Few gender differences were found regarding physical loss and displacement after the storm; however, psychological effects did often differ along gender lines, with women more likely than men to experience psychological symptoms directly after the storm, while men were likely than women to be affected approximately one year later. Interestingly, gender differences in evacuation plans and behavior varied according to whether or not a disaster had recently occurred. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, women were more likely than men to report having evacuated for Hurricane Georges, though no other variable was statistically significant. After Katrina, men were more likely than women to have an evacuation plan in place, while women were more likely than men to report a willingness to evacuate when recommended by local level officials, which they did when Hurricane Rita threatened the area. Public policy implications are discussed.