Constructions of vulnerability are varied and contested through different research traditions, such that there is no agreed definition of its meaning. In an attempt to lessen this confusion, this thesis builds upon the distinction between etic (“outsider”) and emic (“insider”) orientated research and examines the extent to which vulnerability knowledge can be aligned to this spectrum. The nature of emic-orientated research necessitates the identification of “insiders”, who are assumed to be those ‘closest’ to the issue at hand and able to offer first-hand insights based on personal experience. However, it is arguably inappropriate to assume the existence of a supposedly homogeneous group of insiders, or a definitive boundary between insiders and outsiders. Therefore, this research critically examines the notion of “insiderness” and the extent to which this influences constructions of flood vulnerability. Mixed methods are employed to elicit the perspectives of emergency professionals and the public in two socially-contrasting locations exposed to multiple flood drivers; a Bradford town in West Yorkshire (fluvial and pluvial flooding) and a town on the Isle of Wight (tidal and pluvial flooding). Contents analysis, semi-structured interviews and cognitive interviews facilitated by a GIS-based flood risk mapping tool (“KEEPER”), demonstrate the influence of professional roles, scales of decision making and phase of emergency management upon constructions of vulnerability. From this, it is argued that area-wide vulnerability assessment could benefit from more interactive and malleable forms of mapping, flexible to different place and hazard contexts, and professional needs. With residents, questionnaires, in-depth interviews and vignettes reveal evidence of hazardcentric, social-centric and existential constructions, which inform self-declared vulnerabilities. A number of variables and processes are identified as relevant for understanding the formation of these constructions. For instance, this research documents the process of othering, whereby residents distance vulnerability from the self, onto a real or illusionary “vulnerable other”. Moreover, analysis suggests that this is partly motivated amongst “insiders” by the need to preserve ontological security. At a time where flooding is set to increase and households are expected to embrace responsibility and act to mitigate risks to their properties, these findings highlight a potentially significant barrier to household resilience, especially in the context of pluvial flooding. On the basis of this research, recommendations are made for using the concept of “insiderness” to target and tailor communication and community engagement in FRM.

This thesis explores the complex entanglements of natural and human violence by looking at three related cases: 1) the Bhola cyclone in Bangladesh in which a national struggle, genocide and extreme weather interacted; 2) the legal history and geography of arsenic – one of the deadliest earth poisons, whose identification was crucial in the formation of the forensic science of toxicology; and 3) a mine that takes part in the global circulation of resources that is at the same time a site of human rights/environmental violations. The thesis moves from Bangladesh to Victorian England to West Papua to show specific, malign interactions of environment and human action and examine the way they demand new political and juridical responses. The thesis is a practice-based exploration that combines analysis, theory, narrative, film, map and image. This multitudinous and creative method is essential in order to foreground a violence that is registered on multiple dimensions and territories, both seen and unseen. But it is especially important because the third corner of the triangle that holds the thesis together is an engagement with image making, sensing and aesthetics. The environmental violence I describe in this thesis requires a reconceptualisation of theoretical, historical, legal and aesthetic frames. In the case of the Bhola cyclone, it revealed one of the original moments of humanitarian reason and call for the refraction of humanitarianism. Two new, opposite types of response that are still with us are explored: on the one hand the humanitarian benefit concert and, on the other, military intervention propounded as a means to stop genocide. It is in response to these diffused causalities, involving human and nonhuman actors alike, that the legal forums of the future must emerge.

This research is concerned with natural disasters located in developing countries. Designing a structured capability to properly and fully respond to such disasters is its principle remit. For many developing countries, the relative impact that a disaster has depends on the response offered. Therefore, the first focus of the research was to determine, through consultations with experienced disaster response professionals, where they believe the management of disaster responses can best be enhanced. Their answer was two-fold: multi-agency co-ordination, as literally thousands of governmental and non-governmental agencies can be involved in large-scale disaster responses; and community engagement, as too often it is the case that disaster response agencies cause new problems by imposing solutions on local people instead of working in partnership with them. To develop an appreciation of how multi-agency co-ordination and community engagement could be integrated into a new model of disaster response, a systems approach was adopted. Systems approaches seek to develop multi-faceted understandings of problematic situations in order to propose more holistic solutions or ways forward than might be possible through a more traditional ‘command and control’ management philosophy. Taking advice from the disaster response professionals involved in the study, the research focused on developing an ideal ‘blueprint’ for a new organisation, to be located within the United Nations, with the authority to co-ordinate disaster response activities. The Viable System Model (a systems approach to organisational design) was used to develop the blueprint, and this was used, not only to demonstrate how multiple agencies could be co-ordinated, but also to show how community engagement could be integrated into the co-ordination efforts. The contribution to knowledge of this thesis is therefore to both systems methodology (showing how the VSM could be utilised for the integration of multi-agency coordination and community engagement) as well as, potentially, to future deliberations among governments and aid agencies wanting to improve the delivery of international disaster response efforts.

The immense power of the sea presents many life-threatening dangers to humans, and many fall foul of its unforgiving nature. Since manned rescue operations at sea (and indeed other search and rescue operations) are also inherently dangerous for rescue workers, it is common to introduce a level of autonomy to such systems. This thesis investigates via simulations the application of various search algorithms to an autonomous air-sea rescue system, which consists of an unmanned surface vessel as the main hub, and four unmanned helicopter drones. The helicopters are deployed from the deck of the surface vessel and are instructed to search certain areas for survivors of a stricken ship. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate whether common search algorithms can be applied to the autonomous air-sea rescue system to carry out an efficient search for survivors, thus improving the present-day air-sea rescue operations. Firstly, the mathematical model of the helicopter is presented. The helicopter model consists of a set of differential equations representing the translational and rotational dynamics of the whole body, the flapping dynamics of the main rotor blades, the rotor speed dynamics, and rotational transformations from the Earth-fixed frame to the body frame. Next, the navigation and control systems are presented. The navigation system consists of a line-of-sight autopilot which points each vehicle in the direction of its desired waypoint. Collision avoidance is also discussed using the concept of a collision cone. Using the mathematical models, controllers are developed for the helicopters: Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) and Sliding Mode controllers are designed and compared. The coordination of the helicopters is carried out using common search algorithms, and the theory, application, and analysis of these algorithms is presented. The search algorithms used are the Random Search, Hill Climbing, Simulated Annealing, Ant Colony Optimisation, Genetic Algorithms, and Particle Swarm Optimisation. Some variations of these methods are also tested, as are some hybrid algorithms. As well as this, three standard search patterns commonly used in maritime search and rescue are tested: Parallel Sweep, Sector Search, and Expanding Square. The effect of adding to the objective function a probability distribution of target locations is also tested. This probability distribution is designed to indicate the likely locations of targets and thus guide the search more effectively. It is found that the probability distribution is generally very beneficial to the search, and gives the search the direction it needs to detect more targets. Another interesting result is that the local algorithms perform significantly better when given good starting points. Overall, the best approach is to search randomly at the start and then hone in on target areas using local algorithms. The best results are obtained when combining a Random Search with a Guided Simulated Annealing algorithm.

This thesis examines household behaviour at the intersection of natural disasters and conflict. I structure this research around four distinct analytical chapters that use empirical microeconomic analysis to study household-level decisions and outcomes in the year following the 2010 floods in Pakistan. I first examine how does conflict affect household access to cash transfer programmes, and what mechanisms explain such effects. Using IV estimation to overcome endogeneity of conflict exposure and cash transfer receipts, I find that conflict reduces household and community level access to two large cash transfer programmes in Pakistan. The effects are driven by the likely presence of armed rebel groups who possibly resent state-led efforts to win legitimacy through social protection programmes. Next, I examine the effect of conflict on household access to remittances. I use IV estimation to overcome the endogeneity of conflict and remittance receipts and find that conflict exposure reduces household remittance receipts. This effect is driven by security threats associated with armed group presence, which threatens the operations of informal money transfer agents. Further, I find evidence for conflict negatively affecting investment-focused remittances as the effects of conflict are strongest among households more likely to use remittances for investment, than for consumption. These findings are in contrast to the macro literature that tend to view conflict as a factor that affects altruistic motives of remittances but has not examined investment motives in detail. In my third analytical chapter I examine the unintended effects of household aid receipts on violence through a mechanism that has not been studied in much detail: civilian militarisation through the purchase of guns. Using propensity score matching to overcome selection bias, I find that overall, flood relief cash transfers did not lead to any increases in household gun ownership. However recipients who own large tracts of land and live in conflict-affected areas were 8.3% more likely to acquire a gun, compared to a matched group of non-recipient households. The effects are driven by households that lived in displacement camps, which may have enhanced security concerns and the need for guns. This suggests that for groups that have low material but high security needs, exogenous increases in cash, through cash transfers, can increase the likelihood of acquiring guns for use, or for signalling, as a safety good. Finally, I examine the under-studied role of uncertainty of disasters in affecting post-disaster short-term migration decisions. I find that while flooding exposure increases the propensity to migrate, a higher level of uncertainty, represented by more anomalous floods (compared to recurring floods), decreases migration. I also develop a measure of flooding anomaly, based on the likely past exposure to floods at the community level, using satellite data on long term precipitation levels, and distance to the nearest rivers. My research examines important, but hitherto under-studied and challenging relationships that play out in complex emergencies, where many households simultaneously face flooding and violent conflict shocks. The findings are relevant for economic theory, empirical analysis and for policy.

In recent years, synthetic biology – an emerging science that promises to ‘democratize’ bioengineering – has emerged as a key site of regulatory interest and concern. In the United States, in particular, these concerns have largely been voiced in relation to synthetic biology’s perceived capacity to enable an act of bioterrorism. This thesis examines the regulatory response – a ‘risk management process’ – that has been mounted to address this contingency, and which seeks to ‘secure’ and ‘sustain’ a science characterized by sharply contrasting expectations. In particular, this thesis engages with the discursive and non-discursive practices enacted by diverse scientific and technical experts determined to assess and manage ‘risks’ that threaten to exceed the very capacity of risk, as a ‘calculative rationality’, to tame chance and legitimize responsible action. Yet, in the face of uncertainty, and in stark contrast to the ‘risk society’ thesis, this thesis underlines that uncertainty is not an inhibition to risk management, but a call for more intensive and more creative ways of organizing uncertainty, enabling action in the present. Indeed, in the case of regulating synthetic biology, risk management is, above all, tailored to finding practical ‘solutions’ to seemingly intractable policy ‘problems’. In addition to its contribution to recent scholarship that has drawn on Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’ to examine how diverse social problems, ranging from climate change to terrorism, are ‘governed through risk’, this thesis critically examines how biotechnology’s pairing with the perceived threat of bioterrorism is influencing the manner in which modern biology is understood, represented, practiced and controlled. Thus, the case of synthetic biology examined in this thesis not only provides a lens through which to advance risk theory in sociology, but also serves as a vector through which to explore changing configurations of ‘risk’ and ‘risk responsibility’ in the contemporary life sciences.

Due to rapidly changing climate and socio-economic conditions, many coastal areas are becoming increasingly vulnerable to internal and external risks of flooding. Low-lying coastal mega-cities in Southeast Asia are widely recognized as hotspots of flood risk. The Bangkok Metropolitan Region is one of the largest coastal megacities in Southeast Asia that is challenged by the potential impacts of climate change and human activities expected over coming decades. The overarching aim of this research is to evaluate present and future flood risks due to the combined impacts of climate (sea-level, rainfall regime and storm surge) and human (land subsidence and drainage capacity) factors in Bangkok Metropolitan region, Thailand. To design plausible future scenarios, flow and precipitation records were examined using the Log Pearson Type III frequency analysis approach. Land subsidence (LS) and sea level rise (SLR) scenarios were derived from historical records and published studies. Future flood risks (fluvial, surface water, and coastal) were modelled under various combinations of key drivers (SLR, storm surge, LS and increased river flow). The October 2011 flood in Thailand was used as a baseline event for coastal and fluvial flood modelling. Scenarios were designed with projections of LS and SLR to 2050, 2080, and 2100. A two-dimensional flood inundation model (FloodMap) was used to derive coastal inundation depth, velocity and extent associated with each scenario. Coupled modelling of one-dimensional river flow (HEC-RAS) and two-dimensional flood inundation (FloodMap) was undertaken. Surface water flood modelling simulated the 2015 event in model calibration. A two-hour rainfall event that occurred in 2011 was used as the baseline to derive future scenarios with increased precipitation of various return periods and topographies accounting for land subsidence. For each type of flood modelling, sensitivity analysis was first conducted to investigate the effects of mesh resolution and roughness parameters on model predictions. Results indicate that the model is sensitive to both resolution and roughness, but to various degrees, depending on the metrics used in the evaluation. Spatial metrics such as the Root Mean Standard Error, F and point depth are able to distinguish between model predictions and reveal the spatial and temporal derivations between simulations. The impacts of flood risk on critical infrastructure nodes (e.g. power supply, transportation network, rescue centres, hospitals, schools and key government buildings) were then evaluated under various scenarios. Overall, results suggest progressively increased risks of coastal, surface water, and fluvial flooding to critical infrastructures over time from 2050, 2080 to 2100. Flood modelling of coastal and fluvial inundation processes suggests that the combined impacts of individual risk drivers is, in most cases, far greater than any of the individual factors alone. This study demonstrates that flood risks in coastal mega-cities like Bangkok must be evaluated in a holistic manner, taking into account multiple key risk drivers and considering the potential joint-occurrence of various types of flooding. Moreover, where numerical modelling was undertaken and infrastructure data are available, local hotspots of flood risks under various scenarios can be identified, allowing potential adaptation measures to be evaluated within the modelling framework developed. This research is the first to consider multiple flood risk drivers and interacting flood risks within a single modelling framework in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region. It will have long lasting legacy for flood risk management in the region and beyond, enabling more effective adaptation in a changing climate through: (i) raised awareness of multiple risk drivers and interacting flood risks for both the public and policy makers; (ii) further and more complete assembly of various data sets when they become available based on the template demonstrated in this study; and (iii) identification of hotspots of critical infrastructure and communities at risk using refined and alternative modelling approaches within the modelling framework developed in this study.

This thesis examines the social, cultural and political contexts of flooding in early modern England. It explores the relationships between floods and the productive practices and organising principles of the communities in which they occurred. Drawing on insights from the environmental humanities and social sciences, this thesis approaches flooding as a socio-natural phenomenon, in which humanity and nature played mutually influential parts. Taking in evidence from England as a whole, and with special reference to South Holland in Lincolnshire, and the Severn Estuary Levels in Gloucestershire, this thesis locates flooding at the forefront of cultural and political changes occurring over the early modern period. Following recent European approaches to histories of flooding, this thesis considers the ways in which early modern society contributed to, and sought to mitigate the effects of particularly damaging flooding. In five chapters it analyses the productive and destructive role of flooding in local communities, how these floods were interpreted by those they affected, the political nature of disputes about flooding and the impact of flooding on the early modern state. Together, these chapters stress the need to understand flooding as a socially and culturally generated phenomenon that had political implications. Far from being purely 'natural', flooding was a complex process which contemporaries both recognised and actively negotiated. In analysing an environmental process with specific reference to the traditional domains of social, cultural and political history, this thesis links the small but expanding subdiscipline of early modern English environmental history to broader historical narratives, showing the potential for an environmental approach to pre-modern England.

This PhD thesis investigates the causal long-term economic effects of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the armed conflict in Aceh, Indonesia (chapters 2, 3 and 4). It also contains an analysis of land use change and the consequences for soil-organic carbon (SOC) in Eastern Panama that is unrelated to previous chapters. Chapter 2 stands at the core of my PhD thesis; it is the equivalent of a job market paper. In chapter 1, I provide an introduction to and summary of my PhD thesis. In particular, I describe why I believe that I make original contributions to knowledge that are significant and rigorous. In chapter 2, I carry out a quasi-experimental analysis investigating the causal effects of Tsunami flooding on long-term per capita economic output. The existing literature suggests that natural disasters are growth depressing in the short-term, and in the longterm, natural disasters either cause a continued shortfall of economic output, or an eventual convergence to the pre-disaster counterfactual trend. I picked the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Aceh as a case study for this PhD thesis, because I posit that if there is one case for which there is evidence that goes against the conventional wisdom, namely in the form of increased economic output in the long run, it probably is Aceh. The reason why I expect to see creative destruction is that Aceh received a windfall of aid and was the stage of the largest reconstruction effort the developing world has ever seen. I conclude that natural disasters are not necessarily the cause of output reductions and that they can be windows of opportunity for the economy. In chapter 3, I investigate the reasons behind the creative destruction, and take a closer look at different sectors and subcomponents of the economy. I examine three channels through which the Tsunami may have affected per capita economic output. First, I find that the Tsunami causally accelerated the structural transformation process, a process through which people and the economy move out of agriculture, and into more productive sectors such as services. Second, I show that the Tsunami brought with it a windfall of aid and other funds, which allowed for a building back better of physical capital and increased capital formation. Third, I show that aggregate private consumption not only was smoothed in a reaction to the Tsunami, but even boosted to sustainably higher levels, compared to the no-Tsunami counterfactual. In chapter 4, I investigate whether the 30 years long armed conflict in Aceh left any negative economic legacy effects, once the fighting stopped and the peace agreement was signed. The separatist war took a toll on the Acehnese economy. Even though the conflict has ended, did the negative economic effects also end? Aceh’s economy has higher per capita growth rates in times of peace than in times of war, which can be either a sign of a peace dividend or creative destruction from the Tsunami. But does the armed conflict leave a negative legacy for future growth rates, even after peace has officially been declared? I find that that peacetime growth rates are negatively affected by the wartime conflict intensity. Using violence data on the incidence of killings, injuries, and other ‘measurable human suffering’, I assess whether districts that were heavily affected by armed conflict grew systematically differently from those that were spared from the brunt of the violence. I find that there are severe negative economic legacy effects of violence, and the more violence occurred in a district during the separatist war, the slower it was growing during times of peace. Chapter 5, topically unrelated to the previous chapters, is looking at land use change in Eastern Panama and the consequences for soil organic carbon (SOC). In this chapter, I compare SOC concentrations of primary forests to two competing land use alternatives: Forest-to-pasture conversion for cattle grazing versus indigenous forest-to-crop conversion. I find that both land use changes reduce SOC concentrations significantly, yet the pasture land use has lower levels of SOC than indigenous crop cultivation. The soil carbon levels of secondary forests are not statistically different from primary forests, implying that the forest conversions are reversible, in terms of their impact on SOC, which suggests that allowing secondary forests to re-grow in former cultivated areas in the Eastern part of Panama holds promise for climate change mitigation. In the concluding chapter 6, I present a summary of the main findings and an outline for future research.

This thesis offers an ethnographic analysis of everyday life in a post-catastrophe landscape shaped by two major disaster-processes – Hurricane Katrina (in 2005) and the BP oil spill (in 2010). By exploring local cultural ‘becoming’, it argues that the impact of these disaster-processes should not be conceptualised within a bounded period of ‘recovery’, but should be understood as forming part of the on-going construction of local landscape and everyday lived experience. The community of southern Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where this study was based, has an on-going relationship with hurricanes and oil spills, which occur (or threaten to occur) with such frequency as to normalise the experience of disaster in local social life. Katrina and the BP oil spill were outliers of experience due to their vast scale and relative impact, but they were experienced by a community where local narratives of past catastrophes (such as the major hurricanes of the 1960s), and the direct experience of multiple smaller disaster-processes were deeply woven into local culture. Furthermore, beyond the impact of these catastrophes this community was already experiencing widespread cultural and economic precariousness. Firstly, where local hierarchies of power (largely centred around White men) had become increasingly threatened in the latter part of the 20th century, and secondly, where local economic activity was characterised by high levels of instability and irregular employment. These catastrophes were therefore experienced in a context of already on-going structural precariousness, which in turn was impacted by the on-going ‘recovery’ from these large disaster-processes. It argues that while material or institutional reconstruction may be successfully measured in terms of recovery goals or milestones, the cultural impact and ‘recovery’ from these catastrophes should be conceptualised as forming part of the never-ending process of ‘becoming’, ultimately woven into the on-going experience of mundane everyday life.