Southern Vancouver Island, situated on Canada’s West Coast, is exposed to many natural and human-made threats due to its physical geography and demography. Perceptions of these disaster risks and of seismic hazard, in particular, were surveyed through locally-administered questionnaires conducted with 105 members of the general public and 13 emergency managers living and working on southern Vancouver Island, specifically in the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD) and the Capital Regional District (CRD). Perhaps the greatest risk to the region, and that, which is perceived by both the general public and practitioners as the greatest risk, is low frequency, high consequence earthquake events. The region is exposed to earthquakes from many sources, but has not experienced a damaging quake in several decades, begging questions as to whether residents consider earthquake a prominent threat and whether they have an accurate appreciation for the earthquake hazard (likelihood) in the region. While researchers have scientifically quantified the earthquake hazard in the region for over 50 years, only in the past 10 years has this hazard information been presented in a format that is comprehensible by the general public. In order for individuals and communities to make informed decisions, this information must ultimately reach the public and be interpretable and actionable. This research describes and analyzes disaster risk and seismic hazard perception on Southern Vancouver Island, and identifies whether there are gaps in communication between the scientists who create the knowledge, the emergency managers who disseminate the information, and the general public who ultimately needs to act on the information to increase their resilience. Results reveal that earthquakes are perceived as the highest disaster risk among both the general public and emergency managers on southern Vancouver Island, and that a large majority of participants know that their community is at risk from an earthquake. In addition, while emergency managers consider mostly natural threats to be significant risks, the general public more commonly identify human-made intentional threats as significant risks. The study also found that gender and location influence how individuals prefer to receive hazard information. In addition, household income and time spent living on Vancouver Island are key variables for how likely members of the general public are to be prepared. Findings suggest that while both emergency managers and the general public overestimate the earthquake hazard on southern Vancouver Island, on average emergency managers perceive the earthquake hazard to be greater than the general public does. Interestingly, general public respondents in the CVRD perceive seismic hazard to be higher than respondents in the CRD, while the calculated hazard is actually higher in the CRD. In addition, emergency managers underestimate residents’ perceptions of earthquake hazard. In other words, they feel that the public underestimates the hazard when actually both emergency managers and the general public overestimate it. These misperceptions have implications for future seismic hazard and disaster risk communication. Prior to this study, disaster risk perception has not been explored in detail in this region, and while limitations to this research are outlined, the study provides a useful descriptive analysis and baseline information for emergency managers and academic researchers to build upon. The findings of this research have specific relevance for emergency managers to inform their public education and outreach efforts around preparation, response and resilience to disasters on southern Vancouver Island. / Graduate / 2018-09-08

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / This thesis examines what a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) should comprise off, as well as the difference between a BCP and a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and the key elements of an effective BCP as well as the different types of disasters. It also investigates why companies that have BCP in place and conducts testing of their plan on a regular basis, either quarterly or bi-annually, still experience prolonged downtime during a disaster resulting in Service Level Agreements (SLA) not being met or major financial loses. It also inspects acceptable processes within a BCP to determine whether there are ways of improving these processes to prevent companies from experiencing prolonged downtime. The objective of this research is to determine and understand: • Why organisations within the Western Cape experience prolonged downtimes during a disaster event • The potential deficiencies in a BCP and how they can be amended.

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / This thesis examines what a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) should comprise off, as well as the difference between a BCP and a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and the key elements of an effective BCP as well as the different types of disasters. It also investigates why companies that have BCP in place and conducts testing of their plan on a regular basis, either quarterly or bi-annually, still experience prolonged downtime during a disaster resulting in Service Level Agreements (SLA) not being met or major financial loses. It also inspects acceptable processes within a BCP to determine whether there are ways of improving these processes to prevent companies from experiencing prolonged downtime. The objective of this research is to determine and understand: Why organisations within the Western Cape experience prolonged downtimes during a disaster event. The potential deficiencies in a BCP and how they can be amended. A case study of four companies based in the Western Cape was conducted. These companies were chosen because each of them has a BCP in place and each have experienced prolonged downtime during a disaster. Qualitative interviews with the aid of an open-ended questionnaire were used to interview the BCP or Risk Manager of each company. The data was analysed to determine what the causes of their prolonged downtime were during a disaster. In the analysis and findings process each company is presented as a separate case study. The intension with this research study is to add an additional concept to the Common BCP Process that was identified within this study and that formed the basis for the Conceptual Framework, thereby reducing the downtime during a disaster for the companies that formed part of the research.

This research takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the relationship between people’s perceptions of disaster risk and their responses in disaster-prone cities of the Global South. This is important because the effects of risk perceptions on the ways that people respond to disaster risk remains unclear and has been labelled ‘weak’ within the disaster studies literature. Furthermore, this lack of clarity has contributed to the marginalisation of people at risk from contributing to interventions that address disaster risk, which this research finds problematic. Therefore, a better understanding of how people perceive their risk and how this shapes their responses would help inform more effective and multi-scalar interventions to address disaster risk. The research takes place in three adjacent neighbourhoods of Cochabamba city, Bolivia. Within this ‘case site’, the house is used as a methodological tool to investigate how people’s risk perceptions shape their responses to disaster risk. In particular, the research explores how risk perceptions influence the way people design and construct self-build houses in order to reduce their risk of a disaster. The focus on housing construction represents a novel way of exploring the relationship between risk perceptions and disaster risk-reduction behaviour. The research takes place in the context of persistent, low-intensity natural hazards that are linked to disaster risk which incrementally increases over time. This marks a shift away from the many studies that investigate rapid-onset, extreme hazards that quickly overwhelm people’s capabilities and which are associated with crisis and urgency. Additionally, the research is concerned with small-scale disasters, which again marks a shift away from the disaster studies literature which principally focuses on large-scale disasters that result in many casualties, large economic loss and which affect a large geographical area. The research ultimately shows that whether a risk perception is high or low is not the most important factor; rather, it is an individual’s awareness and understanding of disaster risk that encourages long-term and anticipatory strategies that require significant investments in the house. Furthermore, the research argues that research which describes the relationship between risk perceptions and responses as ‘weak’ forecloses the nuances and complexity of human behaviour in disaster-prone contexts because it does not capture the subtle yet important ways that risk perceptions shape responses.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Community participation and awareness in disaster risk management is widely recognized as a cornerstone for disaster risk reduction and effective response and recovery strategies. This goes parallel with the world paradigm shift form relief and response to prevention and mitigation. There is gradually increase of fire and floods in informal settlements and Khayelitsha TR- Section in particular. “From 1995-2005 more than 8554 informal dwelling fire incidents occurred in Cape Town alone, affecting 40 558 households and around 160 000 peoples" (DiMP, 2008). And in 2007 alone floods affected 8,000 households and 38 residents in the Cape Town informal settlement of Khayelitsha; Bongani TR-Section and Phillippi; Phola park (Bouchard et al, 2007). This study analyzed community participation and awareness mechanisms in disaster risk management, its implementation, practice and effectiveness, following the promulgation of the Disaster Management Act No 57 of 2002, taking Khayelitsha TR- Section as a case study. In order to achieve the stated objectives, the researcher employed a combination of both qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. In qualitative context semi-structured interviews were conducted with the key informants disaster management officials and Khayelitsha TR-Section ward structure officials. Quantitative method, 100 structured questionnaires were distributed to Khayelitsha TR-Section residents. Using Khayelitsha TR- Section as a case study the thesis argues that despite the enabling policy and resource allocation for community participation and awareness its implementation proved to be a failure. Most of the mechanisms directed by the act are not implemented and those implemented its practice is not effective to achieve its stated objectives of risk reduction and effective response and recovery to disaster incidents. The study reviewed literature and theories of community participation and awareness in disaster risk management. It reviewed and outlined a policy framework and institutional arrangement for community participation and awareness in disaster risk management in accordance with the Disaster Management Act (No 57 of 2002). It further determined the level of community participation and awareness mechanism implementation. Records the level of community awareness and understanding, it determines the effectiveness of community participation and awareness mechanisms and finally based on the empirical results, literature reviews and theories, the study provides a number of recommendations to enhance and improved of community participation and awareness to disaster risk management officials and policy makers.

In this thesis, I conduct a global event-data study investigating the relationship between exposure to natural hazards and climate change adaptation. Exposure to natural hazards has previously been linked to actions aimed at reducing risks related to future natural hazards. With climate change, and predicted increase in hazard frequency and intensity, a feasible approach to risk mitigation is climate change adaptation, which can thus be considered a disaster risk reduction strategy. I investigate the effects of disaster frequency and severity on the amount of climate change adaptation actions taken on a subnational level of government, using disaster data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) and data on adaptation actions from CDP. Disaster severity is operationalised in three separate ways to distinguish between different kinds of disaster impacts: in terms of (1) economic damage, (2) how many are affected, and (3) fatalities. I hypothesise that all independent variables are positively related to climate change adaptation, and test the hypotheses using OLS regression. The result depicts a positive correlation between the number of disasters experienced and adaptation actions. I do not see a positive relationship between climate change adaptation actions and the two impact variables total affected and total fatalities. The relationship between economic damages and adaptation actions indicates that economic damages could have different impacts depending on the level of economic development in a country. This study contributes to the integration of the two research fields climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction by studying climate change adaptation as a form of disaster risk reduction, and deepening the knowledge of what can drive adaptation. Finally, this study contributes by showing that the level of economic development could be an important aspect of the exposure-adaptation relationship.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第22056号 / 工博第4637号 / 新制||工||1723(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 CRUZ Ana Maria , 教授 山田 忠史, 准教授 松島 格也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

The impacts from climate change is among the most pressing issues that the international community is currently faced with. Climate change makes that thousands of people all over the world are and will continue to be forced to flee from their homes, thus becoming displaced. Very little is written about this group of environmental IDP´s and their protection by national policies. This is especially problematic for less developed countries, where little focus is on the IDP´s but where their plight is even more dire. This is due to the fact that those countries to a greater extent lack resources to manage climate change disasters in effective ways. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the debate on IDP´s, and to address the need to involve IDP´s in national policies, in an effort to protect those groups. This research problem was examined through analysing two cases, i.e. the development countries, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea, which have been studied through a qualitative case study with the use of structured focused comparison.    The analytical framework used to analyse the findings retrieved from the cases was the Policy implementation process framework, which offered different variables to examine and guide the analysis. This was further complemented by the concept vulnerability, in order to get a more comprehensive picture on influencing variables.     The findings illustrate that both cases has managed to introduce extensive policy frameworks on the subject of climate change and environmental disasters, but only PNG explicitly incorporates IDP´s in their policy plan. The study further recognised the shared challenges for both cases on policy implementations. Insufficient human and financial resources due to lack of commitment and mainstreaming at government-levels are the main problems facing both Cambodia and Papua New Guinea. For future research it is therefore important to continue efforts of recognising the need for national protection for environmental IDP´s and to continue evaluating national frameworks.

<div>Every year power outages cost billions of dollars and affect millions of people. Historical data shows that between 2000 and 2016, 75% of power outages (in terms of duration) were caused due to severe weather events. Due to climate change these severe weather events are becoming more frequent. The National Association of Regulatory Commissioners have recently emphasized on the importance of building electricity sector's resilience thus ensuring long term reliability and economic benefits for the stakeholders. These severe weather events are called High Impact Low Frequency (HILF) events, which means that these events may not occur every year, but when they happen, the impact is likely to be severe. So, it is imperative that the risk of power outages due to severe weather events and their economic impact is persistent. To mitigate the risk, utilities need to invest heavily so that the impacts due to these HILF events can be minimized. Under this situation, utilities face three key questions (1) where to invest (2) how much to invest and (3) how to justify the investment. Therefore, there is a need to develop a framework for investment related decision-making, which can identify the optimal strategies for minimizing the economic impacts of severe weather induced power outages under different budget conditions. It is equally important to understand the cascading impacts of the sustained power outages during natural disasters before investment can be planned for building resilience in electricity sector. The existing frameworks to access the costs of severe weather induced power outages grossly undermines the overall economic impacts. This research has (1) assessed the economic loss due to severe weather induced power outages in terms of loss of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and (2) developed a framework for identifying the optimal risk reduction strategies to minimize the economic impact. For assessing the economic impact, this research has adopted Inoperability Input-Output Model (IIM) using 20 years of historical data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The proposed framework has the flexibility to accommodate the risk appetite of the decision maker. The framework can be used by the Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) for the rate approvals from the State Utility Regulatory Commissions by justifying the importance of their resilience building projects to the State's economy. <br></div>

The ambition of this thesis is to fulfill two aims. The first aim is theory development, by presenting a theoretical framework where climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) are combined. The second aim is empirical, where the theoretical framework is used to analyze an example of DRR with an ambition to include CCA. An integrated approach is beneficial for the achievement of sustainable development and for strengthening resilience to hazards (Schipper 2009; Mitchell et al 2010). However, the two fields largely operate in separate which can cause reversed development outcomes and hamper the overall objectives of both DRR and CCA. The ambition of this thesis is hence to investigate to what extent the approach is used within humanitarian aid organizations today, with a specific focus on the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The method used is a qualitative content analysis of the “Integrated Flood Resilience Programme” in Bangladesh (IFRP) conducted by the IFRC. The main finding of the study suggests a surprising progress of including CCA and climate change as components within DRR. However, there are still core aspects of an integrated approach missing in the project. For instance, there is no inclusion of an environmental risk assessment or alignment with climate frameworks, except for parts of the Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, the efforts associated with CCA are perceived unspecific in comparison to other parts of the project. This thesis therefore reaffirms some of the conclusions made by other scholars (e.g. Mitchell et al 2010; Schipper 2009: Thomalla et al 2006; Hammond 2017), implying that DRR and CCA still mostly operate separately.