Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas Woman's University. / Cover title: Resolution of family-community role conflict in disaster. Bibliography: leaves 84-91.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Jay Baker, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Dept. of Geography. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 7, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 184 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Tricia Wachtendorf, Dept. of Sociology. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Havidan Rodriguez, Dept. of Sociology & Criminal Justice. Includes bibliographical references.

This diploma thesis is entitled the Global Natural Disasters {--} Teacher{\crq}s Book for the 2 nd stage of PS. The principal part of thesis concentrates on the proposal of own package of didactic material {--} teaching text, workbook, and methodical teacher{\crq}s book aimed at the study of natural disasters and environmental hazards worldwide. This didactic material should serve as an additional teaching aid within the framework of the teaching of geography at the 2 nd stage of primary schools. An analysis of bibliography and determination of basic terminology related to theme concerned is the integral part of this thesis.

Pakistan, as an agriculture based economy, is vulnerable to various hydrometeorological hazards ranging from tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, tornadoes, drought, rain, hail, snow, lightning, fog, wind, temperature extremes, air pollution, and climatic change. However, three of the most pressing challenges in terms of water resource availability, that are different in nature, but are inter-linked to each other are discussed over here. We begin with the Karakoram Anomaly that is considered as one of the most mysterious and most speculated phenomena on Planet Earth. Though, it is confined to the glaciers in the eastern Hindukush, western Karakoram and northwestern Himalayan mountain ranges of Northern Pakistan that are not responding to global warming in the same manner as their counterparts elsewhere, because, their retreat rates are less than the global average, and some are either stable or growing. However, the Karakoram Anomaly has baffled scientific society for more than a decade since its earliest discovery in the year 2005. The reasons of the Karakoram anomaly were mainly associated to physiography of the area and role of climate was considered marginal till now, as climate is influencing glaciers differently all over the globe. Here, for the first time, we present a hydro-meteorological perspective based on five decades of synoptic weather observations collected by the meteorological network of Pakistan. Analysis of this unique data set indicates that increased regional scale humidity, cloud cover, and precipitation, along with decreased net radiation, near-surface wind speed, potential evapotranspiration and river flow, especially during the summer season, represent a substantial change in the energy, mass and momentum fluxes that are facilitating the establishment of the Karakoram Anomaly. In turn, it is influencing the availability of glacier melt in River Indus in summer season. Secondly, we developed a hydrometeorological data sets for Pakistan as they are extremely important for water related impact studies and future climate change scenarios. Presently, major sources of gridded temperature and precipitation data generation are in-situ observations, satellite retrieved information and outputs from numerical models. However, each has its own merits and demerits. Among them gridded observed data sets are considered superior if the gauge density is better. Unfortunately, precipitation gauge network of Pakistan is poorly presented in prior gridded products. Therefore, a daily in-situ observation based, 0.05º×0.05º gridded temperature and precipitation data set for Pakistan, for the period of 1960-2013 is developed. It is named as PAK-HYM-1.0, that is an abbreviation of Pakistan and Hydrometeorology, and 1.0 indicates that it is the first version. This data set is developed by utilizing data from 67 meteorological stations of Pakistan. This number of observation sites is 2 to 4 times higher than that used in prior similar products, and this product can be adopted as an operational information product that can be updated on daily basis. Finally, we focused on meteorological and hydrological droughts in Pakistan. We have reconstructed history of drought in Pakistan using in situ observations based high resolution gridded data through Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) methodology on different time scales. Furthermore, we have explained the transition of meteorological drought to hydrological drought using river inflows data of large rivers of Pakistan, and explained the sensitivity of different rivers to rainfall and temperature of different seasons. On the basis of this analysis, we have proposed a solution of construction of water reservoirs to tap water resources from northern mountains as inflows from these mountains has potential to perform as a buffer against droughts in low-lying areas of Pakistan. In addition to that, we have demonstrated the potential of Palmer Drought Sensitivity Index (PDSI) as an operational tool for drought monitoring in Pakistan.

Scholarship on disasters in the United States would suggest that emergency managers should play a role in hazard mitigation. Yet, little empirical research has investigated precisely what role or roles emergency managers actually do play during this phase. This study explored the role of county-level emergency managers in hazard mitigation and the factors that might influence those roles. Data for this study was collected through 42 in-depth, telephone interviews with county- level emergency managers in FEMA Regions III, V, and X, which includes the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Grounded theory was utilized in order to organize and analyze the data. The data suggests that emergency managers play several roles within mitigation: a generic role, a support role, an administrative role, a promoter role, a public educator role, and a planning role. These roles are explained by a number of factors, including conceptual confusion, response and preparedness orientation, financial resource factors, planning factors, additional resource factors, competition between mitigation and development, resistance to mitigation, and engagement in mitigation. It is also important to note that emergency managers spend only a small amount of their time in mitigation. The results of this study suggest that there is a gap between the theorized role and the actual role that emergency managers play within mitigation. Closing this gap will likely require additional resources for mitigation and county-level emergency management, as well as greater consistency in defining mitigation through policy and education.

Climate change is an important subject nowadays and climate change leads to more natural disasters. This essay is a large literature study on Asian, American, European, Oceanian and African countries about the economic consequences for households as a result of natural disasters and the coping mechanisms used by households, as well as governments and institutions. It also provides information about natural disasters, such as natural disasters that have the worst consequences, people that are highly affected by disasters and places in the world where disasters happen the most. The aim of this study is to learn more about environmental disasters and prepare better for future disasters. The results show consequences on welfare (income, assets, poverty), the labour market, migration and inequality. And the coping strategies found are post-disaster sources (help from family and relatives, public and private transfers, borrowing, credits, savings, insurance), decrease in expenditures, changes in consumption, selling assets, changes in the labour market, help from communities and other ways to cope. Governments and institutions also help households in the aftermath of natural disasters. Overall, we conclude that natural disasters lead to important economic impacts for people, and households react by using different coping mechanisms to recover.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第21742号 / 工博第4559号 / 新制||工||1711(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 矢守 克也, 准教授 松島 格也, 教授 山田 忠史 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DGAM

The summer of 2007 was the worst wildfire season ever recorded in Greek contemporary history with approximately 270,000 hectares of land burned throughout the country. The area most severely hit was the Peloponnesian state of Elia. Econometric analysis with the use of primary and secondary data was carried out in an attempt to disentangle the effects of a variety of factors in the spread of the fire. The findings identified villages in low altitudes and steep slopes as the ones most vulnerable to the risk of wildfire. Wind speed played a significant role in exacerbating the blazes. As far as human factors are concerned population density was negatively associated with wildfire spread. In addition, the more olive groves were found within the boundaries of a village the less damage the settlement was found to have sustained. Finally, participation of local people in fire abatement efforts was significant in reducing wildfire risk. We conclude that public policy should consider a more holistic approach to wildfire management; one that would incorporate the “human-fire” interactions more thoroughly and balance the importance of ecological variables and social parameters in both wildfire prevention and mitigation.