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Submitted by Leonardo Lima (leonardoperlim@gmail.com) on 2017-04-05T15:34:01Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) RUTZ, Elenice Crochemore.pdf: 8517082 bytes, checksum: 78a4d5508f644839d8d952e481a630f9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-04-25T19:18:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 RUTZ, Elenice Crochemore.pdf: 8517082 bytes, checksum: 78a4d5508f644839d8d952e481a630f9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2017-04-25T19:21:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 RUTZ, Elenice Crochemore.pdf: 8517082 bytes, checksum: 78a4d5508f644839d8d952e481a630f9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-25T19:21:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 RUTZ, Elenice Crochemore.pdf: 8517082 bytes, checksum: 78a4d5508f644839d8d952e481a630f9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-28 / Sem bolsa / A pesquisa aborda as consequências das fortes precipitações que aconteceram em Pelotas o que levou a ocorrência de uma grande enxurrada em 28 e 29 de janeiro de 2009. O recorte espacial da pesquisa é a bacia hidrográfica do Arroio Quilombo, Pelotas/RS, localizada em sua maior parte na zona rural de Pelotas e uma pequena área no município de Canguçu e outra pequena área no Município de Arroio do Padre. O recorte temporal é do inicio do século XX até o ano de 2009, data da enxurrada que atingiu a bacia hidrográfica do Arroio Quilombo (BHAQ), deixando consequências bastante significativas. As enxurradas podem ser consideradas como um desastre natural, tanto pela sua intensidade, quanto pelas suas consequências. Nesse sentido o referencial teórico trata da questão dos desastres naturais, a fim de se compreender alguns conceitos que geram certa confusão, é o caso dos termos: enxurradas, enchentes, inundações e alagamentos. Nesse sentido a revisão teórica que se apresenta, vem em busca de sanar esses e outros conceitos. Sendo assim, essa pesquisa tem como objetivos: Compreender os fatores que levaram à ocorrência da enxurrada de 28 e 29 de janeiro de 2009 na BHAQ, bem como as transformações geomorfológicas consequentes; Realizar uma revisão teórica sobre a temática dos desastres naturais, geomorfologia, transformações geomorfológicas, uso e cobertura da terra, enxurradas e as suas consequências; Realizar um resgate histórico das inundações no município de Pelotas, bem como um breve histórico das enxurradas na Bacia Hidrográfica do Arroio Quilombo; Realizar um estudo morfométrico da Bacia do Arroio Quilombo; Verificar o uso e cobertura da terra na BHAQ; Investigar sobre as transformações da paisagem após as inundações na bacia hidrográfica do Arroio Quilombo e Identificar e mapear as consequências geomorfológicas e os danos ao patrimônio provocados pelas cheias de 2009. A pesquisa mostrou que a enxurrada de 2009 não foi o único evento de grande intensidade a atingir a bacia do Arroio Quilombo. Porém, a bacia hidrográfica do Arroio Quilombo não apresenta condicionante a enxurradas, e que a enxurrada de 2009 não ocorreu em toda bacia, porém atingiu de forma intensa a baixa bacia do Arroio Quilombo, deixando algumas consequências como perdas de animais, de lavoura, materiais e infraestruturais. As entrevistas realizadas mostraram que as alterações geomorfológicas mais significativas ocorreram fora dos limites da BHAQ. / This research addresses the consequences of heavy rainfall that occurred in Pelotas, which led to a great flash flood on the 28th and 29th January 2009. The area of research is the Quilombo Creek Watershed, Pelotas municipality, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Most of the Watershed is located in the rural zone of the Pelotas municipality, but also has a small section in the Canguçu municipality and another small section in the Arroio do Padre municipality. The time frame starts at the beginning of the twentieth century until 2009, when the flash flood hit the Quilombo Creek Watershed, leaving very significant consequences. Flash floods can be considered as a natural disaster, both for their intensity and their consequences. Thus, the theoretical background deals with the issue of natural disasters in order to understand some flood concepts that frequently create confusion in Portuguese: “enxurradas”, “enchentes”, “inundações” and “alagamentos”. This way the presented theoretical background tries to solve this confusion and other conceptual problems. This research has the following objectives: understand the factors that triggered the flash flood of the 28th and 29th January 2009 in the Quilombo Creek Watershed, as well as the consequent geomorphological changes; expose a theoretical background about natural disasters, geomorphology, geomorphological changes, land use and land cover, flashfloods and their consequences; carry out a historical review of the floods in the Pelotas municipality as well as a historical review of the floods in the Quilombo Creek Watershed; carry out a morphometrical study of the Quilombo Creek Watershed; observe the land use and land cover in the studied area; study the landscape changes and identify the damage done to the patrimony in the area of study after the 28th and 29th January flash flood. This research shows that the 2009 flash flood was not the only high intensity event to touch the Quilombo Creek Watershed. However, the studied watershed does not present natural conditions that would trigger flash floods, and the 2009 flash flood does not affect the entire Watershed in the same way. It intensely hit the lower part of the watershed creating consequences such as animal loss, land crop loss and material loss. The interviews showed that the most significant geomorphological changes occurred outside the boundaries of the studied watershed.

This thesis is an exploration into the lives of street-connected young people living in disaster prone communities in the Caribbean country of Jamaica. Street-connected young people’s lives have been well documented over the past few decades in relation to their immediate spaces, activities and more recently, relationships. Street-connected young people have been found to be part of wider social structures in society which have bearing on how they prepare for, react to, negotiate and overcome challenges that they are faced with, both at the local level and on a much larger scale, including adverse events like ‘natural’ disasters. While this study appreciates the progression of the literature on this once overlooked social group, it suggests that there is still a gap in the literature in respect to how street-connected young people’s relationality is understood and explored. Jamaican street-connected young people’s relationality is complex and formed of context-specific networks and relationships. These not only include close knit relationships with family and friends but also wider community relationships with neighbours and extended family and relationships with people out with the community in other parts of Jamaica and abroad. The wider political, social and economic structures in place nationally which street-connected young people are embroiled are additionally considered, particularly in how it influences the coping mechanisms of street-connected young people. This thesis draws on street-connected young people’s relationality to examine how it shapes their resilience and to what extent their positon within this wider web of relationships in Jamaica is crucial to how they prepare and manage the hurricanes and flooding taking place there. Extant studies on young people’s resilience have begun to appreciate the role of the social context and relational networks in enhancing or reducing their resilience, looking beyond traditional studies focusing on an individual’s traits or personal attribute. In this research I have expanded upon the concept of relational resilience to look at how it manifests itself in the lives of street-connected young people, an area currently understudied. A participatory ethnography approach has been adopted in the methodology, using a range of participatory methods to develop a comprehensive and holistic understanding of life for street-connected young people, with the view to establishing their situation in disaster events, how they demonstrate resilience when faced with adversity and how best to tailor national disaster risk management and reduction strategies to suit them and their communities’ needs. By using methods which encourage participation among everyone, a space of collaboration and knowledge exchange can be generated to gain the most informed responses and outcomes.

Within the growing concern about the short-term and lasting impacts of natural hazard-based disasters on lives, livelihoods and economies, the ability to manage disaster and climate risk is central to sustainable development. As many recent disasters are directly or indirectly related to weather or climate, and with the expectation that climate variability and change may exacerbate the frequency and/or intensity of related hazards and extreme weather events, climate information has become a critical component of disaster and climate risk management. However, despite its increasing use, as well as money, time and effort into gathering and processing the relevant data, few studies highlight the connection between climate information and development outcomes. Using a Caribbean lens, this dissertation explores how the awareness, provision and use of weather and climate information, including storm advisories/forecasts and satellite-based rainfall data, may be linked to development outcomes, both in terms of localized impacts of weather- and climate-related events but also within the wider macro-economy. I explore if development outcomes may vary by event day-of-week timing (hypothesizing a relation to possible differences in climate information provision), study whether there may be a human element of improving climate information, and analyze climate information details to best understand its potential use in Caribbean small states. Such research aligns well with ongoing efforts to understand and predict extreme events, as well as connect disasters to socio-economic outcomes, and can also enrich perspectives which concern assessing vulnerability to disasters and recommending solutions to improve risk communication and strengthen disaster preparedness and resilience.

Destructive events such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks occur not only in developing economies but also developed economies. Consequently, the response of these economies has been observed in case of both type of events. This dissertation is a collection of essays regarding natural disasters, terrorist attacks and the macroeconomy. Specifically, I examine the response of local labor markets that reflect a wide spectrum of economies, but also have a safety-net in the form of being part of a developed country in the aftermath of a violent tornado. Further, I explore the heterogeneity in the economies response to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Additionally, I investigate the effects of terrorism on growth and its disaggregated value added components. The first chapter focuses on the effects of tornadoes on local labor markets. I examine the change in local labor markets caused by extreme tornadoes that occur in counties of the contiguous United States. I also investigate the effect these tornadoes have on neighboring counties and evaluate the labor market response in urban and rural counties separately as well. Using a generalized difference-in-difference approach on quarterly data spanning from 1975 to 2016, I find that counties experience persistently higher wages per worker two years following a violent tornado. The effects on urban county can be observed on employment, while the effect in the rural county is observed on wages per worker. Further, evaluating the response of labor markets by sectors reveals the industrial sectors that experience increased labor market activity. The second chapter evaluates the long-run effects of natural disasters and terrorist attacks on growth and the channels through which they affect growth. Using the conceptual framework of a Solow-Swan model I examine an unbalanced annual panel of 125 countries spanning from 1970 to 2015 and find that domestic terrorist attacks, floods, and storms have a similar negative effect on growth, while transnational terrorist attacks and earthquakes have no significant effect on growth. Examining the channels through which they affect growth brings to the forefront the differences between these different types of events. I find that domestic terrorist attacks lead to increased military expenditures in their wake, while floods lead to increased non-military expenditures in their aftermath. Reviewing the data by developed and emerging economies reveals that developed economies are better able to absorb the shock of terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters. I find that although emerging economies are able to absorb the shock of transnational and domestic terrorist attacks, they experience some adverse effects from floods and storms. The third chapter examines the path of GDP growth and its disaggregated industrial, service, and agricultural sector value added components in the aftermath of two types of terrorism - transnational and domestic terrorism. Using a panel VAR model on cross country annual data from 1970 to 2015 I find that fatalities caused by neither domestic nor transnational terrorist attacks lead to a significant change in GDP growth. Examining the disaggregated industrial, service, and agricultural sector components of GDP growth reveals that even disaggregated the value added components of GDP growth experience no adverse effects from the deaths caused by transnational and domestic terrorist attacks. I also distinguish the emerging economies from the entire sample to find that GDP growth in emerging economies experience no significant effects due to the casualties of transnational and domestic terrorist attacks.

To what extent do unexpected, apolitical events affect governors’ popularity? Individuals’ attitudes towards government are often random, and executives at both the state-level and national-level are held accountable for events that they have little control over. In this study, I seek to understand how these unplanned events affect support for elected officials. Specifically, I examine the effect of the declaration of a State of Emergency on gubernatorial approval. I use an ordinary least squares (OLS) model and data from FEMA as well as the United States Officials Job Approval Ratings dataset to answer such questions. The results indicate that not only do natural and manmade disasters NOT have a negative effect on governors’ popularity, there is actually no correlation between the two variables at all. Instead, I find that relative to one another, major disaster declarations have a stronger negative effect on a governor’s approval ratings than emergency declarations. Though surprising, I suggest that these disasters simply do not affect enough individuals for a long enough time to have an impact on gubernatorial popularity.

acase@tulane.edu

Natural and technological disasters impact thousands of families in the United States each year. Catastrophic events leave homelessness, unemployment, injury, and death in their wake. The cost to society is usually measured in homes destroyed, jobs lost, casualties, and expected dollar expense of recovery. There are the social, psychological, and family consequences of catastrophic stressors. Anecdotal reports suggest that among these consequences is an increase in family violence, including child abuse. This dissertation tests the hypotheses that reported and confirmed child abuse increases in the wake of natural disasters. Child Protective Services (CPS) records of several jurisdictions that have experienced natural disasters during the past decade were examined. Data were collected from counties in South Carolina impacted by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, counties in California affected by the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, and parishes in Louisiana impacted by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The numbers of reports and confirmations for a one-year period following each of these events were compared with those for the year prior to the disaster. Analyses of these data indicated statistically significant increases in child abuse reports during the first 6 months following Hurricane Hugo and the Lama Prieta Earthquake, but showed no statistically significant change following Hurricane Andrew. The study concluded that reactions to natural disasters vary for a number of different reasons. The findings from California and South Carolina indicated that there are changes in patterns of reporting and/or confirmation of child abuse following catastrophes. CPS workers in each of the impacted areas were interviewed to obtain their impressions regarding the extent and causes of these changes in reporting and substantiation. Recommendations that governmental and social service agencies dedicate resources and develop programs to address this specific problem following catastrophes were included. Future research that replicates this study and the development of methodologies that do not depend on official reports and investigations were recommended.

Past decades have witnessed evidence to large-scale upheaval caused by natural disasters. Thus, there is a need for determination of mechanisms through which natural disasters may influence growth, especially for developing countries. This paper traces the medium-short run time path of agricultural and industrial output growth response to four types of disasters in Southern and Southeastern Asian countries. Disasters considered are floods, droughts, storms and earthquakes. The empirical results suggest heterogeneous effects for disasters as well as different economic sectors. In many cases disaster impact was delayed. Generally speaking, floods and droughts have a stronger effect while earthquakes and storms have a weaker one on disaggregated output growth. Floods have a predominantly posi-tive effect while droughts have a negative one on both agricultural and industrial sectors. Storms seem to show a stronger negative effect in the agricultural sector than in industrial sector hinting at existence of short lived indirect effects. Earth-quakes, on the other hand, presented ambiguous growth responses. / No

<p>This dissertation consists of three studies exploring the effects of natural disasters in North Carolina on the longer term outcomes of children. The first study looks at the effect of prenatal natural disaster exposure on maternal health behaviors and birth outcomes for twenty cohorts of children born in North Carolina. Combining North Carolina administrative and survey data on births with disaster declarations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allows me to identify children who were exposed to disasters in each trimester of prenatal development. Using a county fixed effect strategy, I compare these children to other children born in the same county who were not exposed to disasters while in utero. Results indicate that prenatal natural disaster exposure, especially exposure to hurricanes, has a significant effect on some maternal health behaviors, but this study provides only limited support for the theory that natural disaster exposure negatively affects birth outcomes, as measured by birth weight and gestational age.</p><p>The second study looks at the impact of exposure to natural disasters during pregnancy on the educational outcomes of North Carolina children at third grade. A broad literature relates negative birth outcomes to poor educational performance, and a number of recent studies examine the effect of prenatal exposure to natural disasters on birth outcomes. This study takes the next step by considering how prenatal exposure affects later outcomes. The children identified in the first study as exposed to disasters prenatally are compared to other children born in the same county who were not exposed to disasters while in utero. Results suggest that children exposed to hurricanes prenatally have lower scores on third grade standardized tests in math and reading. Those exposed to flooding or tornadoes also have somewhat lower math scores. Additionally, results suggest that these negative effects are more concentrated among children in disadvantaged subgroups, especially children born to Black mothers. </p><p>The third study addresses the question of whether the disruption caused by a natural disaster has an impact on student academic outcomes in the school year during which the natural disaster occurs. The effects of disasters on school performance are important because natural disasters often constitute a major community disruption with widespread impacts on the lives of children. The educational data in this study comes from administrative records for all school districts in North Carolina. Results suggest that hurricanes have a negative overall impact on reading test scores, with the effect concentrated among middle schools. However, winter storms have a positive effect on both math and reading scores in middle school. This difference in effect and additional analysis of mechanisms suggests that mobility is more important than missed days of schools in mediating negative effects of hurricanes on school performance.</p> / Dissertation