The small land area of the islands of the Maldives, combined with high population density, makes the communities of these islands vulnerable to natural disaster events such as flooding and tsunami. The Indian Ocean Tsunami on 26 December 2004 impacted 69 islands of the Maldives, killing 82 people, leaving 26 people missing and 15, 000 people internally displaced, making it the worst disaster in recorded history. Following the event, the Government of the Maldives announced a Safer Island Development Programme which seeks to provide the infrastructure necessary to adapt to natural disasters. The key focus of disaster management is to reduce the vulnerability of the communities exposed to hazards and risks, and to help them to enhance their resilience. Efforts have been made to develop safer and sustainable communities in all corners of the developed and developing worlds. New Zealand Government announced its effort to build safe and secure communities in 2007 while at a local level the Christchurch City Council published the Safer Christchurch Strategy in 2005. Overseas, the Community Strategy 2000, outlines the vision of "A safe and strong Island" at Isle of Wight United Kingdom. The islands of the Maldives have natural characteristics which make them vulnerable to disasters such as tsunami. This research has been able to identify the relationship between these characteristics and the natural vulnerability of the islands using the data that was collected following the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Out of 11 island, that have been identified for the Safer Islands Development Programme, one island is found to have very high natural vulnerability and 5 islands a high natural vulnerability, from the island vulnerability index model developed through this study. The Island Vulnerability Index model could be used to enhance the present Safer Island Development Programme island selection criteria, to reduce the possibility of 'building risk' into the infrastructure development on the islands. The index could also be used in the Environmental Impact Assessment studies to address the issue of disasters, effective resources allocation in the Public Sector Infrastructure Programme for 'building back better', and resource identification in land use planning.

The west coast of North America is under the threat of future great megathrust earthquakes and associated tsunamis. This dissertation addresses three urgent but unresolved issues in tsunami hazard assessment and risk mitigation at northernmost Cascadia. (1) Plate subduction is actively taking place along the Explorer segment of the northern Cascadia subduction zone and probably also its Winona fragment, and therefore their seismogenic and tsunamigenic potential should be investigated. (2) It needs to be investigated whether the shallowest portion of the Cascadia megathrust can undergo highly tsunamigenic trench-breaching rupture in great earthquakes like in the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake at the Japan Trench. (3) For tsunami hazard assessment and early warning in southwestern British Columbia, high-resolution megathrust rupture models need to be systematically developed. To address the first issue, I develop finite element models for the Explorer segment to estimate thermally allowed potential seismic rupture zone of the megathrust. The results suggest a potential rupture zone of ~60 km downdip width located offshore. For the Winona fragment, where there are large uncertainties in the tectonic history and the age of the oceanic lithosphere, a preliminary estimate by considering only the thermal effect of sedimentation on a cooling lithosphere suggests a potential rupture zone of a minimum downdip width of 35 km. I address the second issue by reanalyzing seismic survey images off Vancouver Island with a focus on secondary faults around the accretionary wedge deformation front. No strong evidence suggests trench-breaching megathrust rupture being a dominant mode of fault behaviour at northern Cascadia, although the possibility cannot be excluded from tsunami hazard assessment. Buried rupture and coseismic activation of secondary faults may be more important at Cascadia. To address the third issue and also to investigate how the different secondary faults can contribute to tsunami generation, I compile a new Cascadia megathrust geometry and develop 21 tsunami sources using a three-dimensional (3D) dislocation model, including hypothetical models of frontal thrust, back-thrust, and splay faults. The dislocation models indicate that the buried rupture, splay-faulting rupture, and trench-breaching rupture can result in large seafloor uplift and coastal subsidence, and hence will lead to tsunamis that seriously affect the local coastal area. Back-thrust rupture near the deformation front is unimportant for tsunami generation. The model results also show that properly configured land-based Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) monitoring can distinguish between ruptures along the Cascadia megathrust and along the strike-slip Nootka fault and between megathrust ruptures of difference strike lengths and therefore can effectively contribute to real-time tsunami early warning. However, the results also reveal that these land-based measurements are not sensitive to the slip behaviour of the shallow portion of the megathrust farther offshore, demonstrating urgent need for near-trench, seafloor observations. / Graduate / 0373 / gaodawei999@126.com

Cette étude utilise à titre principal la théorie du « milieu » de Michel Serres dans le cadre de son grand concept de système de communication. Cette théorie considère les bruits qui environnent un message dans un canal de communication, comme des éléments importants qui décideront si le message est bien compris (ou non) par le Récepteur.Cette étude relie la théorie à un contexte plus large de la communication dans la province d’Aceh, en Indonésie, et reflète les éléments socio-politico-culture de sa reconstruction, après le tsunami de 2004.En appliquant l'approche de l'Anthropologie aux Technologies d’Information et de Communication (TIC), cette étude observe les « bruits » de la communication entre les habitants d'Aceh et l'équipe d'intervention d'urgence en TIC « AirPutih », composée de ce que l’on appelle communément des « hackers ».Le premier « bruit » vient de l'Emetteur du message, « AirPutih », avec son idéologie de Hackers et sa vision du monde javanaise. Le terme « Hacker » est techniquement utilisé pour une personne qui a écrit le code informatique et l'exploite dans les questions relatives à un système de sécurité de réseau. Mais cette étude utilisera préférablement le terme « Hacker » pour décrire l'état d'esprit d'AirPutih, le groupe de jeunes gens indonésiens qui sont arrivés à Aceh quatre jours après le tsunami qui a dévasté la région en 2004, pour rétablir la connexion TIC avec très peu d’argent en poche. L’état d'esprit de ces hackers qui sont, pour la plupart, d'origine javanaise, s’enracine dans les visions du monde javanais. Le second « bruit » vient du récepteur du message : les habitants d'Aceh. Le contexte culturel d'Aceh a connu deux évènements importants : la guerre civile qui a fait rage entre les habitants d'Aceh et le gouvernement central indonésien depuis 30 ans et le tsunami qui a frappé la zone en 2004. Il importe d’ailleurs de noter que les habitants d'Aceh sont de la longue histoire de leur vigoureux Etat islamique.Ces « bruits » se manifestent dans le « milieu » de la communication entre AirPutih et les habitants d'Aceh. Ces « bruits » seront examinés ici comme une négociation entre deux cultures, fortement contrainte par l'état post-catastrophe de région d'Aceh.Fondées sur les extraordinaires résultats d'AirPutih pour rétablir l'infrastructure des TIC en Aceh, les valeurs sociales qui ressortent de cette situation apparaissent alors comme opposées à l'hégémonie de la logique capitaliste qui domine le monde d'aujourd'hui. / This study focuses on Michel Serres’ theory of “Milieu” as part of his bigger concept of communication systems. The theory considers that the surrounding Noises of a message in the canal of communication are the important elements that will decide whether the message is well understood (or not) by the receiver.This study places the theory in a wider context of communication in Aceh, Indonesia, reflecting the socio-politico-culture elements in the reconstruction of Aceh region after the Tsunami disaster of 2004.Using the approach of the Anthropology of Infocom, this study observes the “Noises” in the communication between the ICT Emergency Response Team “AirPutih” - which this study considers as Hackers - and the local inhabitants of Aceh.The first “Noise” comes from the Sender of the message: AirPutih, with its Hackers’ ideology and its Javanese code of behavior. The term ‘Hacker’ is technically used for a person who writes code and exploits it in issues related to a security system. This study, instead, will use the term ‘hackers’ to describe the mindset of AirPutih, the Indonesian group of young people who arrived in Aceh, Indonesia, only four days after the tsunami devastated the region in 2004, and re-established the ICT connection with almost no money at hand. This mindset of the hackers embraces the Javanese worldviews rooted in the everyday lives of the members of AirPutih, who are mostly of Javanese origin. The second “noise” comes from the Receiver of the message: the Acehnese. The cultural context of the Acehnese had endured two robust events: the civil war that raged between the Acehnese and the Indonesian central government for 30 years and the tsunami that hit Aceh in 2004. The Acehnese are also proud of their long history as a vigorous Islamic state.These “Noises” were in the “milieu” of the communication between AirPutih and the Acehnese. These “Noises” are scrutinized as the negotiation of cultures that is strongly framed by the post-disaster condition of Aceh, Indonesia. Surrounded by the intriguing result of the successful work of AirPutih in reestablishing the ICT infrastructure in Aceh, the values that come out from this discussion are then opposed to the prevailing hegemony of capitalist logic that dominates the world of today.

Thesis advisor: John E. Ebel / Large magnitude offshore passive margin earthquakes are rare, making small magnitude events (M < 4) the predominant data available to study the mechanisms of seismicity along passive margins. This study is focused on a swarm of events (M2.1-M3.9) that occurred from 2012-2013 located in the Gulf of Maine (GM) along the Atlantic Passive Margin (APM) shelf break, a region with previously minimal recorded seismic activity. Relative locations were calculated for the earthquakes of the GM swarm and a moment tensor inversion method was used to calculate focal mechanisms for the two largest events in the swarm. The results of the relative location method constrained a fault orientation to a strike of 243° ± 3° and a dip of 25° ± 3°. The focal mechanisms for the two largest events were determined to be oblique normal faults with steeply dipping planes at depths between 12-18 km. For the largest event (M3.9), the strike is 235° ± 1°, with a dip of 77.7° ± .8° and a rake of -116.5° ± 3°, and for the second largest event (M3.7) the strike is 259° ± 3°, with a dip of 78° ± 2° and a rake of -58.8° ± 7°. By mapping the spatial extent of the relative hypocenters, I infer a potential fault size of 2.7 km by 2.4 km. If this entire area were to rupture at once in the future, an earthquake of M4.9-M5.0 could occur, a magnitude not large enough to be tsunamigenic in the GM. Based on Gutenberg-Richter relations from the eastern APM, if a M7 can occur in the GM, its estimated mean repeat time is 2,120-22,800 years, and it could be tsunamigenic depending on the event’s proximity to the continental slope. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences.

The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program partnered with the National Weather Service (NWS) in 2000 to create the TsunamiReadyTM (TR) Community program. TR is designed to help communities in coastal areas plan and prepare for tsunamis. To achieve TR recognition communities must meet certain criteria including specific emergency planning and management actions within the categories of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. This study’s purpose was to evaluate the acceptability and usefulness of key components of a proposed revised set of TR Community program guidelines. Research was guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) using Community Based Participatory Research methods to gather input from expert panels composed of local expert community stakeholders from 5 states and 1 US territory. Two qualitative data collection methods were used: online prediscussion surveys administered via Survey Monkey© and focus group discussions. Fifty participants attended 1 of 6 focus group discussions, with 20 participants completing surveys. Data analysis focused on 8 discussion topics: subdivision of communities by vulnerability, proportion of the population to be protected, evacuation effectiveness, evacuation drills or exercises, vertical evacuation, educating businesses, educating residents, and acceptability of a revised guidelines format. Supporting and opposing themes were identified, providing rich information of community-level perceptions regarding the guidelines. Most notably, the fidelity of the 2 ELM pathways were confirmed as separate. The peripheral pathway demonstrated a significant need for clarification and definition of program terms and activities through the surveys, while focus groups facilitated the central pathway for participants to discuss and debate various program guidelines. This study provides several recommendations based on community input for updating and revising the TR Community program guidelines including: revisions to the overall format, a new focus on community tsunami hazard, and additional actions and activities to improve community tsunami mitigation and preparedness efforts. Finally, the data and recommendations provided will be used to compile a final draft of the TR Community program guidelines for the NWS.

No description available.

Coastal areas are often important to economic, social, and environmental processes throughout the world. With changing climate and growing populations in these areas, coastal communities have become increasingly vulnerable to extreme flooding events, such as tsunami, storm surges, and flash floods. Within this new paradigm, there has been an effort to improve upon current methods of hazard assessment, particularly for tsunami. Recently, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released the ASCE 7 Chapter 6 which was the world’s first standard, written in mandatory language, that addressed tsunami resilient design in a probabilistic manner for several of its prescriptions. While often the focus tends to be on mapping the hazards related to hydraulic loading conditions, post-tsunami field surveys from disaster-stricken coastal communities have also shown the importance of also considering the loads exerted by solid objects entrained within the inundating flows, commonly referred to as debris loading. Limited research has addressed debris hazard assessment in a comprehensive manner. Debris loading can be generally divided into two categories: impact and damming. Debris impact loads are caused by the rapid strike of solid objects against a structure. Debris damming loads are the result of the accumulation of debris at the face of or around a structure, causing thus an obstruction to the flow. The primary difference between these loads is the time period over which they act. The rapid loading due to debris impacts requires structural properties be considered in assessing the associated loads whereas debris damming loads are generally considered in a quasi-static manner. In assessing the hazard associated with both impact and damming loading conditions, methodologies must be developed to consider the likelihood of the load occurring and the magnitude of that load. The primary objective of this thesis was to develop a probabilistic framework for assessing debris hazards in extreme coastal flooding events. To achieve this objective, the components of the framework were split into three general categories: debris transport, debris damming, and debris impact. Several physical experimental studies were performed to address each of these components, representing the most comprehensive assessment of debris hazards in extreme flooding events to date. Debris transport was addressed to estimate the likelihood of debris loading occurring on a structure. The studies presented herein examine the different parameters that must be considered in assessing the motion of debris with the flow. The studies showed that the initial configuration of the debris and hydrodynamic conditions were critical in determining the motion of the debris. The stochastic properties of the debris motion were also assessed. It was shown that the lateral displacement of the debris could be approximated by a Gaussian distribution and the debris velocity by a Kumaraswamy (1980) distribution. The study of debris impact was further used to develop the current models used in estimating the impact force. The rigid body impact model was compared to models where the structural response was considered. The analysis showed that the effective stiffness model proposed by Haehnel and Daly (2004) was best suited to provide a conservative estimation of the impact force. Additionally, the impact geometry was taken into consideration examining the influence of various parameters on the impact force. Furthermore, debris damming was examined for the first time in transient loading conditions. This particular study examined the influence of the transient wave condition on the debris dam formation as well as the influence of different debris geometries. The influence of the debris dam geometry was correlated to increases in loading and overtopping conditions at structures. The assessment of debris hazards is critical in the development of accurate design conditions. The probabilistic framework presented within this thesis is expected to provide a basis for estimating debris hazards and inform future studies in the development of hazard assessment models.

The popular tourist destination island of Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand was heavily affected by the Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004, which resulted in a destroyed tourism infrastructure and complete downturn of tourism. Extensive recovery and rebuilding work by emerging community groups, returned locals, international volunteers and Thai government units provided an efficient but hasty reconstruction of the destination. Ethnographic research conducted in the community provided insights into the complex stakeholder interactions and their roles and influences on the reconstruction of the community. The community�s level of vulnerability on Koh Phi Phi Don was influenced by social processes and interactions during the destination�s recovery process as the various stakeholders (e.g. government vs. locals) had differing perceptions of the island�s economic, environmental and social vulnerability. These disputes are grounded in different social time processes, particularly illustrated through land law disputes among locals, landowners and the government. Other factors which influenced the reconstruction of Koh Phi Phi as a tourist destination were pre-tsunami conditions (past overdevelopment), the empowerment of the community, the reconstructed place identity, various anniversary celebrations and the early warning system. A model is suggested to illustrate and discuss Koh Phi Phi Don as a disaster destination, which provides insights into the dynamics which govern a destination�s post-disaster recovery period. Thus, it illustrates how stakeholder interaction is influenced by distinct understandings of the multiple notions of vulnerability. Furthermore, this study establishes essential links between disaster and tourism theories and suggests an extended tourism disaster management framework, which calls for an inclusion of post-recovery processes.

<p>Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att utifrån yrkesverksammas uppfattningar förstå och belysa fattiga underpriviligerade barns sociala livsvärld på ön Phuket i Thailand. Då området den 26 december 2004 drabbades av en Tsunamikatastrof, till följd av ett jordskalv i Sydostasien, var det även intressant att titta på hur händelsen påverkat slumbarnens villkor. En empirinsamlande studieresa till området gjordes, där intervjuer med nyckelpersoner intervjuades. Intentionen var att utifrån informanternas uppfattning kring det givna ämnet, befintlig forskning och relevanta teorier, ge en bild av hur slumbarnens sociala livsvärld generellt ser ut. Utifrån fakta ur litteratur och informanternas berättelser beskrevs barnens sociala livsvärld präglas av en verklighet av missnöje med staten, sociala problem och djup misär. Turismen och marknads-krafterna har en betydande roll i samhällstrukturer på Phuket. Tsunamikatastrofen har bidragit till en omfördelning av resurser, dock ingen större förändring för de redan fattiga slumbarnen. Trots omvärldens generösa bidrag, kvalificeras slumbarnen inte in för de insatser som görs för tsunamibarn. Samtliga källor pekar på att utbildning är det effektivaste sättet att förbättra slumbarnens sociala livsvärld.</p>

<p>In this thesis we analyze the macroeconomic impact of the tsunami in 2004 on the Sri Lankan economy. The theoretical framework we use, the Australian model of a developing economy, gives direct or indirect predictions for the development of a number of variables after a natural disaster. In our case, we believe that the main reason for developments of the output variables and the exchange rate is the extraordinary large and rapid inflow of foreign aid money. In summary, we find the overall impact of the tsunami on the Sri Lankan economy to be minor.</p>