Routledge Handbook of Environmental Hazards and Society 9780367427146, 9781032277707, 9780367854584

This Handbook provides a state-of-the-science review of research and practice in the human dimensions of hazards field.

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Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: environmental hazards today and tomorrow
Part I Environmental hazards
Geophysical Hazards
2 Earthquakes and tsunami
3 Volcanic eruption
4 Landslides
Hydro-meteorological/Climatological hazards
5 Tropical cyclones: experiences from bangladesh and the united states
6 Flooding
7 Drought: the case of south africa
8 Extreme heat and cold
9 Wildfire
10 Climate change: mitigation and adaptation
Part II Vulnerability, resilience, and equity
Vulnerability and Resilience
11 Social vulnerability and resilience to environmental hazards
12 Vulnerability: its discursive and material nature
13 Community level social capital and resilience
14 Urban and rural interdependencies: infrastructure services
15 Critical infrastructure and hazards: a risk modelling approach
Equity
16 Environmental justice and hazards: case studies from the united states and india
17 Sexual and gender minorities in disasters
18 Indigenous responses to environmental hazard events
Part III Preparedness, responses, impacts, and recovery
Adaptation and Preparedness
19 Adaptation to flood risk by households and small businesses
20 Disaster preparedness and risk reduction: an Asian perspective
21 Emergency alerts and warnings
Responses
22 Evacuation versus shelter in place
23 Volunteers and community participation
24 Religious institutions, communities and disasters
Impacts
25 Physical health consequences of disasters
26 Disasters and mental health
27 The economic impacts of flood risk reduction
Recovery
28 Disaster recovery
29 Regenerating sociocultural capacities and capabilities in disaster recovery
Part IV Policy and practice: intergovernmental organizations and governments, support, and information
Governments
30 International agreements and policies
31 Governance issues with environmental hazards
32 Local government and environmental hazards
Support
33 Humanitarian organizations and aid
34 Role of insurance in reducing losses from disasters
35 Settlement and shelter reconstruction
Information
36 Disaster risk reduction education
37 News media coverage of environmental hazards
Part V Conclusion
38 Reflections
Index
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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND SOCIETY

This Handbook provides a state-of-the-science review of research and practice in the human dimensions of hazards field. The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Hazards and Society reviews and assesses existing knowledge and explores future research priorities in this growing field. It showcases the work of international experts, including established researchers, future stars in the field, and practitioners. Organised into four parts, all chapters have an international focus, and many include case studies from around the world. Part I explains geophysical and hydro-meteorological/climatological hazards, their impacts, and mitigation. Part II explores vulnerability, resilience, and equity. Part III explores preparedness, responses during environmental hazard events, impacts, and the recovery process. Part IV explores policy and practice, including governments, support provided during and after environmental hazard events, and provision of information. This Handbook will serve as an important resource for students, academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in the fields of environmental hazards and disaster risk reduction. Tara K. McGee is an interdisciplinary social scientist in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research focuses on the human dimensions of wildfires. Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell is a geographer who founded the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University, London. He was the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Middlesex University. He is the editor of the international journal Environmental Hazards published by Taylor & Francis.

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND SOCIETY

Edited by Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

Cover image: © Getty Images First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-42714-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-27770-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-85458-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367854584 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of contributors ix Acknowledgementsxiv   1 Introduction: environmental hazards today and tomorrow Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell PART I

1

Environmental hazards Geophysical Hazards

11

  2 Earthquakes and tsunami Julia S. Becker, Sara K. McBride, Lauren J. Vinnell, Wendy S.A. Saunders, Graham S. Leonard, Timothy J. Sullivan, and Ken Gledhill

13

  3 Volcanic eruption David K. Chester and Angus M. Duncan

33

 4 Landslides Irasema Alcántara-Ayala and Marten Geertsema

49

Hydro-meteorological/Climatological hazards   5 Tropical cyclones: experiences from bangladesh and the united states Edris Alam and Bill DelGrosso

73

 6 Flooding Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell, Sally M. Priest, and Lydia Cumiskey

88

v

Contents

  7 Drought: the case of south africa Andries Jordaan

106

  8 Extreme heat and cold Michael J. Allen and Daniel J. Vecellio

125

 9 Wildfire Tara K. McGee, Elise Gatti, and Amy Cardinal Christianson

137

10 Climate change: mitigation and adaptation Jörn Birkmann and Hannes Lauer

150

PART II

Vulnerability, resilience, and equity Vulnerability and Resilience

169

11 Social vulnerability and resilience to environmental hazards Kathleen Tierney

171

12 Vulnerability: its discursive and material nature Janki Andharia

185

13 Community level social capital and resilience Daniel P. Aldrich and Michelle A. Meyer

201

14 Urban and rural interdependencies: infrastructure services Alexander Fekete, Asad Asadzadeh, Diana Contreras, Johannes Hamhaber, Simone Sandholz, and Dominic Sett

214

15 Critical infrastructure and hazards: a risk modelling approach Elco Koks

230

Equity 16 Environmental justice and hazards: case studies from the united states and india Jayajit Chakraborty and Pratyusha Basu

243

17 Sexual and gender minorities in disasters Dale Dominey-Howes, Scott McKinnon, Andrew Gorman-Murray, and Christine Eriksen

259

18 Indigenous responses to environmental hazard events Suzanne Phibbs and Christine Kenney

273

vi

Contents PART III

Preparedness, responses, impacts, and recovery Adaptation and Preparedness

287

19 Adaptation to flood risk by households and small businesses Tim Harries

289

20 Disaster preparedness and risk reduction: an Asian perspective Rajib Shaw, Bismark Adu-Gyamfi, and Vibhas Sukhwani

302

21 Emergency alerts and warnings Jeannette Sutton and Michele M. Wood

319

Responses 22 Evacuation versus shelter in place Jim McLennan, Chris Bearman, and Barbara Ryan

335

23 Volunteers and community participation Blythe McLennan

351

24 Religious institutions, communities and disasters Abdur R. Cheema

365

Impacts 25 Physical health consequences of disasters Penelope Burns and Gerard FitzGerard

379

26 Disasters and mental health Michael J. Zakour

394

27 The economic impacts of flood risk reduction Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

408

Recovery 28 Disaster recovery Bimal K. Paul

425

29 Regenerating sociocultural capacities and capabilities in disaster recovery Douglas Paton, Petra Buergelt, Rey-Sheng Her, Li-ju Jang, Rei-Ling Lai, Ya-Lan Tseng, Ruei-Siang Wu, and Saut Sagala

442

vii

Contents PART IV

Policy and practice: intergovernmental organizations and governments, support, and information Governments

459

30 International agreements and policies Lidia Mayner and Virginia Murray

461

31 Governance issues with environmental hazards Livhuwani Nemakonde, Sizwile Khoza, and Dewald Van Niekerk

481

32 Local government and environmental hazards Kristin Taylor and Stephanie Zarb

493

Support 33 Humanitarian organizations and aid Tammam Aloudat

507

34 Role of insurance in reducing losses from disasters Wouter Botzen and Howard Kunreuther

521

35 Settlement and shelter reconstruction Erin P. O’Connell and Brent Doberstein

534

Information 36 Disaster risk reduction education Glenn Fernandez

551

37 News media coverage of environmental hazards Bruno Takahashi

562

PART V

Conclusion

575

38 Reflections Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell and Tara K. McGee

577

Index583

viii

CONTRIBUTORS

Bismark Adu-Gyamfi, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Edris Alam, Faculty of Resilience, Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Institute of Geography, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico Daniel P. Aldrich, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Northeastern University, Boston, USA Michael J. Allen, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, USA Tammam Aloudat, Global Health Centre, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland Janki Andharia, Centre for Disasters and Development, Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, Mumbai, India Asad Asadzadeh, Department of Urban Planning and Land Management, University of Bonn, Germany Pratyusha Basu, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Chris Bearman, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia Julia S. Becker, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

ix

Contributors

Jörn Birkmann, Institute of Regional Development Planning (IREUS), University of Stuttgart, Germany Wouter Botzen, Department of Environmental Economics, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Petra Buergelt, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Australia Penelope Burns, College of Health & Medicine, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Jayajit Chakraborty, Department of Sociology  & Anthropology, University of Texas at El Paso, USA Abdur R. Cheema, United Nations Development Program, Islamabad, Pakistan David K. Chester, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, UK Amy Cardinal Christianson, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Edmonton, Canada Diana Contreras, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK Lydia Cumiskey, German Red Cross, Berlin, Germany Bill DelGrosso, Faculty of Resilience, Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Brent Doberstein, Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada Dale Dominey-Howes, The School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Australia Angus M. Duncan, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, UK Christine Eriksen, Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zürich, Switzerland Alexander Fekete, Institute for Rescue Engineering and Hazard Defense, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Köln, Germany Glenn Fernandez, Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China Gerard FitzGerard, School of Public Health  & Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

x

Contributors

Elise Gatti, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Marten Geertsema, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada Ken Gledhill, National Emergency Management Agency, Wellington, New Zealand Andrew Gorman-Murray, School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia Johannes Hamhaber, Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Köln, Germany Tim Harries, Kingston Business School, Kingston University London, UK Rey-Sheng Her, Tzu Chi Foundation, Hualian, Taiwan Li-ju Jang, Department of Social Work, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan Andries Jordaan, Résilience Globale Pty. Ltd., Bainsvlei, Free State, South Africa Christine Kenney, School of Psychology, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand Sizwile Khoza, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Elco Koks, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Howard Kunreuther, Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA Rei-Ling Lai, Tzu Chi Foundation, Hualian, Taiwan Hannes Lauer, Institute for Spatial and Regional Planning, University of Stuttgart, Germany Graham S. Leonard, GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Lidia Mayner, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Sara K. McBride, US Geological Survey, Menlo Park, USA Tara K. McGee, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Scott McKinnon, Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, The University of Wollongong, Australia

xi

Contributors

Blythe McLennan, Natural Hazards Research Australia, Melbourne, Australia Jim McLennan, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Michelle A. Meyer, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA Virginia Murray, Global Disaster Risk Reduction, Public Health England, London, UK Livhuwani Nemakonde, African Centre for Disaster Studies, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Erin P. O’Connell, Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada Douglas Paton, College of Health and Human Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia Bimal K. Paul, Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell, Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University London, UK Suzanne Phibbs, School of Health Sciences, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand Sally M. Priest, Flood Hazard Research Centre, School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University London, UK Barbara Ryan, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia Saut Sagala, Regional and City Planning Department, Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia Simone Sandholz, Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University, Bonn, Germany Wendy S.A. Saunders, Earthquake Commission, Wellington, New Zealand Dominic Sett, Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University, Bonn, Germany Rajib Shaw, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Vibhas Sukhwani, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Timothy J. Sullivan, Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand xii

Contributors

Jeannette Sutton, College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, State University of New York at Albany, USA Bruno Takahashi, School of Journalism, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA Kristin Taylor, Department of Political Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA Kathleen Tierney, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Ya-Lan Tseng, Tzu Chi Foundation, Hualian, Taiwan Dewald Van Niekerk, African Centre for Disaster Studies, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Daniel J. Vecellio, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA Lauren J. Vinnell, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand Michele M. Wood, Department of Public Health, California State University, Fullerton, USA Ruei-Siang Wu, Tzu Chi Foundation, Hualian, Taiwan Michael J. Zakour, School of Social Work, West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA Stephanie Zarb, Department of Political Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, we would like to thank all of the chapter authors for their contributions, patience, and their responses to our many queries. This handbook was devised and written during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the commitment of our authors during this difficult time has been impressive and much appreciated. Thanks are due to Elise Gatti for her help in identifying potential chapter authors, to Khizar Khalil for his close attention to the formatting of references and other key tasks, and to Medha Mukherjee for her involvement in some significant late-stage editing. Thanks are also due to Routledge’s editorial team: Annabelle Harris, Matthew Shobbrook, and Jyotsna Gurung.

xiv

1 INTRODUCTION Environmental hazards today and tomorrow Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

A more dangerous world The world in which we live appears to be getting more dangerous. This should be of concern to governments, communities, and individuals; all are at risk. This Handbook follows its predecessor (Wisner et al., 2013) in identifying the risks that we face from environmental hazards and puts forward suggestions for their mitigation. Ten years ago, in 2012, the IPCC’s report titled “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (IPCC, 2012) examined climate extremes and impacts. Summary findings from the report included the following: • • •



There was an overall increase in the number of warm days and nights at the global scale. There was uncertainty about long-term increases in the intensity, frequency, and duration of tropical cyclone activity. There was more confidence that some regions of the world, particularly in southern Europe and West Africa, have experienced more intense and longer droughts, whereas in other regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter. It was likely that there had been an increase in extreme, coastal high water related to increases in mean sea level.

The 2012 report concluded that economic losses from weather- and climate-related disasters have increased, but with large spatial and interannual variability. Increased exposure of people and economic assets was identified as the major cause of long-term increases in economic losses from weather- and climate-related disasters. As we were putting the finishing touches on this Handbook in 2021, the IPCC released “AR6 Climate Change 2021” (IPCC, 2021), which clarified ways in which climate change is impacting many environmental hazards. A key conclusion from the summary for policymakers was that, Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes

1

DOI: 10.4324/9780367854584-1

Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5. (IPCC, 2021, p10) Summary findings included in the report expand on this conclusion: • • • • •

It is virtually certain that hot extremes (including heatwaves) have become more frequent and more intense across most land regions since the 1950s. The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s. Human-induced climate change has contributed to increases in agricultural and ecological droughts. It is likely that the global proportion of major (Category 3–5) tropical cyclones has increased over the last four decades. Human influence has likely increased the chance of compound extreme events since the 1950s. This includes increases in the frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts on a global scale, fire weather in some regions of all inhabited continents, and compound flooding in some locations.

Chapters in this Handbook confirm these changes, provide recent examples of these events, and provide more insights into the impacts of these environmental hazards. Chapter authors in this Handbook also highlight that while climate change plays a role, other factors have also and they continue to exacerbate impacts of environmental hazards. For example, in Chapter 4, Alcántara-Ayala and Geertsema explain that the impacts of landslides will continue to increase due to population growth, increasing urbanization, land use pressures that lead to environmental degradation, social inequalities, and climate change. In Chapter 8, Allen and Vecellio indicate that continued urbanization coupled with an ageing population potentially increases future risks from heatwaves.

Environmental hazards The title of this volume is no mere accident. We use the term “environmental hazards” because hazards are a function of the coincidence of events which may have a geophysical or hydrometeorological basis and the human occupation of the areas where there is risk. Environmental hazards are a social phenomenon. Environmental hazards include those hazards related to natural processes and phenomena, including earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, and drought. Although these have natural elements, humans are also involved. For example, one-half of wildfires worldwide are caused by humans. Anthropogenic climate change is increasing the impacts of these environmental hazards and other changes. Human induced, or anthropogenic, hazards are caused entirely or predominantly by human activities and choices, including a chemical release or nuclear power plant accident. Many hazard events include a combination of these two hazard types, such as the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and radiation event. The social aspects of the environmental hazards field date back to Gilbert White’s PhD dissertation and 1945 publication “Human Adjustments to Floods”. Subsequently, generations of researchers have focused their attention on understanding societal aspects of environmental hazards and disasters. In 1977, the journal Disasters began publishing research in the disaster studies field, and in 1999, Global Environmental Change began publishing academic research on the societal dimensions of hazards and has continued to do so under the Environmental Hazards 2

Introduction

title since 2007. This journal was recently joined by the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. In addition, researchers in the environmental hazards and society field publish their research in a wide range of other international and national journals. Keith Smith has now published six editions of Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster, with the first edition published in 1991. This growth in scholarship has also been accompanied by a growth in the number of undergraduate and graduate courses and programs on environmental hazards and society being taught in universities around the world. It is important to distinguish between hazards and disasters, which are sometimes used interchangeably. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines a hazard as, “A process, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation”. A  disaster occurs when there is “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts”. The EM-DAT International Disaster Database (www.emdat.be) categorizes a hazard event as a disaster when at least one of the following occurs: • • • •

Ten or more people reported killed. One hundred or more people reported affected. Declaration of a state of emergency. Call for international assistance.

Importantly, we do not use the term “natural disasters” in this Handbook, despite its continuing use. This is because disasters are not natural. A disaster may occur if an environmental hazard event causes significant impacts, including human, material, economic, and environmental losses. If humans did not live in hazardous places, disasters would not occur. The problematic nature of the term natural disasters has long been widely recognized by academics. In 1976, O’Keefe et al. (1976) published an article in Nature titled “Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters”. More recently, Hartman and Squires’s (2006) book about Hurricane Katrina is titled There is no such thing as a natural disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina. Chmutina and von Meding (2019) recently examined the use of “Natural Disasters” in academic literature, and they argue that it is time to stop using the term natural disaster. We wholeheartedly agree. This year, on 17 March 2021, the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction issued a press release: “Sendai Framework 6th Anniversary: Time to recognize there is no such thing as a natural disaster – we’re doing it to ourselves”.

Conceptual framework The DPSIR model The dominant conceptual framework for this Handbook involves targeting the mitigation of risk. In diagrammatic terms, this is summarized in Figure 1.1, the well-known pressure, state, impact, and response model. This was developed by Statistics Canada in the 1970s (Rapport and Friend, 1979) and subsequently adopted by the European Environment Agency and others (EEA, 1995). The enlarged DPSIR model (drivers, pressures, state, impact, and response model of intervention) is a causal framework for describing the interactions between society and the environment: the human impact on the environment and vice versa owing to the interdependence of 3

Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

Figure 1.1  The circular DPSIR framework.

the components. An important additional characteristic of the model is that it is never ending; each component leads to another and there is no end point because, in our case, hazards will always be a feature of the world in which we live, and they can be mitigated but not eliminated. The response we hope to encourage to mitigate environmental hazards leads through an alteration of the driving forces to a reduction in pressure on society, but that in turn affects the state of the environment and has an altered impact. In many of the fields of environmental hazards (and hence in the chapters that follow), we see impacts increasing despite considerable efforts towards their mitigation. The pressures on our environment in relation to environmental hazards are not just about climate change but also a function of increased population, continued environmental manipulation, and growing living standards in much of the world, creating an environment which is more human-made than in previous times. This adds to our insistence that a long-term effort is needed, with many stages defining our response to environmental hazards and the impacts they create. The DPSIR model acts as a lantern in illuminating the different facets of environmental hazards and their mitigation, and the chapters that follow should be seen in terms of the complexities involved, the interconnectedness of elements, and the circularity of the risk reduction process. This may seem pessimistic, but the evidence that we have suggests that the situation is getting worse, rather than better.

Risk and society In leading to adverse impacts, environmental hazards create risk. In this respect, risk is a product of the probability of occurrence of particular hazards and their consequences. Risk mitigation 4

Introduction

can tackle either the hazard itself by altering the probability of its occurrence, or its consequences, or a combination of both. In each case, we are dealing with reality that we can call “facts” and judgements as to the importance of hazards and their impacts. But any analysis of risk, as in this volume, is a blend of objective facts and subjective interpretations, and in this respect, we take a position sometimes described as “weak constructivism” (Lupton, 1999). To clarify, we wish to stress in this volume that the management of risks is a social process and, indeed, that the risks as we see them are a mixture of fact and supposition (Penning-Rowsell and Becker, 2019). Governance arrangements towards risk mitigation are a product of history and social processes, and policies are normative statements of intentions that are heavily influenced by the society from which they come. Communities of people react to realities that they observe, but they also have interpretations that are conditioned by the risk that they face, their community’s character and its history, and their aspirations. Dig a little deeper and we need to realize that our social relation to any hazard is influenced by different agents and their power and by what we consider to be truth, what information we trust, and what uncertainties we recognize – and ultimately how these interact to create challenges and opportunities for us to manage risk and successfully live with hazard events. In this respect no situation is simple; many options need to be reviewed towards risk mitigation, and the impact that these have on different sectors of society is likely to be unequal and raise questions about social justice considerations. To counter this point, however, needs a recognition that environmental hazards themselves are not equally distributed across the world and that “fairness” is not a characteristic of the status quo. Some locations and some communities suffer disproportionately, and this is a product of what we call “nature” rather than always due to the influence of humankind. On the other hand, many environmental hazards have been caused by unwise development in areas where risk is pronounced, either from denial of the risk, from ignorance, or from a tendency in human society to “take risks”. This is most commonplace when the probability of the hazard is low and the periods of time between each event are lengthy, so that memories fade and other important priorities intervene to take attention away from the possibility of hazard recurrence.

The organization of this volume In 2013, Routledge published the first Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction edited by Ben Wisner, J.C. Gaillard, and Ilan Kelman. Some of the topics covered in the Handbook by Wisner and colleagues are included in this shorter, revised, and updated Handbook of Environmental Hazards and Society, while others are new and reflect changes within society and progress in this academic field in the last 10 years. The chapters in this Handbook cover a broad range of hazards and illustrative case studies from around the world.

Part I Environmental hazards This first part of the handbook includes nine chapters, each of which focuses on a particular environmental hazard or related hazards. Each chapter includes an introduction to the hazard and a description of its impacts and discusses how to reduce the impacts, including mitigation, preparedness, and adaptation measures. While some chapters devote attention to physical science aspects of the hazard, others focus mainly or exclusively on societal aspects. This diversity reflects the expertise and interests of chapter authors. The first three chapters examine geophysical hazards. Chapter 2 introduces earthquakes and tsunamis, describes their impacts, and explores how to reduce these impacts. Examples from 5

Tara K. McGee and Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell

New Zealand and elsewhere are woven throughout this chapter. Chapter 3 provides detailed insights into the nature of volcanic eruptions, their impacts, and how to mitigate the impacts of eruptions. The 1928 eruption of Mount Etna (Italy) and 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Philippines) are included as case study examples. Chapter  4 introduces causes and types of landslides, examines their human impacts on volcanic eruptions at the local and global scales, and examines mitigation of landslides. The next six chapters focus on hydro-meteorological and climatological hazards. Chapter  5 examines tropical cyclones, how climate change has affected cyclones, the impacts of cyclones, and risk management. Case studies in Bangladesh and the United States illustrate cyclone impacts and risk management. Chapter 6 introduces flooding, describes types of floods and their impacts, and discusses flood risk mitigation, including the Thames Estuary 2100 case study. Chapter 7 introduces drought, drought relief, risk assessment, and drought risk reduction using a case study of drought in South Africa. Chapter 8 describes extreme heat and cold events, discusses the social dimensions of heat and cold events using the Australian 2019 heatwave and North American 2017–2018 cold spell as case studies, and examines mitigation and lessons learned. After an introduction to wildfires, Chapter 9 discusses their impacts, wildfire prevention and mitigation including Indigenous fire stewardship, and wildfire preparedness, evacuations, and alternatives. Chapter 10 introduces climate change, presents climate change mitigation and adaptation typologies, discusses impacts of climate change and adaptation on people and their communities, and examines climate change mitigation and adaptation in the context of vulnerability and risk. This chapter includes the case studies of heat stress and adaptation in the city of Ludwigsburg, Germany, and salinity for communities in the Mekong Delta. It is important to point out that, although we are still in the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, there is no pandemic chapter in this book because biological hazards do not fall within the scope of environmental hazards as we defined them earlier in this introduction. However, the pandemic has been woven into many chapters later in the Handbook. In addition, there are no chapters in this section which focus on what are often referred to as technological hazards: oil spills, nuclear power plant accidents, and others. Instead, technological hazards are incorporated as case studies in chapters in other parts of the Handbook.

Part II Vulnerability, resilience, and equity This second part of the Handbook includes eight chapters about vulnerability, resilience, and equity. The first five chapters explore vulnerability and resilience. Chapter 11 explores the concepts of social vulnerability and resilience, global factors that influence vulnerability, vulnerable groups and individuals using an intersectional lens, and measurement of social vulnerability and resilience. Chapter 12 examines the vulnerability concept in detail and discusses vulnerability in urban and rural areas. Chapter 13 defines social capital, examines evidence of social capital in disaster resilience, and provides policy recommendations to increase levels of social capital. The next two chapters move to vulnerability and resilience of physical infrastructure. Chapter 14 examines critical infrastructure and explores four case studies including health care, power supply, roads, and water supply. Four case studies in Chile, Germany, Iran, and South Africa are discussed in this chapter. In Chapter 15, critical infrastructure is explained, societal impacts as a result of critical infrastructure failures are discussed, and critical infrastructure risk modelling is examined. The next three chapters focus on equity. Chapter 16 introduces environmental justice, examines environmental justice and environmental hazards research in the United States, and explores two environmental justice case studies: Hurricane Harvey (USA) and industrial hazards (India). 6

Introduction

Chapter 17 examines vulnerability and resilience of LGBTQI+ people and their experiences during environmental hazard events, including case studies from Australia and New Zealand. Examples of emergency service organizations and individuals who demonstrated sensitive and inclusive behaviour are identified. Insights into the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on sexual and gender minorities are discussed. Chapter 18 examines how Indigenous peoples are affected by and respond to environmental hazard events, and it discusses the importance of incorporating Indigenous perspectives and increasing representation of Indigenous peoples in disaster risk reduction. Case studies in Fiji and Aotearoa-New Zealand are highlighted.

Part III Preparedness, responses, impacts, and recovery This third part of the Handbook includes 11 chapters about preparedness before, responses during, impacts of, and recovery after environmental hazard events. The first three chapters focus on adaptation and preparedness. Chapter 19 examines factors that influence adaptation to flood risks to homes and businesses. Chapter  20 explores the preparedness concept, preparedness activities, barriers to preparedness, and ways to enhance preparedness within the Asian context. Two case studies, the 2018 Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia and 2019 Typhoon Hagibis in Japan, provide insights into preparedness. Chapter 21 examines emergency alerts and warnings, including models that examine warning response and designing and delivering an effective message. Challenges of warning are explored using two examples in the USA: 2017 wildfires in Southern California and the false alarm sent to residents of Hawaii. The second set of three chapters focuses on how people respond during environmental hazard events. Chapter 22 explores evacuation and sheltering protective actions, evacuation vs. shelter-in-place issues, and warnings. The appropriateness of evacuation vs. shelter-in-place for self-protection during eight environmental hazards is examined. Chapter 23 explores the concepts of volunteering and community participation in managing environmental hazards. Four themes in contemporary research are examined: new communications technology and digitally enabled volunteering; integration and coordination of “outsider” volunteers; sustainability of formal disaster response volunteering; and implementing community-based disaster risk reduction. Chapter 24 explores the roles of religious institutions during and before hazard events and ways to enhance engagement between religious institutions and humanitarian organizations. The next three chapters focus on impacts of environmental hazards. Chapter 25 examines physical health impacts of disasters, including cross-hazard effects such as chronic disease, effects on particular body systems, and impacts on children and the elderly. Impacts that are specific to particular environmental hazards are also discussed. Ways to mitigate physical health impacts are also discussed. Chapter 26 examines mental health impacts of disasters, including a lack of mental health preparedness, disaster mental health symptoms, resilience, and populations vulnerable to mental health impacts. Disaster mental health practices are discussed, including best practices, proactive individual and societal level approaches, and novel methods of disaster mental health. Chapter 27 describes the tangible and intangible economic impacts of flooding and examines the economic measurement of environmental hazard impacts and risk reduction. Economic techniques that can be used for risk reduction decision-making are described. The economics of flood risk reduction in the retail and commercial sectors, environmental gains and losses, and flood risk reduction are discussed. The last two chapters in Part III focus on recovery. Chapter 28 provides a broad overview of the recovery process, including a description of the recovery process, recovery activities, recovery duration, identification of disaster recovery periods, and recovery by households, 7

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communities, and businesses. The potential to build back better during the recovery process is discussed. Drought recovery in Nebraska, USA, is examined. Chapter 29 explores post-disaster capacity and capability development. The term “regeneration”, introduced in this chapter, provides three ways of conceptualizing capacity development: repurposing existing capacities and capabilities, emerging capacity development, and transformative learning. Recovery experiences in New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan are explored. The Linking Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development (LRRD) approach to support capacity development and the quality of life approach to evaluate the recovery process are discussed.

Part IV Policy and practice: intergovernmental organizations and governments, support, and information This fourth part of the Handbook includes eight chapters about policy and practice. Chapter 30 introduces the United Nations, describes the 2015 UN conventions and policies related to environmental hazards and health, and considers the UN response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 31 explores governance related to environmental hazards, including the roles of diverse actors such as the state, civil society, private sector, local authorities, and communities, and also explores principles of good governance related to environmental hazards. Chapter 32 examines local governments and environmental hazards, including the roles of local governments, tools that can be used in environmental hazard management, dealing with vulnerability, and the learning that can occur after a disaster. The next three chapters focus on support. Chapter 33 examines types of aid, actors involved in aid, aid goals, and types of humanitarian interventions. Challenges and conversations in the aid sphere are discussed. Chapter 34 examines the role of insurance in coping with losses due to environmental hazards, individuals’ decision-making processes for purchasing insurance, and the role of insurance in preparedness. Chapter 35 focuses on housing and settlement reconstruction post-disaster, including shelter reconstruction phases and processes, temporary and transitional shelter, permanent housing, and relocation of communities. The 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake in Indonesia, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and 2010 floods in Pakistan are included as case studies. The last two chapters in Part IV focus on education and information. Chapter 36 introduces types of disaster risk reduction education, examines two case studies in which disaster risk reduction has been incorporated into the education curriculum, and discusses evaluation of the effectiveness of disaster risk reduction education. Chapter 37 explores news media coverage of environmental hazards, factors that influence this coverage, and how this media coverage influences perceptions and behaviours of audiences and populations at risk. The case study of the news coverage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is explored.

References Chmutina, K. and von Meding, J. (2019) ‘The dilemma of language: “Natural disasters” in academic literature’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, vol 10, pp283–292 EEA (1995) ‘Europe’s environment: The Dobris assessment’, European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, www.eea.europa.eu/publications/92-826-5409-5, accessed 4 November 2021 Hartman, C. and Squires, G. D. (2006) There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster. Routledge, New York Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2012) ‘Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation’, www.ipcc.ch/report/managing-the-risks-of-extremeevents-and-disasters-to-advance-climate-change-adaptation/, accessed 4 November 2021

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Introduction Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2021) ‘Climate change 2021: The physical science basis summary for policymakers’, www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_ WGI_SPM.pdf, accessed 5 November 2021 Lupton, B. (1999) Risk. Taylor and Francis, Abingdon O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K. and Wisner, B. (1976) ‘Taking the naturalness out of natural disasters’, Nature, vol 260, pp566–567 Penning-Rowsell, E. C. and Becker, M. (2019) ‘Realities and social constructions in flood risk management’, in E. C. Penning-Rowsell and M. Becker (eds) Flood Risk Management: Global Case Studies of Governance, Policy and Communities. Routledge, Abingdon pp1–16 Rapport, D. and Friend, A. (1979) ‘Towards a comprehensive framework for environmental statistics: A stress-response approach’, Statistics Canada Catalogue 11–510. Minister of Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (2021) ‘Sendai framework 6th anniversary: Time to recognize there is no such thing as a natural disaster – we’re going it to ourselves’, Press release, www. undrr.org/news/sendai-framework-6th-anniversary-time-recognize-there-no-such-thing-natural-dis aster-were, accessed 5 November 2021 White, G. F. (1945) ‘Human Adjustment to Floods. Research Paper 29’, Department of Geography, University of Chicago Wisner, B., Gaillard, J. C. and Kelman, I. (2013) The Routledge Handbook of Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction. Routledge, London.

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PART I

Environmental hazards

Geophysical Hazards

2 EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMI Julia S. Becker, Sara K. McBride, Lauren J. Vinnell, Wendy S.A. Saunders, Graham S. Leonard, Timothy J. Sullivan, and Ken Gledhill

Introduction This chapter examines the nature, geography, and impact of earthquakes. These occur as a burst of sudden ground shaking created by the release of accumulated stress along a fault, often influenced by movement of the world’s tectonic plates. Ground shaking from an earthquake can generate additional hazards, including landslides, liquefaction, and tsunami. According to the 2019 “Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction”, earthquakes combined with tsunami are the most damaging natural hazards globally. Impacts of earthquakes and tsunami on people have increased around the world as human development of built infrastructure continues to expand. The chapter also looks at mitigation measures. Adverse earthquake and tsunami impacts can be reduced through strategies including land-use planning, engineering, mitigation and preparedness, emergency planning, warnings, and exercises, depending on the country and considering the geography, built environment, and social and cultural contexts.

The nature and geography of earthquakes and tsunami Earthquakes occur as a burst of sudden ground shaking created by the release of accumulated stress along a fault, often influenced by movement of the world’s tectonic plates. Most earthquakes occur near tectonic plate boundaries, for example, in places such as the Pacific Ring of Fire (Figure 2.1) or the Himalayas. However, earthquakes within the tectonic plates can also occur, such as the magnitude (M) 5.8 event in Mineral, Virginia, in 2011 (Hough, 2012), the M6.3–6.7 events in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1988 (Bowman, 1992), the 2017 M6.5 in Botswana (Midzi et  al., 2018), the 1976 M7.7 Tangshan earthquake and associated sequence in China (Butler et al., 1979), and the 2001 M7.6 earthquake in India. Most earthquakes are small in magnitude; however, less frequently large earthquakes also occur. Every earthquake is assigned a magnitude: an estimate of its size that depends on the length of fault ruptured and how much slip took place on the fault (Hanks and Kanamori, 1979). Each earthquake also produces a distribution of ground shaking, commonly measured as “intensity”, which depends not only on the magnitude but also on depth, direction of rupture, and geologic structure, referred to as the Modified Mercalli Scale (Wood and Neumann, 1931). The National Earthquake Information Center, managed by the US Geological Survey, 13

DOI: 10.4324/9780367854584-3

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Figure 2.1 Map showing epicentres of earthquakes as black dots. Plate boundaries can be seen as dense alignments of the black dots, forming the Pacific Ring of Fire. Spreading oceanic ridges forming the plates are shown with double-headed arrows. Source: GNS Science (used with permission).

reported 20,984 earthquakes from May 2020 to May 2021 of magnitude 3.0 or above globally (retrieved from the US Geological Survey earthquake catalogue at https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ earthquakes/search/). Figure 2.2 from the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) illustrates the moment magnitude scale and compares it with notable earthquakes and their energy equivalents. Earthquake faulting manifests in different ways. Ruptured faults can be as short as a few metres or as long as 1,000 km, with the shorter ruptures producing smaller earthquakes. There are normal faults, where the overlying block (hanging wall) moves down with respect to the lower block (footwall); reverse faults, where the hanging-wall block moves up and over the footwall block; and strike-slip faults, where blocks move sideways past each other (GNS Science, n.d.). However, magnitude and intensity only tell one part of the story. Like real estate value, earthquake impacts on human society are also about location, location, location! For example, a M6.3 earthquake in the Ascension Islands in 2019 caused no damage, because it was not close to large populations or structures (US Geological Survey, 2019). However, the M6.3 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, claimed 185 lives and caused billions of dollars in building and infrastructure damage because it was centred under a city (Potter et al., 2015). 14

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Figure 2.2 Earthquake magnitude scale compared to energy equivalents for notable earthquakes. Source: IRIS (2020, used with permission).

One of the more devastating earthquake-generated hazards is tsunami, water waves generated by abrupt movement of the seafloor or the bed of a large lake. Tsunami can result if a fault ruptures in an earthquake under a body of water, suddenly raising or lowering the seabed. The bed motion displaces water, generating a wave or series of waves, as the water body levels itself back out. A M9.1 earthquake caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 225,000 and had devastating effects on Indonesia and many other countries within the Indian Ocean region. Tsunami can also be triggered by landslides into or under the water, as happened in the 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami. Many such landslides are themselves triggered by earthquakes and can compound the size of tsunami generated by earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions, slumping of volcano flanks, and bolide (meteor) impacts can also generate tsunami. In the case of landslides and eruptions, a tsunami can be very large close to the event source, but usually the size decreases rapidly with distance from the source, because the total volume of water displaced is proportionately smaller. As with earthquakes, the nature and location of a tsunami generated will influence its impact. For example, if a large, shallow earthquake occurs close to shore, then a resulting local tsunami might reach that shore in as little as 10–20 minutes. A regional tsunami might take up to 3 hours to reach land. At the opposite extreme, a tsunami can cross open ocean at about 800 km/hour (similar to the speed of a jet plane), so that a tsunami generated thousands of kilometres away might take half a day to arrive. One example is the 1960 Chile tsunami generated from a M9.5 earthquake, which took 12–15  hours to reach New Zealand and 15  hours to reach Hawaii (Lynham et  al., 2017). Tsunami may reach heights of many metres, such as the 2011 Great East Japan tsunami, which was up to 40 m in some places (Fraser et al., 2013) and caused over 20,000 deaths (Koshimura and Shuto, 2015). Impacts can be increased or reduced depending on whether the tsunami reaches shore at high or low tide, respectively. 15

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The impacts of earthquakes and tsunami Injuries and fatalities According to the 2019 “Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction”, earthquakes combined with tsunami are the most damaging natural hazards globally (McGlade et al., 2019). Why are earthquakes and tsunami so damaging? The impacts of earthquakes and tsunami on people have been increasing around the world as built infrastructure development has increased. In the two decades between 1998 and 2017, earthquakes and tsunami led to nearly 750,000 deaths, more than all other natural hazards combined, and at least US$661 billion in economic loss (Wallemacq and House, 2018). Many of these deaths were due to two earthquakes: the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 and Haiti’s earthquake in 2010. Further, earthquakes generate intense ground shaking that may damage infrastructure. Building collapse is a leading cause of fatalities in earthquakes, especially in countries with vulnerable infrastructure. For example, the M7.0 earthquake in Haiti in 2010 led to severe damage to or collapse of up to half of the buildings in or around Port-au-Prince, including over 200,000 homes (Lainé, 2010), and an estimated 250,000 deaths (Kolbe et al., 2010). Death and injury may also occur when earthquakes move unrestrained objects, such as parapets attached to buildings, non-structural fittings within buildings (e.g., ceiling tiles, lighting), and furniture (e.g., shelves, computer equipment). Many injuries not related to building collapse are caused when people move during shaking, often in an attempt to find cover or get outside, or when people are struck by flying or falling objects (Johnston et al., 2014). Campaigns such as the ShakeOut earthquake drill (discussed in more detail later) aim to teach and encourage the use of the protective actions “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]” to reduce the likelihood that people will fall or be struck by objects during earthquake shaking (Jones and Benthien, 2011; McBride et al., 2019). As well as the direct impacts of earthquake shaking described, tsunami can cause death and injury. Between 1998 and 2017, tsunami led to over 250,000 deaths, most of which were due to drowning (WHO, n.d.). Other fatalities and injuries can occur from the wave itself collapsing buildings and from being struck by debris in the swirling waters. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami led to over 227,000 fatalities, providing a devastating reminder of the human impact such an event can have. Waves up to 30 m high came ashore after travelling at speeds of over 700 km/hour, reaching coastlines as far away as East Africa and continuing for 9 hours (Wang and Liu, 2006). More than 1.7 million people were displaced, and the economic toll was the highest ever recorded for one natural hazard event (WHO, 2015).

Damage to the land Examples of land damage caused by earthquakes include fault rupture, liquefaction, lateral spreading, slumping, subsidence and flooding, uplift, shaking-induced landslides, and tsunami scouring and erosion. In a shallow earthquake, a fault may rupture to the Earth’s surface, damaging land and rendering near-fault structures unlivable. Such damage occurred in the 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey (Barka, 1999), 1999 Taiwan Jiji earthquake (Tsai et al., 2000), and 2016 Kaikōura earthquake (Figure 2.3) in New Zealand (Berryman et al., 2018). Some residential dwellings damaged by the fault ruptures in these earthquakes were uninhabitable afterwards. Strong ground shaking effects can occur both near to and far away from the earthquake fault rupture, causing earthquake-induced landslides in hill and mountain areas. This can be extensive and have significant impacts on people and infrastructure. Earthquakes have triggered massive 16

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Figure 2.3 Surface fault rupture causing damage to a house from the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Source: Photo by Nicola Litchfield, GNS Science/EQC (used with permission).

landslides around the world, including those by the 2008 Wenchuan, China, earthquake, as explored in Yin et al. (2009), and more recently the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes in Japan (Xu et al., 2018). After the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake in New Zealand, approximately 200 km of state highway and 190 km of rail infrastructure were destroyed by landslides (Figure 2.4), fault rupture, and ground movement. Another contributor to land damage is liquefaction. Despite knowledge that many parts of Christchurch, New Zealand, were at high risk of liquefaction, residential subdivisions were built on these areas. During the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence, such areas did indeed liquefy, repeatedly causing significant land damage. The New Zealand government offered to buy out most of the properties located in liquefiable areas as they were deemed too difficult and too costly to fix using engineering solutions (Saunders and Becker, 2015). The Earthquake Commission, New Zealand’s insurer for earthquakes and other related geohazards, identified that building damage sustained from liquefaction accounted for about 15% of insurance claims but about 55% of the total financial costs, highlighting the need to avoid building in areas prone to liquefaction and ensure that residential development is resilient to such types of land damage or modified land use (e.g., only suitable for other types of use like parks or reserves). Earthquakes can also exacerbate other environmental issues. During the Canterbury earthquake sequence, some land areas subsided, increasing the risk of flooding to Christchurch. The dust produced from liquefaction, as well as from demolition and construction, resulted in poorer air quality and increased health problems for the city’s inhabitants. The liquefaction and 17

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Figure 2.4 Portions of the state highway and the main trunk railway line were catastrophically damaged by a landslide caused by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, New Zealand. Source: Photo by Sally Dellow, GNS Science/EQC (used with permission).

demolition works also produced waste, which had to be managed through landfill and recycling processes, sometimes requiring the identification of new locations to receive such waste (Potter et al., 2015).

Infrastructure damage Depending on the location of an earthquake, shaking and fault ruptures can cause widespread infrastructure damage, including damage to buildings. For example, it is estimated that 400,000 houses were seriously damaged in the Great East Japan earthquake (Nakaya et al., 2016) as was nearly 75% of the housing stock in Christchurch by the Canterbury earthquake sequence, with 9,100 houses made uninhabitable (Parker and Steenkamp, 2012). Unreinforced masonry and older, poorly constructed, reinforced concrete buildings tend to be more vulnerable than modern buildings made of well-detailed, reinforced concrete, timber, or steel (Bruneau, 1994). The effect of earthquake shaking on unreinforced masonry is often seen in earthquakes that occur in developing countries where this type of building is more typical. For example, the 2010 M7.0 earthquake in Haiti caused more than 100,000 deaths due to the collapse of much unreinforced masonry and many other poorly constructed buildings (Versaillot et al., 2016). Whilst we also see effects of earthquakes on unreinforced masonry in developed countries [for example, Johnston et al. (2014) report that 108 injuries and several fatalities in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake were attributed to falling masonry], building design standards 18

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incorporating earthquake hazards appear to have reduced the risk of loss of life. While it is a complex endeavour to compare one earthquake’s impact to that of another (given differences in population density, building codes and construction, soil types, and experienced shaking), there is a notable difference from the 1994 M6.7 Northridge earthquake, the 2010 M8.8 Chile earthquake, the 2011 M7.1 Darfield (NZ) earthquake, and the 2016 M7.9 Kumamoto earthquake in Japan, all of which resulted in fewer than 1,000 deaths combined, in stark contrast to the approximately 250,000 deaths in Haiti in 2010 alone. However, the effects of earthquakes on buildings depend not only on materials but also on design, with many earthquakes revealing building design flaws. Examples include the Christchurch CTV building, which had a “design that was deficient in a number of important respects” and collapsed in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission, 2012, Section 9, p2). Inadequate joint design resulted in costly damage to many steel buildings in the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Mahin, 1998). Furthermore, damage to non-structural elements such as ceilings, piping, plasterboard partition walls, and façade systems can be costly and disruptive. Unexpected features of the ground motion from large earthquakes can lead to damage to modern buildings, such as the structural damage to several medium-rise buildings in Wellington, New Zealand, caused by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. In this case, taller buildings were damaged because of the longer-thandesigned-for period of the shaking (Kaiser et al., 2017). Thus, even in regions with a strong tradition of seismic design, like New Zealand or Chile, the challenge remains to reduce damage and disruption caused by earthquakes. Earthquakes can severely damage lifeline infrastructure such as roads (including bridges and tunnels), trains, ports, electricity, telecommunications, gas, water, and wastewater. Such damage can take months or years to repair, resulting in social and economic disruption. For example, infrastructure damage caused by the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake in Kobe, Japan, was widespread and lasting. Every major mass transportation route failed, and surface roads were blocked by fallen buildings. The underground water system, sewage system, gas network, and electrical power supply system were all significantly damaged and disrupted (NIST, 1996). Power, water, and gas failed for most or all of the city (Menoni, 2001; Reuters, 2011). Fires following the earthquakes burned uncontrollably owing to the loss of water supply, contributing to the 300,000 people made homeless; the city’s population took 10 years to return to pre-earthquake levels. The damage to the Kobe port, the world’s sixth largest container port at the time, was severe and lasting. Most ports were rebuilt by March 1997, but as of 2007, the volume of container cargo was only 85% of the 1994 level (Honjo, 2011; Reuters, 2011).

Social and economic impacts The social impacts of major earthquakes begin in the response phase immediately after the earthquake and can continue well into the future as recovery takes place, generally over decades (Becker et al., 2019; Platt et al., 2016). Health systems need to respond to deaths and injuries, while other agencies also need to respond, including emergency managers, urban search and rescue (USAR), lifelines agencies, and local authorities. The physical damage to buildings and infrastructure triggers a flow-on of social impacts. Where people are unable to live in their own homes, new housing options must be sought, whether it be relocating to relatives’ or friends’ houses or finding temporary accommodation. In past disasters, recovery has been hindered if this temporary accommodation turns into longer term accommodation, which may be too small or have poor environmental conditions 19

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(Johnson, 2007). Demand for accommodation can also reduce housing availability and affordability, both for homeowners and for renters. Where facilities such as rest homes or schools are damaged, alternative premises need to be found. Rest home residents may need to move to another facility, which can be challenging given that earthquake fatalities are often higher among older people (e.g., the 1999 Jiji earthquake in Taiwan; Chou et al., 2004). This population is particularly vulnerable: for example, rushed evacuation following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which occurred following the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, exposed elderly patients to risk approximately 30 times higher than that posed by the radiation and contributed to dozens of deaths (Hasegawa et al., 2016). Educational facilities also may need to find options to continue education, such as the site sharing for schools which took place after the Christchurch earthquake (Potter et al., 2015). Impacts on the tertiary education sector were seen when enrolments at Canterbury University dropped in the few years after the Christchurch earthquake (Potter et al., 2015). People commonly strive to connect with and help each other after earthquakes, which can protect against distress. Social networks, essential for adaptive coping, include those between community members and communities and agencies (Paton et  al., 2015), which can be described as bonding, bridging, and social networks (Aldrich and Meyer, 2015). However, it can be challenging to maintain such networks when extensive damage occurs and communities are forced to relocate. Despite fears about antisocial behaviour such as looting, property crime commonly decreases following disasters, as seen in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake (Alexander, 2010), UmbriaMarche earthquakes (Prati et  al., 2012), and Canterbury earthquake sequence (Potter et  al., 2015). However, there can be spikes in domestic violence as the stressors from an earthquake impact upon relationships within families (Chan and Zhang, 2011). Earthquakes can have mixed effects on the business sector. In some cases, the damage and disruption can lead to business closures, job losses, relocation, and loss of revenue. In the M6.7 Northridge, CA, earthquake, small businesses that were already struggling closed or struggled further to recover than businesses that were healthy and thriving (Dahlhamer and Tierney, 1998). Some businesses may never recover from the aftermath of a major earthquake, such as the 11% of businesses that permanently closed following the Christchurch earthquake (Potter et al., 2015). Conversely, some sectors benefit from earthquake events; for example, as recovery progresses there is usually an upturn in construction. Psychosocial impacts arise not only from direct trauma such as injury and grief but also from longer term stressors such as ongoing aftershocks, loss of facilities, employment difficulties, and dealing with insurance, repair, and recovery (Greaves et al., 2015). Different stressors can affect psychosocial health over differing time frames: for example, following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, aftershocks continued within the first 18 months, and issues related to a lack of facilities and construction lasted for up to a decade later (Canterbury District Health Board, 2018). Most people who suffer psychosocial effects will eventually start to recover and adapt (Bonanno et al., 2010). However, earthquake and tsunami impacts increase demands on psychosocial health services. Earthquakes and tsunami tend to disproportionately impact disadvantaged groups, such as those who cannot afford to live in safe buildings outside of hazard areas and cultural groups with low levels of fluency in the language used predominantly in official messaging. Further, colonization has impacted Indigenous communities’ abilities to participate meaningfully in planning for disasters alongside other public response agencies (Carter, 2016; Kenney, 2015; Mercer et al., 2010). The omission of Indigenous narratives from public education hazard resources, despite Indigenous communities having extensive knowledge about seismic behaviour (McBride, 20

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2017), is problematic. An important challenge is to ensure that efforts to educate and prepare at-risk communities reduce, rather than increase, existing inequities which lead to disproportionate disaster impacts.

Reducing earthquake and tsunami impacts Earthquake and tsunami impacts can be identified and reduced. We know that risk reduction and readiness efforts can reduce economic loss from disasters by up to four times the value of the original investment. However, despite this fact, considerable resistance remains to prioritizing spending on preparedness, mitigation and risk reduction, partly due to the infrequent nature of disasters. To motivate reduction and readiness efforts, it is first important to understand the risk of future earthquake and tsunami. Mapping (e.g., mapping of geology, fault mapping, geotechnical mapping) and modelling of hazard and risk (e.g., modelling probabilistic seismic hazard, potential tsunami inundation, or injuries and fatalities in built-up areas) can help to identify areas at risk and potential consequences. With an understanding of the risks and consequences, measures such as land-use planning, engineering, emergency planning, warnings, and mitigation and preparedness can then be applied.

Land-use planning Better land-use planning can greatly reduce the risks that communities face. Land-use planning provides the most proactive tool to reduce impacts when planning for future development and when managing existing risks (Burby et al., 2000). When new development is considered, attention should be paid to whether land is at risk from earthquake, tsunami, or other hazards and whether any mitigation measures can be taken to avoid or reduce that risk. In areas in which development has already occurred, land-use planning becomes trickier, but options still exist to reduce the risk (e.g., limiting the intensification of development in hazardous areas, raising floor levels). Development over a fault can be avoided by including a buffer area in which development is not allowed or is controlled, especially where the fault is well defined (Kerr et al., 2003). In locations with high landslide or liquefaction potential, avoidance might be the best course of action; however, engineering options do also exist that can help to mitigate impacts, depending on the severity. For example, a mixture of avoidance (retirement of land) and engineering options was used after the Christchurch earthquake. Where avoidance of new development in tsunami zones is not possible, other management options to reduce impacts are available, including installation of warning systems and signage, evacuation planning, maintenance of dune buffers, design of subdivisions and road layouts to aid evacuation, and location of essential services outside of hazardous areas [National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (US), 2001]. Effective land-use planning requires planning frameworks that support hazard risk reduction (e.g., legislation, strategies, plans, policies). To date, research has found land-use planning for hazards to be somewhat haphazard, due in part to the weaknesses of such frameworks in directing hazard mitigation (Berke et al., 2014; Glavovic et al., 2010; Saunders et al., 2015). Consequently, legislation, strategies, plans, and policies could provide more specific advice about how earthquake and tsunami hazards should be addressed, along with practical support for land-use planning applications. Consideration should also be given to how land-use planning frameworks integrate with engineering and emergency management to ensure that each discipline is clear about its role in risk reduction (Glavovic et al., 2010). 21

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Resilient buildings and infrastructure Building legislation, codes, and standards can provide an effective means of reducing the negative impacts of earthquakes, as is evident from the relatively low number of casualties caused by recent earthquakes in countries with strong seismic design provisions, such as the USA, Japan, Chile, and New Zealand. Particularly important for life safety is the provision of “capacity design” procedures, developed in New Zealand in the 1970s (Park and Paulay, 1975), that effectively design and detail ductile parts of a building or bridge structure as fuses, which are triggered in rare earthquakes to protect other parts of the structure from damage and increase the system’s overall deformation capacity. However, experiences in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes, amongst others, demonstrate that life safety is just one aspect of resilient buildings and infrastructure. Guidelines and proposals have been produced in recent years that indicate a trend towards more resilience-based seismic design and construction approaches. A performance-based earthquake engineering framework has been published as FEMA P-58-6 (FEMA, 2018), which helps engineers to quantify the likely repair costs and downtime that earthquakes will cause, in addition to injuries and fatalities. Performance ratings systems, such as the Resilience-based Earthquake Design Initiative (REDi; Almufti and Willford, 2013), and work by groups such as the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (2019) could encourage resilient seismic design approaches (Gebelein et al., 2017). Resilience requires good whole-of-building performance, which in turn requires improvements to the seismic performance of non-structural elements (Filiatrault and Sullivan, 2014), suitable site selection, and the potential need for engineering to mitigate against earthquake-induced land damage. The post-earthquake repairability of buildings can be improved with the adoption of new technologies and, importantly, consideration of repairability during the building design process. As research initiatives in these areas continue to emerge, there is anticipation that future cities can attain new levels of seismic resilience not seen to date. In terms of resilience to tsunami, building infrastructure through engineering and the construction of vertical evacuation refuges can be highly effective, as seen in Japan (Fraser et al., 2012) and at Ocosta School in Westport, Washington. Sea walls can protect against smaller tsunami, but they are usually prohibitively expensive and may increase the long-term risk as larger events may overtop or damage the walls and inundate nearby development, as occurred during the 2011 Great East Japan tsunami.

Emergency management planning Events such as earthquakes and tsunami can be geographically extensive, and emergency planning needs to consider both cross-jurisdictional boundary issues and local issues (Aldrich and Meyer, 2015; Kapucu, 2008). Emergency management planning should be informed and supported by data on the hazard, risk, and consequences of earthquake and tsunami events. Plans should account for a broad range of sectors and communities, as each will experience variable impacts. While response planning is a common focus, it is also important to plan for longer term impacts experienced during recovery (Johnson and Olshansky, 2017), including those related to social and psychosocial well-being (Becker et al., 2019; Platt et al., 2016). Relationship building among agencies and communities is also an integral part of the planning process (Becker et al., 2010). It is only through building such relationships that mitigation and preparedness solutions can be developed prior to an event and effective response and

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recovery actions can take place following an event. Plan development should be collaborative and cross-sectoral and should include communities (Schafer et al., 2008). When planning, there should be a strong focus on understanding not only the hazard and risk but also its potential consequences (Saunders and Kilvington, 2016), so that response and recovery needs can be anticipated. To assist the understanding of consequences, scenarios have proven to be useful planning tools (Hudson-Doyle et al., 2018). Scenarios have been used for earthquake and tsunami hazard planning in the US for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake (Swick et al., 2020), a San Andreas fault earthquake (Jones and Benthien, 2011), and the Science Application for Risk Reduction (SAFRR) Tsunami Scenario (Ross et al., 2013) and in New Zealand for an Alpine Fault 8 (AF8) earthquake (Orchiston et al., 2018). Emergency management exercises are often undertaken using the context of such scenarios. These exercises apply “real world” thinking to an event and assist responders to understand the various challenges that they may face. According to FEMA, different types of exercises serve diverse purposes and community needs. Walk-throughs, workshops, or seminars, lasting several hours or days, provide basic training to team members and community groups. Tabletop exercises are a facilitated, discussion-based activity in which team members discuss response plans, roles, and actions that may be taken when they are presented with a particular set of challenges. Functional exercises simulate an actual operational environment; groups like USAR may stage a rescue to exercise safety protocols and procedures in an on-site environment, like a damaged building. Understanding the ultimate goals of the exercise can assist exercise planners in determining which type of exercise will meet their objectives.

Warnings for earthquakes and tsunami Warning systems can alert communities to impending hazardous events and advise them to take action to protect themselves. Earthquakes, however, are notoriously difficult to forecast and predict. The best systems we currently have can only potentially alert people once earthquake shaking has commenced. In the past few decades, Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems have been developed which can give people a warning anywhere from a few seconds to minutes before shaking occurs in their location. The warning time available is reliant on either detecting the shaking at the source or detecting a primary or P wave and then providing advanced notification (e.g., via mobile phone, in-house alerting devices, media announcements) to places further away before shaking from the shear (S) wave begins (Minson et al., 2019). Locations too close to the source may not receive warnings prior to strong shaking, although these areas experience the most intense shaking and potential damage. Advanced notification can give agencies time to switch off essential equipment automatically or procedurally and give people time to take protective action, reducing damage and injury and saving lives. EEW systems have operated in countries including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Mexico for a number of years (Allen and Melgar, 2019), as well as in California since October 2019, but they are as yet non-existent in many earthquake-prone countries (e.g., New Zealand; see Becker et al., 2020). Typically, EEW has been most effective when providing warnings to population centers for which the most likely earthquake source locations are known (e.g., Mexico City) and when the EEW system feeds automated systems directly, such as slowing bullet trains in Japan before shaking arrives. Given the speed that is required, many technological systems struggle to send out warnings fast enough, so post-alert messaging needs to communicate how and why these systems behave the way they do (McBride et al., 2020). Consequently, EEW is still regarded as a promising, developing technology.

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What about tsunami? Like earthquakes, tsunami warning depends on the nature of the event. Currently, the time needed to characterize the tsunami source means official warnings are difficult for local tsunami, which may begin to reach land in only 10–30 minutes. Therefore, people in coastal areas should be advised to evacuate when they experience a long or strong earthquake that provides a “natural warning”. Another natural warning is abnormal sea movement, including the sea receding, although this does not always occur. For regional or distant tsunami, sensors, if available, can detect an earthquake or a landslide that has occurred and can track the presence and height of waves, allowing the dissemination of warning messages via different channels (e.g., mobile alerts, media alerts, public announcement systems). Regionally occurring tsunami may allow up to 3 hours for provision of an official warning, while more distant tsunami that take many hours to reach land provide the best opportunity for warnings. However, the effectiveness of a warning is reliant on both receipt of the warning and people’s ability to act upon it. Planning, engagement, education, and exercises are therefore key to ensuring effective evacuation responses to natural and official tsunami warnings. Tsunami can impact the coasts over large regions of the globe (e.g., the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami), so improvements in tsunami response and mitigation have been proposed to become a part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. This includes detection, characterization, notification, response, and preparedness, with a focus on improving the speed and effectiveness of all phases of tsunami impact mitigation (Angove et al., 2019), and will provide benefits beyond the focus of the Ocean Decade goal for local and regional source response. Communication is a critical component of the development of warning systems. Phrasing, length, timing, and distribution methods should be carefully designed to ensure effective action (Potter, 2018). An example of a short Earthquake Early Warning message from the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) for the ShakeAlert system on the West Coast of the United States is “Earthquake! Expect shaking. Drop, Cover, Hold on. Protect yourself now – US Geological Survey (USGS) ShakeAlert”. How a message is delivered, and whether the delivery channel is trusted, is just as important as the message itself (Granatt, 2004).

Mitigation and preparedness So, what can be done to mitigate and prepare for earthquakes and tsunami? It may seem that these hazards are just too complex and too large for any measure to be useful, but in fact much can be done to help survival and recovery. Mitigation and preparedness are commonly split into three types: mitigation actions, survival actions, and community actions (Lindell and Perry, 2000; Spittal et al., 2008). Earthquake mitigation actions are typically aimed at reducing the likelihood of a building collapsing, by actions such as strengthening the foundation (linking with the preceding engineering initiatives), or reducing the likelihood of objects being damaged or causing injury, by, for example, bracing tall furniture and moving heavy objects to lower shelves. Survival actions are arguably easier to do, and more commonly undertaken, and include storing items such as food, water, medical supplies, and alternatives for lighting, communication, and cooking to last for a period of time of (usually at least 3 days). Survival actions also encompass creating a plan about what to do in an emergency and preparing a “grab and go bag” for evacuation (Spittal et al., 2008). Community actions refer to community planning activities and exercises that support response and recovery. Recent work has also explored psychological preparedness, which considers coping with emotional impacts (McLennan et al., 2020).

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Mitigation and survival actions have typically been advocated via public earthquake education campaigns or via educational facilities such as schools. Such campaigns have had mixed success, with around only 25–30% of people motivated to take such actions (Johnston et al., 2013). Decades of research have attempted to understand why people do and do not prepare (e.g., Bourque, 2013; Lindell and Perry, 2000; Spittal et al., 2008). From such research, we know that while it is crucial for people to understand both the risks that they face and the actions they can take to protect themselves, this knowledge alone is not sufficient (Bourque, 2013). Important to efforts to encourage preparedness is the acknowledgement of differing priorities and the role that people’s beliefs play, including beliefs about the usefulness of preparation (i.e., outcome expectancy) and beliefs about people’s own ability to prepare in terms of potential barriers such as time, effort, and knowledge (Lindell and Perry, 2000; Paton et al., 2015). Further, the request that community members collect enough food, water, and emergency supplies for at least 3 days presents cost as a significant barrier, and this is especially difficult for more vulnerable communities (Blake et al., 2017). Tsunami preparedness typically focuses on ensuring that people know the following: (1) when they are in a tsunami evacuation zone; (2) when to evacuate based on natural and official warnings as described earlier; and (3) the nearest evacuation route inland or to higher ground (e.g., up hills or vertical evacuation refuges; Fraser et al., 2012). An example of tsunami preparedness can be seen in the Tsunami Blue Lines Project (Figure 2.5), which was initiated in Wellington, New Zealand (Johnston et al., 2013), and has been adopted internationally, including in Oregon. A community group in Wellington thought it would be useful to paint blue lines on the road to indicate where people should evacuate for a tsunami threat. The local authority facilitated the painting, and emergency managers developed an education campaign in support of the initiative. The blue lines act as an awareness raiser, a prompt to prepare and practice for tsunami evacuation, and a physical cue to aid actual evacuation.

Figure 2.5 Tsunami Blue Lines Project in Wellington, New Zealand. Source: Photo from Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (used with permission).

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In some areas, evacuation signage is used to indicate tsunami “safe routes”, but these signs are not necessarily consistent with international warning signage guidelines. A 2014 UNESCO report provided options for tsunami signage to increase global consistency, so that no matter where the person is from, they may understand what the sign is communicating (Ongkrutraksa, 2015). This visual form of communication, using blue, yellow, and white, is easy to recognize, even considering the most common colour perception deficiency, red/green colour “blindness”. As discussed previously, emergency management exercises help with practicing effective response and recovery actions and are a component of preparedness. Drills are exercises that practice a specific response to a hazard event. The most widely practiced earthquake drill is ShakeOut, which has been practiced in more than 50 countries since its inception in 2008 and teaches the protective actions, “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]” (Jones and Benthien, 2011; McBride et al., 2019; Figure 2.6). These actions stop one from moving around during or right after shaking, which is the leading cause of injury during earthquakes in the countries listed previously (Johnston et al., 2014). Every year, millions of people participate in the ShakeOut drill, which encourages people to take these important actions. The “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]” actions for ShakeOut are used in geographic locations where building construction is earthquake resilient. In places with more fragile buildings, different actions may be advocated. For example, Mexico City practices rapid building evacuations

Figure 2.6 “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]” on for protection during earthquakes. Source: ShakeAlert® and US Geological Survey www.usgs.gov/faqs/are-usgs-reportspublications-copyrighted?qtnews_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products (used with permission).

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for earthquakes on receipt of an Earthquake Early Warning before shaking begins (SantosReyes, 2020), rather than “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]”. In some coastal areas, the ShakeOut drill has an added tsunami evacuation component, and people are encouraged to practice a tsunami evacuation after finishing “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]”. In coastal areas of the USA, Canada, and New Zealand, for example, ShakeOut drill participants who live, work, or attend school near the coast are encouraged to practice tsunami evacuations after the hypothetical shaking ends. Tsunami evacuations for schools are also common and involve students, teachers, and administrative staff at the school moving to higher ground, climbing a vertical evacuation tower, or walking inland (Johnston et al., 2016). How effective are drills like ShakeOut? Research shows people who practice the ShakeOut drill are more likely to “Drop, Cover, and Hold [On]” in a real earthquake (Vinnell et al., 2020). Further, there was a 96% survival rate during the Great East Japan event among those who had participated in tsunami evacuation drills (Fraser et al., 2012). This evidence supports the argument that when people practice a particular action, it increases their procedural knowledge (sometimes referred to as muscle memory; McBride et al., 2019). However, barriers do exist to people performing drills: embarrassment, having responsibility for others such as children or those with disabilities, age or fragility, high body mass index, and disbelief that the actions are effective.

Conclusion Earthquakes and tsunami will continue to occur, with damage, destruction, injuries, and deaths felt variably across countries. Despite evidence that investments in resilience to natural hazards can reduce economic loss from disasters by up to four times the value of the original investment, considerable resistance remains to prioritizing spending on preparedness, mitigation, and risk reduction. Further, many decades may elapse between earthquake and tsunami events; their infrequent occurrence makes mitigation and preparation a difficult sell for policymakers and community members alike. However, it is imperative that the world continues to address earthquake and tsunami hazard, risk, and consequences before events occur. Specific disaster risk reduction approaches taken by each country will depend on the geography, built environment, and social and cultural contexts. Wherever the location, it is important that measures are designed and implemented holistically, as no single approach will solve the problem. To understand which directions to take, collaborative planning is required. This planning will build relationships and ensure that a diversity of agencies and communities is involved in creating solutions for reducing risk to future earthquakes and tsunami.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge funding support from QuakeCoRE, a Tertiary Education Commission initiative (QuakeCoRE publication number 0639); Kia manawaroa  – Ngā Ākina o Te Ao Tūroa (Resilience to Nature’s Challenge – National Science Challenge); and GNS Science’s Strategic Science Investment Fund. We thank Richard Smith and Maureen Mooney for providing advice on specific aspects of the chapter, our internal US Geological Survey reviewers Stephanie Ross and Evelyn Roeloffs, and external reviewers who provided constructive input. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US government. 27

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Earthquakes and tsunami NIST (1996) ‘The January 17, 1995, Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake, performance of structures, lifelines, and fire protection systems’, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Special Publication, vol 901, pp544 Ongkrutraksa, W. (2015) ‘International natural disaster communications: An exploratory study of signage for tsunami, earthquake and flood in Japan and Thailand’, Journalism and Media Journal, no 8, pp7–19 Orchiston, C., Mitchell, J., Wilson, T., Langridge, R., Davies, T., Bradley, B. and McKay, A. (2018) ‘Project AF8: Developing a coordinated, multi-agency response plan for a future great Alpine Fault earthquake’, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, vol 61, no 3, pp389–402 Park, R. and Paulay, T. (1975) Reinforced Concrete Structures. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ Parker, M. and Steenkamp, D. (2012) ‘The economic impact of the Canterbury earthquakes’, Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, vol 75, no 3, pp13–25 Paton, D., Anderson, E., Becker, J. S. and Petersen, J. (2015) ‘Developing a comprehensive model of hazard preparedness: Lessons from the Christchurch earthquake’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 14, no 1, pp37–45 Platt, S., Brown, D. and Hughes, M., (2016) ‘Measuring resilience and recovery’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 19, pp447–460 Potter, S. (2018) ‘Recommendations for New Zealand agencies in writing effective short messages’, GNS Science Report, 2018/2, https://shop.gns.cri.nz/sr_2018-002-pdf/, accessed 2 November 2021 Potter, S. H., Becker, J. S., Johnston, D. M. and Rossiter, K. P. (2015) ‘An overview of the impacts of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 14, no 1, pp6–14 Prati, G., Catufi, V. and Pietrantoni, L. (2012) ‘Emotional and behavioural reactions to tremors of the Umbria-Marche earthquake’, Disasters, vol 36, no 3, pp439–451 Reuters, (2011) ‘Factbox: Japan’s recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake’, World News, www.reuters. com, accessed 25 March 2011 Ross, S. L., Jones, L. M., Miller, Kevin, P. K. A., Wein, A., Wilson, R. I., Bahng, B., Barberopoulou, A., Borrero, J. C., Brosnan, D. M., Bwarie, J. T., Geist, E. L., Johnson, L. A., Kirby, S. H., Knight, W. R., Long, K., Lynett, P., Mortensen, C. E., Nicolsky, D. J., Perry, S. C., Plumlee, G. S., Real, C. R., Ryan, K., Suleimani, E., Thio, H., Titov, V. V., Whitmore, P. M. and Wood, N. J. (2013) SAFRR (Science Application for Risk Reduction) Tsunami Scenario – Executive Summary and Introduction: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2013–1170  – A, in Ross, S. L., and Jones, L. M., eds., The SAFRR (Science Application for Risk Reduction) Tsunami Scenario. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report no, 2013–1170, p17 Santos-Reyes, J. (2020) ‘Factors motivating Mexico City residents to earthquake mass evacuation drills’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 49, pp101661 Saunders, W. S. A. and Becker, J. S. (2015) ‘A discussion of resilience and sustainability: Land use planning recovery from the Canterbury earthquake sequence, New Zealand’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 14, pp73–81 Saunders, W. S. A., Grace, E. S., Beban, J., G. and Johnston, D. (2015) ‘Evaluating land use and emergency management plans for natural hazards as a function of good governance: A case study from New Zealand’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, vol 6, pp62–74 Saunders, W. S. A. and Kilvington, M. (2016) ‘Innovative land use planning for natural hazard risk reduction: A consequence-driven approach from New Zealand’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol 18, pp244–255 Schafer, W. A., Carroll, J. M., Haynes, S. R. and Abrams, S. (2008) ‘Emergency management planning as collaborative community work’, Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, vol 5, no 1 Spittal, M. J., McClure, J., Siegert, R. J. and Walkey, F. H. (2008) ‘Predictors of two types of earthquake preparation: Survival activities and mitigation activities’, Environmental Behaviour, vol 40, no 6, pp798–817 Swick, Z. D., Baker, E. A., Elliott, M. and Zelicoff, A. (2020) ‘The Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake: Will emergency managers be willing and able to report to work?’, Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, pp1–25 Tsai, K. C., Hsiao, C. P. and Bruneau, M. (2000) ‘Overview of building damages in 921 Chi-Chi earthquake’, Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology, vol 2, no 1, pp93–108 U.S. Geological Survey (2019) ‘M 6.3 – North of ascension island’, https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us70005xr7/executive, accessed 30 July 2020

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3 VOLCANIC ERUPTION David K. Chester and Angus M. Duncan

Introduction This chapter examines the processes that cause volcanic eruptions, their impacts on people and human activities and the measures that may be taken in order to mitigate their effects. We also provide two case studies: the 1928 eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily, in which a town was destroyed by lava, and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in which pyroclastic fall, pyroclastic density currents (i.e. PDCs) and volcanic mudflows (i.e. lahars) caused major devastation. The chapter concludes with an examination of important future areas for research. Table 3.1 provides a brief explanation of technical terms used in this chapter. Volcanic eruptions must have impacted human societies since the earliest days of settlement. In some cases, awareness of eruptions has been preserved in art or as legends passed down through the generations (Chester and Duncan, 2007), and documents from classical times preserve observations of volcanic events as eyewitness accounts, as was the case of Pliny the Younger and his description of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 ce and its effects (Chester and Duncan, 2007; see also discussion to follow). From the beginning of the 20th century, scientific understanding of volcanoes has progressively developed, and, especially since the 1960s, there has been a change from a mainly descriptive focus to one concerned with investigating volcanological processes. In part this has been influenced by space exploration and the recognition that volcanism is an important feature of planetary evolution, but the paradigm shift represented by plate tectonics also acted as a stimulus linking volcanic activity to wider notions. It was not until the last decade of the 20th century, and following the UN International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction, that there was proper recognition of the need to understand the combination of physical and societal factors that increases the vulnerability of communities living on and/or in the shadow of active volcanoes.

The Nature of Volcanic Eruptions To understand the impacts of volcanoes and possible mitigating actions, there is a need to understand the different types of volcanic activity and their origins. A  volcano is the place where magma rising through the Earth’s crust erupts material at the surface. Eruptions tend to 33

DOI: 10.4324/9780367854584-4

David K. Chester and Angus M. Duncan Table 3.1  Definitions and explanations of key terms Term

Definition/explanation

Basaltic effusive eruption Calderas

Discharge of low-viscosity mafic magma with little or no associated explosive activity. Large volcanic depressions, broadly circular and typically more than 2 km in diameter. They form in two main ways. (1) A major, explosive, Plinian-style eruption (e.g. Pinatubo in 1991) causes rapid withdrawal of magma from a subsurface reservoir, leading to collapse. (2) On basaltic shield volcanoes (e.g. Kilauea volcano, Hawaii), incremental collapse can occur when magma is injected laterally from a high-level reservoir to feed a basaltic effusive eruption of lava on the flank of the volcano. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar: A remote sensing technique for recognising ground deformation, which is often a precursory indication of volcanic eruptions (Freymueller et al., 2015). Formed from reworking of unconsolidated pyroclastic fall material deposited on the flanks of active volcanoes following heavy rainfall or from release of ground or crater lake water. The eruption of largely degassed magma as a silicate liquid. The two main types of morphology have terms derived from Hawaiian words (Harris and Rowland, 2015): • Aa lava flows have a broken-up surface of lava fragments rafted on a mobile interior of fluid lava. • Pahoehoe lava flows have a different morphology with a coherent, smooth, glassy surface, sometimes with a ropey texture. Molten rock generated by partial melting within the Earth which, when erupted at the surface, causes volcanism. Magma is typically a silicate ‘melt’ with dissolved gas and normally includes some crystals. Silicate magmas range from mafic, through intermediate, to silicic in composition (see this table for definitions and the volcanic rocks that result): • Mafic – 45–52 wt% SiO2 (erupt as basalts) • Intermediate – 52–63 wt% SiO2 (erupt as andesites and mugearites) • Silicic – >63 wt% SiO2 (erupt as rhyolites and trachytes) This activity occurs when magma comes into contact with an external source of water and generates steam-rich explosive eruptions. Phreatic explosions occur when water comes into contact with hot rock, causing a steam blast. Global tectonics, where the outer rigid shell of the Earth, the lithosphere, is made up of a mosaic of plates up to 140 km thick in oceanic regions and to up to 300 km thick in continental regions. The rigid tectonic plates move relative to one another, with earthquakes and volcanism being particularly concentrated at plate boundaries (LaFemina, 2015). Fragmental material produced by explosive discharge, which generates disrupted melt, clasts together with solid fragments (termed lithics) ripped from the walls of the conduit. Pyroclastic material is defined by clast size: ash < 2 mm < lapilli < 64 mm < blocks/bombs. Pyroclastic fall drops from the volcanic plume downwind of the vent mantling the topography as beds, which become thinner and finer grained with greater distance. Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are flows of hot gas and volcanic fragments formed by collapse of eruptive columns and by lateral blasts. A cluster of many earthquakes of similar magnitudes occurring close together in space and time. Seismic swarms often occur before volcanic eruptions.

InSAR

Lahars (volcanic mudflows) Lava flows

Magma

Phreatomagmatic (hydrovolcanic) Plate tectonics

Pyroclasts and pyroclastic density currents (PDCs)

Seismic swarm

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Volcanic Eruption

be short-lived: occasionally only hours but normally days; sometimes weeks and rarely years, as was demonstrated by the 1983 effusive basaltic eruption of the East Rift Zone of Kilauea volcano (Hawaii), which was continually active for some 36  years until 2018 (Smithsonian Institution, n.d.). The nature and products of an eruption and their distribution depend on the composition and volume of the magma involved. There are three types of volcanic product: (1) lava – the eruption of largely degassed magma as a flow; (2) pyroclasts – fragmental material produced by explosive discharge that comprises disrupted melt together with solid lithics ripped from the walls of the conduit (the term tephra often is used for pyroclastic deposits); and (3) gas. The type of volcanic system that develops is strongly related to global tectonics, as there is a close association between volcanism and plate boundaries (LaFemina, 2015). Volcanism can also occur away from plate margins in intraplate settings, and in the oceans this forms basaltic ocean islands. In the Pacific, the Hawaiian chain of volcanic islands is a good example. The island of Hawaii, the youngest of the chain, has four active volcanoes. In the Atlantic, the Azores and Canary Islands are intraplate, basaltic ocean island groups. In the Azores under certain tectonic conditions, basaltic magmas can collect within the thickened oceanic crust to form magma reservoirs, allowing more extensive differentiation (change of magma composition) to occur and generating silicic trachytic magmas by processes such as fractional crystallisation, in which early, formed crystals are separated from the melt by accumulation. Such magmas are capable of generating more explosive eruptions. Intraplate volcanism on continents typically occurs in association with rift valleys. A good example is the East African Rift System in which, in the Gregory Rift in Kenya to the east, a number of substantial trachytic central volcanoes have formed. In the Western Rift, there are basaltic volcanoes which erupted in historic times. Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of Congo) erupted in 1977 and 2002, with basaltic lava travelling rapidly down the flanks of the volcano causing fatalities and damage (Kilburn, 2015; Jenkins and Haynes, 2012, p341). The classification of volcanic eruptions was traditionally based on eruptions at ‘type’ volcanoes (Macdonald, 1972). The qualitative descriptive characteristics of these types of eruption are as follows: 1

2

3

Hawaiian eruptions involve effusive discharge of mafic magma, often with continuous jets of basaltic liquid forming lava fountains and feeding fluid (low-viscosity) lava flows. This style of activity has been well displayed by recent eruptions of Kilauea volcano (Houghton et al., 2016). Strombolian style eruptions typically involve mafic magma, with frequent small explosions (up to around 25 per hour) throwing basaltic projectiles up to heights of 400  m (Houghton et al., 2016). This type of eruption is named after Stromboli volcano in the Eolian Islands in Italy. Vulcanian eruptions are associated with intermediate to silicic magmas. This style of eruption is based on observations made by Professors Mercalli and Silvestri of the classic 1888–1890 eruption of Fossa volcano on Vulcano, one of the Eolian Islands (Guest et al., 2003, pp129–133). This eruption was characterised by discrete, short-lived explosions which, during vigorous activity, occurred every minute or so. Volcanic plumes up to 5,000 m in height were generated, and some of the larger explosions generated shock waves. One shock wave broke windows on the island of Lipari located 10  km to the north.

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4

Plinian eruptions involve high-velocity discharge of typically silicic magma (trachytic/rhyolitic) over a period of hours as a jet of gas, solid fragments and liquid particles generating a gas thrust phase, during which air is entrained and heated. When the jet reaches the apex of its trajectory, the heated air incorporated into the plume increases its buoyancy such that it spreads in the stratosphere as an ‘umbrella’ cloud (Cioni et al., 2015).

The eruptive styles described here are largely governed by the composition of the magma (i.e. the chemistry of the melt and gas content) and the volume involved. Eruptive style may also be a function of magma coming into contact with an external source of water, such as with groundwater, a lake or shallow seawater, and this can lead to major steam explosions. Eruption of mafic magma into very shallow seawater or into a lake provides the necessary conditions for the vigorous generation of steam, producing an explosive phreatomagmatic eruption. The eruption of Surtsey in 1963–1964 (Iceland) close to the Westman Islands is one such example. The explosive phreatomagmatic activity provided an impressive display to volcanologists watching from nearby boats, and subsequently this style has been referred to as Surtseyan activity. The eruption of Capelinhos in 1957–1958, which occurred off the western tip of Faial Island (Azores), is more accessible than Surtsey, and the eruption was observed and recorded in detail. The eruption was close to shore (