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This paper makes an attempt to review historical and recent seismicity in Delhi and presents updated seismic hazard map of Delhi integrated with ward-wise classified population data. Earthquakes are not destructive unless other factors that enhance the damage prevail. Population density and types or quality of buildings in an area are two such important factors that affect the risk during any hazards, particularly an earthquake. This paper presents the details of the seismic hazard analysis for Delhi with the latest available information on earthquakes and seismic sources within 300 km radius around the city, using state-of-the-art deterministic approach. Ten different attenuation relationships developed for the active tectonic region were considered in the present study. They were ranked using log-likelihood method. Ward-wise population maps along with classified population maps were developed based on the 2011 census data. Hazard contour map and population maps are presented in this paper to revisit the seismic risk prevailing in the region. An attempt was made to overlay the hazard map with population maps showing the distribution of various classes of the population that reflects the seismic risk exposure to different wards of Delhi.

During the last two decades, documentary data (written and iconographic sources) have been increasingly employed in geomorphologic research aiming at reconstruction of territorial distribution, temporal occurrence and social and economic impacts of various geomorphologic hazards. The goal of this paper is to broaden the previous discussion (Glade et al. The use of historical data in natural hazard assessments. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2001) of the methodological constraints on the use of documentary data for geomorphologic hazard research. Using the interdisciplinary approach of geomorphology, historiography and medial studies, we firstly summarise the major finding of papers that have employed various types of documentary data sources to study geomorphologic hazards in different regions. In the second section, we present case studies from the Czech Republic resulting from the ongoing research project that is devoted to the assessment of the potential of documentary data to reconstruct past occurrences of and mitigation strategies for geomorphologic hazards. Finally, we discuss three main methodological issues emerging from our research: (a) problems emerging from the positivist approach to documentary data sources and the necessity for critical analyses of documentary data sources based on modern historiographic approaches, (b) constraints arising from the combination of documentary data from different spatiotemporal scales and (c) lacks in the use of documentary data to study local-based adaptation strategies to cope with geomorphologic hazards.

The paper focuses on automatic extraction building stock information for quantifying physical exposure and its vulnerability from High and Very High Resolution (VHR) optical satellite imagery. We use two case studies. In Sana’a (Yemen) we use automatic techniques to extract the building stock as well as building height that is used to characterize its vulnerability. In Port-au-Prince (Haiti) – in the area affected by the 2010 earthquake -we map the building stock based on a pre-disaster imagery – and we show the added value of area based information when added to point based damage assessment from visual change interpretation of post disaster aerial images. The paper shows that VHR imagery can be used to locate and quantify the building stock and its height. This paper also shows that damages measured from changes detected from pre-and post-disaster imagery can in principle map and provide vulnerability information related to the structural fragility of the building stock., JRC.G.2-Global security and crisis management

This work addresses the use of remote sensing imagery to quantify the built environment and its spatial and temporal changes. It identifies building footprint map, building location map and built-up area map as information products that can be used to quantify physical exposure, one of the variables required in disaster risk assessments. The paper also reviews urban land use maps and urban classes in land cover maps as potential source for deriving exposure information. The paper focuses on the latest generation of satellite-borne remote sensing imaging systems that deliver high-resolution optical imagery able to resolve buildings and other three-dimensional man-made constructions. This work also reviews the semantics, the spatial unit used to define physical exposure, image processing procedures and change techniques.

In order to develop efficient strategies for risk mitigation and emergency management, planners require the assessment of both the expected hazard (frequency and magnitude) and the vulnerability of exposed elements. This paper presents a GIS-based methodology to produce qualitative to semi-qualitative thematic risk assessments for tephra fallout around explosive volcanoes, designed to operate with datasets of variable precision and resolution depending on data availability. Due to the constant increase in population density around volcanoes and to the wide dispersal of tephra from volcanic plumes, a large range of threats, such as roof collapses, damage to crops, blockage of vital lifelines and health problems, concern even remote communities. To address these issues, we have assessed the vulnerability and the risk levels for five themes relevant to tephra fallout: (1) social, (2) economic, (3) environmental, (4) physical and (5) territorial. Risk and vulnerability indices for each theme are averaged to the fourth level of administrative unit (parroquia, parish). In a companion paper, Biass and Bonadonna (this volume) present a probabilistic hazard assessment for tephra fallout at Cotopaxi volcano (Ecuador) using the advection-diffusion model TEPHRA2, which is based on field investigations and a global eruption database (Global Volcanism Program, GVP). The scope of this paper is to present a new approach to risk assessment specifically designed for tephra fallout, based on a comprehensive hazard assessment of Cotopaxi volcano. Our results show that an eruption of moderate magnitude (i.e. VEI 4) would result in the possible collapse of ∼9,000 houses in the two parishes located close to the volcano. Our study also reveals a high risk on agriculture, closely linked to the economic sector, and a possible accessibility problem in case of an eruption of any size, as tephra is likely to affect the only major road running from Quito to Latacunga (Panamerican Highway). As a result, this method fits into the ongoing effort to better characterize and evaluate volcanic risk, and more specifically the risk associated with tephra fallout. Although this methodology relies on some assumptions, it can serve as a rapid and efficient starting point for further investigations of the risk level around explosive volcanoes.

WOS: 000308329900030, Landslide hazard or susceptibility assessment is based on the selection of relevant factors which play a role on the slope instability, and it is assumed that landslides will occur at similar conditions to those in the past. The selected statistical method compares parametric maps with the landslide inventory map, and results are then extrapolated to the entire evaluated territory with a final product of landslide hazard or susceptibility map. Elements at risk are defined and analyzed in relation with landslide hazard, and their vulnerability is thus established. The landslide risk map presents risk scenarios and expected financial losses caused by landslides, and it utilizes prognoses and analyses arising from the landslide hazard map. However, especially the risk scenarios for future in a selected area have a significant importance, the literature generally consists of the landslide susceptibility assessment and papers which attempt to assess and construct the map of the landslide risk are not prevail. In the paper presented herein, landslide hazard and risk assessment using bivariate statistical analysis was applied in the landslide area between Hlohovec and Sered' cities in the south-western Slovakia, and methodology for the risk assessment was explained in detail.

This paper aims to analyse and compare the loss of life that occurred during two recent floods in France. The first flood was due to a sea surge triggered by the storm called Xynthia that hit the Atlantic coast on 28 February 2010 (41 flood-related deaths). The second was a flash flood that struck the Var Department in the French Mediterranean region on 15 June 2010 (26 fatalities). After detailing the assumptions and expected outcomes of the study of disaster-related fatalities, the paper focuses on the characteristics of the victims and the circumstances of their deaths. In the first case, 71% of the victims were people aged over 60 (mainly women) who were surprised while they were sleeping and who died in or near their homes. In the case of the flash flood, the profiles of the victims were diverse as the flooding occurred in the afternoon and many people were trapped in open. The paper also highlights the factors that explain mortality. Physical factors such as water depth were determined. The relationship between the water depth and the age of victims was found to be relevant. In the case of the storm surge Xynthia, the correlation between age and water depth is positive. For the flash flood, the correlation between age and water depth was negative as male adults died in open. In the first case, the vulnerability of people was closely linked to human features such as type of housing and age that people are not directly responsible for. During flash floods, dangerous behaviour by people highlighted the role of risk-taking in loss of life. We also examined the particular case of the deaths of the children. The paper concludes by discussing the factors of vulnerability on frail population such as elderly people or marginalized. The lack of risk awareness and crisis preparedness were clearly a major factor of vulnerability.

The study described in this paper investigates the relative merits of two peer-reviewed earthquake-induced landslide models using participatory model assessment. The earthquake-induced landslide hazard models assessed are a simplified Newmark’s displacement model and a recently developed knowledge-based model. Participatory model assessment involves conducting facilitated participatory processes where the model(s) are used for aiding decisions within a socio-behavioral experiment designed for collecting data to evaluate formal hypotheses about the model(s). The paper sets out the design of the participatory model assessment—a series of workshops involving experts and potential model end-users that incorporated a roleplay site selection task. Quantitative data elicited using a set of entrance and exit questionnaires were analyzed to investigate hypotheses about the models. Participants found the knowledge-based model to be significantly more complete and more informative for their roleplay task. Overall, the two models did not yield significant differences with respect to issues such as task efficiency or task outcome satisfaction. Lastly, it was found that education level and disciplinary perspectives (of those analyzed) did not significantly affect outcomes, suggesting that a wide demographic of participants can be used for participatory model assessments. Additional research is needed to assess the models in different contexts, as well as more broadly developing a set of best practices for conducting participatory model assessments of other natural hazard and risk models intended to support decision-making.

The Islands of Reunion and Mayotte are French territories in the Indian Ocean and are prone to numerous and recurrent hazards as well as to increasing vulnerabilities. This paper examines disaster risk reduction on non-sovereign islands through the case studies of Reunion and Mayotte. The approach used is embedded in standard geographical approaches to risk analysis, focusing on place-based vulnerability, in order to understand disaster risk and disaster risk reduction on both islands. In addition to establishing baseline information and visiting both islands for further data, 21 semi-structured individual interviews were completed to understand the people’s perceptions of the hazards and of their vulnerabilities. Disaster risk reduction strategies, and attitudes from governing bodies implementing the strategies, tend to assume similar vulnerability contexts as mainland France, despite obvious differences on the islands. Many policies are implemented in a top–down manner by those from mainland France who have little interest in, and who do not fully take into consideration, local realities. This paper contributes new case studies to the literature, especially in comparing two non-Anglophone non-sovereign islands, and reinforces recommendations factoring in local contexts when addressing ‘vulnerability of a place’ to disasters.

In this paper, ModelBuilderTM in ArcGIS (ESRI) has been applied to landslide-susceptibility analysis, mapping and validation. The models (scripts), available for direct downloading as an ArcGIS tool, allow landslide susceptibility to be computed in a given region, providing a landslide-susceptibility map, with the GIS matrix method, and ensuring a quality validation. The paper details the steps needed for the model-building process, enabling users to build their own models and to become more familiar with the tool. The susceptibility model leads the user first through a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), depicting the morphological and morphometric features of the study area, and then through a Digital Terrain Model (DTM), useful as a source of landslide-determinant factors, such as slope elevation, slope angle and slope aspect. In addition, another determinant factor is the lithological unit, independent of the DEM. Once the determinant landslide factors are reclassified and in a vectorial format, all the combinations between the classes of these factors are determined using the geoprocessing abilities of ArcGIS. The next step for the development of the landslide-susceptibility model consists of identifying the areas affected by a given surface of rupture (i.e. source area) in every combination of the determinant-factor classes. This step leads to the landslide matrix based on a previously georeferenced landslide database of the region, in which the slopes are distinguished into two simple classes: with or without landslides. In the last stage, to build a landslide-susceptibility model, the user computes the percentages of area affected by landslides in every combination of determinant factors. In the resulting landslide-susceptibility map a progressive zonation of areas or slopes increasingly prone to landslides is performed. A model for the validation of the resulting landslide-susceptibility map is also presented, based on the determination of the degree of fit, which is calculated from the cross tabulation between a set of landslides (not included in the susceptibility analysis) and the corresponding susceptibility map.

This paper presents an outline methodology and an operational framework for assessing and mapping the risk of death or serious harm to people from flooding, covering death and physical injuries as a direct and immediate consequence of deep and/or fast flowing floodwaters (usually by drowning), and deaths and physical injuries associated with the flood event (but occurring in the immediate aftermath). The main factors that affect death or injury to people during floods include flow velocity, flow depth, and the degree to which people are exposed to the flood. The exposure potential is related to such factors as the “suddenness” of flooding (and amount of flood warning), the extent of the floodplain, people’s location on the floodplain, and the character of their accommodation. In addition, risks to people are affected by social factors including their vulnerability and behaviour. A methodology is described for estimating the likely annual number of deaths/injuries. This is based on defining zones of different flood hazard and, for each zone, estimating the total number of people located there, the proportion that are likely to be exposed to a flood, and the proportion of those exposed who are likely to be injured or killed during a flood event. The results for each zone are combined to give an overall risk for each flood cell and/or community. The objective of the research reported here is to develop a method which could be applied using a map-based approach in which flood risks to people are calculated and displayed spatially for selected areas or communities. The information needed for each part of the process is described in the paper, and the further research to provide the required information is identified.

This paper aims to examine the impact of large-scale structuraladjustments (like the Greater Dhaka Flood Protection Project, GDFPP) on local living environment.It focuses the importance of environmental factors in flood hazard mitigation, and examines theenvironmental attitudes of the floodplain residents arising from the large-scale structural adjustments.Based on `perceived natural hazard research perspectives', this paper examines: (i) the reasons for persistentfloodplain occupation, and (ii) the importance of environmental factors in the choice, motivations and decision-makingof floodplain residents. This research used data collected from 300 households situated inthe eastern part of Dhaka. The face-to-face household survey data provided individuals' responses to a structuredquestionnaire on hazards and environment. Survey concerned urban floodplains, and looked fordata on housing, household characteristics, and residents' attitudes. Results of interview surveys wereused to: (i) explore the reasons of floodplain occupation, and (ii) residents' attitudes to tolerable levelof flood risk and willingness to accept environmental change resulting from the proposed structural embankments inthe eastern perimeter of Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Findings revealed that floodplain occupation (by theindividuals' decision-making) was a result of overall reaction to the Government's structuraladjustment policies that resulted from institutional, locational and socio-economic factors. The attitude survey results provided residents' perception to hazards and environment to be dependenton the socio-economic factors – but in a complex manner, many factors are interrelated.In addition to support for structural embankments, the study sample displayed a common concernand widespread environmental awareness. In terms of any `trade-off' between thebenefits (resources) from the embankments and costs (hazards) due to the detrimental impact on environment, the residents of Dhaka, despite some concern forsacrificing embankments for environment, tended to show a generalconsensus for embankments.

This paper is a partial discussion of a four-year study that investigated the vulnerability of the people living in the Cairns region to the tropical cyclone hazard. The longitudinal case study, focussing on the Cairns Northern Beaches area, was unique in that it included a social and societal `pre-cyclone impact' evaluation of various resident communities within the region, and then two consecutive `post-cyclone impact' studies. The primary research method supported an inductive qualitative approach to the collection and analysis of survey data. Some quantitative methods were invoked to support qualitative research findings. Survey data was collected in five separate questionnaire-based social surveys that were administered between 1996 and 2000. During the study, residents experiencedthe direct impact of two land-falling tropical cyclones. In addition to this, targeted andfocussed tropical cyclone awareness education was made increasingly available withinthe community. The social and demographic attributes that influence the individual'sperception of risk and contribute to our understanding of community vulnerability were examined and evaluated. Changes in the residents' attitudes, cyclone preparednessbehaviours and willingness to respond to cyclone warnings were monitored and measured. Analysis of early survey data indicated that community residents generally had some knowledge of cyclones but a limited understanding of cyclone processes and very little direct personal experience of the cyclone hazard. Individually and collectively, residents frequently demonstrated a biased perception of the risks associated with cyclones. The resident community was shown to be fragmented, with limited support being available to individual households. Initially, residents were found to be poorly prepared for cyclones and unlikely to respond to warnings appropriately. It appeared that, in the event of a land-falling tropical cyclone impacting the area, the community was highly vulnerable to unnecessary loss of property, livelihood and – in extreme circumstances – life. By 2000, Cairns community residents were somewhat better informed about cyclones and certainly more experienced. This paper provides some insight into how cyclone experience and education may synergisticly have contributed to a change in risk perceptions and a reduction in the vulnerability of Cairns residents to the tropical cyclone and storm surge hazards.

Understanding the nature and impacts of tsunamis within the Aegean Sea region ofGreece is of importance to both the academic community and those organisationsconcerned with tsunami disaster management. In order to determine hazard and riskand consequently pre-plan mitigative strategies, it is necessary to analyse historical(documentary) and geological records of former tsunami events. Therefore, firstlythis paper provides a summary of the written sources of information on Aegeantsunamis paying particular attention to published catalogues. From the availabledata, it is noted that a large number of events have been reported during the last3500 years. Secondly, the paper provides a review of the published on-shore(terrestrial) geological records of tsunamis within the region. From this analysisit is seen that little geological evidence has been identified for the large numberof tsunamis reported in the catalogues. Thirdly, the paper considers the reliabilityof the written and geological records and how problems of accuracy, coverage,extent and reliability, may have potential implications for the estimation of hazardand risk. The paper concludes by making recommendations for disaster managers,geologists and historians to work closely together.

This paper describes a spatial-dynamic, stochastic optimization model that takes account of the complexities and dependencies of catastrophic risks. Following a description of the general model, the paper briefly discusses a case study of earthquake risk in the Irkutsk region of Russia. For this purpose the risk management model is customized to explicitly incorporate the geological characteristics of the region, as well as the seismic hazards and the vulnerability of the built environment. In its general form, the model can analyze the interplay between investment in mitigation and risk-sharing measures. In the application described in this paper, the model generates insurance strategies that are less vulnerable to insolvency.

The eastern Mediterranean has been the cradle of many great civilizations. The history of the area consisted of glorious battles, heroic acts, and the rise and fall of great civilizations. But, sometimes, natural hazards became the cause for a new classification of the political, as well as of the military status quo of the region. The enormous eruption of the submarine volcano at the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) during the Bronze Age, around 1500 BC, is such a natural hazard. The tsunami generated by the eruption, literally wiped out the peace-loving Minoan civilization who inhabited the island of Crete. After the sea subsided, the configuration of the area was altered, and the decline of the Minoan principality on the Archipelago began. The present paper introduces evidence concerning the tsunami and states some of the after-effects which were partly responsible for the decline of the Minoan empire. All the information is gathered from historical sources and from recent research works. An effort has been made to include many of the theories introduced by various researchers through time concerning the event. Finally, information has been included from all known research, as well as from the author's own conclusions, in order to make the paper useful to future researchers.

Kriging is used for spatial interpolation of geophysical and hydrological variables. This technique requires the definition of a mathematical function of spatial correlation known as variogram. Extreme value mapping is critical for the analysis of hydrological problems such as multiple risk and disaster damage valuation. However, the formulation of a variogram is complex and the selection of the variogram model is often crucial in the final representation of extreme values. There is some evidence that a variogram estimator may reduce the negative impact of using data samples with outliers. This is an approach that eliminates the term that takes into consideration the squared differences of empirical values in the calculation of a variogram. Known as Cressie–Hawkins Estimator (CH), it is based on considering a Gaussian distribution for the calculation of the variogram. The CH satisfies the main statistical considerations of normality; however, the formulation of kurtosis is not used to guarantee total normality. The present paper modifies the CH, adding the term corresponding to the fourth statistical moment. The numerical example proposed in the literature to evaluate the efficiency of the CH is reproduced, and it is verified that the new variogram (CH-GLo) decreases further the effect of the extreme values in the cartography. CH-GLo is applied to cartography an extreme storm that happened in August 2014 in the city of Queretaro, Mexico. It is concluded that this new variogram formulation is a suitable alternative for mapping extreme values monitored in real-time in urban areas.

The use of an inventory map of past landslide events in the derivation of susceptibility models is considered common practice. However, evidence of landslide activity may be lost due to various degrees of modification by subsequent landslides, erosional processes, vegetation growth and anthropic influences. The timely detection of active landslides can form an effective supplement to landslide records for improving the accuracy of landslide susceptibility maps. In this paper, we present a landslide susceptibility assessment carried out in a southwestern region of Cyprus using a synergy of differential interferometry and evidential statistics. A measurement of the vertical and horizontal displacements for the period 2016–2018 was done using the Small BAseline Subset multi-pass Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technique. Based on the results, a total of 8859 raster cells/pixels were classified as active landslides. The weight-of-evidence technique was applied to determine the weights of seven geomorphological and hydrological factors to landslide occurrence and compile a susceptibility model. The success and prediction rates of the derived model were calculated as 79.6% and 78.9%, respectively. The validation of the results against the existing landslide inventory indicates an 84% agreement with respect to the moderate and high landslide susceptibility zones. The proposed methodology can complement existing conventional landslide inventories as a means of providing updated landslide activity at frequent intervals and can provide valuable information regarding the distribution of landslides to support a detailed landslide assessment.

A dataset of landslides from Sichuan Province in China, containing 1551 historical individual landslides, is a result of two teams’ effort in the past few years to map the susceptibility to landslides. Considering complex internal relations among the triggering factors, logistic regression (LR) and shallow neural networks, such as back-propagation neural network (BPNN), are often limited. In this paper, we make a straightforward development that the deep belief network (DBN) based on deep learning technology is introduced to map the regional susceptibility to landslides. Seven factors with respect to geomorphology, geology and hydrology are considered and verified through the collinearity test. A DBN model containing three pre-trained layers of restricted Boltzmann machines by stochastic gradient descent method is configured to obtain the susceptibility to landslides. Susceptibility results evaluated by DBN model are compared with those by LR and BPNN in the receive operator characteristic (ROC) analysis, showing that DBN has a better prediction precision, with a lower rate of false alarms and fake alarms. The case study also indicates different sensitivities of the triggering factors to the landslide susceptibility, that the factors of altitude, distance to drainage network and average annual rainfall have significant impact in mapping the susceptibility to landslides in the region. This research will contribute to a better-performance model for regional-scale mapping for the susceptibility to landslides, in particular, at the area where triggering factors show complex relations and relative independence.

Ten years after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and following a long process of rehabilitation and reconstruction, Aceh has finally recovered. After the tsunami, Aceh experienced a dramatic migration of its coastal population away from the city; however, after 10 years, the population has mostly recovered. As new houses have been built and new economic activities commenced in the coastal areas, there is now concern regarding potential future tsunami risks for the city. The initial rehabilitation and reconstruction plan sought to prevent the construction of any new houses 500 m from the coastline; however, this failed to happen. This paper elucidates the reasons why these new coastal communities chose their new housing areas and examines the coastal land use changes around Banda Aceh 10 years after the Indian Ocean tsunami. Questionnaires were distributed to 457 respondents, and multiple logistic regressions were used to examine the reasons for household location selection and whether a possible future tsunami was a deciding factor. To examine the coastal land use changes, a series of aerial images from the Banda Aceh coastal area were digitised. It was found that tsunami history was not a major factor in new household selection; rather, rents and land prices, distance from work, and family connections were the top three reasons motivating households to select new living places. These changes and new settlements have given the city’s disaster management agency the challenge of building more emergency infrastructure in the coastal areas.

This paper shows a comparison from the perspective of flood risk management between two regions of different countries: Tokyo Metropolis (Japan) and Catalonia (Spain). The comparison is based on flood damage data for a 30-year period (1981-2010), legislation, disaster management plans, recovering measures, and communication strategies. A total of 219 flood events and 110 deaths were recorded in Catalonia during 1981-2010, while there were 191 floods in Tokyo, during the same period, giving place to 27 deaths and missing people. In both countries, most of the deaths occurred outdoors and the majority as a consequence of imprudent behavior. Nearly 10% of flood victims in Catalonia were foreign citizens. Regarding the institutions from the state and the communities involved in flood risk management, we have found a similar structure between the two countries. In accordance with the European Floods Directive, all the Spanish regions susceptible of having floods have flood hazard maps for different return periods, including 500 years while in the case of Japan the return periods are usually shorter. Recently, flood risk maps have been built for Catalonia, but none is available in a foreign language. Although all the maps are available in Internet, in Spain it is not mandatory to distribute maps to the public neither evacuation maps in flood-prone areas. On the contrary, evacuation and hazard maps in Japan have some parts written in different languages. In both countries, flood hazard maps are not compulsorily linked to other countermeasures such as land-use regulation (the municipality has the last decision) or flood insurance. Thresholds of heavy rain warnings are similar in both countries, using rain amounts over both short and long periods. Although the Japanese method appears more sophisticated using humidity and runoff indexes, it is too complicated for people to understand it. In contrast, only Catalonia has forecast thresholds considering probability levels. On flood insurance, only Spain has governmental aid to the flood insurance system. The level of flood risk perception is low among the population in both countries, and social communication for flood risk is insufficient, mainly in Catalonia. Thus, it is very important that individuals recognize the flood risk in the area to reduce the number of victims.

The natural hazard assessment is hampered by many difficulties due to the complexity of the phenomenon and the need to manage simultaneously several natural and/or technological hazards. Such is the case of most unstable urban sites in Algeria. The paper presents a risk analysis study of landslides and their reactivation in Tigzirt coastal city, located in the north of Algeria, which is classified in a moderate seismic zone. The spatial techniques based on geographic information systems are used to assess landslide susceptibility and hazard. Two qualitative studies of landslide hazard assessment are conducted using parameters defining the Algerian landslides context. The hazard is evaluated by performing a combination of the landslide susceptibility and the urban density. Earthquake-induced landslide hazard is assessed taking into account the Algerian seismicity. The study led to determination and mapping of the hazard induced by Tigzirt landslides.

Earthquakes incur the greatest damage compared with all the other natural deleterious occurrences; when occurring in industrialized and densely populated regions, they can prove devastating. In the Russian Federation, we have more than 20 million people living in regions of moderate and high seismicity. The areas that are hit by earthquakes, with events of intensity VII (MMSK-86 scale) or greater occurring, make up approximately 20% of Russia’s area. The present paper addresses the methodological procedures of risk assessment and databases used for risk computations at different levels. The examples of seismic risk assessment and mapping at different levels: country, region and urban, are given. Special attention is paid to information and web technologies used for verification data on built environment inventory and vulnerability.

Assessment of seismic vulnerability of urban areas provides fundamental information for activities of planning and management of emergencies. The main difficulty encountered when extending vulnerability evaluations to urban contexts is the definition of a framework of assessment appropriate for the specific characteristics of the site and providing reliable results with a reasonable duration of surveys and post-processing of data. The paper proposes a new procedure merging different typologies of information recognized on the territories investigated and for this reason called “hybrid.” Knowledge of historical events influencing urban evolution and analysis of recurrent building technologies are used to evaluate the vulnerability indexes of buildings and building stocks. On the other hand, a vulnerability model is calibrated by means of experimental and numerical investigations on prototype buildings representative of the most recurrent typologies. In the final framework, the vulnerability index, calculated through simplified assessment forms, is linked to the seismic intensity expressed by the peak ground acceleration and associated with an index of damage expressing the economical loss. The procedure has been tested on the urban center of Lampedusa island (Italy) providing as the output vulnerability index maps, vulnerability curves, critical PGA maps, and estimation of the economical damage associated with different earthquake scenarios. The application of the procedure can be suitably repeated for medium-to-small urban areas, typically recurring in the Mediterranean by carrying out each time a recalibration of the vulnerability model.

This paper examines methods for quantitatively identifying communities that have high social vulnerability to environmental hazards. We first provide an overview of the existing literature on quantifying social vulnerability. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the one of the most common methods, composite indexing using principal component analysis (PCA), in more detail. We present a case study of Hampton Roads, Virginia, that compares PCA-based composite indexing to an alternative method using k-means clustering to identify socially vulnerable communities. We find that PCA-based indexing is particularly sensitive to changes in geographic boundaries and the number of input variables while clustering is less so. However, both methods exhibit the highest levels of consistency when vulnerability is measured by a relatively small number of well-established quantitative indicators. While the cluster method is more intuitive and easier to interpret than composite indexing, it is not well suited for large analyses across a disparate geographic area or where one needs to explicitly rank observations.

In this paper, the extent to which the potentially transit-dependent portion of the population is vulnerable to the effects of a hurricane is estimated. The vulnerability of an area is defined as a composite measure of the proportion of disadvantaged persons, distance to transit, and flooding potential of people within an area. Unlike past studies which have focused on the vulnerability of the population in relatively large geographic areas, this study estimates the vulnerability of the population in 30 m × 30 m areas as defined in the National Land Cover Database. Population estimates from the national census at block level are disaggregated to the 30 m × 30 m units using a modified dasymetric mapping method in ArcGIS. The modified mapping method assigns population to each small areal unit using weights estimated by regressing the area of each land use in a census block against the population in that block. The coefficients in the regression analysis are “weights” associating population with each land use, and are used to distribute the population in each census block to the small geographic units based on their land use. In a case study of New Orleans, the results show that some areas are not well served by the existing transit pickup locations, as evidenced by their high vulnerability scores. Reassignment of pickup point locations to cover higher vulnerability score areas was investigated using integer linear programming. The results show that the optimally located pickup points serve areas with a larger average vulnerability score than the current pickup points in the study area. The method appears to be helpful in identifying vulnerable areas that, subsequently, could receive improved hurricane evacuation service in the future.

Based on the data of monthly precipitation and rice productivity at 61 meteorological stations in Jiangsu during 1966–2010, the possible impact of dryness/wetness variability on rice productivity was explored in this paper. Principal component analysis was applied to the climate-induced rice productivity index (CRPI) series and divided Jiangsu into six sub-regions—south, northwest, east, middle, southwest and northernmost. Mann–Kendall trend test for monthly Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) series in each sub-regions shows that most of Jiangsu was dominated by wetter tendency in August and drier tendency in September. CRPI had stronger negative correlation with monthly SPI series in the majority of sub-regions. Especially, the SPI in October, March, July and August had significantly negative linear relationship with CRPI in south Jiangsu, northwest Jiangsu, middle Jiangsu and southwest Jiangsu, respectively, which indicated the obvious unfavourable impact of extreme wetness episodes on rice productivity.

The present paper aims at to produce the building vulnerability and its spatial distribution in mountainous regions of the Nilgiris District in the Western Ghats, India. The landslide-susceptible areas were identified based on the existing landslide-susceptible maps. The landslide-prone slope was identified based on the historical and recent landslide information’s collected from various authenticated sources as well as the field investigations made on the recent landslides. The high-to-severe landslide hazard-prone areas were selected for the present study of building vulnerability analysis. The areas were divided into ten segments based on the landslide inventory, built-up areas, and transportation corridors in the vicinity of landslide locations. Building foot print map was prepared for each segments using ArcGIS software visual interpretation for 1627 buildings and infrastructures. Different thematic layers viz, building type/material, surrounding wall, sloping side details, warning, and number of floors which contribute to landslide vulnerability in vector formats are used for the present study. Using the formula proposed by Papathoma-Kohle et al. (Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 7:765–779, 2007) the vulnerability score were calculated by scripting in ArcGIS software. Based on the vulnerability score, the buildings were grouped under three categories viz, low, medium, and high vulnerability. The spatial distribution of vulnerability of buildings was prepared and presented. The present study can be useful data for preparation of regional landuse plan as well as evacuation plans and warning systems to safeguard measure for population living in the vulnerable buildings in The Nilgiris District of Western Ghats in India.

Coastal zones are often prone to several natural hazards, and where the coastal zone has high population density and infrastructural assets, these hazards can render severe loss to both life and properties. The present paper reports a comprehensive assessment of the multi-hazard and multi-risk (keeping in view the population and assets exposed to multi-hazards) in the Balasore coast, situated in the state of Odisha, India, facing the Bay of Bengal immediately to its east. In most of the multi-hazard and multi-risk assessments, the importance of any one hazard in relation to others is often determined arbitrarily. To overcome this limitation, this work presents a multi-criteria analysis implemented on six hazards, namely coastal erosion, storm surge, sea level rise, coastal flooding, tsunami, and earthquake. The respective hazards were ranked according to their relative weight computed by pair-wise comparison, and the overall multi-hazard map of the coast was prepared using weighted overlay technique in GIS environment. In order to assess the exposure, population density and urban assets of the study area were also mapped. Finally, the population and urban density data were overlain on the multi-hazard map in order to derive the final map portraying the multi-risk of the Balasore coast. Coastal erosion and storm surge inundation are the two most substantial natural hazards that regularly affect this coast. It is also observed that hazard from the perspective of coastal erosion is spatially concentrated along the central part of the coast, while in the southern part, the effect of storm surge is higher. The area in and around Chandipur, which is situated in the central portion of the Balasore coast, has been found to have the highest multi-risk, which also happens to be a popular tourist destination.

El Salvador and Central America in general are highly prone to landsliding. In November 1998, Hurricane Mitch killed 240 people, displaced about 85,000 people, caused more than $600 million in economic losses, and damaged about 60 % of the nation’s roads (Rose et al. in Natural hazards in El Salvador. Geologic Society of America of special paper 375, Boulder, 2004). An understanding of susceptibility of locations to landsliding is critical for development and mitigation planning. This work presents the development of the Normalized Landslide Index Method which is a derivative of the bivariate statistical methods commonly used in landslide susceptibility assessment. The resultant map was amended through a tangential analysis, also commonly used in landslide susceptibility mapping, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), which reduces multi-criteria analysis to pair-wise comparisons. The assimilation of results from the AHP analysis into the statistically derived susceptibility map skewed the original results by emphasizing the extremes already found. It was determined that addition of AHP results did not increase the value of the derived susceptibility map. Finally, a physically based a priori approach to landslide susceptibility mapping, developed by El Salvador National Service of Territorial Studies, was compared to the statistically derived map developed herein. It was found that the a priori approach was not sufficiently discriminant to be useful for planners and regulators, as very large areas were designated high susceptibility that included areas with low slope angles. The development of the normalized landslide index is a significant improvement to the class of bivariate statistical strategies to assess regional landslide susceptibility.