Abstract
This paper proposes a simple analytical scheme and associated qualitative impact scales that capture the spatially varying effects of a regional disaster. Large-scale disasters that affect many towns and cities pose particular challenges for emergency response planning. For example, disruption to transportation systems can impede regional supply chains of critical goods, thereby exacerbating the impacts suffered locally in communities. Conventional metrics of disaster severity, such as number of casualties or intensity of ground shaking, do not adequately capture how community impacts and needs may vary across the affected region, and they do not typically consider regional transportation disruption. Using a series of impact scales, the approach in this paper captures essential attributes of three broad components related to community impacts from a regional disaster—local disaster impacts in a community, regional transportation disruption to the community, and the community’s coping capacity—and aggregates them to an overall metric of community impact. The approach can be implemented with widely varying degrees of data availability, as demonstrated in two case applications. Both cases involve an M9 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake affecting a broad region of coastal British Columbia, Canada. The first application illustrates how in a pre-event planning situation, modeled results can be used to anticipate which communities are at greatest risk, and to help prioritize mitigation and emergency response planning. The second case demonstrates how in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, the approach can be used with limited information to help prioritize response and recovery activities.
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Data Availability Statement
Modeled results for M9 CSZ scenario were provided by a third party. Direct request for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments. GIS based analysis and community capacity data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Natural Resources Canada and David Bristow for providing modeled results for the M9 Cascadia Subduction Zone scenario, Ryan Reynolds for GIS analysis, Charly Caproff for mapping assistance, and Hayston Lam for early contributions to the scales development. This research is part of the SIREN project (Strategic Planning for Coastal Community Resilience to Marine Transportation Disruption) funded by the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction, and Response (MEOPAR) Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE).
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Natural Hazards Review
Volume 23 • Issue 3 • August 2022
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This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Received: Jun 14, 2021
Accepted: Feb 15, 2022
Published online: May 23, 2022
Published in print: Aug 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Oct 23, 2022
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Cited by
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