From Google Scholar+ [to 26 April 2014]
Selected content from beyond the journals and sources covered above, aggregated from a range of Google Scholar monitoring algorithms and other monitoring strategies.
[PDF] Community-Led Disaster Risk Reduction in Mongu, Zambia Project Effectiveness Review
Oxfam Great Britain
Adaptation and Risk Reduction Outcome Indicator
Publication Date: February 2014
Executive summary
Under Oxfam Great Britain’s (OGB) Global Performance Framework (GPF), sufficiently mature projects are being randomly selected each year and their effectiveness rigorously assessed. Zambia’s ‘Community-Led Disaster Risk Reduction’ project was randomly selected for an Effectiveness Review under the adaptation and risk reduction thematic area. The project aims to increase resilience to climatic shocks among target groups in Mongu district of western Zambia, through: a) strengthening the capacity of target communities to manage and respond to floods and droughts; and b) encouraging livelihood diversification and asset growth.The community-level activities undertaken to achieve the first objective included the development of early-warning systems, based on local knowledge and linked to wider support systems (e.g. weather stations). In order to achieve the second objective, a range of activities, including provision of fishing nets, canal clearing, embankment building, establishment of banana plantations and use of conservation agriculture were implemented. These project activities were undertaken between 2009 and 2012 in six communities located in the Zambezi floodplain by a local partner organisation – Peoples Participation Service (PPS).
To assess the effectiveness of this project, a quasi-experimental impact evaluation was implemented. This involved carrying out surveys with households in the six communities supported by the project, as well as with households in six nearby comparison communities. In all, surveys were carried out with 491 households. At the analysis stage, the statistical tools of propensity-score matching and multivariable regression were used to control for demographic and baseline differences between the intervention and comparison groups.
The effectiveness of the project in effecting 31 ‘resilience characteristics’ was assessed through this process. These characteristics fall under five interrelated dimensions: livelihood viability; innovation potential; access to contingency resources and support; integrity of the natural and built environment; and social response capability. Composite indices were developed to aggregate the data associated with the 31 characteristics, following the Alkire-Foster method used by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) to measure multi-dimensional poverty. One of these indices, in particular, referred to as the Alkire-Foster resilience index informs Oxfam GB’s global outcome indicator for its adaptation and risk reduction thematic area.
Following analysis of the data, there is evidence that the project positively affected several characteristics assumed important for promoting resilience among the intervention population. In particular, even after controlling for measured differences between the intervention and comparison households, the former performed between eight and 13 percentage points, and four to six points, better than the latter on Oxfam GB’s global Adaptation and Risk Reduction (ARR) indicator and the Alkire-Foster resilience index, respectively. Such performance in relation to the global indicator shows that in total, 64 per cent of surveyed intervention households demonstrate greater ability to reduce risk and adapt to emerging trends and uncertainty (as measured by the ARR resilience index).
While this Effectiveness Review generated some positive results, it also identified opportunities for reflection and learning. Oxfam in general, and the Zambia country team and partners in particular, are encouraged to consider the following:
:: Undertake further research to evaluate the effects of advocacy efforts connected to this project.
:: Explore how to involve community members more widely in community-level drought preparedness activities, and to ensure that training and early-warning information is fully disseminated.
:: Continue monitoring changes in behaviour and experiences of households in the project communities to learn whether the project activities will eventually result in higher-level changes in risk-reduction behaviour.
Military Medical Research
2014, 1:5
[PDF] Organization and implementation of mass medical rescue after an earthquake
Yan-Ling Zhang1
1 Health Department, General Logistics Department, Chinese People’s Liberation
Army (PLA), Beijing 100842, China
doi:10.1186/2054-9369-1-5
Abstract
On May 12, 2008, an 8.0-magnitude earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province. In this disaster, 69,000 people were killed, 18,000 people were reported missing, and 37,000
people were injured, including more than 10,000 who were seriously injured. Trauma was the most commonly observed type of injury, with fractures accounting for 74% of all injury
cases. On April 14, 2010, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake occurred in Yushu of Qinghai Province. In this disaster, 2,698 people were killed, 270 people were reported missing, and
11,000 people were injured, including more than 3,100 who were seriously injured. Fracture injury accounted for 58.4% of all injury cases. After each earthquake, the Chinese Army
Medical Services responded promptly, according to the previously established guidelines, and sent out elite forces to the disaster areas, with the objectives of organizing, coordinating and
participating in an efficient and evidence-based medical rescue effort. After the Wenchuan earthquake, 397 mobile medical service teams including 7,061 health workers were sent to
the disaster areas. A total of 69,000 casualties were treated, and 22,000 surgeries were performed. After the Yushu earthquake, 25 mobile medical service teams involving 2,025
health workers were sent. They performed 1,635 surgeries and created an astounding outcome of “zero deaths” in the aftermath of the earthquake during their treatment of
casualties in a high-altitude region. Within a week after each earthquake, the military teams rescued approximately 60% of the total number of rescued casualties and evacuated
approximately 80% of the total number of evacuated sick or wounded victims, playing a critical role and making invaluable contributions to earthquake relief. The experience and
lessons learned from the rescue efforts of the Chinese military after the two earthquakes have highlighted several key aspects in emergency medical rescue: (1) medical rescue theories
must be updated; (2) military-civilian cooperation must be stressed; (3) professional rescue forces must be strengthened; (4) supporting facilities must be improved; and (5) international
exchanges and cooperation must be deepened.
Computer
Volume:47 Issue:4
Rethinking Context: Leveraging Human and Machine Computation in Disaster Response
Vieweg, Sarah ; Qatar Computing Research Institute ; Hodges, Adam
Abstract
Human-computer systems that treat context simply as enumerated facts, rules, or axioms about the surrounding physical and social environment will always have trouble handling information requiring human pragmatic interpretation. One way to overcome such limitations is to draw upon human pragmatic awareness to create hybrid systems capable of both extracting large quantities of data and processing that data in a way that is meaningful to users. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/pqI2qcigiCw is a video demonstrating Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response (AIDR), a free, open source, and easy-to-use platform to filter and classify relevant microblog messages during humanitarian crises.
Power and Energy Magazine, IEEE
Volume:12 , Issue: 3 May 2014
Powering Through the Storm: Microgrids Operation for More Efficient Disaster Recovery
Abbey, C. ; Hydro-Quebec Research Institute, Quebec, Canada ; Cornforth, D. ; Hatziargyriou, N. ; Hirose, K.
Abstract
Disasters, whether natural or man-made, compromise the quality of life for all involved. In such situations, expeditious recovery activities are deemed imperative and irreplaceable for the restoration of normalcy. However, recovery activities rely heavily on the critical infrastructures that supply basic needs like electricity, water, information, and transportation. When disasters strike, it is likely that the critical infrastructures themselves are affected significantly, hampering efficient recovery processes, thus presenting a Catch-22 conundrum. In this article, we present examples from different parts of the world where distributed energy resources, organized in a microgrid, were used to provide reliable electricity supply in the wake of disasters, allowing recovery and rebuilding efforts to occur with relatively greater efficiency.
Social Science & Medicine
Available online 18 April 2014
Rapid response: Email, immediacy, and medical humanitarianism in Aceh, Indonesia
Jesse Hession Grayman
Highlights
:: Content analysis of email reveals everyday practices of humanitarian agencies.
:: Email’s immediacy can enact and amplify the urgency of the humanitarian imperative.
:: Email may abstract humanitarian practitioners out of local and moral context.
:: Email communications closely mirror and reproduce organizational hierarchy.
:: Immediacy favors a humanitarian focus on acute crisis but effaces chronic crisis.
Abstract
After more than 20 years of sporadic separatist insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government signed an internationally brokered peace agreement in August 2005, just eight months after the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated Aceh’s coastal communities. This article presents a medical humanitarian case study based on ethnographic data I collected while working for a large aid agency in post-conflict Aceh from 2005-2007. In December 2005, the agency faced the first test of its medical and negotiation capacities to provide psychiatric care to a recently amnestied political prisoner whose erratic behavior upon returning home led to his re-arrest and detention at a district police station. I juxtapose two methodological approaches—an ethnographic content analysis of the agency’s email archive and field-based participant-observation—to recount contrasting narrative versions of the event. I use this contrast to illustrate and critique the immediacy of the humanitarian imperative that characterizes the industry. Immediacy is explored as both an urgent moral impulse to assist in a crisis and a form of mediation that seemingly projects neutral and transparent transmission of content. I argue that the sense of immediacy afforded by email enacts and amplifies the humanitarian imperative at the cost of abstracting elite humanitarian actors out of local and moral context. As a result, the management and mediation of this psychiatric case by email produced a bureaucratic model of care that failed to account for complex conditions of chronic political and medical instability on the ground.
Book: Crises, Conflict and Disability: Ensuring Equality
Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Honorary Consultant and Senior Clinical Lecturer David Mitchell, David Mitchell, Valerie Karr
Routledge, Apr 3, 2014 – – 260 page
Overview
People with disabilities are among the most adversely affected during conflict situations or when natural disasters strike. They experience higher mortality rates, have fewer available resources and less access to help, especially in refugee camps, as well as in post-disaster environments. Already subject to severe discrimination in many societies, people with disabilities are often overlooked during emergency evacuation, relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Book: Meeting Needs: NGO Coordination in Practice
Jon Bennett
Routledge, Apr 8, 2014 – 204 pages
Overview
This critical analysis of aid organizations illustrates the expanding role of NGOs in international relief operations, and highlights the problems confronted by humanitarian groups. The book presents an overview of recent trends in the international relief community. Various relief operations are compared, to demonstrate why NGO co-ordination has become such an important issue. Case studies show how enhanced international co-ordination could improve the overall performance of NGOs and the United Nations.
