Below are new or updated Internet resources the Hazards Center staff has found useful. For a more complete list of some of the better sites dealing with hazards and disasters, see www.colorado.edu/hazards/sites/sites.html.
www.disastersafety.org
The Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) has launched this new web site to offer home and business owners tips
on hazards safety and planning. Currently, the site focuses on hurricane mitigation, although other hazards will be addressed
in the future. It includes videos on structural mitigation measures, several print publications in both Spanish and English, as
well as links to other resources on the web.
www.flash.org
www.blueprintforsafety.org
FLASH (Florida Alliance for Safe Homes) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting home safety with respect to
natural disasters (see the Observer, Vol. XXIV, No. 5, p. 9; Vol. XXIII, No. 2, p. 15). The organization's partners include
the Institute for Business and Home Safety, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Florida chapters of the American
Red Cross, the Florida Department of Community Affairs, and others. At the second URL above, FLASH has developed a
separate web site documenting safe building practices. The site specifically addresses wind hazards, wildfire, and floods,
and includes a glossary, a list of resource organizations, and a library of building design diagrams. For more information
about FLASH, contact Traci Buzbee, Outreach Director, FLASH, 1430 Piedmont Drive East, Tallahassee, FL 32312; (850)
385-7233; fax: (850) 386-7371; e-mail: flash@flains.org.
www.csc.noaa.gov/vata/
The NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC) Vulnerability Assessment Techniques and Applications (VATA) web site
provides risk and vulnerability assessment techniques and resources to assist communities in making sound decisions to
protect lives and property, maintain economic stability, and preserve the environment. It also houses information about the
Vulnerability Assessment Techniques Workshops currently being hosted by the Organization of American States (OAS)
Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment (USDE) and the CSC. That information is intended to supplement or
even replace actual attendance at these workshops that were initiated to create networking opportunities for exploring new
ideas and potential partnerships in the application of vulnerability assessments.
More information on VATA and the workshops is available from the web site. In addition, the developers plan to institute both a bulletin board and an on-line system for submitting case studies. Because this project is in its infancy, the people at the CSC are interested in feedback about how it could be made more valuable.
www.ofcm.gov
www.ofcm.gov/Risk/Proceedings/RiskProceedings2001.htm
The Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) is a federal interdepartmental office established in 1964
because Congress and the president recognized the importance of full coordination of all federal meteorological activities.
Hence, the mission of the office is to ensure the effective use of federal meteorological resources by integrating weather
services and supporting research among the 15 participating federal agencies. The OFCM also prepares operations plans,
conducts studies, and responds to special inquiries and investigations. Its web site provides more information about the
office, numerous publications about federal meteorological plans and programs, and a section on "Special Projects" that
includes proceedings from such meetings as the National Hurricane Conference and, at the second URL above, the Forum
on Risk Management and Assessments of Natural Hazards held earlier this year.
www.tallytown.com/redcross
The industrious folks at the [Florida] Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross (who put out a lot of disaster
preparedness, response, and mitigation information on the web) have added several new resources to their site.
First, the site now includes the new Building Disaster Resistant Neighborhoods Handbook, available via the Disaster Resistant Neighborhood link. This handbook outlines a step by step action plan, with examples, to assist neighborhood associations to prepare for disasters. Posted along with the handbook are a variety of marketing tools to promote the program. Also posted are the applications for three successfully funded Disaster Resistant Neighborhood initiatives.
With the discovery of West Nile Virus in North Florida during early July, the Capital Area Chapter has also established a West Nile Virus Information web section. This site contains fact sheets, maps, and reporting and surveillance information on the virus; educational information such as Mosquitoes: How To Control Them; educational programs for children; and links to related web sites.
www.ncem.org/mitigation
Reflecting the increasing emphasis on hazard mitigation among government agencies involved in disaster management, the
North Carolina Division of Emergency Management has created this comprehensive "Hazard Mitigation in North Carolina"
web page for citizens of the state. It includes current information on home protection measures, mitigation funding, the
National Flood Insurance Program, mitigation planning, legal services, publications, presentations, and upcoming events, as
well as a section entitled "What is Your Risk?," contact information, and related web links.
www.hah-emergency.net/
Early in May, the Healthcare Association of Hawaii (HAH) launched this emergency management program web site to aid
hospitals and other health care organizations in that state. The site includes information for the general public and restricted
content available only to health care emergency managers in Hawaii. It also provides a brief description of the program,
which could serve as a model for other health care organizations and associations across the nation. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
www.hsus.org/disaster
www.hsus.org/disaster/disastermonthmain.html
In June, in support of National Disaster Preparedness Month for Animals, the Humane Society of the United States
published three downloadable brochures to help animal owners prepare for emergencies:
These pamphlets are available from the second URL above; at the first is additional information (including on-line brochures in HTML format) on protecting animals from various hazards.
www.drmonline.net
The World Institute for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) is a joint initiative of the Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of
Technology and Virginia Tech University in conjunction with the World Bank's ProVention Consortium. It was created to
promote applied research, implementation, and dissemination in the field of disaster risk management (see the Observer,
Vol. XXIV, No. 5, p. 15).
DRM's objective is to enable people to anticipate disasters and take action to protect life and property while ensuring sustainable social and economic development. The new DRM web site describes the institute, the DRM network and current projects, and also offers several on-line DRM publications. To obtain further information about DRM, contact the World Institute for Disaster Risk Management, Alexandria Research Institute, 206 North Washington Street, Suite 400, Alexandria, VA 22314; (703) 518- 8080; fax: (703) 518-8085; e-mail: widrm@vt.edu; or DRM, c/o ETH Board, Haldelwig 15, ETH Centre, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland; tel: +41 1 632 20 02; fax: + 41 1 632 11 90; e-mail: DRM@ethrat.ch.
www.hazpac.org
www.crowdingtherim.org
HAZPAC, short for "Hazards of the Pacific," is a GIS database that allows users to search and use a comprehensive record
of historic disasters for the entire Pacific region. The database contains information regarding earthquakes, tsunamis,
volcanic eruptions, and tropical storms, as well details about human infrastructure systems such as cities, roads, utilities,
railroads, and major air routes. Users can specify the type and location of disaster information to be displayed, permitting
both detailed (city-specific) and broad-scale investigations of the disaster record. Because HAZPAC is a GIS database,
specific information about each data set is available, allowing users to identify, for instance, the population of a particular
city or the date and magnitude of an earthquake. HAZPAC was developed as part of the "Crowding the Rim" initiative, a
partnership among the U.S. Geological Survey, Circum-Pacific Council, American Red Cross, and Stanford University--hosts of an international workshop held in August in California (for details, see the second URL above).
www.eird.org
The United Nation's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Unit for Latin America and the Caribbean has
launched this new web site to promote disaster mitigation in the region and to help the unit better respond to the many
information requests it receives daily. The site provides information about the goals and many initiatives of the ISDR and
related events. It also provides on-line documents, such as the ISDR Informs magazine and the monthly ISDR Highlights,
and an educational section for children. The site is in both Spanish and English, and the developers welcome comments and
contributions.
www.who.int/eha/disasters/newsletter.shtml
This site hosts the Health in Emergencies newsletter published by the Department of Emergency and Humanitarian Action
of the World Health Organization. The June issue focuses on challenges to reproductive health in emergencies and includes
technical information as well as stories about specific locations and experiences.
www.bghrc.com
We recently received an e-mail announcing that the second issue of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre's
newsletter, Alert, was now available from the centre's web site above. Of course, we promptly took a look to see what our
colleagues across the pond are up to, and, well, they're up to a lot.
Rather than repeat the newsletter here, we'll suggest that interested hazard researchers and planners take a look. The centre's new projects include "Project Claudius," an effort to assess natural hazard risks in Italy and to examine a number of possible financial solutions to mitigate those risks; "Project RUNOUT," an attempt to develop early warning forecast techniques for large landslides, particularly along artificial reservoirs; TropicalStormRisk (TSR), a method for determining seasonal tropical cyclone forecasts; and a project examining "Social Responsibility in Disaster Reduction Projects," that focuses on private-sector involvement in five South Asia countries. The centre also announced formation of a "Seismic Risk Group" (SRG) to examine all aspects of seismic risk--from palaeoseismology to post-earthquake recovery.
www.worldbank.org/dmf/
www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/dmf/conceptual_articles.htm
The Worldbank's Disaster Management Facility (DMF) web site includes a series of succinct "Conceptual Articles" at the
second URL above:
www.fireplan.gov
In August 2000, the president directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to develop a response to severe
wildland fires, reduce fire impacts on rural communities, and ensure sufficient firefighting capacity in the future. Congress
in turn mandated implementation of a National Fire Plan (NFP) through its legislation and appropriations. The resultant
NFP (see the Observer, Vol. XXV, No. 3, p. 11) addresses conditions that have evolved over many decades and cannot be
reversed in a single year. Thus, it is a long-term commitment based on cooperation and communication among federal
agencies, states, local governments, tribes, and other interested parties.
The new National Fire Plan (NFP) web site hosted by the National Forest Service, Department of Interior, and National Association of State Foresters, documents how the federal government and state partners manage wildfire and wildfire impacts and focuses on preparedness and mitigation activities that can significantly reduce property and natural resource loss, as well as improve public safety. The site lists NFP activities in each state, provides current fire information, offers several background reports and publications, and provides individual sections covering the key points of the NFP: firefighting, rehabilitation/restoration, hazardous fuel reduction, community assistance, and accountability.
www.usgs.gov/hurricanes/stormsites.html
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has consolidated its Internet-based information and resources on hurricanes by
creating this "USGS Hurricanes and Coastal Storm Websites" page with links to other USGS sites that provide real-time
data, background maps and studies, historical analyses of specific storms, and other reports on hurricanes.
www.uthouston.edu/gateway/emergency.htm
research.uth.tmc.edu/Floodnews.htm
To see the consequences for an institution of higher education due to a tropical storm (or any natural hazard, for that
matter), check these web pages and learn how Tropical Storm Allison affected the University of Texas Health Science
Center at Houston.
water.usgs.gov/nwis/
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has just launched this new, on-line National Water Information System, dubbed
"NWISWeb," which provides 100 years of water data collected by this federal earth science agency. The new site integrates
real-time and historical streamflow data with many other types of water information, including historical water-quality data
from rivers and aquifers; historical ground-water-level data; and real-time water quality, precipitation, and ground-water
levels. This consolidated information can help users
NWISWeb is easy to use and allows clients not only to access data from the entire nation, but also to specify, search, and display data as desired (as graphs vs. tables, for example). Users who expect to make large and/or frequent requests are urged to first e-mail smtrapan@usgs.gov.
tgsv5.nws.noaa.gov/pr/hq/itic.htm
www.shoa.cl/oceano/itic/frontpage.html
These two web pages provide information from and about the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC) and the
International Coordinating Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific (ICG/ITSU). The first includes a
"Tsunami Reading List" and a history of the organizations. The second provides updated information on recent tsunamis
and earthquakes, details about upcoming conferences, the ITIC newsletter, field reports, conference proceedings, full-text
documents (including post-tsunami survey handbooks in various languages and the warning system's communication plan),
and recent tsunami watches or warnings. Further information on ITIC and the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific are
available from the International Tsunami Information Center Grosvenor Center, Mauka Tower, 737 Bishop Street, Suite
2200, Honolulu, HI 96813; (808) 532-6422; fax: (808) 532-5576; e-mail: itic@moana.itic.noaa.gov.
www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lab/1029
Longtime tsunami researcher George Pararas-Carayannis has assembled this colorful site, which includes bulletins about
recent events, conference announcements and reviews, tsunami FAQs (frequently asked questions), a section on societal
effects of tsunamis, a section on physical properties, a database of historical tsunamis, bibliographies, descriptions of
tsunami warning systems, a section on prediction and evaluation, a glossary, and links to other tsunami information on the
web.
www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/spacegd7.html
This site, prepared by Australian Michael Paine, offers a treatise on potential tsunamis generated by asteroid or comet
impacts. Besides attractive graphics and animation, the site is well-documented and includes links to numerous other
scholarly works on this hazard.
www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/acoustics/seismicity/nepac/gordaridge01.html
Want to hear an earthquake? From this web site, you can listen to seismic rumblings that followed an April 3 volcanic
eruption off the coast of Oregon--brought to you by NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. (This is but a
small corner of the excellent PMEL web site, which hosts much information about earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and
other hazards of the Pacific Rim.)
www.booth-seismic.co.uk/Gujarat
Sponsored by the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage, Edmund Booth, a British seismic engineer, and
Rabindra Vasavada, an architect from Ahmedabad, India, toured the earthquake-affected region of Gujarat, India, in March
of this year to determine the effects of January's massive quake on the palaces and other heritage buildings in the area. Their
findings are available from this web site.
The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) has undertaken a joint project with the International Association of Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) to create an interactive, web-based encyclopedia of housing construction types in seismically prone areas of the world.
The project will enable instant information exchange among engineers, architects, and other professionals throughout the world, providing tools to improve housing vulnerable to earthquakes and thereby reducing future economic losses and saving lives. Examples received so far from various countries that will form the basis for the web site can be viewed at www.johnmartin.com/EERI.
The developers of this project hope that the web site will build a community of knowledgeable workers in this area. Indeed, a next step is to organize this group, through activities such as training courses and demonstration projects, so that the knowledge can be shared with those actively engaged in planning, designing, constructing, and renovating housing. The web site will be completed and ready for use in December 2002.
The project steering committee has developed a standardized, multi-question form that participants can use to describe various construction types in their respective countries. The resulting database will be searchable by various parameters--country, seismic hazards, building function, building type, and other dimensions--and users will be able to generate graphs, tables, and presentations; view photos and drawings; and print summary forms. They will also be able to compare strengths and vulnerabilities of various construction systems and strengthening technologies, determine generally the number of people living in a specific type of structure, and evaluate each country's vulnerability to a particular building type. The site will include basic information on earthquakes and building performance in quakes, an array of global housing statistics, and country-specific information covering a host of physical and demographic data. Users will also be able to generate the encyclopedia in whole or in part as a conventional hard copy publication.
EERI and IAEE are seeking participants willing to contribute information on the housing in their own countries. A background in architecture or structural engineering is helpful. To date, over 160 volunteer engineers and architects from 45 different countries have agreed to participate. A complete roster can be downloaded from the EERI web site: www.eeri.org. Interested persons should send an e-mail to Svetlana Brzev, Project Chair, sbrzev@bcit.ca, or Marjorie Greene, EERI Special Projects Manager, mgreene@eeri.org.
Below are descriptions of recently awarded contracts and grants for the study of hazards and disasters. An inventory of contracts and grants awarded from 1995 to the present (primarily those funded by the National Science Foundation) is available on the Natural Hazards Center's web site: www.colorado.edu/hazards/grants.html.
Measuring the Environmental Context of Social Vulnerability to Urban Earthquake Hazards: An Integrative
Remote Sensing and GIS Approach. Funding: National Science Foundation, $6,125, 24 months. Principal Investigator:
John R. Weeks, Department of Geography, Mail Code 4493, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182; (619) 594-8040; e-mail: jrweeks@mail.sdsu.edu.
This funding will support doctoral dissertation research that analyzes the human ecology of urban earthquake risks using
remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and spatial analysis. The researcher will examine the use of the built
and natural environments to understand social processes associated with the 1994 Northridge earthquake in the Los Angeles
metropolitan area. He will identify urban land-cover attributes that are strongly associated with high and low levels of social
vulnerability to earthquake hazards and evaluate whether social vulnerability is reflected in spatial elements of urban
neighborhoods, particularly geographic conditions, the form and development of settlements, and the structure of open
spaces. Due to the relatively low cost of these techniques, they can be suitably modified for use by local governments in
both developed and developing countries.
Technological Disaster, Resource Loss and Long-Term Social Change in a Subarctic Community. Funding: National
Science Foundation, $210,416, 24 months. Principal Investigator: J. Steven Picou, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688; e-mail: spicou@jaguar1.usouthal.edu.
Picou will identify patterns of social change in a small fishing community affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
Based on survey and ethnographic data collected from 1989 through 2001, the loss of ecological, social, and cultural
resources will be evaluated and related to patterns of community stress and change.
Quick Response Study: The Gujarat, India, Earthquake of 26 January 2001. Funding: National Science Foundation,
$10,613, six months. Principal Investigator: Louise K. Comfort, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs,
University of Pittsburgh, WWPH 3E31, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e-mail: lkc@pitt.edu.
Comfort was part of an interdisciplinary, international reconnaissance team, organized by seismic safety institutions, to
study the impacts of the Gujarat earthquake in India. She interviewed public, private, and nonprofit organizations to identify
the types of information technologies used during the disaster response, how well the technologies met their needs, and
areas where improvement is needed. Combining this data with geographic information, she will generate a map of
information flows among organizations.
Improved Liquefaction Hazard Mapping Procedures for Urban Areas. Funding: National Science Foundation,
$54,727, 12 months. Principal Investigator: T. Leslie Youd, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brigham
Young University, Provo, UT 84602; e-mail: tyoud@byu.edu.
Liquefaction--soil behaving like liquid during earthquake shaking--has caused widespread damage to urban areas of both
the U.S. and Japan. This destruction has created public demand for state and local governments, public utilities, and other
agencies and businesses to mitigate liquefaction hazards in their respective jurisdictions. An initial stage of hazard
mitigation is the identification of vulnerable areas and their potential effects, and city planners, building officials, engineers,
utility companies, and loss estimators need maps with more detail and accuracy than are currently available. The purpose of
this study is to develop improved mapping techniques for delineation of liquefaction hazards.
Collaborative Research on Volcanic Hazard Mitigation in Guatemala and El Salvador. Funding: National Science
Foundation, $60,000, 36 months. Principal Investigators: William I. Rose and James W. Vallance, Michigan Technological
University, Houghton, MI 49931; e-mail: raman@mtu.edu.
This award will support a collaborative effort between the investigators and the seismological institutes in Guatemala and
El Salvador to study volcanic hazard mitigation in those countries, located in one of the most consistently active volcano
zones on earth. Many of the volcanoes in this region are close to population centers. The researchers will use satellite
remote sensing, survey data, and other technologies to develop a model of current and prospective hazards.
With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office for Central Europe and Eurasia of the National Research Council (NRC--the operating arm of the National Academies) offers grants to individual American specialists who plan to establish new research partnerships with colleagues from Central/Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS). Although proposals are accepted for collaborative research in all fields of basic science supported by NSF, this year the Collaboration in Basic Science and Engineering (COBASE) program has added three focus areas in which applications will be given special priority, one of which is extreme events.
Project Development and Initiation Grants support American researchers who wish to host and/or visit their CEE or NIS colleagues in order to initiate research projects and prepare collaborative research proposals for submission to NSF. U.S. applicants may request support for up to two visits in either or both directions. Grants will be in the range of $2,500 to $10,000.
Participating countries include Armenia, Azerbaijan (traveling only), Bosnia (hosting in U.S. only), Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, (former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia (see the project web site for an updated list of ineligible partner institutions), Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajik-istan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Only fields funded by NSF are eligible, including archaeology and anthropology; astronomy; biochemistry, biophysics and genetics; biological sciences; chemistry; computer science; earth sciences; economics; engineering; environmental sciences; geography; history and philosophy of science; linguistics; mathematics; physics; political science; nonclinically oriented psychology; science and technology policy; and sociology. Proposals outside the scope of the program will not be considered.
Although applications are accepted in all fields listed above, three special focus areas have been selected for the coming year: extreme events, Black Sea transboundary issues, and mathematics.
Proposals submitted regarding extreme events could include multidisciplinary research into forecasting, modeling, mitigating, and evaluating the consequences of extreme events. Projects could also focus on techniques for studying processes leading to extreme events or for dealing with uncertainties regarding predictions and actions taken. As the topic is multidisciplinary in nature, projects involving partners from different scientific fields are required.
Upcoming deadlines include January 4, 2002, and April 15, 2002. Details, application forms, and instructions are available from www.nationalacademies.org/oia. More infor-mation is available from the NRC, Office of International Affairs, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20418; (202) 334-2644; fax: (202) 334-2614; e-mail: ocee@nas.edu.
The Center for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CDMHA) has announced a request for proposals on ''Collaborative Research on Disasters in the Americas'' (see the previous Natural Hazards Observer, Vol. XXV, No. 6, pp. 12-14 for more information about this program and a list of grants awarded this year). Approximately $600,000 is available to fund up to six one-year projects with budgets up to $150,000 each, including indirect costs. Proposals will be considered in three areas: 1) public health issues in disasters; 2) social science, disasters, and development; and 3) information technology and decision science applied to disaster management. Projects must have a Latin America or Caribbean focus and must involve institutional collaboration between North and South American researchers. Letters of intent are due November 1, 2001. Interested researchers should request a copy of the complete request for proposals by contacting Erin Hughey, CDMHA; (813) 974-2907; e-mail: ehughey@hsc.usf.edu; or going to the CDMHA web site: www.cdmha.org. Other questions about the research program may be directed to Jeannine Coreil; (813) 974-6698; e-mail: jcoreil@hsc.usf.edu; or Nick Colmenares; (813) 876-1113; e-mail: erminow@aol.com.
