According to Lloyd’s City Risk Index 2015-2025, metropolitan region, such as Taipei, Tokyo and Seoul possess the top three risk of combined man-made and natural disasters in Asia. Therefore, the Taipei City government is very concerned of the natural hazards events, such as flooding and earthquake, which could easily post serious threats to the infrastructure, residents and business activities. Flooding is the most frequent disaster happened in Taipei City. Heavy rain resulted from not only typhoons (tropical windstorms) but also torrential rain has recently caused inundation and flooding in areas with concentrated economic activities. As for earthquake, according to the Taipei City Government online soil liquefaction database, nearly 30 percent of sites in Taipei with a medium to high propensity for soil liquefaction during an earthquake. Earthquake also could cause broken pipeline and damaged infrastructure and thereby induce failure of power and water supply. In light of those potential threats, this research investigated how the Taipei City government integrate techniques and resources from stakeholders to assess natural disaster risks for multi-sectors in the last few years.

The survival of oasis is partially determined by the evolution of desert-oasis transitional area (abbr. DOTA) characterized by fragile and unstable environments. This study reveals the function of DOTA in avoiding oasis land degradation from its aeolian environments based on the detailed wind data, in situ observation of wind-blown sand and granular characteristics of surface sediments from desert to oasis. Results indicate that the DOTA has buffering function in slowing down aeolian desertification in oasis. Additionally, the annual mean wind speed reduces 40.8% from desert to DOTA area but up to 92.8% from desert to oasis. The frequency of sand-laden wind, drift potential and sand transport all decrease following the section from desert to oasis while surface roughness increases. And the granular characteristics of surface sediments show that the weight percentage of coarse sand decreases but fine sand increases along the section from desert to oasis. This paper reveals that the aeolian environments are of great difference between desert and DOTA and the significant role of DOTA in protecting oasis. Integrated sand control system needs to be settled in the DOTA to strengthen its buffering function.

As a major agricultural province, Anhui is threatened by gale disaster in planting, warehousing, transportation and even human security. So it is important to understand the gale disaster comprehensively in Anhui, while the problem of the lack of long-term observational wind data should be solved at first. Based on meteorological data, geographic information, damage record and socio-economic statistics data, using the distribution function of extremum I, the multiple regression analysis and the inverse distance weighted method, constructing a scheme of rolling incremental extreme value samples to correct the missing maximum wind speed data, the gale risk in Anhui has been assessed. The results show: 1. After using the correction scheme, usable observational data increase 4 times. Furthermore, a precise interpolation integrating topographic factors is carried out, and the average relative error between the interpolation and the calculated return period wind speed on non-missing observational stations is below 5%. 2. The main gale area distributed patchily in western Yangtze River basin, the Jianghuai Watershed, the southern Anhui Mountains and the Dabie Mountains, etc. The maximum wind speed of 5,10,15,20,30,50,100 years return period can reach 27.7 m/s, 28.7 m/s, 29.9 m/s, 30.7 m/s, 31.9 m/s, 33.8 m/s and 36.6 m/s separately. 3. When the return period is more than 50 years, the occurrence of casualty and agricultural loss turns more frequently, and the potential disaster population and direct economic losses get more. 4. Taking wind speed of the 50 years return period as the disaster threshold, considering the distribution of population and GDP synthetically, using the standard deviation classification method, moderate and higher gale risk areas distributed star likely in western Huaibei, the Yangtze Rive basin and some large and medium-size cities, where is economically advanced or densely populated in Anhui.

Back in 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) struck the Philippines and left over 6,000 casualties. Ninety-four percent (94%) of these casualties were caused by storm surges. An accurate and time-critical early warning system could have saved thousands of lives by being a crucial factor in a fast and efficient evacuation procedure. However, in the Philippines, there have been little to no advancement in techniques on how to reliably model and present predictions for storm surges, nor ways to disseminate storm surge warnings based from said predictions. This research aims to design and implement an accurate and time-critical early warning system, as well as simulate predicted storm surge occurrences using a cluster-based and task-parallel computation of the coupling of both the Advanced Multi-Dimensional Circulation (ADCIRC) Model and the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) Model. The early warning system includes a Django-powered website that shows the maximum elevation of the storm surge, as well as inland inundation, in the form of an animation superimposed over a clickable map. A text-messaging module has also been implemented to warn local government units of a storm surge threat at most 48 hours in advance of an incoming typhoon. This will inform respective authorities regarding the storm surge threat every two hours after the initial warning and provide backbone to crucial evacuation efforts.

Large earthquake struck in the eastern Iburi prefecture, Hokkaido, Japan on 6 September 2018. This earthquake triggered several thousands of shallow landslides with magnitude of 6.7. The earthquake victims from the earthquake rises 41 and 462 houses were totally and 14,170 houses were partially destroyed. In this study, we examined the characteristics of landslides caused by the earthquake on the area where thick pyroclastic fall deposits were covered in Hokkaido. By mapping landslides using high-resolution aerial photography and laser altimetry, 4,272 landslides were identified in Atsuma river watershed. Field survey and statistical analysis resulted that shallow landslides were characterized as follows: 1) the tephra deposits on sedimentary rock (Neocene sedimentary rock) were translationally slipped by the strong seismic shock, 2) shallow landslide layers were on the impermeable weathered tephra layer, 3) the most of shallow landslides occurred at relatively gentle slope (<30°), 4) Highest landslide ratio rises 35% at the Towa creek watershed  5) A large-scale deep-seated landslides occurred and resulted landslide dam.

For the last few decades, many destructive earthquakes, tsunamis, severe storm/food and landslide occurred in the world. Based on lessons learnt from 2004 Sumatra Earthquake/Tsunamis, 2010 Chilean Earthquake/Tsunami and 2011 East Japan Earthquake/Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane Katrina etc., we recognized the importance of real time monitoring on Earthquakes and Tsunamis for disaster mitigation, awareness, preparedness, recovery and resilience. Recently, many destructive natural disasters such as 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake and 2018 heavy rain/food/landslide in western Japan, and 2018 destructive earthquakes/tsunamis/landslide/ volcanic eruption in Indonesia.  In these natural disasters, we recognize early warning systems, recoveries, revivals and human resource cultivations are very important and indispensable. In Tohoku area damaged by large tsunamis, recovers/revivals have been under progressing after over 7 years passed after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Therefore, we have to prepare the pre recovery plan before next destructive disasters such as the Nankai trough mega thrust earthquake in Japan etc. As one of disaster countermeasures, we would like to propose that Disaster Mitigation Science or Resilience Science. This resilience science is including engineering, science, medicine and social science such as sociology, informatics, law, literature, art, psychology etc. for resilient society. The resilience science is integrated advanced science/ technology for disaster mitigation, recovery/future society and human resource cultivation. For Disaster mitigation, the urgent evacuation is indispensable. However, the urgent evacuation is not so easy because the short of real time monitoring system and insufficient risk communication literacy. Therefore, advanced science and technology is important and significant. Furthermore, the literacy of risk communication among researchers, media people administrative people and public people is very important for preparedness and evacuation etc. We will explain about Resilience Science.    

The study of tsunami deposits in the Philippines resulting from historical or probable paleo-tsunamis have been challenging due to other phenomena (e.g. floods, storm surges, anthropogenic modification, etc.) which may negatively affect the preservation of overwash sediments. In this study, the preservation potential of the overwash sediments related to the 15 November 1994 Mindoro tsunami is assessed. The 1994 Mindoro tsunami resulted from a M_s 7.1 earthquake along the dextral Aglubang River Fault and caused 38 casualties. Geomorphological mapping, time-series analysis of satellite imagery, and numerical modeling, and historical records were used to determine sites and settings where tsunami overwash may be deposited and preserved. The northern coast of Oriental Mindoro, from Calapan to San Teodoro, is a generally low-lying (< 4 masl) alluvial plain except for a few residual hills occurring as rocky promontories tens of meters high. Westward to the town of Puerto Galera, the transition to rocky and cliffed coasts is observed. Rivers draining northward to the Verde Island Passage terminate with tide-dominated deltas. Wide areas of mangrove wetlands are present along river mouths, tidal inlets, or fronting coasts. Depositional landforms such as spits and barrier islands are also present. The nearshore bathymetry is also shallow (< 4m), due to terrestrial inputs during floods which are transported by longshore currents. Time-series data (Landsat, Sentinel, Digital Globe, and NAMRIA topographic maps) show that the planimetric geometry of various tidal inlets have changed minimally from 1992 to the present. Preliminary tsunami modeling indicates wave heights (>2 m) and velocities (>4 m/s) which may be capable of coastal sediments and transport them tens of meters inland. These initial findings point to mangrove wetlands adjacent to tidal inlets, such as those in San Teodoro, Baco, and Calapan, as promising sites for the deposition and preservation of 1994 Mindoro tsunami overwash.

Coastal areas bordering Moro Gulf in southwestern Philippines were devastated when a tsunami resulted from the 17 August 1976 Mw 8.1 earthquake along the Cotabato Trench. As the high energy waves hit onshore, geomorphological changes occurred such as deposition of sand units and erosion of coastal features. In this study, we interpreted Landsat images before and after the tsunami to identify changes in the coastal geomorphology of Zamboanga del Sur and Sultan Kudarat. Satellite images after the 1976 event (at 10-year intervals) were also compared to observe the recovery of eroded coastal features. A supervised classification of land cover was done to categorize land cover classes in the coastal areas. From remote sensing, it was observed that the beach deposits in Zamboanga del Sur and Sultan Kudarat vary in composition. The Zamboanga del Sur coast has wide tidal flats with darker color, presumably volcanic in origin, while the coast of Sultan Kudarat has prominent fringing reefs and light-colored beach, likely made of biogenic materials. Tombolos, barrier islands, and spits in Sultan Kudarat were eroded after the 1976 event and recovered since then. Over the years, land cover was fast-changing in Zamboanga del Sur and Sultan Kudarat. Most of the highly vegetated areas have been used for agriculture, wetlands were planted with mangroves, and geomorphological features were modified by human settlements. From satellite imagery, we were able to observe the effects of tsunami inundation on coastal landforms. These results allow us to better understand the environmental evolution of coastlines bordering the Moro Gulf.

According to historical records, the tsunami caused by the Yaeyama earthquake in 1771 hit the Sakishima Islands in Southwest Japan, and many tsunami stones have been identified in the east coastal area of ​​Ishigaki Island. Recent trench surveys have also reported gravel layers that are thought to be tsunami deposits (Ando et al., 2018). To identify the characteristics of the event sediments caused by tsunamis and typhoons, we conducted a pit survey, ground-penetrating radar exploration, and sediment particle size analysis in the Shiraho district on the east coast of Ishigaki Island. Coral reefs exist on the coast of the survey site, and the sand on the beach is primarily composed of fragments of coral, shell, foraminifera, and coral gravels. In the vicinity of the survey area, it has been reported that the tsunami caused by the Yaeyama earthquake was approximately 30 m in height. In the survey, six pits were excavated in a section approximately 100 m from the back of the beach ridge. The height of the current beach ridge is approximately 5 m. The pit survey confirmed the existence of several potential layers of event sediments. In particular, in a pit approximately 100 m from the beachfront, an event layer consisting of coarse-grained sand and gravel was confirmed between soil layers. In this event layer, the particle size changes from inverse graded to graded. Because this layer is thought to have been deposited beyond the sandy shore, there is a possibility that it was formed by an extreme wave such as a tsunami.

The frequency of extreme weather events was analyzed using meteorological data (air temperature, precipitation, and duration of sunshine) collected from 61 stations over a 36-year span (1981-2016) in South Korea. The 10-day meteorological data were used as a basic unit for this analysis. On average, the frequency of occurrence of abnormal weather was 9.88 per year and has increased significantly during this 36-year period. According to the type of abnormal weather, the frequencies of occurrence of abnormally high air temperature and short duration of sunshine have increased by 0.50 and 0.41 per 10 years, respectively; however, that for abnormally low air temperature has decreased by 0.31 per 10 years and the trend was statistically significant. The highest frequency of abnormal weather appeared in 2007, with a frequency of 14.31. Abnormal weather was the most frequent at Yeongdeok station, located in Central-eastern coastal region of South Korea, with an average frequency of 11.78 per year over this 36-year span. Acknowledgment: This study was carried out with the support of Research Program for Agricultural Science & Technology Development (Project No. PJ01229301), National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

“Minna de Honkoku” (https://honkoku.org/) is an online citizen science project to transcribe earthquake-related historical materials from Earthquake Research Institute Library, the University of Tokyo. In Japan, almost all the documents are written in Kuzushi-ji. Kujzushi-ji is writing style used before ~1900. Since the style is different from that of modern Japanese, transcription is necessary to use the historical documents as data for earthquake research. “Minna de Honkoku” consists of viewer of document image and vertical (Japanese-style) editor for transcription. Users can input transcribed texts viewing its image. The ranking of characters transcribed is displayed to keep motivation of users. Until January 2019, over 4000 people registered for the project. We loaded 499 documents on the project and 91% of them have been already transcribed. Total number of characters transcribed is about 5.5 million. We made preliminary analyses of the full text produced by “Minna de Honkoku” which is a project for crowdsourced transcription of Japanese documents on historical earthquakes. We used existing tools for text mining and dictionary to extract frequent words and co-occurrence network. We also tried to extract ace names using an integrated historical gazetteer. The word “earthquake” cooccur with the words that describes direction and place as well as damage. We need good dictionary and gazetteer to obtain better results of text mining. Acknowledgement: We thank all the participants and staffs of “Minna de Honkoku.”

One of the dams holding in the Xe-Namnoy hydroelectric reservoir (Saddle dam D) in Southern Laos failed catastrophically on July 23^rd 2018 and caused severe flash flooding and the loss of life, limb and property. The saddle dam was located at the divide between the Xe-Nanmoy River basin and the Vang Ngao River basin. First, we address an issue on whether was it a natural hazard produced by extreme precipitation or an engineering failure. We integrate NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurements (GPM) rainfall record, time-series Sentinel-1 SAR data with SRTM DEM, to reconstruct the reservoir water level since May 2017 when the reservoir started to store water. Our results show that reservoir water level was lower than the dam crest (limit of storage capacity) when the dam collapsed; indicating that reservoir did not fill up and did not overtop the dam, hence indicating structural failure. Second, we estimated that the failure of Saddle dam D released 350 million tons of water that spilled off to the adjacent Vang Ngao basin causing catastrophic flash flood downstream over the next two days, and the reservoir level to fell 20m. Third, the saddle dam was an “Earth-fill” dam, assumed to be impermeable. However, sediments sampled from a nearby quarry suggest a mixture of a like-loess, oxisols and saprolite was used for the construction. Grain size analysis suggests a significant proportion of silt or silt-size muddy “aggregates” (semi-permeable). We consider that a lack of compaction and a potential overestimation of the clay content by dispersion of mud aggregates while conducting geotechnical analyses, contributed to underestimate the risk of piping and seepage susceptibility. In conclusion, the disaster is caused collectively by lack of assessment of impacts and hazards in the receptive basin in case of failure, poor geomorphological-geotechnical engineering, and efficient emergency plan or alerts.

Satellite images have been widely used to effectively respond and manage the growing intensity and frequent disasters around the world. Recently, according to the development of techniques using artificial intelligence such as machine learning and deep learning, researches on disaster management with those new technologies are actively being conducted, however, in the event of a real situation, decision makers often miss golden time due to the lack of clear criteria on which satellite resources to respond to disaster. In particular, a lack of studies on which scale of disaster can be detected in which of satellite images with specific spatial resolution have limitations in supporting decision makers, nevertheless the available satellite images are dramatically increasing. In this study, various types of disasters were detected in higher than 1m resolution optical (KOMPSAT-2, 3 & 3A) and radar (KOMPSAT-5) satellite images, and we built a database of the size of the detected disasters in each satellite image. To this end, the disaster type was classified according to the national disaster category, satellite images were collected before and after the actual disaster occurred, and the estimated damage areas were accumulated in the database. This study was carried out to help decision makers to make prompt decisions and establish a system for using satellite images in the event of a disaster, and the results of the study are expected to be utilized as the fundamental data for decision makers to respond to disasters in the future.

Abstract: Blown sand activities in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau are strong and desertified lands are widely distributed. Variation of hydrothermal conditions after ground surface desertifies in permafrost regions currently remains unclear. The variations of water content and thermal flux of the desertified ground surface were thus investigated by synchronization contrast observation of the locale field. Results show that water content decreased after the ground surface of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau desertified, especially at the surface depth of 0.05 m. The annual average water content decreased by nearly half. As the soil of desertified ground surface became coarse, water storage and water retention capacities simultaneously weakened. With the high permeability coefficient, the water holding capacity and thermal conductivity of sand layer decreased, thus causing the decrease of thermal flux on the sand layer. The heat conducted through the sand layer to the underground decreased, which can prevent the permafrost from warming and thawing and is therefore beneficial to delaying permafrost degradation.

Concrete petrography is a vital tool in ensuring the quality and safety of concrete structures around the world. In the Philippines, this method has long been known but only lately became available and feasible for use by the government and industry at large. Testing of construction materials in the country have been limited to physical strength testing and do not give information on the durability. The Philippines is also threatened by numerous potential natural hazards which makes the quality assurance of construction materials paramount. A government funded project seeks to complement existing test methods with concrete petrography in order to ensure strength and serviceability of public structures. Public structures such as bridges, dams, government head offices, hospitals, and evacuation centers will be subject to testing. The two-year project is expected to have a deep and lasting impact on the formation and implementation of national policy and the proposed National Building Code. Evacuation routes and sites within Metro Manila, the Philippine capital with the looming threat of a 7.6 Mw earthquake from the centrally-located West Valley Fault, are to be assessed and updated as the number of bridges that could collapse may potentially put millions under the risk of isolation. Beyond the two-year pilot program for Metro Manila, adoption into National Policy of Concrete Petrography is expected and more programs in other major urban centers around the country projected.

The concentrations of greenhouse gases was continuing to increase in 2017, while the global mean temperatures were 1.1 °C above pre-industrial levels, which was the second warmest year on record, and the warmest year not influenced by an El Niño event. The cryosphere continued its contraction, with the lowest winter maximum sea-ice extent of Arctic sea, and near record low levels of Antarctic throughout the year. Global sea-surface temperatures were well above 1981-2010 average, and the global mean sea level was rising steadily. The ocean heat content reached new record highs, with the intensified impact of ocean acidification. Many significant weather and climate events occurred in 2017, including a very active North Atlantic hurricane season, major monsoon floods in the Indian subcontinent, continuing severe drought in parts of east Africa, as well as some torrential rains, heat waves, forest fires and severe convective weather at regional or local scale worldwide. Economic losses from weather and climate related disasters set a new record in 2017. This paper summarizes the major events and its impact in 2017, and analyses the formation reasons of typical events including the flood situation in the Yangtze River basin in China and the heat wave during summer in the United States. Analysis shows that the westward extension and enhancement of West Pacific Subtropical High led to the transport of warm air flows from low latitude, while the upper trough in Northeastern Asia brought the cold air southward, the interactions of warm and cold air masses led to the heavy rainfall and severe flood in China; the stagnation and stability of North America Subtropical High and the weakening condition of water vapor transport are the main reason of the summer heat wave in the United States.

Peatlands transformation in Indonesia have caused immense ecological and environment impacts. This transformation has led to a drought-fire prone peatlands. Public awareness to tackle with this drought-fire in peatlands has risen nowadays including in development of a suitable drought-fire indicator. Current knowledge states that both climate and hydrological importance of drought-fire in tropics, but the important of soil properties in controlling peatland drying remains unclear. In this study, we improved a drought-fire model to be used in tropical peatlands. We tested our model called as modified Keetch-byram drought index in Kuburaya peatland, West Kalimantan Indonesia. In the field, we monitored rainfall, groundwater levels, and soil moisture at 10-minute resolution for 2018. Our results showed that peat-soil properties influence peat drying, by controlling water availability. The model showed a good performance in assessing fire occurrence, as indicated by very high-index occurrence coincided with fire events. Further, our findings revealed that groundwater levels below 55 cm may increase fire susceptibility of transformed peatlands. The findings suggest that development of drought-fire index may help to increase public awareness on peat-fire, and this application may able to minimize the fire susceptibility.

The 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons in the western United States were extremely catastrophic and costly. More than 20 billion dollars of insured losses were registered. Overwhelmed by the liability claims after the 2018 Camp fire, Pacific Gas and Electric company went insolvency. It will take years for the devastated communities, especially Coffey park and town of Paradise, to recover. This study thoroughly analyzed datasets including thousands of damaged buildings in recent wildfires in California. The results of this study identify key building characteristics, surrounding environmental factors and landscaping characteristics, which dictate building vulnerability during wildfire events. These identified factors are then employed in a portfolio wildfire risk analysis using 10,000-year stochastic catalog. These factors’ impacts are then evaluated by examining the changes of expected annual losses. The findings of this study shed lights on wildfire risk reduction and mitigation measurement selection.

Since the beginning of 1950s, there were some research and projects for combating desertification/land degradation in China, but can’t meet the needs from national to local levels. In 1958 the Central Government convened a National Conference on Combating Desertification. Meanwhile, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) established the Institute of Desert Research to study the process and situation of damages from the desert/desertification and propose the desertification control strategy. China promulgated the Law of the People's Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Desertification in 2001. Scientists contributed a lot to the LAW based on the researching results on environmental background, main causes, dynamic pattern, method and technique, proposal of policy and project, etc. Take the Aeolian Desertification as an example. We defined the aeolian desertification is land degradation through wind erosion mainly resulted from the human impacts in arid, semiarid and sub-humid regions of Northern China. The key point to the definition, based on our study for 4 decades, is that the aeolian desertification has been caused mainly (more than 80%) by human activity on the unreasonable pattern and intensity of land use and can be combated by human being only. So, our scientific group suggested and designed the “Grain for Green Program”, with the guarantee of success on theory and practice, to the Central Government for combating aeolian desertification in Northern China. This Program carried out since 1997 and will be finished by 2019 with 75 billion Yuan Investment (about 11 billion US$), which completely comes from the national budget. The encouraged result that the aeolian desertified land decreased and the developed rates came to negative number since 2000. One can say that UNCCD’s “Land Degradation Neutrality target setting” had achieved since 2000 from the aspect of combating aeolian desertification in Northern China.

Indoor radon is a major hazard to human health, being the second cause of lung cancer after smoking. In Europe, this has led to radon regulation in the 2013 EURATOM Basic Safety Standards which is European Law binding for EU Member States. Its objective is to reduce exposure. It requires, setting concentration reference levels in dwellings and workplaces; defining radon-priority areas, where action shall be taken to reduce exposure with priority; and implementing radon action plans which include QA of measurements, radon mitigation and communication to the public. Among achievements of European radon research is the European radon map as part of the European Atlas of Natural Radiation, created by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, to be presented in this overview. Another activity addressed is the EU funded Metro Radon project, devoted to QA in the chain from radon measurement to delineation of radon priority areas. In Asia, Australia and Oceania, radon research has been of comparatively smaller dimension. It seems that radon exposure is not seen as a major hazard. A recent study estimates over 120,000 annual lung cancer fatalities attributable to radon in the region, however based on scarce data. Exhaustive surveys seem to exist in China, Japan and South Korea only. For several countries, no data are available at all. In any case, the number suggests that radon hazard deserves more attention. The situation is different with studies about the usability of radon as tracer of tectonic predictor, as some countries are located in seismically active zones. India and Taiwan are globally leaders in this research together with Italy, another seismically affected country. We give an overview of radon-related surveying and research activities in the South and East Asian, Oceania and Australian region, also addressing recent results about radon as seismic tracer.

The 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake took by surprise communities and authorities in the Province of Sichuan, China. We made a documentary film that explains to mainstream audiences some of the unique tectonic risk inherent to this region. The film also presents testimonies from survivors of this devastating event as it follows the trail of destruction throughout a few cities and remote villages in the Longmenshan fault region. In spite of the tragic outcome of this seismic episode, the event helped to improve earthquake preparedness in the region. This presentation provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of our documentary film “The Sichuan Hard Road” (蜀道難). The 50-minute film is a co-production between Singapore and China, and it is spoken and narrated in Chinese and Sichuanese with English subtitles.

Guided by Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study analyzed the factors that influence the behavioral intention of the people to relocate given that their houses are transected by and within the recommended 5-meter zone of avoidance from an active fault. While the risk of ground rupture due to the movement of the 100-km-long West Valley Fault has been determined, these residents decided to remain. Overall, 77 respondents in Barangay Pembo, Makati City were surveyed and interviewed. A standardized survey questionnaire probed the residents’ knowledge level (i.e. hazard and risk awareness) and practice (i.e. disaster preparedness) in addition to the TPB variables, to wit, attitude toward relocation, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Chi-square test of independence was performed to determine which among these factors significantly influence their behavioral intention to relocate. Results show that most of the respondents have high knowledge level. However, only few practice disaster preparedness, and intend to relocate only after three years. Among the factors, attitude and subjective norm significantly influence their intention to relocate. These findings may be used to aid disaster risk reduction initiatives of the government, whereby focus should be given to the factors that may positively lead to the desired behavior.

As the most powerful event in Lombok’s recent eruptive history with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, the 1257 CE eruption of Samalas volcano had large consequences in Lombok and its surrounding area. For a huge eruption with such an enormous volume (4,435 ± 5.5 x 10⁶ m³), we believed there were local written sources that record the 1257 CE phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, we present two written sources, namely Babad Lombok and Babad Suwung, which undoubtedly refer to the 1257 CE ultraplinian eruption of Samalas volcano in Rinjani Volcanic Complex, Lombok Island, Indonesia. In addition to physical aspect measurement, multiple interviews with old Javanese linguist and museum employee were done to clarify the meanings of some words as well as the history of the Babads. The results from field observation and interviews were analyzed and compared with previous researches. Babad Lombok describes the process of Samalas eruption, the formation of Segara Anak caldera, and the impacts of voluminous ash fall and pyroclastic flow in Lombok Island. Meanwhile, Babad Suwung describes the history of Lombok Kingdom as well as the impacts of a volcanic eruption in Talkuwang (Taliwang), on the western coast of Sumbawa Island. The discovery of Babad Lombok and Babad Suwung; as well as its explanation related to the 1257 CE eruption of Samalas can make these babads as the oldest observation of pyroclastic surges and volcanic fallout, following those by Pliny the Younger in 79 CE.

Like other natural hazards, statistical distribution of tsunami recurrence times from historical data enables scientists and coastal management professionals a snapshot of the estimated tsunami recurrence interval and related tsunami hazards at a particular coastal region. In this study, we develop probability distribution of tsunami interevent times using eleven stochastic models from time-independent, time-dependent, heavy-tailed and exponentiated class of models. These distributions are namely, exponential, gamma, lognormal, Weibull, inverse Gaussian, Levy, Maxwell, Pareto, Rayleigh, exponentiated exponential and exponentiated Weibull. While the model parameters are estimated from the maximum likelihood estimation method, model comparison is evaluated from the Akaike information criterion and the non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. For illustration purpose, we consider the entire Indian Ocean region, which remains one of the most tsunamigenic regions of the world. Results reveal that estimated cumulative probability reaches 0.90–0.95 in about 25–30 years (2031–2036) since the last tsunami event, whereas the conditional probability reaches 0.90–0.95 in about 16–20 years (2034–2038) for an elapsed time of 12 years (i.e., 2018). A series of conditional probability curves are also presented to describe the projected tsunami hazard in the study region.

The 1946 Aleutian and 1960 Chile earthquakes generated tsunamis and caused damage across the Pacific Ocean, and motived to establish Pacific-wide international tsunami warning system. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused damage across the Indian Ocean and motivated to establish tsunami warning systems in other ocean basins, as well as deep ocean bottom pressure gauge networks. The 2010 Chile and 2011 Tohoku tsunamis were recorded on these tsunami gauges across the Pacific Ocean, but they showed arrival time later than expected by linear long waves. Transoceanic tsunami heights can be estimated by either simple tsunami magnitude formula or numerical simulation using the real bathymetry. Only giant size of earthquake (M~9) can produce high and damaging tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami warning centers rely on seismic observations, but they also introduce real-time inversion of bottom pressure (DART) records, for tsunami warning. The transoceanic tsunami amplitudes become large in the direction perpendicular to the long axis of the source, known as directivity effect. The travel time delays of trans-Pacific tsunami has been found that due to effects of elasticity of the earth and ocean water, as well as gravity potential. Trans-Pacific tsunamis originated in North and South America were recorded in historical documents in Japan. The Japanese tsunami data were used to estimate the origin time and size of the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. The historical Chilean earthquakes were also recorded in Japan due to favorable directivity. The Peruvian source has weaker tsunami directivity toward Japan with about a half amplitude, compared to the Chilean source. The records of the 1586 Peruvian tsunami in Japan were found to be ghost, while those from 1687 earthquake seem to be real.

There has been a lot of attention on submarine landslides and their attendant tsunamis in the South China Sea basin, specially with the recent flank collapse of Anak Krakatau, Indonesia. The first question one might ask is: what is the best way to model a landslide, subaerial or submarine? Our own answer is: via cellular automata! Automata can be reprogrammed, and thus might capture the phase change that happens when a seemingly solid mass liquefies and flow. The next question would be: what is the best way to model a tsunami? Our own answer would be: some CFD or computational fluid dynamics software, which are overwhelmingly based on the variation or weak formulation. Right now, we are most interested in two localities: the Kaoping Slope off Southwest Taiwan, and the Baram River Slope on the Northwest Borneo through. We could explore existing ‘integrated’ approaches to the problem, e.g., use CFD to model both the submarine slide and the tsunami. This will work best for translational and superficial flows We might also try a non-integrated approach, wherein we keep cellular automata modelling for the submarine slide (could then take care of deep-seated slides and rockfall), and use some CFD method for the tsunami. We will show results for the integrated approach, and lay-out the plan for the non-integrated approach.   

The Indonesian archipelago is densely populated and highly vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Behavioral theory suggests that preparedness is positively correlated with both perceived risk (threat) and ability to engage in life-saving behavior (efficacy). We surveyed local students in Bali, Lombok, and Sumba (N=2,386) to evaluate perceptions of threat and efficacy, history of evacuation simulation engagement, and intended evacuation behaviors. Mean perception of earthquake susceptibility, tsunami susceptibility, and tsunami efficacy was significantly higher in Java compared to all other islands. Java is closest in proximity to Sumatra where the Indian Ocean tsunami killed >170,000 people. Java experienced its own tsunami in 2006. Sumba, the furthest island from Sumatra, had the lowest reported mean susceptibility to both earthquakes and tsunamis. Bali had the lowest perceived efficacy, potentially owing to southern Bali’s flat terrain. Participation in evacuation simulations decreased moving eastward from Sumatra (Java 45.6%, Bali 32.7%, Lombok 21.5%, Sumba 16.8%). Only 65.1% of participants reported they would evacuate if they observed natural warning signs, and this number was highest in Java (76.7%) compared to all other islands (58.8%-61.6%). 70.0% of total participants reported they would evacuate after an order/alert from authorities, 31.5% after information from family or friends, and 40.7% after observing others evacuating. 82.0% intended to evacuate uphill if a tsunami was approaching (Java 93.4%, Sumba 83.4%, Lombok 76.6%, Bali 65.7%). Other major intentions included inland evacuation (63.3%) and ascending a tall building (31.8%). Our study highlights the importance of increasing risk perception in tsunami-vulnerable areas removed from recent disaster, increasing efficacy by identifying or building evacuation structures in flat areas and conducting evacuation drills, and teaching the importance of immediate self-evacuation when tsunami natural warning signs are observed.

Prevention of excessive groundwater pumping has become an urgent issue worldwide.  However, this problem is not new, and is known to have occurred 200 years ago in some villages in the Tokai region of Japan where communities had created an institution known as the Kabu-ido. In Japanese, Kabu means “privilege to do business” and ido means “well”: thus Kabu-ido can be interpreted as meaning “the special right to dig wells”. Such privilege connotes the existence of an institution specially dedicated to the regulation of groundwater pumping. The history of groundwater management at local level has been described in many studies from various countries, including China, England, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Yet, because of a lack of documentation, few studies have examined how excessive groundwater pumping was managed before the 20th century. The purpose of this study is to highlight the evolution of the Kabu-ido system as a response to climate changes in the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the Tokai region. In this interdisciplinary collaboration between a social scientist, a historian and an environmental scientist, we reconstructed the details of the climate changes that took place by using tree-ring isotope analysis and weather information contained in a local residents' diary. By contrasting the history of the Kabu-ido system with the reconstructed climate data, we found that drought was a major cause for the evolution of the Kabu-ido. We scrutinized a series of community expenditure documents and identified changes in expenditures associated with well construction. By analyzing the relationship between the reconstructed climate data and expenditures associated with well construction, we found that the Kabu-ido system was effective in regulating groundwater pumping to some extent.

This paper intends to highlight historian’s perspectives on historical data and data recovery processes for research into, and reconstruction of, past disaster events, alongside a continuous long-term series of weather data for underreported areas in Southeast Asia and the China Seas region. It argues that more multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work is needed by scholars working in different fields on disaster and on past climates, in order to offer a more holistic assessment of these. In particular it argues the value of improved working between the sciences and the humanities for understanding climate variability and change and for putting extreme events in a longer and more complete context. At the same time, this approach also offers a better connection of climate with social impact and change. It draws from data/narrative recovery and reanalysis work recently undertaken under the umbrella of the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative, as well as wider regional research on climate and society in Southeast Asia, especially Singapore and Malaysia for the pre-1950s period.

Meteorological extreme events affect China’s economic development, society and welfare condition in an extraordinary way. The impact of strong tropical cyclones (TCs) is of crucial importance and leading to major losses in coastal China, especially in Guangdong Province. The development and application of financial instruments for risk transfer is one way to mitigate severe and negative impacts on different sectors of society. Other than classical (re)insurance solutions, parametric insurance solutions have recently been developed for test cases in some areas by SwissRe Beijing Branch. However, there are some challenges in designing a reliable structure for the parametric insurance programmes. First due to very limited and instationary nature of meteorological information available for high impact TCs, the current assessment of the real hazard frequency and intensity contains large uncertainty. Second the regionalized impact of TCs leads to difficulties in the robust estimate of losses per sub-region or prefecture level, which will lead to under- or over-compensating for specific prefectures. INPAIS aims to improve the hazard risk assessment and thus to improve the response trigger points for a parametric TC insurance for Guangdong province and further regions of relevance. This presentation provides an overview of INPAIS for Guangdong Province China. The methodology and preliminary findings are also discussed.

Sea level rise has significant impact on the coastal socio-economic, natural environment and ecological systems. In China, areas which are severely affected by the rising sea levels are mainly in Bohai Bay, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. In this paper, flooded area estimates are based on the source submerge algorithm combined with dyke break flowing model. An accurate calculation and simulation method of water surface evolution based on the combination of influent water intake and source diffusion algorithm is proposed. The sufficient condition for a geographic unit to be submerged is that the water level is greater than or equal to its elevation and must be connected to the source. The calculation accuracy of the surface flooding evolution is affected by the accuracy of the terrain data, the grid accuracy after terrain transformation, and the precision of the geographical unit. By setting tide and dam parameters by user, system can calculate the maximum height of sea level rise; then starting at 0m sea surface, submerged area of each sea level rise height can be estimated, thus forming the result data sets of submerged area from 0m to predict the height. At last, the results of the model calculations are transferred into shp format as time series object of dynamic evolution, and superposed on the earth sphere model; 3D real models are added to improve the realistic of simulation. Tianjin Binhai New Area was selected as study area for submerged area dynamic simulation under different sea levels. Results show that this system can provide efficient support for flood disaster warning of coastal area after the rise of sea level.

Cebu City was reported by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to have at least 770 sinkholes, posing a major threat to residents living near the area. Sinkholes, as well as caves and subterranean rivers, are characteristic features of a karst terrain. A sinkhole forms due to the dissolution of highly soluble bedrock such as carbonates and evaporites. Cebu City is dominantly underlain by carbonate-bearing formations: Cebu Formation, Malubog Formation, and Carcar Formation. Sinkhole formation and development is influenced by several natural factors, including bedrock lithology, relief, and proximity to fractures. As such, we compared sinkhole occurrence with various geological and geomorphological factors to correlate their spatial relationship. We processed the ground-validated sinkholes from the MGB to analyze the morphometry of sinkholes in Cebu City using ArcGIS 10.3 and QGIS 2.16. The sinkhole attributes that were analyzed include area, ellipticity, and eccentricity. These attributes were then related to each carbonate-bearing formation and various DEM-derived parameters (e.g., elevation, slope, etc.). Preliminary results reveal variations in the geometry of sinkholes with respect to the formation on which they occur. Sinkholes that occur on the younger Carcar Formation are smaller in area compared to the rest of the sinkholes in older carbonate units. In general, larger sinkholes exhibit elongation along the NE-SW direction, which are aligned with the lineaments found in Central Cebu. Most of the sinkholes can also be found on flat to gently sloping areas. Analysis of the morphometry of sinkholes and their relationship with geological and geomorphological factors aid in the understanding of sinkhole genesis and development in understudied tropical karst areas similar to Cebu City.

Recent extreme events caused by severe weather and climate change including inland flood, typhoon and storm surge, and by earthquake and its induced tsunami caused significant loss of life and property damage. It is a growing challenge to forecast and reconstruct these events as part of catastrophe response at Risk Management Solutions (RMS). It is even more challenging to fully quantify the risks for the insurance/reinsurance industry because a great number of simulations (e.g., tens of thousands of years) are needed. It is imperative to develop robust and efficient numerical models well-balanced on computational speed and modeling accuracy. RMS has kept innovating its catastrophe risk models to provide a unique competition edge for its clients. In this paper, we demonstrate the latest innovative numerical models for three perils: inland flood, typhoon-induced coastal flood and storm surge, and earthquake-induced tsunami. For inland flood model, we integrate a simple but smart machine learning algorithm for rainfall simulation with a complex but efficient and accurate numerical model for inundation built on hybrid MPI (Message Passing Interface) +GPU (Graphics Processor Unit) algorithm.  For typhoon-induced flood and storm surge, we couple a surge model and an inundation model built on MPI+GPU to achieve an efficient and accurate representation of coastal flood risk. For tsunami, we develop a fully integrated GPU-based wave propagation, runup and inundation model built on nested grids which enable us to simulate both far-field and near-field tsunami hazard efficiently and accurately. All these innovations showcase RMS’ commitment to deliver the first-class modeling products to its clients and the insurance/reinsurance industry.

Singapore is located on the Malay Peninsula within a stable portion of the Eurasian Plate. It does not have a record of many large, recent earthquakes. However, Singapore is about 400 kilometers away from a highly active Sumatra fault and subduction zone, which is the greatest seismic threat to Singapore. In the past 200 years, ground shaking has been felt in 27 earthquakes, most of which were long-distance Sumatra earthquakes. The most recent one is the 2004 Boxing day earthquake and tsunami. In this study, with a focal depth 6.7 km, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake scenario is studied. This earthquake has a focal depth 6.7 km and magnitude 6.9, the epicenter is within 80 km of Singapore. It is caused by a rupture along an unknown reverse fault modeled as background seismicity. The analysis is performed using the earthquake model for Singapore developed by AIR Worldwide. This model explicitly model liquefaction and ground shaking caused losses of building, content, and business interruption. The modeled loss in Singapore of this earthquake is close to 33 billion Singapore dollars, majority of which is commercial and industrial lines of business.

Current deterministic modeling techniques, and even probabilistic modeling techniques, can result in an inadvertent over-constraint of potentially sensitive variables early on in the risk modeling process, rending some high-consequence events impossible within the framework of those models. For example, the 2016 Kaikoura, New Zealand complex fault rupture directly challenged a number of assumptions typically used in modeling earthquake ruptures. While the consequence of that specific event was limited due to the low population density in the region, this occurrence implores the evaluation of possible unanticipated, high-consequence black swan events in potentially dense urban environments. Meanwhile, constraints on model parameters offer practical benefits from a modeling perspective, such as time and computational resources. These constraints, however, should be carefully applied, and a thorough understanding of the implications of those constraints is needed in order to achieve both a feasible, implementable hazard model and an informative, comprehensive hazard model. We propose to apply a consequence-driven framework in order to identify the hazards that could result in extreme, consequences. The first part of the framework identifies impactful model parameters. These constraints are uncovered through a sensitivity study, applying systematic parameter relaxation, starting with parameters that are based on a specific historic natural hazard event. For constraints that could result in impactful failures, parameter relaxation is carried forward to the second part of the framework. This latter half of the framework starts at the consequence of interest – for example, building damage – and applies an inverse model approach with the relaxed parameter forward model in order to assess previously unconsidered model space. Our consequence-driven framework is illustrated for the case study of seismic risk of buildings in Singapore, with and without seismic design considerations added to the building design guidelines in 2013.