Intensity of impacts
of natural disasters is increasing with climate and ecological changes spread.
Frequency of disasters is increasing, and recurrence of catastrophes
characterizing by essential spatial heterogeneity. Distribution of losses is
fundamentally non-linear and reflects complex interrelation of natural, social
and environmental factor in the changing world on multi scale range. We faced
with new types of risks, which require a comprehensive security concept.
We need quantitatively
estimate a social factors influence to disaster damage. It will be scientific
support for decision making in disaster relief and preparedness, built on
responsible, ethical base, taking into account human dimension.
***
For period 1960 – 2012 in Ukraine 894
natural disasters were
selected and analyzed. General trends have been detected; period 1991 – 2010
was selected for detailed analysis as the period with the most reliable
statistics validated by satellite. Socio-economical data has been analyzed on
the sample of 42 disasters, including 11 most affecting events. List of major
disasters includes 6 floods, 3 storms, 1 cold wave, and 1 epidemic. Total
losses of most affecting events is about 1,64 billions of EURO, 2.698.797
persons were affected, and 368 people were killed. Analysis was aimed to
influence of risk perception to the damage function.
The distribution
presented is demonstrates essential increasing of disaster frequency, as well
as the data analyzed shows the increasing of the direct losses. Losses
increasing connected both with registered increasing of frequency and intensity
of disasters, and with increasing of the damaged infrastructure cost. To
analyze damage distribution in the context of economic development the Index of
Damage (IoD) was calculated.
This index was
calculated using evident algorithm: direct losses related to per capita GDP.
The distribution
presented demonstrates that relative natural disasters damage (calculated per
1000 km2) during 1990 is slightly increasing, which is probably
connected with impact of climate change. Common trend in world and Europe demonstrates decreasing of IoD, which connected
with economic grows (increasing of economic sustainability toward catastrophic
events) and successful implementation of risk management strategies. At the
same time on the territory
of Ukraine since 1980’s
and especially since 1990’s IoD is increasing dramatically. It connected with
economical degradation and absence of adequate systemic strategies of risk
management.
In framework of most
common, and most comprehensive case the risk can be presented as the
superposition of interrelated distribution function and damage function. Distribution
function is more “physical” and describes an impact of expanded disaster;
damage function describes distribution of damaged assets: infrastructure,
people, natural features, etc.
Basing on the prospect theory and decision making under uncertainty on cognitive bias and handling of
risk, we propose to modify a damage function. Modified damage function includes
an awareness function, which is the superposition of risk perception function
and function of education and log-term experience.
Disaster data were
analyzed using modified kernel-based nonlinear principal component analysis
(KPCA) algorithm. As the result the spatially and temporally regularized
distributions with normalized reliability were obtained.
On the figures below
presented averaged distribution of affect by education caused by most valuable
natural disasters in Ukraine
1991 – 2012.
Unfortunately as it
usual in disaster study, the sample is essentially limited: this data is not
highly reliable. Average uncertainty is about 14% for disaster statistics, and
about 20% for demographic data.
Risk component caused
by education (and
indirectly age) is
closely connected with economic parameters, such as income per capita. Surveys
show that these interrelations are varied and significantly heterogeneous
spatially and temporally.
On the figures below
the smoothed distributions of disasters affect depends of income are presented.
Analysis of available
data using equations (3) – (4) demonstrates interconnected influence of education
and long-term experience (education function) on one hand, and short-term
information on the other hand (risk perception function) to damage function as
the measure of vulnerability toward disasters.
As it follow from
figure presented, risk perception function is about 9-18% of awareness function
depends of education, age, income and social status of people. Also it was
estimated that fraction of awareness function in damage function, and so in
function of risk is about 21-49%.
It means that no less than 7-11% of direct losses
depend of short-term responsible behavior of “information agents”: social
activity of experts, scientists, correct discussions on ethical issues in
geo-sciences and media. Other 8-10% of losses are connected with level of
public and professional education. This area is also should be field of
responsibility of geo-scientists.
***
So, cost of systemic education and
long-term preparedness work is no less than 10-15 % of total catastrophic
losses, and cost of responsible information and policy making is from 8% up to 20%
(in case of major disasters).
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