Civil Engineering for Disaster Risk Reduction

The South Asian region harbors one quarter of the world’s human population. Yet, the water availability in the region is not enough to meet the growing demand in recent years. Field observation data on the status of South Asia’s groundwater is unfortunately limited. Therefore, we have used the remote sensing (GRACE) and global hydrological models (Noah from GLDAS) to logically comprehend GW status and climatic patterns. Results show that the rainfall has not decreased from 2002 to 2014. But, there was considerable groundwater storage depletion at the rate of 60 Billion Cubic Meter (BCM) yearly. Besides, the annual air temperature raised by 0.2 °C and likewise evapotranspiration and runoff amplified each by 1 BCM. However, there was no considerable decrease in the hydro-climatic factors. In spite of this, the groundwater storage is alarmingly depleting. It indicates the reality of current groundwater over exploitation outweighing natural recharge potential in South Asia. We recommend implementing scientific management strategies to increase groundwater recharge, which is the key to mitigate future climate change consequences in South Asia.

Floods occur due to heavy rainfall leading to accumulation of excess water in human settlements. India often suffers from devastating monsoon floods, and a large chunk of its population lives in flood-prone areas. This causes a lot of property damage every year leading to huge amounts of economic loss, excluding the loss of lives. For the last 50 years, the total economic losses due to floods were more than 4.7 trillion due to building, crop, and other property damages. On the other hand, drought is one of the natural disasters which occurs due to climate variations and can be equally devastating. The conventional methods often fail to provide early clues to mitigate the devastating effects of floods and drought. In recent decades, remote sensing along with the Geographic Information System (GIS) has emerged as an efficient and cost-effective tool for mapping and monitoring floods and drought in near-real time. The tool has evolved from conventional optical monitoring to advanced radar remote sensing (SAR) data-based surveillance, operating in all-weather capability with higher spatial resolution. Temporal analysis using SAR imageries plays an important role in detecting the areas having higher hazard potential in advance. Flood and drought hazard maps are urgently required to help the decision-makers in managing and controlling relocation, mitigation, modernization, and protection measures in order to mitigate damages. This chapter aims to formulate effective strategies for determining the losses due to flood and drought for decision support in regional-level assessment and management.

This manuscript presents the results of research conducted in the context of the assessment of Flood Protection Infrastructure (FPI) against the progressive evolution of internal damage caused by erosion mechanisms, with emphasis on Backward Erosion Piping (BEP) induced failures. A novel approach, encompassing both deterministic physics-based numerical simulations and probabilistic data-based techniques, is presented and validated through experimental data obtained at multiple length scales. The deterministic simulations are used to train a multilayer machine learning model that is capable of quantifying the state of the infrastructure in quasi-real-time and is inherently capable of accepting live data from embedded and remote sensors. The significant reduction in computational cost obtained through the adoption of ML techniques allows for the investigation of the hyperparameters space in an efficient fashion, allowing for meaningful sensitivity analyses and physics discovery. The results of a projected real-life case study are reported, where a selected FPI system is simulated at the system scale ( $$>10^5$$ > 10 5 m) over a period of one year, and conclusions are drawn on the capabilities of the proposed model.

Rain in the state of Kerala, India, is not a new phenomenon. Monsoons in Kerala, India, bring a good amount of rain every year and are a foregone conclusion. But rain creating multi-hazardous events is a rare phenomenon in Kerala. This research paper reflects upon the events that unfolded during monsoon of 2018 in the state of Kerala, leading to a death toll of more than 400. The most visible factor is the torrential rainfall, a 200% rainfall departure during the month of August 2018 compared to the last ten years of rainfall. This triggering factor has initiated spatially distributed flood and landslide events in the entire state of Kerala. On detailed analysis, we could understand the interactions of several other parameters leading to the multi-hazards. This work unveils the events that generated the multi-hazard scenario and the underlying possible parameters that lead to this feature. This rain, termed as a single event, caused simultaneous and multi-hazardous events. Detailed chronological events have been provided indicating the amount of rain and the consequence of the multi-hazard event that have unfolded subsequently. The cause of flood cannot be pointed to one single factor, but to multiple factors like (i) rain, (ii) urbanization, (iii) terrain of the land, (iv) water management of spatially distributed dams and so on. This analysis clearly indicates that a country like India will require integrated solutions for managing multiple hazards, developing solutions to anticipate impacts due to climate change, empowering communities to become disaster resilient, detailed multi-hazard mapping and zoning, developing integrated models which need rapid application across all hazard spectrum to make the communities disaster resilience.

Scientists, engineers, students, as well as people who are not dealing with hydrology very often use the term “water level is rising” or “flow is increasing.” This encompasses few logical steps in defining a trend, which is in most of the cases linear. Such procedures give “first hand” predictions of what will happen in the future. It should be emphasized that the presented procedure could lead to the wrong conclusions. This topic will be addressed in the paper as an example of the average daily flow time series for the available duration of 20 years, from the year 1999 till the year 2018. Analysis will be presented on a real case study of two hydrological measuring stations on River Bednja in Croatia. These are Lepoglava (most upstream) and Ludbreg (most downstream measuring stations).

The increased population density in the coastal areas has made the coast more vulnerable for disaster and for sustainable development of coastal infrastructures. With increase in greenhouse gas emission, global warming, accelerated melting of polar ice and sea level rise, the vulnerability for coastal disaster is expected to magnify in the future. The global average temperature of the air is expected to increase anywhere from 2 to 6 degree C by 2100, depends on the pathway of greenhouse gas emission and the sea level is expected to rise from 0.5 to 1.0 m by 2100. This would create permanent inundation of the coastal area and the associated degradation and damage of coastal infrastructures. It is expected that the intensity and frequency of cyclone activities would increase, which would accelerate coastal erosion. It is expected that many ground water resources in coastal cities will face more seawater intrusion problems. The seawater acidification would increase with accelerated bleaching of coral reefs and deterioration of mangroves. The increase in construction of dams across rivers would reduce the sediment flow from river to sea, which will fuel the coastal erosion issues. A clear understanding of all these issues are very important and suitable mitigation measures need to be adopted. Do nothing/defend/adopt and retrieve are important management frameworks to take care of the future coastal disasters. Reduce/reuse and recycle are other important frameworks to be followed by stakeholders. Different aspects of these frameworks are discussed in this manuscript.

Flood risk management has evolved with human habitation over thousands of years, based on a need to avoid frequent flooding of living floors. In the fluvial-tidal zone of a drainage system, there has long been recognition of the regularity of tides and corresponding need for living floor levels to be raised above high tide as well as river flood level. Practices have relied on the Holocene sea-level stationarity, but fluvial-tidal zones are now in a period of unprecedented expansion in response to climate change. Hong Kong authorities have responded by proposing flood design concurrently based on return periods of both rainfall and tidal extreme events. An extension to the tsunami hazard of such concurrent flood analysis is proposed in areas with evidence of past disasters. An analogy is drawn with flood frequency analysis, which assumes that peak discharge is a variable amenable to classical frequency analysis. The height of an incoming tsunami is a popular conventional scale of flood risk; but at present, no objective basis for height measurement exists. Observations of full-scale wave propagation are discussed, both under closely controlled conditions and in natural responses to earthquakes, and a field procedure is proposed to measure the potential energy of single wavefronts. Solitary wave theory is then proposed to convert such measured potential energy into a standard wave height, which would serve as an index for calculating corresponding tsunami flood levels at all points of interest.

Cloudbursts are among the most significant natural hazard that occurs in the Indian Himalayan states. In India, during the monsoon, clouds originate from the Bay of Bengal and travel all along the Gangetic plains and finally reach the Himalayas and fall in the form of a torrential downpour. The heavy downpour in hilly areas results in landslides as well as sediment-laden flash-floods. Such floods are with a devastating force that uproots any infrastructure in its route resulting in loss of life and property bringing life to a standstill. Understanding the mechanism involved in cloudburst driving processes such as orographic lifting, distribution of rainfall, precipitation thresholds, and the source are still an area of active research. In recent years, the frequency of such incidents has increased manifold, perhaps due to increased anthropogenic activities and climate change phenomena. Very few studies are available to explain these incidents. The present paper analyses the cloudburst events from 2001 to 2019 in the state of Uttarakhand. An attempt is made to describe their characteristics and impacts. The role of large atmospheric circulations, hydro-meteorology, topography, and land-cover changes in driving these events are discussed with the help of remote sensing datasets. The effective database and the decision support system can help in mitigating the adverse impacts of cloudburst in the times to come.

A landslide is a life-threatening event causing large infrastructural damages. The major causes for landslides are rainfall, earthquakes, blasting, and other man-made activities. The landslides can happen even without human interference, and hence, it can be classified as a natural process. The population expansion in landslide-prone areas demands a better sustainable method for slope protection and landslide prediction. The main objective of this chapter is to review the previous research studies conducted in the soil slopes using manual instrumentations and the improved data acquisition systems (DAQ) that are used recently. A landslide early warning system (LEWS) is only as strong as the understanding of the phenomenon. The first objective of the development of an early warning system is to find the triggering mechanism of the impending disaster. The three landslide triggering mechanisms are excess rain, seismic activities, and man-made activities. For rainfall-induced landslides, finding the rainfall threshold parameter is one of the difficult tasks. The methods involved in finding this threshold and using it for the development of the LEWS will be discussed in this chapter.

Rainfall-induced landslides are creating havoc in hilly areas and have become an important concern for the stakeholders and public. Many approaches have been proposed to derive rainfall thresholds to identify the critical conditions that can initiate landslides. Most of the statistical methods are defined in such a way that it does not depend upon any of the in-situ conditions. Soil moisture plays a key role in the initiation of landslides as the pore pressure increases and loss in shear strength of soil results in sliding of soil mass, which in turn are termed as landslides. This study explains in detail the potential use of hydrological and process-based models in forecasting the occurrence of landslides in Kalimpong town of West Bengal, India. The town is a part of Darjeeling Himalayas and is highly affected by landslides. The study evaluates the potential use of a hydrological model, called SHETRAN, along with the real-time field monitoring observations, using MEMS tilt sensors installed in the study area. The initiation of landslides is discussed in a geotechnical perspective, for the development of a landslide early warning system (LEWS) for the region.

Many areas in the northern region of Thailand are mountainous and subject to landslides. A landslide causes local damage to a particular area; in addition, it induces nearby prone areas trans-regionally. Therefore, monitoring landslide-prone areas can help in risk assesment and management to efficiently handle a situation. This paper reports collaborative research activities and results of projects endorsed by ASEAN COSTI and e-Asia JRP. It aims to investigate potential landslides’ environmental parameters and conditions using real-time monitoring based on wireless sensors networks (WSN) and remote sensing techniques. The WSN, equipped with a camera, is designed based on low-power technologies (i.e., ZigBee and LoRa), and the performance is evaluated and compared in terms of communication packet losses. Also, remote sensing techniques are used to detect changes in satellite imagery and 3D point clouds. For example, k-means clustering and structural patch decomposition are applied to generate a binary map that locates change between two satellite images of different times. A deep-learning approach based on CNN is used to identify locations of landslides. The density-based spatial clustering and a clutter-removal method are used to detect rockfall events from two 3D point clouds.

Nepal Himalaya is one of the seismically active mountain belts in the world with several kilometers of relief and very prone to catastrophic mass failure. The collision between Indian and Eurasian plates resulted in numerous tectonic faults and highly deformed rocks, which are responsible for triggering many earthquakes of different scales. High grade of rock weathering and subsequent torrential rainfall are directly related to increase the numerous geo-hazard problems, i.e., landslides, debris flow, floods, etc. The Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake 2015 has ruptured a 150-km-long section of the Himalayan décollement and triggered many co-seismic landslides in the central Nepal. These landslides are carrying large volume of sediment to the rivers and deposited in valleys and foothill of the Himalaya. Several catastrophic valley infills are quite interesting in the Himalayas and urgently needed for gauging and predicting the recovery times of seismically perturbed mountain landscapes. In this context, research on Pokhara Valley has suggested that this valley was formed due to catastrophic events in the medieval period. Therefore, tectonic and geomorphic adjustment to several catastrophic aggradation pulses has been ongoing for many centuries in this region. In addition to this, reoccurring earthquake and cloud bursting have negative impacts the people’s livelihood in the mountainous region. Moreover, most of the human settlements in the mountains lie within the large-scale landslides where people are constructing village roads without proper investigation of these large-scale geomorphic landforms. Mountain slopes are unstable due to reoccurring earthquakes and intense rainfalls. For example, a high-intensity rainstorm in July 1993 hit the central Nepal and destroyed many lives and properties. Similarly, Asian Monsoon in 2020 has triggered many landslides and debris flows in the Nepal Himalaya killing more than 303 people in the different parts of Nepal.

This keynote presents the findings from the UK Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team’s post-earthquake reconnaissance missions to the 2009 Mw7.6 Padang, 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku and 2016 Mw7.8 Muisne earthquakes. The performance of buildings and geotechnical structures within the affected regions were investigated to gain insights on their design and construction deficiencies. Observations of damage to these structures are thereafter compared with the characteristics of the earthquake and nature of building codes in these countries. They include building damages attributed to a combination of structural resonance, deficiencies in reinforcement detailing, vulnerability to soft-storey collapse and soil liquefaction. The variations to soft-storey collapses between different earthquakes are discussed to shed light on construction practices in different countries.

The incorporation of local site effects in seismic hazard analysis has evolved radically over the last few decades. Initially, the whole site characterization was expressed by a single scalar quantity known as soil factor. The advancement in technology has paved the way for more sophisticated techniques in estimating the site response. The new-age techniques of site characterization involve field investigation as well as laboratory testing of the soil samples. The study sites are modeled in more than one dimension, and the complex phenomena of site response such as basin effects and resonance in a valley are computationally simulated. The present article outlines the state-of-the-art practices in characterizing site/soil response to tectonically induced ground shaking. The article briefs about the different methods and provides a detailed description of the computational methods for estimating the site response. The existing methodologies, their applicability, and pitfalls are presented. Additionally, the scope for future work and the direction toward improving the existing methods have been discussed.

In developing a disaster resilience pathway, exploring the basic underlying characteristics of a given context for it to be disaster resilient is vital. Resilient properties is a terminology used to name underlying characteristics that needs to be embedded in a given context for it to be disaster resilient. Built environment plays a key role in building societal resilience, but a synthesized set of disaster resilient properties for the built environment discourse is lacking, which is the focus of this chapter. A descriptive or mapping review is conducted to identify disaster resilient properties in different contexts, and finally, a qualitative content analysis was conducted to derive a set of disaster resilient properties. Then, these properties were combined with the role of the built environment towards societal resilience. A set of six disaster resilient properties were synthesized from the study, robustness, redundancy, rapidity, participative capacity, adaptive capacity, and coping capacity. These were framed into a single framework along with the other factors associated with these properties in the literature. Also, the main roles of the built environment towards societal resilience were identified as construct, develop, stimulate, facilitate, protect, and nurture based on which a resilience pathway could be developed, embedding the disaster resilient properties.

This paper gives an account of multiple benefits provided by Granton SUDS pond and discusses their relevance to the alleviation of environmental, economic and social risks. The pond was established in 2005 and is situated in a park, close to a supermarket and a college. It has an area of approximately 2600 m2 and a hydrographic survey carried out as part of this research provided an estimate for the pond’s volume of 1904 m3 for the normal operating conditions. However, during flooded conditions (also observed during this research) the pond’s volume increases to circa 2545 m3. The pond has considerable biodiversity value and an important amenity function. The locality is enjoyed daily by many visitors and is particularly popular with joggers, dog walkers and families. Modelling of the pond’s catchment was undertaken using the hydrodynamic model CityCAT coupled with the hydrological model SHETRAN. Changes in water discharge from the pond were simulated using the time series of precipitation and air temperature data obtained from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). The discharge is higher in winter, which determines shorter retention times. That has implications for the observed dynamics of the hydrobiological community, with higher risk of cyanobacterial development in the summer. However, according to the ICP MS analysis of water chemistry, the observed planktonic community and the biological water quality estimated by macroinvertebrate sampling, are all broadly similar to those in other ponds. CityCAT results show that the presence of the pond delays and reduces the peak discharge after extreme precipitation events, with reductions being greater for smaller events. This study contributes to accumulating evidence of interlinkages among hydrology, ecology, biogeochemistry and biological water quality at the SUDS ponds sites, thus underlying the need for a comprehensive simultaneous consideration of their subsystems. These aspects are indispensable for reducing the risk of negative environmental effects and vital for planning future urban developments and nature-based solutions, as well as for the management of existing SUDS assets.

Piled embankments are widely used to improve the weak soil characteristics and elevate the ground level for the construction of transport corridors on the weak soil. These embankments allow fast construction and a significant reduction in differential settlement. In the pile-supported railway embankment, most of the imposed load is transferred to the rigid pile through a shearing stress mechanism named as “soil arching.” Several studies contribute to the assessment of soil arching under static loading. However, studies dealing with the effect of the seismic excitation on soil arching in pile-supported railway embankment are scarce. The present study is focused on addressing the effects of static loading and seismic excitation using finite element analysis (FEA) in two-dimensional (2D) state of stress. The FEA results indicate that piled embankment properties such as friction angle, pile, and embankment fill modulus should be improved for the efficient mobilization of soil arching. The arching zone is influenced by varying the pile spacing. In addition, the available design approach shows a variation with numerical results. The soil arching is poorly developed indicating insufficient mobilization under the seismic excitation. This in turn results in the transfer of higher stresses to soft soil. The present study thus presents the detrimental effects of earthquake on transport infrastructure projects constructed in soft soil regions.

Railway networks around the world have initially adopted timber sleepers for railway line construction. With time, those timbers deteriorate and emit carbon back to the environment. At present, it is difficult in practice to seek cost-effective hardwood sleepers to replace rotten timber sleepers in time. As a temporary solution, many rail infrastructure managers apply an interspersing method of track maintenance. The interspersing technique is a spot replacement of old timber sleepers with concrete or composite counterparts. This technique is often used as a temporary maintenance for secondary railway lines such as yards, balloon loops or siding. In practice, the interspersed tracks can deteriorate when the tracks are exposed to heavy rains and floods due to the difference in sleeper dimension and stiffness. Under extreme flood events, ballast washaway can be often observed. This study is the world first to demonstrate the vulnerability assessment of interspersed sleeper railways using non-linear finite element simulations, STRAND7. Two moving point loads representing an axle load along each rail have been established to investigate the worst-case, potential instabilities for impaired performance of sleepers and differential settlement of the track. In this study, the emphasis is placed on the effect of ballast washaway on the dynamic displacements and accelerations of rails. The insight will help track engineers develop appropriate climate change adaptation method and policy for versatile operations of interspersed railway tracks facing extreme rainfall and flooding conditions.

Understanding the full impact of floods is important to managing the risk of these often costly events. One of the challenging variables to assess is the time to recover. This work looks specifically at the issue of recovering homes to a functional level following varying levels of flood damage. In particular, this work maps the various components involved in functional failures of flood-damaged homes to understand their recovery process. A novel model of a residential building is constructed using the Graph Model for Operational Resilience (GMOR) to model the complex web of interactions among the dependencies in building systems and in the repair process to understand the cascade of failure and subsequent required steps of restoration. Depth-damage functions, along with construction and repair guides, are used to identify restoration dependencies and simulate a sequence of flood recovery steps for several possible flood depths. The results demonstrate how restoration can be delayed and points to potential solutions to improve resilience through informed recovery planning of flooded buildings. In the future, the custom model can be adapted to support enhanced regional-scale risk assessments.

The isolation of foundation systems from the ground vibrations has been one of the prime interests of geotechnical engineers. Over the years, different methods have been adopted to isolate the foundation systems from ground vibrations. The latest trend is to use the barrier systems made from the geosynthetics in such applications. An attempt has been made in this study to quantify the performance of the barriers created using geosynthetics in mitigating the vibrations. For the study purpose, a field vibration test was performed on the three different reinforced barrier systems prepared in a test pit of size 3.6 m × 3.6 m × 1.2 m. It includes unreinforced, geogrid, and geocell reinforced barriers. To generate the ground vibration, dynamic excitation of varying magnitude was applied using the mechanical oscillator supported on a concrete block. The isolation descriptors, namely amplitude attenuation factor, degree of efficiency, and attenuation coefficient, were evaluated to highlight the vibration isolation potential of each barrier system. From the field test results, the inclusion of the geosynthetics was found to enhance the isolation effectiveness of the barrier system significantly. Maximum improvement in isolation parameters was observed in the case of a geocell barrier as compared to other cases. In the geocell barrier condition, more than 52% increase in the degree of efficiency was observed as compared to the unreinforced barrier. Isolation efficacy of the geocell barrier system was further improved by infilling the geocell pockets with the geomaterial having a higher friction angle. Also, the geocell barrier exhibited the maximum value of the attenuation coefficient as compared to other cases.

The seismic control of a base-isolated liquid storage tank (LST) is investigated in detail for several parametric variations. Response reductions are evaluated for shear forces, overturning moments, top board displacements, and hydrodynamic pressure. The amplification in sloshing height is also analyzed for maximum control. The parameters for ground motion differ in the form, PGA, ratio between the two components of ground motions, angle of incidence, and effective isolator time period. For the study, a square-concrete LST of dimension $$6\,{\text{m}} \otimes 6\,{\text{m}} \otimes 4.8\,{\text{m}}$$ 6 m ⊗ 6 m ⊗ 4.8 m is considered with five isolators. Four isolators are placed at the four corners and one in the center of the LST. The nonlinear time history analysis for bidirectional earthquake ground motion was carried out using ABAQUS. The liquid is modeled by the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE), whereas the tank is modeled by the solid brick element, and isolators are modeled by the connector elements. The results of the numerical study show that about 75% reduction in the various response quantities of interest can be achieved by five isolators, and the maximum reduction in response quantities almost becomes stationary at an effective time period of the isolator equal to the 2.5 s, and angle of incidence of earthquake does not have a very significant effect on the response quantities of interest.

The present study discusses the amalgamation of the deterioration (aging) hazard along with earthquake hazards directly affecting in the bridges of Barak valley (Assam). In the proposed approach, the Weibull parameter employed for determining hazard function ha(t) of the bridges due to aging, however, active faults with their PGA values extracted, and responsible for generating higher magnitude of earthquake in the region identified as well as the mean annual rate of exceedance for different magnitude (λm) calculated. The combination of deterioration due to aging and earthquake hazard rate provides how bridges are affected by maturity and sudden violent shock of the ground in a seismically active prone region. The combined hazard function shows a significant reduction in service life having an increase in hazard rate for different magnitudes (>5, >6, >7, and >8). Further, the Northeast region of India is prone to earthquakes of higher magnitudes, and the area is tectonically active. Numerous researches demonstrated in the past to estimate the multi-hazards effects on the structures. Indeed, such assessment has not been attempted in the NEI region; hence, this proposed approach and the selected objectives would provide significant ideas and facts about the condition of bridges to make rational decisions for the bridge management authorities in terms of safety, rehabilitation, repair, and inspection of the bridges available in the Barak valley region.

Seismic vulnerability of buildings and other critical infrastructure are a major concern for developing countries with moderate to high seismic risk. Absence of public awareness, lack of earthquake resistant design and poor quality of construction are mainly responsible for such vulnerabilities. This has been manifested in recent years in earthquakes in India, Nepal, Indonesia, China, Iran and Turkey. Inherent weakness of unreinforced masonry (URM) and improperly designed reinforced concrete frame (RCF) buildings have resulted in hundreds of building collapse or damage beyond repair and associated loss of lives in thousands. Seismic vulnerability assessment of existing buildings followed by structural strengthening of vulnerable buildings is therefore a top national priority for these countries. The same is true for Bangladesh where recent vulnerability studies have pointed out to severe damage and loss scenarios for major cities of Bangladesh including the capital Dhaka. However, seismic strengthening (retrofit) works in Bangladesh have started systematically only in recent years under the structural integrity reassessment program of existing readymade garments factories and allied industries. This program followed the infamous collapse of Rana Plaza building in 2013. This paper deals with various techniques that may be readily adopted for the seismic strengthening of existing URM and RCF buildings. Some examples of retrofitting measures in Bangladesh have been presented, along with some examples from Iran. Finally, advanced methods of seismic retrofitting such as base isolation and use of dissipation devices are briefly discussed with some practical applications presented.

Structures which resist the normal as well as accidental loads due to natural hazards or manmade hazards have major role on risk. Risk may be synonym of loss of life or economy. In this script, qualitatively, it is referred as low risk and high risk and is a function of hazard levels and structural vulnerability and exposure time. In this paper, structures are referred to civil engineering buildings, equipment and piping systems. Every structural system will contribute to the risk. The risk levels are function of type of structural systems such as residential structures, office buildings, Industrial structures and lifeline structures. The risk level in industrial structures handling poisonous gases and liquids is high. Lifelines such as transport related structures, hospitals, water supply piping systems, evacuation centers including schools have to be treated exclusively/specially since these will contribute to the risk during and also after hazards especially natural one. For brevity, qualitative description is made on hazards and risk reduction targeting clear vision.

Given the increasingly intensive competition between global markets, competition between companies has shifted from a focus on the performance of companies to supply chain performance. As a business becomes more international, there is a growing need for managing supply chain disruptions from a cross-national perspective. In general, supply chains are faced with increasing possibilities and severity of disruption. Furthermore, disruption management is complex as disruptions may happen due to various types and sources of risks. Trade facilitators, such as air, road and maritime transportation, will disrupt the flow of supply chains when a hazard occurs. This is categorized as transportation disruption. The paper aims to examine the existing strategies which are in place for the purpose of enhancing resilience to transportation disruptions in supply chains. Based on the major limitations of these strategies identified, the study also aims to develop an original approach to address the limitations. This paper introduces an integrated cost and risk management approach for enhancing resilience. The study contributes to the field of risk management by recommending an approach that can enhance supply chain resilience and at the same time being cost-effective.

Climate change, expressed as increase in temperature rise and change in precipitation, will pose significant challenges to rural communities, leading to a possible effect on their occupation under a changing climate. Experience over the last decade has demonstrated a gradual rise in global temperatures, which coupled with the unpredictable precipitation patterns (rainfall and snow/glacier melt are considered as important hydrologic process in the Himalayan basins) are expected to seriously affect the melt characteristics and further increase pressure on available water resources (both quantity and quality). The situation is being exacerbated by the increasing water demands from agriculture, industry, and rising population. This study attempts to present the review of research done on the use of an integrated approach by using system dynamics technique in the context of evolving development plans under changing climate scenarios. The current investigations revealed that there is a lack of a general framework for assessment. The major responsibility of the planning community is to adopt rational planning approach addressing the complexity of the system, yet it is appearing that the models used at various stages are not well developed to keep the same pace. This demands the acknowledgment and a better understanding of the dynamic behavior of the system, i.e., inter-linkage and interdependence of the complex systems and subsystems (namely physical, social, economic, ecology, environment, infrastructure, and institutional subsystems) by using system dynamics technique. In this regard, a methodology has been developed for assessing the climate change and its impact on a region by signifying the importance of the holistic approach to address the complex sustainable development challenges whose interdependencies transcend individual sectors and administrative borders. The aim of this research is to evolve a plausible planning model under the changing climatic conditions of Tehri Garhwal district, which helps to achieve integrated sustainable development until 2041 A.D. by using combination of statistical techniques and system dynamic modelling. Overall, the present research seeks to answer the questions, such as how does climate change and climate variability affect overall district development (attractiveness)? Additional questions investigated are (1) what are the important supply uncertainties associated with a changing climate? (2) how can the integration of socio-economic, environmental and ecological issues be done to inform regional planning and development? (3) what are possible planning interventions and strategies for reducing the impacts of climate change on district development? A comprehensive grassroots-level investigation (primary survey—household level) has been carried out. Further, exploration and analysis of available literature (secondary data sources) are done to identify the important control parameters that influence the functions of the system. System dynamic model for sustainable development in the system has been evolved by considering control parameters of various subsystems of the system, and validation is carried out for the same. To understand the behavior of the model, projections were made using the validated model for the year 2041 A.D. Further, the functions of the systems were examined under various alternative conditions/scenarios. The scenarios were developed using the stakeholder participation and as well as from the information collected from the existing literature, concerning effective planning and management of district. Based on the detailed analysis of the evolved policies and their perceived outcomes, the investigators identified the best policy that is more suitable for the physical, social, economic, infrastructure, environmental and institutional, ecological subsystems, and overall development of the regional system. Finally, evolved a set of plausible policy guidelines and recommendations for the sustainable development of Tehri Garhwal district.

Natural hazards remain recurrent processes that often disrupt the status quo of communities and put the future welfare of people at risk. In the Pyrenees, extreme events related to floods, rockfall, landslides, or snow avalanches have recurrently affected transport corridors and human settlement. Coping with such impacts in the future requires paradigm change toward the implementation of Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) tools and land use. Yet, little is known about the reliability of these approaches in long term. Here, we review a long-term experience (more than a century) from implementing the Eco-DRR strategies, so-called Los Arañones, to protect the International Railway Station of Canfranc (Spain-France) against snow avalanches and torrential floods. The Eco-DRR implemented in Los Arañones consisted of two different strategies (i) at short term, innovative nature-based design dikes; and (ii) at long term, systematic reforestation of hill slopes. We show that, after more than a hundred years since forest engineers implemented these measurements (Benito Ayerbe, 1872–1917), they still can protect the existing infrastructure, although the cost of maintenance to keep the reliability of such Eco-DRR are steadily increasing. Our analyses call for further assessment of its effectiveness and efficiency under climate change stressors, to assure its reliability for the next decades. This example will cast light on implementing such Eco-DRR solutions in the other mountain regions worldwide.

The causes of 2018 Palu Bay (Indonesia) tsunami are still not entirely clear. There is still an ongoing debate on whether the main cause of the tsunami waves observed was a significant co-seismic tectonic event which occurred underwater or whether it was the multiple landslides detected along the coast and triggered by the earthquake. Data from the paper by Liu et al. [2] in which the bathymetry of the bay was analysed suggests that landslide-induced waves may have contributed significantly to the tsunami. However, the data presented was incomplete, and the information regarding the starting time, magnitude of these waves and the coastal landslide progression has significant uncertainties. In this paper, we model each landslide-generated wave with the COMCOT model and track the propagation of the waves to understand their individual contribution at several relevant locations inside the bay where free surface elevation data is available. We then explore the feasible scenarios (i.e. landslide-generated wave configurations and timings) that produce tsunami waves as close as those observed using an optimization technique based on genetic algorithms. Numerical simulations of the chosen scenario point out that landslide-generated waves are likely the main contributors to the tsunami, as they can arrive very fast, at the precise timing, to the locations of interest and can trigger the natural resonant modes of the bay, producing long-period waves that were also observed.

Amphan was the strongest cyclone to hit the Indian coast nearly two decades after the Odisha Super Cyclone of 1999. The cyclone affected many countries of the Indian Ocean region and shadowed its peril on several Indian states. The eastern state of West Bengal was worst affected by the cyclone, and it caused severe damages to lives and property. Several districts of West Bengal were severely affected by the cyclone; millions of people were displaced; physical and social infrastructure were affected. The cyclone had hit the state when the world was already reeling under the pressure of COVID-19. The impact of Amphan was magnified several folds due to the COVID-19 situation in the state. This paper presents the impact of Amphan on West Bengal and exemplifies the steps taken by response agencies in managing this mega-emergency situation. The institutional mechanism and frameworks for managing disasters in India are also discussed in the context of state-level functions.

Underlining more knowledge about the potential effects that climate change can have on cities, the work addresses resilient urbanism as the main tool for strengthening the urban environment, more specifically, against the consequences of flooding, as this is one of the risks that causes most losses in Europe. Furthermore, this document provides studies that allow us to analyze the most recommendable strategies to successfully address the issue despite the obvious challenge involved and to assess the importance of nature-based solutions, questioning the use of only structural systems. According to the research carried out, the main types, causes, legislation and elements that drive and/or diminish flooding in cities have been exposed, with reference parameters and three case studies (Alicante, Vitoria and Zaragoza) for the evaluation of which indicators are crucial to choose the best solutions in different situations for the implementation of control measures, adaptation and mitigation of flood disasters.