Frameworks for managing risk

Question 1

Neo-liberalism

Answer 1

“Neo-liberalism reactivates liberal principals: skepticism over the capacities of political authorities to govern everything for the best; vigiliance over the attempts of political authorities to seek to govern. Its language is familiar and needs little rehearsal. Markets are to replace planning as regulators of economic activity. Those aspects of government that welfare construed as political responsibilities are, as far as possible, to be transformed into commodified forms and regulated according to market principles (Rose and Miller: 1992)

Question 2

Characteristics of liberal problematics

Answer 2

“The characteristics of liberal problematics of government are…dependent upon technologies for ‘governing at a distance’, seeking to create locales, entities and persons able to operate a regulated autonomy” (Rose and Miller, 1992)

Question 3

Three different types of governance frameworks

Answer 3

Directive, devolved, collaborative

Question 4

2 different paradigms of risk management

Answer 4

Hard, controlling, engineered, physical Soft, managed, socio-political and cultural (McEntire, 2005)

Question 5

Pearce, 2003

Answer 5

“Historically, disaster management planning in North America has been viewed from a para-military perspective… that is, it ha been conducted for, not with, the community” (Pearce, 2003)

Question 6

Disaster resistant community model

Answer 6

Has been defined as a “means to assist communities in minimising their vulnerability to natural hazards by maximising the application of the principles and techniques of mitigation to their development and/or redevelopment decision-making process” (Geis, 2000)

Question 7

Disaster resistant community models activities

Answer 7

With increasing losses resulting from natural disasters in recent decades, it has been apparent that emergency measures much include more proactive measures. such as hazard and vulnerability analyses, pre-zoning methods, land use planning etc

Question 8

Disaster resilient communities

Answer 8

Commonly related to social factors pertaining to recovery. Paton et al (2000) indicates that resilient comprises three components: dispositional cognitive and environmental.

Question 9

The concept of resilience possesses three key strengths

Answer 9

First, the most common use of the term does not assume that disaster prevention is always possible. A second strength is it captures the social variables that are neglected by the disaster-resistant community concept. Lastly, the disaster resilient community may include other disciplines.

Question 10

Disaster resistant community concerns

Answer 10

Physically-based, expert-led, excludes socio-political power relationships.

Question 11

Disaster resilient community concerns

Answer 11

Reactive in nature, can imply a ‘return to normal’ and thus an increase in vulnerability, contested understandings of the term

Question 12

Management cycles

Answer 12

Question 13

Sustainable development and sustainable hazards mitigation

Answer 13

Long-term, developmental, social equity perspective
Acknowledge relationships between physical and social systems

Question 14

Concerns of sustainable develpopment and suatainable hazards mitigation

Answer 14

process-led, but often fails to be reactive. Value-laden concept and therefore partly exclusionary

Question 15

Inclusive risk management

Answer 15

“our goal for change in emergency management should be based on as much inclusion and consensus as is realistically feasible…[w]e must base our scholarship and policies on a view of vulnerability that suggests the need to: assess liabilities and capabilities; reduce risk and susceptibility; and raise resistance and resilience to disaster”

McEntire (2005)

Question 16

Community planning and public participation

Answer 16

“The drawing up of a geologic map detailing the nature and the relative seriousness of geologic hazard potential in the Portola Valley area created a base of information for both the council and property owners. Because this map was used to serve the town geologist, the town planner, the developer and the land owners, it was revised to enable non-geologists to read and understand it” (Pearce, 2003)

Question 17

Managing future risks

Answer 17

Question 18

Hurricane Katrina - why they evacuated late. Key factors

Answer 18

Instrumental – transport, destinations, money, health
Cognitive – information sources and messages, risk perception and collective memory.
Social networks and their out-working were critical – places to evacuate to, access to money, care for relatives left behind, use of family’s only private transport asset.

Question 19

communications and disaster plans accounting for specific obstacles

Answer 19

“it is important that communications and disaster plans account for the specific obstacles encountered by urban, minority communities…these voices lead us to believe that removing the obstacles of shelter and transportation will be insufficient to ensure safety in future disasters. Policies must additionally address the important influence of extended families and social networks through better community-based communication and preparation strategies” (Eisenman et al, 2007)

Question 20

Risk management: Hazard manager

Answer 20

Prepare and respond to emerging incidents
Real time data input and management
Interactive web portal – weather/incident related information

Question 21

Hazard manager: Services

Answer 21

FFC, NSWWS, FireMet, CHEMET and CBRN incident management
Collaborative efforts in risk management
Organisational responsibility and governance
The scope of orgnaizations: physical science, analysis and data uses.

Question 22

‘corporization’ of meteorological services’

Answer 22

World-wide reputation – accuracy and reliability of forecasts
Insurance premiums and adaptation to weather and climate change
‘Making the most of changes to come’ – energy and aviation
Legal, political and economic decision making
Cooperation with business to minimize ‘weather downtime’

Question 23

Forecasting and risk: data - failures to consider

Answer 23

Understanding of physical processes
Ability to model physical mechanisms – how accurate/reliable?
Forecasting: a risky business

Question 24

The Great storm - risk then compared to risk now

Answer 24

The role of the Jet Stream in both storms
Proposed ‘sting jet’ phenomenon
Data availability – weather ships and automatic buoys
Limitations of earlier models
Criticism of the Met Office and subsequent changes to forecasting and training
National response – government and publics

Question 25

Likely changes in intensity and distribution

Answer 25

Atmospheric temperature and associated impacts
Sea surface temperatures
High-altitude atmospheric motion
Teleconnections.

Question 26

Risk management for tropical cyclones

Answer 26

Lead times and system intensification
‘best track’ estimates and intensity
Warnings and risk communication
Preparation and management – national and local governance.

Question 27

Projected changes in cyclone intensity

Answer 27

Examines projections in North Atlantic PDI using output from 17 GCMs and three radiative forcing scenarios. All find that the North Atlantic PDI is projected to increase with respect to the 1986-2005 peiod across all scenarios. Intensification of North Atlantic tropical cyclones in reponse to GHG increases and aerosol changes over the current century.