Sociospatial ties and postdisaster reconstruction: An analysis of the assemblage in the mega‐fire of Valparaíso

Disasters affect sociospatial links in a dynamic and unstable meshwork of aspects that are reconfigured. In this sense, accounting for this complexity is central to analyze the transformation of the sociospatial linkage of the affected people and communities. Addressing from community environmental psychology, we propose the concept of assemblage to guide a situated reading of subjective, material, and community aspects present in a reconstruction process after a disaster. Following a qualitative methodology, using spatially referenced narrative interviews (n = 16) and thematic analysis, it is described how these links are presented in a community that lived the mega‐fire of a part of the city of Valparaíso in Chile. The results describe that the experience of being a community is a variable flow within a process defined by an ever‐emerging configuration of spatial, technological, personal, social, and sensory characteristics. We conclude by pointing out the qualities of the communities when considered from an assemblage perspective.     

Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries

Social and political tensions keep on fueling armed conflicts around the world. Although each conflict is the result of an individual context-specific mixture of interconnected factors, ethnicity appears to play a prominent and almost ubiquitous role in many of them. This overall state of affairs is likely to be exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change and in particular climate-related natural disasters. Ethnic divides might serve as predetermined conflict lines in case of rapidly emerging societal tensions arising from disruptive events like natural disasters. Here, we hypothesize that climate-related disaster occurrence enhances armed-conflict outbreak risk in ethnically fractionalized countries. Using event coincidence analysis, we test this hypothesis based on data on armed-conflict outbreaks and climate-related natural disasters for the period 1980–2010. Globally, we find a coincidence rate of 9% regarding armed-conflict outbreak and disaster occurrence such as heat waves or droughts. Our analysis also reveals that, during the period in question, about 23% of conflict outbreaks in ethnically highly fractionalized countries robustly coincide with climatic calamities. Although we do not report evidence that climate-related disasters act as direct triggers of armed conflicts, the disruptive nature of these events seems to play out in ethnically fractionalized societies in a particularly tragic way. This observation has important implications for future security policies as several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions, including North and Central Africa as well as Central Asia, are both exceptionally vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change and characterized by deep ethnic divides.Climate-related natural disasters are among the most important environmental stressors affecting the development of human societies. Climatic changes—and most prominently the succession of severe natural disasters—have been recognized as an important potential driver for the collapse of complex societies (1). However, not the climatological events per se, but societal vulnerability to its consequences in conjunction with other stressors has led to societal disintegration, armed conflicts, and eventually societal collapse during historic and prehistoric times (2–8). Today, armed conflicts are still among the biggest threats to human societies, and the identification of underlying processes and potential drivers is an area of intense scientific research. Several potential risk enhancement factors for conflict outbreak have been identified, including poverty (9), income inequality (10), weak governance (11), or a preexisting history of conflicts (12). Hypotheses relating to conflict feasibility based on financial assets from natural resource exploitation have also been discussed (13, 14). Additionally, there is a growing body of literature that reports robust indications that ethnic fractionalization is one of the key determinants of armed-conflict outbreak risk (10, 14–17). Although not necessarily rooting in ethnic tension, nearly two-thirds of all civil wars since 1946 have been fought along ethnic lines (18). This prominent role of ethnicity in conflicts might be related to selective access to political power or resources that are often divided along ethnic lines (19), as well as to a high and rapid ethnic mobilization potential (20) arising from geographical clustering of ethnic groups and strong interethnic social ties (21). These two factors may contribute to societal fissures along ethnic boundaries in case of rapidly emerging societal tension stemming from disruptive events such as natural disasters. In addition, it seems plausible that ethnic groups can be impacted very differently by natural disaster occurrence. The prevalent geographic clustering might be reinforced by other factors such as ethnically specific livelihoods (e.g., pastoral or riverine communities) or socioeconomic discrimination resulting in an ethnicity-dependent differential vulnerability to natural disasters (22).In our analysis, we investigate the hypothesis that climate-related natural disasters (in the following referred to as disasters) enhance the risk of an emergence or violent outbreak of armed conflicts particularly in ethnically fractionalized societies. We explicitly address the impact of such disasters in terms of the resulting economic damage relative to national gross domestic product (GDP), making use of a high-quality database developed for commercial purposes of the reinsurance sector (Materials and Methods). Thereby, we explicitly define disasters with respect to their economic impact instead of the associated climatic variables. To test for statistical interrelationships between these damage events and the timing of armed conflicts, we use event coincidence analysis (ECA; see refs. 23 and 24, and Fig. 1 and Materials and Methods), a method that is conceptually related to event synchronization (25) and similar approaches that are widely used in the neurosciences for studying neuronal spike trains (26). ECA provides a generally applicable tool for explicitly testing the statistical significance of interdependences between sequences of events and has been proven useful in analyzing relations between event time series such as regime shifts in African paleoclimate and the appearance and disappearance of hominin species during the Plio-Pleistocene (23), plant growth response to climatic extremes (27, 28), or the role of flood events as triggers of epidemic outbreaks (24).Open in a separate windowFig. 1.Illustration of the methodological approach of event coincidence analysis for the risk enhancement test based on armed-conflict occurrence. An armed-conflict outbreak (orange) is counted as coincident with a natural disaster (green), if it co-occurs with or is preceded by such an event exceeding a prescribed damage threshold within a given coincidence interval ΔT.ECA allows to quantify the strength and robustness of statistical interrelationships between event series of natural disasters and armed-conflict outbreaks in two complementary ways (Materials and Methods): (i) the “risk enhancement test” is based on the “aggregated precursor coincidence rate” (24) measuring the fraction of conflicts that co-occurred with or were preceded by at least one disaster exceeding a certain damage level in the same country and that occurred at most at time ΔT before the conflict started (Fig. 1). In this case, a robust coincidence rate would indicate that disaster occurrence is a risk-enhancing factor for armed-conflict outbreak, based on a retrospective analysis with the condition that such an outbreak has occurred. (ii) In turn, the “trigger test” relies on the “aggregated trigger coincidence rate” (24) measuring the fraction of disasters exceeding a prescribed damage level in a country group that co-occurred with or were followed by at least one conflict that occurred at most a time ΔT after the disaster onset in the same country. This analysis allows to assess more explicitly than the risk enhancement test whether disasters may act as a direct trigger to armed-conflict outbreaks in the database under consideration. Statistical significance is tested with respect to an appropriately chosen null model (Materials and Methods), and we vary the economic damage threshold for identifying disasters to test for the effect of the event severity on the coincidence rate and significance as well as different disaster types (climatological, meteorological, and hydrological disasters; SI Appendix, Table S1).Besides testing for a global relation between natural disaster occurrence and armed-conflict outbreak, we performed our analysis on a group of 50 countries with the highest ethnic fractionalization (EF) following a well-established ethnic fractionalization index (29) (results for different group sizes are given in SI Appendix). Additionally, we grouped countries according to alternative hypotheses such as multiple conflict outbreaks (CONFL, see ref. 12) and income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient (GINI, 50 countries with highest inequality; see Fig. 2 for the country classification). We furthermore analyzed other country groupings such as countries with high religious fractionalization, low levels of overall development, low literacy rates, abundant absolute poverty, high dependency on agricultural production, high corruption levels, or countries markedly affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (SI Appendix, Table S3). It is important to highlight that such a country grouping approach does not allow for a robust assessment of the relevance of different factors for the risk of armed-conflict outbreak generally, but rather indicates specific vulnerability to climate-related natural disaster impacts.Open in a separate windowFig. 2.Mapping of countries according to different analysis criteria including countries with more than one conflict (CONFL), the 50 countries with the highest Gini coefficient (GINI), as well as the 50 countries with the highest ethnic fractionalization (EF).     

洪涝灾害与血吸虫病防控

当前,我国血吸虫病疫情处于历史最低水平,但影响血吸虫病传播与流行的因素依然存在。洪涝灾害对血吸虫病流行会产生严重影响,甚至影响血吸虫病防治进程和防治成果的巩固。2020年,我国较大范围发生了严重洪涝灾害。本文分析了当前我国血吸虫病流行现状及洪涝灾害对血吸虫病流行的影响,并就洪涝灾害发生前的风险评估与处置、发生时的感染风险防范以及灾后疫情评估与监测等血吸虫病防控工作进行了系统阐述。洪涝灾害地区的血吸虫病防控既是常规防治工作的重要部分,又是救灾防病工作的重要环节,应在各地政府的统一领导下科学有序地实施各项应急响应措施,避免或减少洪涝灾害所致血吸虫病传播风险;同时要重视和加强血吸虫病早期监测预警技术和方法研究,为实现《 “十三五”全国血吸虫病防治规划》和全面消除血吸虫病目标提供科学精准的支撑。     

Correlation Between Paramedic Disaster Triage Accuracy in Screen-Based Simulations and Immersive Simulations

Background: Disaster triage is an infrequent, high-stakes skill set used by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel. Screen-based simulation (SBS) provides easy access to asynchronous disaster triage education. However, it is unclear if the performance during a SBS correlates with immersive simulation performance. Methods: This was a nested cohort study within a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The RCT compared triage accuracy of paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who completed an immersive simulation of a school shooting, interacted with an SBS for 13 weeks, and then completed the immersive simulation again. The participants were divided into two groups: those exposed vs. those not exposed to 60?Seconds to Survival^© (60S), a disaster triage SBS. The aim of the study was to measure the correlation between SBS triage accuracy and immersive simulation triage accuracy. Improvements in triage accuracy were compared among participants in the nested study before and after interacting with 60S, and with improvements in triage accuracy in a previous study in which immersive simulations were used as an educational intervention. Results: Thirty-nine participants completed the SBS; 26 (67%) completed at least three game plays and were included in the evaluation of outcomes of interest. The mean number of plays was 8.5 (SD =7.4). Subjects correctly triaged 12.4% more patients in the immersive simulation at study completion (73.1% before, 85.8% after, P?=?0.004). There was no correlation between the amount of improvement in overall SBS triage accuracy, instances of overtriage (P?=?0.101), instances of undertriage (P?=?0.523), and improvement in the second immersive simulation. A comparison of the pooled data from a previous immersive simulation study with the nested cohort data showed similar improvement in triage accuracy (P?=?0.079). Conclusions: SBS education was associated with a significant increase in triage accuracy in an immersive simulation, although triage accuracy demonstrated in the SBS did not correlate with the performance in the immersive simulation. This improvement in accuracy was similar to the improvement seen when immersive simulation was used as the educational intervention in a previous study.     

Nonlinear permanent migration response to climatic variations but minimal response to disasters

We present a microlevel study to simultaneously investigate the effects of variations in temperature and precipitation along with sudden natural disasters to infer their relative influence on migration that is likely permanent. The study is made possible by the availability of household panel data from Indonesia with an exceptional tracking rate combined with frequent occurrence of natural disasters and significant climatic variations, thus providing a quasi-experiment to examine the influence of environment on migration. Using data on 7,185 households followed over 15 y, we analyze whole-household, province-to-province migration, which allows us to understand the effects of environmental factors on permanent moves that may differ from temporary migration. The results suggest that permanent migration is influenced by climatic variations, whereas episodic disasters tend to have much smaller or no impact on such migration. In particular, temperature has a nonlinear effect on migration such that above 25 °C, a rise in temperature is related to an increase in outmigration, potentially through its impact on economic conditions. We use these results to estimate the impact of projected temperature increases on future permanent migration. Though precipitation also has a similar nonlinear effect on migration, the effect is smaller than that of temperature, underscoring the importance of using an expanded set of climatic factors as predictors of migration. These findings on the minimal influence of natural disasters and precipitation on permanent moves supplement previous findings on the significant role of these variables in promoting temporary migration.Human migration has been identified as a potentially important response to climate change. Where climate change makes habitation in certain places less desirable or even impossible, people may respond by moving elsewhere. However, the idea that environmental change induces people to migrate remains a widely contested topic, especially given recent findings suggesting that environmental changes may also constrain movement (1–3). Historically, there has been a paucity of empirical demonstrations of environmental effects on population mobility, partly due to sparse data and partly because migration studies have tended to focus on further exploration of social and economic predictors of migration that have already been established as primary drivers. More recently however, new empirical approaches to exploring the relationship between migration and climate change have emerged.Based on a review of the existing literature (SI Text, Literature Review), there is conflicting evidence on the effects of climatic variations and natural disasters on migration, partly arising from the inability to distinguish permanent moves from temporary ones, especially in the case of macrolevel studies that analyze aggregate flows of people. Furthermore, the effects may vary significantly by distance of migration destination, which may also confound the overall effect of environmental factors on migration. Above all, most studies at the microlevel do not simultaneously examine the effects of both disasters and climatic changes on migration, and often use only one aspect of climate, generally variation in rainfall. However, precipitation and temperature are historically correlated and to infer an unbiased effect of either one on migration probability, both need to be included in the model (4).The current study therefore attempts to improve on the existing studies. This study is, to our knowledge, the first at a microlevel to simultaneously explore the effects of sudden natural disasters and climatic variations on permanent migration of the whole household. (Household migration can take several forms: migration of a single member or individual migration; migration of one or more members of the household or split household migration; and migration of whole household, which includes migration of the entire household along with the head of household.) In doing so, we test the effect of temperature along with precipitation on migration decision. We include a summary that allows a quick comparison of the methodology used in our study compared with previous studies in terms of the choice of environmental variables to predict migration (Table S1). Prior studies have primarily examined individual migration behavior, which may capture both temporary and permanent migration. In contrast, province-level migration of entire households, as we show (with the use of data that follows households over a period of 15 y), tends to be more permanent. (We hereafter use the term “permanent.”) To our knowledge, the only other studies that focus on household migration explore the mechanisms by which natural disasters can deter migration of the household or its relatives (5, 6). By studying migration behavior of the whole household, we are able to focus on permanent migration, and therefore directly test how sudden disasters along with variations in rainfall and temperature affect permanent and relatively longer distance (province-to-province) migration as opposed to temporary movement; this allows us to complement the findings in some existing studies that generally conclude that natural disasters and rainfall result in temporary and short-distance moves while providing new evidence on the temperature–migration link in the context of microlevel studies.To achieve these goals, we chose Indonesia as our study site because as the world’s largest archipelago situated in a tectonically active location, the country is highly exposed to both geologic and climatic hazards (SI Text, Background on Indonesia). In addition, as the world’s fourth most populous country with ∼40% of the labor force engaged in agriculture and more than 60% of the total population living in the coastal areas, the country is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate variations and extreme events (SI Text, Background on Indonesia). At the same time, the availability of household panel data with an exceptional tracking rate allows us to use a difference-in-differences approach to study the migration of households before and after disasters as well as establish a plausibly causal link between climatic variations and migration. We use the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), a household panel survey representative of ∼83% of the Indonesian population from 13 of the 27 provinces in 1993 (Fig. S1). The IFLS provides data on 7,185 original households, followed over a period of 15 y (Materials and Methods). The migration outcome we predict captures migration of households, which is likely permanent. We track whole-household migration for a 15-y period during which the original households are followed with a very high retention rate even after they migrate. Some 95% of the migrant households end up migrating only once and do not return to their original province during the entire 15-y period. Therefore, at least in the Indonesian case, the provincial level migration of households seems to be permanent (see SI Text, Internal Migration in Indonesia, for more on internal migration in Indonesia).The household panel data are supplemented with data on natural disasters taken from DesInventar database, which provides disaster-related data using information on disasters of different intensities based on preexisting official data, academic records, newspaper sources, and institutional reports. Different types of disasters may not all affect migration in the same way, thus cancelling out each other’s effects on migration. For our analysis, we therefore separately estimate the effects of each type of disaster. Furthermore, we use multiple measures to capture the different ways in which a disaster may affect the population, for three primary reasons. First, we believe that the intensity of disaster rather than simply the occurrence of disaster should more accurately predict its effect. Measures such as number of deaths, number injured, number of houses destroyed, and amount of financial loss (captured by monetary loss measured in Indonesian Rupiah) from each type of disaster aggregated at the province level are used to capture both the frequency as well as the intensity of disasters. Second, relying on a single measure of a disaster may not capture its overall effect because a certain event may result in large financial losses but inflict little physical harm. Third, using alternate measures of disaster allows one to compare and confirm results, and can be used as a robustness check (Materials and Methods).Finally, for measures of climatic variations, we construct estimates of average temperature and precipitation for each province during each observation interval (Materials and Methods), because temperature and rainfall variations together provide a more complete measure of the extent of climate variations that may affect migration (7).