sizing up natural disasters - crhnet · 2016-12-22 · disaster volcano earthquake tsunami tornado...

SIZING UP NATURAL DISASTERS

Ms. H. Jithamala Caldera

Prof. S. C. Wirasinghe

Prof. L. Zanzotto

Department of civil engineeringUniversity of Calgary

CRHNet Annual Symposium November 2016

© Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016 2

Introduction

Overview

1. Existing techniques of natural disasters

2. Objectives

3. Proposed technique

Disaster Severity Index (DSI)

Qualitative - Order and definitions

Quantitative - Initial scale based on fatalities

4. Conclusions

3© Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016

4

Existing Methods - Qualitative: Descriptive Terms

EmergencyA serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.

DisasterA sudden accident or a natural catastrophethat causes great damage or loss of life.

CatastropheAn event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering; a disaster.

CalamityAn event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.

CataclysmA large-scale and violent event in the natural world.

• Words have increasing levels of seriousness

1. Depend on personal feelings and experiencetowards the event

2. One term to define another

3. Meaning change over time

• No sense of the real magnitude

Source; Oxford dictionary of English 3rd edn (2010)

dis-

astrum astro

disastro disasterLatin

Italian

Italian

Italian

star

ill-starred event

Late 16th century

© Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016

5

Severity Classification: Quantitative

• The Encyclopedia of Crisis Management classify

disasters using four levels

• Foundation to the science of disaster

medicine, de Boer (1990) tried to

classify disasters

*Depending on the medical severity Index

YesYes

No No

Yes No

Destructive Event

Casualties?

*Extra

mobilization

medical

resources ?

Extra

mobilization

other

resources ?

Disaster Accident Calamity

IncidentsMajor Incidents

Disasters Catastrophes

ImpactVery localized

Generally localized

Widespread and severe

Extremely large

Response Local effortsSomemutual assistance

Intergovernmental response

Major international response

Plans and procedures

Standard operating procedures

Emergency plans activated

Emergency plans fully activated

Plans potentially overwhelmed

ResourceLocal resources

Some outside assistance

Interregional transfer of resources

Local resources overwhelmed

Public involvement

Very little involvement

Mainly not involved

Public very involved

Extensively involved

Recovery Very few challenges

Few challenges

Major challenges

Massive challenges

Source: (Penuel, Statler, and Hagen 2013)


6

Existing Methods - Quantitative: Magnitude/ Intensity Scales

Disaster Volcano Earthquake Tsunami Tornado

Existing ScaleVEIscale

RichterScale

IntensityScale

EF Scale

Fatalities 0.33 0.13 0.248 0.339Injuries 0.39 0.285 0.134 0.366Damage 0.09 0.488 0.168 0.32House Destroyed 0.33 0.23 0.043 -

House Damaged - 0.237 - -

Missing 0.45 - - -

• Indicate the strength not the impact• Impact depends on where a

disaster occurs• Not highly correlated

• Impact is similar but different scales• No relationship between among

different scales


Correlation coefficients of impact factors Vs. Intensity Scales

Existing Methods - Quantitative: Statistics

Different factors give a different idea of the level of impact of an event

o One attribute itself cannot represent the severity of an event

Comparing different events and obtaining a sense of scale are problematic

o Deficiencies that reduce the quality of the dataset

7

Event Fatalities Injuries Homeless Total affected population

Damage (USD in billions)

2004 Tsunami impact - Sri Lanka

35,399 23,176 48,000 1,019,306 1.32

2013 Flood impact - Alberta, Canada

4 0 0 100,000 5.70

2011 Earthquake, tsunami and industrial accidents - Great East Japan

19,846 5,933 0 368,820 210.00

Source: EM-Dat (CRED)


8

Scope DisasterNumber of

casualties

Geographic area

affected (km2)

I Small < 10 or < 1

II Medium 10 – 100 or 1 – 10

III Large 100 – 1000 or 10 -100

IV Enormous 1000 - 10000 or 100 – 1000

V Gargantuan >10000 or >1000

Severity Classification: Qualitative

• Disaster scope (Gad-el-Hak, 2008) • Disaster Severity Scale (De Boer,

1990) based on seven parameters

1. Disaster’s effect on the infrastructure

2. Cause (man-made/ natural hazard)

3. Impact time

4. Radius of the disaster

5. Casualties

6. Nature of injuries sustained by living

victims

7. Rescue time.


• There is no scale that is supported with data that can rate any natural disaster

Objectives

1. Create a Disaster Severity Index• Bridge between qualitative and quantitative techniques

2. Improve quantitative technique• Develop a clear order and definitions of existing terminologies, which describe the severity of

disasters

3. Improve quantitative technique and combine• Develop an initial scale, based on most influencing factor(s), to describe the range of severity

levels of natural disasters worldwide9© Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016

Importance of Severity Classification

10

Who Benefits?

Research Community

• Existing technology

• Available recourses

General Public

• Education levels

• Response time

Disaster Managers and Emergency Responders

• Disaster mitigation

• Independent estimates of the magnitude of a disaster

Governments, Relief Agencies, NGO’s, Media Outlets

• Respond to events

• Clear definitions

Insurance Managers and Estimators

• Disaster compensation

• Insurance policiesDatabase Managers

• Information management

• Information processing


Factors Reflects Severity

11

Cost of Damage

Affected population

Property damage

Region of

impact

Population

density/ increase

Injuries

Fatalities

Missing people

Houses damaged

Economic damage

Social Damage

( distress/ suffering)

GDP per capita

Intensity

Disaster duration/

speed

Location

Mitigation Methods

Available Resources

Available Technology

Evacuated or not

Response Rate

Education Level

Experience


Objective 1: Disaster Severity Index (DSI)

• Human factors: 0 up to 7.347 billion -World’s population (World Bank, 2015)

• Damage: 0 to 78.089 trillion USD - Maximum Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2014 (World Bank, 2015) 12

Seriousness level Color code Human factors (H) Damage factors (D)

1 DSI 1 0<H≤10

0<D≤1010<D≤100

100<D≤1,0001,000<D≤10,000

2 DSI 2 10<H≤100 10,000<D≤100,0003 DSI 3 100<H≤1,000 100,000<D≤1 million4 DSI 4 1,000<H≤10,000 1 million<D≤10 million5 DSI 5 10,000<H≤100,000 10 million<D≤100 million6 DSI 6 100,000<H≤1 million 100 million<D≤1 billion7 DSI 7 1 million<H≤10 million 1 billion<D≤10 billion8 DSI 8 10 million<H≤100 million 10 billion<D≤100 billion9 DSI 9 100 million<H≤1 billion 100 billion<D≤1 trillion

10 DSI 10 1 billion<H 1 trillion<D

Disaster Severity Index (DSI) – bridge between qualitative and quantitative techniques

Objective 2: Proposed Order and Definitions

13

• EMERGENCY: A sudden natural event that causes damage, injuries and some fatalities

• DISASTER: A major natural event that causes significant damage, many serious injuries andmany fatalities

• CATASTROPHE : A large scale natural disturbance that causes severe destruction, major amount of injuries and great number of fatalities

• CALAMITY : A very large scale natural disturbance that causes widespread destruction, massive amount of injuries and an extensive loss of life

• CATACLYSM: An extremely large scale natural upheaval, that causes widespread devastation, uncountable amount of injuries and unimaginable loss of life

DisasterEmergency

CataclysmCatastrophe Calamity

Increasing level of seriousness• Circumstance, impact, injuries and fatality © Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016

Methodology: Quantitative scale

Study the behavior and the destructive capacity of strong, violent, uncontrollable, infrequent disasters

14© Caldera & Wirasinghe, 2016

Parent Probability Distributions of Natural Disasters Fatalities

Extreme Value Distribution of Severe Natural Disasters Fatalities

Severity Levels

Extremes events:

• Very low probability events• Located on the tail of PDF

Analysis of Extreme Fatalities

Top 10 extreme cases for each disaster type

— Reflects the reasonable amount of data for each type

Estimated probabilities -> Weibull distribution

15

α=0.4095, β=37496; γ=0

10 different type of disasters

Large scale global disasters— Earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes

Regional scale disasters — Floods, cyclones, and tornadoes

Local scale disasters — Flash floods, forest fires, landslides and lightning

𝑓 𝑥 =𝛼

𝛽

𝑥−𝛾

𝛽

𝛼−1𝑒𝑥𝑝 −

𝑥−𝛾

𝛽

𝛼; α, β>0; x>γ; γєR


Objective 3: Proposed Fatality Based Disaster Scale

Type Seriousness level

Color code

Fatality Range SampleProbability

EstimatedProbability

Example

Emergency DSI 1 1 ≤ F < 10 0 0.021 Southern Alberta flood, Canada - 2013- 4 deaths

Disaster Type 1 DSI 2 10 ≤ F < 100 0.031 0.051 Edmonton tornado, Canada - 1987 - 27 deathsDisaster Type 2 DSI 3 100 ≤ F < 1,000 0.268 0.118 Thailand flood – 2011 - 815 deaths

Catastrophe Type 1 DSI 4 1,000 ≤ F < 10,000 0.175 0.238 Hurricane Katrina, USA – 2005 - 1833 deaths

Catastrophe Type 2DSI 5

10,000 ≤ F < 0.1M 0.216 0.334 Tohuku earthquake and tsunami, Japan - 2011 -15882 deaths

Calamity Type 1 DSI 6 0.1M ≤ F < 1M 0.299 0.203 Haiti earthquake - 2010 – 316.000 deathsCalamity Type 2 DSI 7 1M ≤ F < 10M 0.010 0.022 China floods- 1931- more than 2,500,000 deaths

Cataclysm Type 1 DSI 8 10M ≤ F < 100M 0 5.27*10-05 Black death pandemic - from 1346 to 1353

Cataclysm Type 2DSI 9

100M ≤ F < 1B 0 1.04*10-11 Super Volcano (e.g. Yellowstone) – less than 1billion estimated deaths

Partial or FullExtinction

DSI 10

1B ≤ F < 10B 0 6.32*10-29 Meteor strike (diameter > 1.5 Km) - less than 1.5billion estimated deathsPandemic (Avian influenza) – less than 2.8 billionestimated deaths 16

Qualitative Technique

Quantitative Technique

Bridge of DSI

Some Example

Disaster Classification

Type Severity level

Color code

FlashFlood

ForestFire

Lightning Tornado Volcano Landslide

Cyclone/Hurricane

Earthquake Tsunami Flood

Emergency DSI 1 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Disaster Type 1 DSI 2 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Disaster Type 2 DSI 3 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √Catastrophe Type 1 DSI 4 √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √Catastrophe Type 2 DSI 5 × × × × √ √ √ √ √ √Calamity Type 1 DSI 6 × × × × × √ √ √ √ √Calamity Type 2 DSI 7 × × × × × × × × × √

Cataclysm Type 1 DSI 8 × × × × × × × × × ×

Cataclysm Type 1 DSI 9 × × × × × × × × × ×Partial or FullExtinction

DSI 10× × × × × × × × × ×

17

’√’ -> levels covered by each disaster


Conclusions

18

1. Proposed a methodology to measure the severity for all types of natural disasters under one single scale

2. Illustrated using only fatalities• Facilitates the comparison among various degrees of disasters and obtaining a sense of

scale

3. Limitations: One factor is not sufficient4. Continuation of the research provides an overall picture of the severity of

natural disasters based on several independent combine factors and ranks disasters based on their impact

• Develops a multidimensional → Universal Disaster Severity Scale• Unified way of describing disasters

• Yields independent estimates of the magnitude of a disaster for cities or countries • Helps gauge the need for regional/national/international assistance


Thank You!

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sizing up natural disasters - crhnet · 2016-12-22 · disaster volcano earthquake tsunami tornado...

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