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• Impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami to Malaysia were diverse and significant. • Majority of Malaysia's at-risk coastline are still highly vulnerable. • Tourism, fishing and aquaculture industries were heavily affected. • Impacts of the tsunami towards local ecosystem need better understanding. • Research on tsunami have gained interest in Malaysia. Situated in the middle of the Sunda Plate and close to the Ring of Fire, Malaysia is surrounded by seismically active zones that pose risks of natural hazards, among which is tsunami. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami caused by a magnitude 9.3 earthquake off Sumatran coastline was the first tsunami to have reached Malaysia in the country's own recorded history, though there are brief records of other tsunami reaching Malaysian coastline in the past. This paper reviewed relevant literature sources to highlight the intensity and diversity of damages caused by the tsunami towards Malaysia. These damages ranged from loss of lives, physical damage to structures and infrastructures, environmental changes, socioeconomic setbacks, and health issues among the victims. Subsequent measures taken by the Malaysian government and agencies in managing disaster risk in the country are also reviewed. These measures include the identification of tsunami hazard zones, development of tsunami emergency response plans, and the formation of the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA). In addition, the shift in disaster management approaches from being heavily top-down towards community-based was examined. Understanding of the wide spectrum of impacts caused by the tsunami disaster, the contributing factors as well as mitigation efforts reviewed in this paper can be particularly useful in making informed decisions regarding future risk reduction strategies in the context of a developing country like Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An optimization approach was provided to construct efficient evacuation network. • The study on using LOS concept in evacuation planning was extended. • The approach was validated by computational experiments on a hypothetical three-story building and a twelve-deck cruise ship. • Sensitivity analysis of the optimized LOS design was concluded. This paper introduces a novel technique to design the level of service (LOS) for facilities or sub spaces of buildings for the purpose of evacuation planning. LOS is a standard qualitative indicator used to describe flow characteristics in a pedestrian environment. Some evacuation planners use LOS to help determine the network parameters when solving evacuation planning problems by the network flow approach. However, there is currently limited research into the optimization of the LOS parameters themselves to construct more efficient evacuation networks. In this paper the authors used a genetic algorithm optimization approach to determine LOS for facilities to improve the evacuation performance of building networks. Each individual chromosome containing a LOS design represents a fully defined evacuation network that can be solved. The fitness of each network is measured by minimum clearance time, which is calculated by the Capacity Constrained Route Planner (CCRP) approach. A comparative computational test in a hypothetical three-story building shows that the evacuation network under the optimized LOS design has a roughly 11% less minimum clearance time compared to the network under the original LOS design. Sensitivity analysis is also included, focusing on how the population size and the building layout influence the LOS design. In addition, an additional computational test for a twelve-deck cruise ship shows that the approach is scalable to solve more complex evacuation networks. The proposed approach has the potential to provide better LOS assignments for facilities for the government officials to develop effective emergency management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ideology and inclusion are important for spontaneous volunteerism in emergency response. • Spontaneous volunteers in response contributes to emergency management quality. • The inclusion of spontaneous volunteers in emergency response is possible Denmark. The paper studies the response to a coastal flooding in Roskilde Municipality, Denmark, which included a relatively large number of spontaneous volunteers, which is a rare and practically undescribed phenomenon in Denmark. The particular focus of the study is how emergency authorities can embrace and integrate spontaneous volunteers in emergency response. In the paper an analytical model is developed abductively, which suggests that the ideology and inclusion practices of the emergency authorities are important factors that need to be studied more to understand the integration of spontaneous volunteers in emergency response. The study is based on document analysis, media and social media analysis and qualitative interviews. The study concludes that the involvement of spontaneous volunteers in emergency response contributes to emergency management quality if appropriate management approaches are applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Disasters have increased exponentially in terms of frequency and impact. • High Reliability Organisations (HROs) continue to operate mindfully with minimal incidents. • Most disasters occur in non HRO's, so learning from HROs must be extended to diverse organisations. • There is no HRO framework of empirical data applied across diverse organisations. • Organisational Reliability Maturity Framework creates a measurable and replicable process. Abstract The increasing havoc wrecked by catastrophic incidents on organisations worldwide, as well as the increasing devastating effects of these incidents, has necessitated the development of a framework to improve the reliability of organisations. Despite operating in tightly coupled and complex technologies, high reliability organisations (HROs) continue to operate mindfully with minimal incidents. Given that most disasters have occurred in organisations and industries not considered as truly HROs, this paper argues that applying organisational learning from HROs across diverse organisations in different industries could potentially reduce organisational disasters. This paper recognised the numerous researches in HRO theory, but noticed the unavailability of a harmonized measurable framework that could be standardized and applied across diverse organisations. Using the HRO principles, this paper conducted a research in 8 organisations, in 3 industries across 2 continents. It developed the organisational reliability maturity model (ORM2) to track the progression organisations through 5 maturity levels. It developed the framework for organisational reliability maturity (FORM) to measure maturity levels of organisations, predict potentials for disasters, benchmark, and improvement organisations. It is hoped that this paper will deepen existing research in disaster prevention and HRO theory, while opening up new areas of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Descriptions of institutional traits of the Norwegian police force. • Institutional traits influence emergency responses to crises. • High complexity and uncertainty activate institutionalized responses. • Broader organizational analyzes should be a part of the study of emergency responses. Abstract In this paper we address the institutional context of the police response during the 22 July terror attacks in Norway. Our analysis shows how institutionalized informal practices, established over time, influenced the police response during the attacks. The response presented challenges in terms of management of actor complexity (the number of actors involved and the need for coordination) and uncertainty. The importance of these dimensions is discussed based on the police's response during the terror attack in Oslo in 2011. Our analysis of the course of events shows that the resources dedicated to strategic management were marginalized during the event and that insufficient attention was directed towards intelligence and investigation. This contributed to an ineffective police effort to track and capture the perpetrator and prevent or respond to the secondary attack. This is similar to what is often found in hindsight investigations of crises. The aim of this paper is to contextualize and analyze these findings in light of the institutional context of the Norwegian police. Reports from exercises before and after the terror attack indicate that the marginalization of strategic work, intelligence and investigation has been and remains a persistent problem in the Norwegian police. Interviews indicate that there are informal aspects of the police organization regarding status and established conventions of what "proper police work" is about that explain how the observed inadequacies are deeply embedded in the organization. As such, the paper is not a study of a failure in crisis management, but rather the institutional patterns of action that make actions and decisions stand out as meaningful for the actors involved in dealing with situations of high complexity and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • I explore and model the societal safety and societal security concepts in tandem. • I employ a systematic research design in the conceptual exploration and modeling. • The conceptual model highlights the concepts' multi-dimensional and interrelated nature. • The conceptual model must be further tested and developed through empirical studies. Abstract This paper explores and models the concepts of societal safety and societal security in tandem, with the aim of understanding how the concepts are composed, related, and can be reconciled. The need for reconciliation can be seen in how the concepts address similar topics and issues in literature, which calls for an exploration of the concepts' similarities and differences. The exploration offers both a systematic literature review of the societal safety and societal security concepts and the empirical analysis of how these concepts inform debate through in-depth interviews with leaders and key stakeholders in Norway. Data from the empirical study were analyzed by means of a systematic content analysis using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). The combined insights of the literature review and the empirical study resulted in a model of the societal safety and societal security concepts that highlights the concepts' multi-dimensional composition and closely related nature. The conceptual model represents an effort to reconcile the societal safety and societal security concepts. Associated implications to practice, policy, and research are discussed, along with the paper's contributions to safety and security research. The paper's theoretical contribution lies in its approach to conceptualizing and reconciling the interrelated and many-dimensioned nature of the societal safety and societal security concepts for further testing and extension. The methodological contribution is the explicit and systematic qualitative research design to facilitate transparency, structure, and insights in future explorations of safety and security concepts more broadly. While my findings coincide with much of the existing literature on what makes for good stakeholder involvement in discussions of societal safety and security, the paper offers new insights and dimensions for these concepts and further research. Two dimensions stand out. Firstly, threat discourses, defined by a societal elite and media, may enhance security measures and centralization tendencies that challenge democratic values such as the right to privacy and ability to influence the society's political course. Secondly, societal safety and societal security are about creating favorable physical and psychological conditions for people to experience the good life when society is faced with new/unknown elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This paper reviewed 82 papers related to Climate Change (CC) impacts on Energy Critical Infrastructure (ECI). • The papers were reviewed with regards to Critical Infrastructure interdependencies and their effects on ECI resilience to CC. • Gaps in the field have been identified and a new framework proposed. Abstract Critical Infrastructure Protection is a relatively new scientific domain stemming from an American Presidential directive PDD-63 of May 1998. Critical Infrastructure (CI) performance and protection are national priorities for all European Union (EU) countries following the introduction of the EU Directive 2008/114/EC, which takes an all hazards approach. This paper has an international focus. At the global and European level, the interest in identifying the impacts of climate change on CIs and extreme weather events (EWE) has increased in the last decades, following several high-profile so-called natural disasters. Concern is evidenced by the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the EU Commission's Staff Working Document on Risk Assessment and Mapping; Guidelines for Disaster Management, SEC (2010) 1626. This paper presents and discusses scientific work which has been published in this area, with a focus on energy CI. The impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on energy CI are initially identified. Important aspects in CI protection such as risk assessment, interdependencies with other sectors, and adaptation/resilience options are subsequently presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • External damage is the most common cause of gas transmission pipeline failure. • One-call systems allow excavation work to go ahead without pipeline damage. • Pipeline companies and those working near pipelines have different interests. • One-call system acts as a boundary object allowing good enough collaboration. • Boundary object concept works well; should be of interest to safety researchers. Abstract The network of high pressure natural gas pipelines under our towns and cities operates with little public or academic attention. Since the pipelines are buried, they are largely invisible and awareness is low until there is a serious accident (e.g. Ghislenghien, San Bruno). Importantly, pipeline integrity is threatened by activities of third parties outside the pipeline sector such as local councils, other utilities and civil contractors doing work on other kinds of infrastructure. This paper focuses on how Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) – Australia's one-call service for those doing civil works – functions at the boundary between the social worlds of various relevant actors. Drawing on more than 50 interviews with those involved in work near pipelines, we conceptualize DBYD as a boundary object. The pipeline sector sees DBYD as an effective system that minimizes risk to their assets. Those working near pipelines see it as a system that should support their own business goals. Nevertheless, the interpretive flexibility of DBYD allows cooperation without complete consensus. The boundary object framework reveals three key aspects of the social architecture provided by DBYD – the extent to which temporal considerations vary, the way in which the system institutionalises conflict and how DBYD constitutes a form of surveillance by one sector over another. The paper argues that as more essential services, including those that are potentially hazardous, are located in the 'crowded underground' below our cities, it is more important than ever to understand how the relevant actors interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Many Critical Infrastructures have been institutionally fragmented. • Challenges to critical infrastructure resilience in such setting is explored. • Response and recovery after failures is often complicated and time-consuming. • The importance of contractual arrangements for shaping resilience is illustrated. • Organisational resilience does not correlate with infrastructure resilience. Abstract Under the influence of neo-liberal ideals such as New Public Management, the ownership, operation, and maintenance of many Critical Infrastructures have been divided among an increasing number of public as well as private actors. Limited research has investigated the role of this institutional fragmentation for shaping resilience of Critical Infrastructures, especially in relation to recovery after infrastructure failures. The aim of this paper is to empirically explore inter-organisational challenges to response and recovery operations in the increasingly multi-actor setting characterising many contemporary Critical Infrastructures. Using the Swedish railway system as a case, the paper explores response and recovery operations following two frequent types of events. The findings show that once disruptions occur, response and recovery operations are often complicated and time-consuming. Multiple actors with diverse roles and mandates are involved in the operations, which prompts a need for communication and coordination. The case study also illustrates the important role of contractual arrangements for shaping resilience of deregulated Critical Infrastructures. The contracts incentivise actors to certain behaviours, but they also give rise to unintended side-effects. While individual actors typically make adaptations and goal trade-offs with regards to their individual tasks and actions in a way that is both locally rational and efficient, interconnections and interdependencies among the different actors give rise to cross-scale challenges to stimulating resilient operations of the infrastructure system as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Resilience is used worldwide to responsibilise individual citizens and local networks. • This paper analyses how resilience has been established in the safety discourse. • The paper analyses effects of the normative resilience discourse. Abstract There seems to be a worldwide push, through policy and Government campaigns, to emphasise a local and decentralised responsibility for societal safety and security. Often, this push is argued for using the notion of resilience. Using an archaeological approach this paper sets out to analyse the conditions of possibility for resilience to get established as an object of knowledge within the discourse of societal safety and security. Three such conditions of possibility are analysed: a scientific availability of resilience language and theory which offers an academic credibility to claims for resilience, a political need to decentralise initiatives (and costs) for societal safety and security to local actors and networks, and a number of events defining the need for such an approach. Critical questions are raised regarding the transfer of responsibility to citizens for societal safety and security, the normative use of resilience language as well as whether the resilience object of knowledge actually provides new language or whether it rather repackages previously present objects of discursive knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An assessment framework for an evacuation warning based on regional evacuation modeling for toxic-cloud releases is provided in this paper, which considers the impact of evacuation-warning dissemination and the calculation of health consequences. The modeling of regional evacuation accounts for several actual phases of the evacuation process. A division called an evacuation unit is proposed in the building process of a regional evacuation network, and a method to quickly calculate the movement time through the evacuation unit is presented. The loading process of evacuation flow is proposed, making it possible to change pre-movement efficiency by adjusting the overall pre-movement time in evacuation analysis. Apart from the movement of individuals through the regional evacuation network, the processes of warning diffusion and evacuation preparation are considered based on the analysis of the required egress time. The proposed regional evacuation model is applied in the analysis and comparison of evacuation warning strategies in the case study. The simulation results show the correctness and effectiveness of the strategy-assessment framework for evacuation warning, and the method proposed in this paper can be used as a tool to assist in emergency early-warning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical evacuation drills are pre-planned activities to train building occupants in facing emergencies and evaluate safety performances. Nowadays, technologies including Virtual Reality (VR) and Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) are shifting from the physical to the virtual paradigm. AR enables just to extend real-world environment, while VR and IVR allow to (re)create and manipulate digital environments. VR and IVR simulation systems have been observed to guarantee higher involvement and long-term information retention — leveraging more attractive experiences and psychological arousal. However, efforts should be provided to improve end-user training while assessing occupants' behaviors and the effectiveness of the emergency plan. This paper proposes a systematic literature review of VR and IVR evacuation solutions. To support and guide such effort, we formulated thirteen structured research questions investigating scenarios, recipients, requirements, objectives, methods, and technologies. The results mainly show that VR and IVR drills almost entirely tackle a single hazard, considers occupants as sole system recipients, and lack systems formalization. Among the most relevant outcomes, the paper analyzes the need for enhancing the modeling of emergency systems (e.g., signage, alarms), user inclusiveness (i.e., impaired individuals), devices, non-player characters, and additional effects (e.g., heat reproduction, sounds, and smells). These measures can improve the level of realism experienced by the user of IVR simulators and pave the way to more reliable outcomes. • Investigating (Immersive) Virtual Reality (I)VR evacuation drill systems. • Applying a systematic literature review methodology. • Environment, User, Interaction, hazards, and Technology characterization. • Perspectives, Strengths, and drawbacks analysis of current solutions. • Need for impaired user inclusiveness and (multi)-hazard characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Timelines of wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire events are studied. • A multi-physics modelling framework for WUI fire has been developed. • The key features for system integration are identified and listed. Fire evacuations at wildland-urban interfaces (WUI) pose a serious challenge to the emergency services, and are a global issue affecting thousands of communities around the world. This paper presents a multi-physics framework for the simulation of evacuation in WUI wildfire incidents, including three main modelling layers: wildfire, pedestrians, and traffic. Currently, these layers have been mostly modelled in isolation and there is no comprehensive model which accounts for their integration. The key features needed for system integration are identified, namely: consistent level of refinement of each layer (i.e. spatial and temporal scales) and their application (e.g. evacuation planning or emergency response), and complete data exchange. Timelines of WUI fire events are analysed using an approach similar to building fire engineering (available vs. required safe egress times for WUI fires, i.e. WASET/WRSET). The proposed framework allows for a paradigm shift from current wildfire risk assessment and mapping tools towards dynamic fire vulnerability mapping. This is the assessment of spatial and temporal vulnerabilities based on the wildfire threat evolution along with variables related to the infrastructure, population and network characteristics. This framework allows for the integration of the three main modelling layers affecting WUI fire evacuation and aims at improving the safety of WUI communities by minimising the consequences of wildfire evacuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an agent-based human behavioral modeling framework to analyze probable human actions, in emergency situations, considering both physical and psychological dimensions, in emergency situations. Human’s prospective controls suggest that the environment can offer certain physical and psychological conditions to opt for a finite number of feasible human actions that lead to desired system states. A set of possible human actions is then generated and updated from the affordance-effectivity duals in a spatial-temporal dimension. In this paper, a reward and cost-based dynamic affordance-based agent model is built upon physical and psychological constraints that are inserted for the agents’ decision-making processes. The model employs Markov Decision Process (MDP), and NASA-TLX (Task Load Index) is used as cost and reward estimates. The action selection process of human agents, i.e., triggering of state transitions, is stochastically modeled in accordance with the action-state cost (load) values. A series of affordance-based numerical values are calculated for predicting prospective actions in the system. Finally, an evacuation simulation example based on the proposed model is illustrated to verify the proposed human behavioral modeling framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A critical review integrating the scientometric analysis is prosed. • An objective quantitative visualization is developed to summarize the extent, geographic distribution, and multidisciplinary knowledge related to the domain of soft computing applications for emergency evacuation studies. • A framework with current research hotspots is built for crowd modelling, evacuation simulation, and optimizations. • The research frontiers of the topic, method, and technology can serve as a guideline to incorporate the elements of evacuation and hybrid soft computing approaches. Emergency evacuation is viewed as a common strategy adopted during the disaster preparedness stage of evacuation to ensure the safety of potentially affected populations. In emergency evacuation studies, soft computing approaches and methodologies have been widely used to support effective decision-making, providing robust and low-cost solutions. To understand the current status and trends of research on soft computing applications for emergency evacuation studies, 778 related studies published in the core database of Web of Science from 2000 to 2020 were considered in this study. A scientometric analysis and a comprehensive review were performed using a scientific mapping of the knowledge domain. This paper presents a set of analyses with the following primary objectives: (1) to explore and visualize the bibliometric characteristics and contents of the academic field concerned with the soft computing approaches for emergency evacuation; and (2) to review and analyze the knowledge, hotspots, and future outlooks related to soft computing approaches for emergency evacuation. The results provide some important insights regarding the existing soft computing methods that have been used in the emergency evacuation field over the past 20 years. Based on the conducted review, this paper proposes that future studies should concentrate on exploring the potential of innovative soft computing approaches for crowd modelling and enabling more accurate evacuation simulation and optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper proposes a framework to respond to crises rapidly and effectively. • The framework includes context assessment and response planning and execution phases. • Contextualisation, creativity and improvisation are key factors of the response. • The areas of intervention include government, interfaces, operations and monitoring. • Incremental adaptive cycles, based on creativity and improvisation, are needed. The increasing number of disasters of natural and technological origin represents a significant challenge for countries and organisations globally. Scholars complain about the lack of models and guidelines to navigate the 'during' phase of disaster management, particularly in the contexts of crises characterised by unprecedented or unclear demands. This paper retrospectively analyses the case of an urban shoring-up by the Italian National Fire Department in the wake of the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009. Despite the situation's unprecedented demands and extreme complexity, this case is viewed as one of the most effective responses in the history of crisis management in Italy. Empirical evidence collected from interviews and documents was used to formulate a process framework that could help guide a response to crises rapidly and effectively: the Timing Response to a crisis by Incremental Adaptive Launching (TRIAL) process. The process outlines how context assessment and response planning and execution can be developed, how key factors – contextualisation, creativity and improvisation – interact during the response and what skills are needed to find and develop an effective response during crises. Taking into account the results obtained in its first applications, strengths and limitations of the TRIAL process are also identified in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper provides a global review of literature relating to the evaluation of national policy addressing work-related psychosocial issues and psychological health. • Results show the literature is scarce in countries outside of Europe. • Methodological approaches and reviewed and future recommendations are provided. • The findings and implications from the existing policy evaluation literature are summarised and areas for future research presented. This paper presents a critical appraisal of the international literature in relation to national work health and safety (WHS) policy evaluation for the management of psychosocial hazards and risks and the protection of work-related psychological health. We reviewed policy evaluation publications from the last 20 years (i.e. between 2001 and 2021). In total, 26 publications were identified and analysed based on: the origin of the research, participants involved, data collection strategies and the data analysis techniques. As an additional component of this review we also synthesised the key findings and implications derived from current policy evaluation efforts. Results support the need for more international research beyond Europe and Australia, and data collection from a more diverse pool of participants (e.g. workers, inspectors, regulators). Understanding the current body of knowledge provides a valuable resource for guiding the future development of informed and high-quality evaluation research and practice, as well as sharing knowledge across countries with the goal to improve psychosocial work conditions globally. The value of this paper is that it provides a clear overview of the current research status, in addition to suggestions for progressing future policy evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Industrial areas with petrochemical installations are prone to industrial hazards. • The impact of hazard in each installation depends on the type of materials handled. • Hazard index for a location helps to assess response resources in each installation. • Integration of index in emergency response model optimizes resource utilization. Emergency response operations are very important activities in the industrial areas. As an incident in an industrial area can have considerable economic and social impact, response to such an incident has to be provided in a very short time. Decisions for such responses should consider the available emergency resources, and other factors such as humidity, wind speed, wind direction, population, chemicals, and materials handling, and the characteristics of surrounding affected industrial facilities. In this paper, an index-based emergency response management system (IERMS) is proposed by integrating the location hazard index (LHI) and the response time optimization model. The LHI prioritizes the hazard potential of a location. The response time optimization model provides minimum response time and resource allocations in response to an emergency situation. The use of the framework is illustrated in an industrial city case study by considering petrochemical fire as a demonstration example. The results obtained from the analysis show that the framework is applicable to design the response to incident conditions. It is expected that the framework would help in better resource allocation and efficient response to incidents in industrial areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Counted and analyzed the information of 47 Kilometer-Deep Mines in China. • Analyzed the situation of typical dynamic disasters in kilometer-deep mines. • Discussed the problems in the prevention and control of typical dynamic disasters. • Give out the measures for prevention and control of typical dynamic disasters. Abstract To ensure the safety of kilometer-deep mining and prevent the occurrence of typical dynamic disasters (rock burst and coal and gas outburst), this paper counted and analyzed the status quo of mining and typical dynamic disasters currently for 47 deep mines in China. The results show that the 47 deep mines are mainly distributed in 8 provinces; the proportions of mines affected by rock burst and coal and gas outburst are 53.2% and 29.79%, which are 29.23 times and 2.66 times the national average. Typical dynamic disasters in deep are more serious than that in shallow, the number of mines affected by rock burst will increase greatly in particular. The proportion of kilometer-deep mines that threatened by both coal and gas outburst and rock burst is 12.77%. Existing techniques used for prevention and control of typical dynamic disasters in kilometer-deep mines all refer to shallow mining; however, the following problems occur in deep mining: the mechanism of typical dynamic disasters and mechanism of complex disasters are not clear; the typical disaster early warning system is imperfect, and it's difficult to do precision mining in deep. Focusing on these problems, this study presents forward countermeasures from following directions: research on mechanism of deep typical dynamic disasters and coupling mechanism of complex dynamic disasters, establishing deep mine multi-parameter dynamic disaster monitoring and warning mechanisms and related equipment research, establishing deep mine typical dynamic disasters prevention and control systems, and research on the basic theory and equipment for precision mining in deep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The rockburst, that is one of the leading disasters in mining and rock engineering causing serious casualties and property losses, frequently occurs with various features and complex evolution mechanisms. Thus, it is difficult to prevent such disasters. In this paper, evolution mechanisms of two rockburst cases of different types were outlined through microseismicity, energy density clouds and seismic velocity tomography. Measures of caving mining, deep-hole blasting and large-diameter hole were then proposed for risk control of future rockburst disasters during subsequent mining activities. Long-term tremor activities were analyzed to verify the effectiveness of these controlling measures. The results indicate that static and dynamic stresses had played different roles in the two rockbursts. Compared to the first "6.26" rockburst, an obvious characteristic of progressive development of tremors occurred before the "10.15" rockburst. In subsequent mining, controlling measures were proved effective by energy density clouds and seismic velocity tomography. No rockburst happened due to the hard roof and syncline structure again. Only an energy density cloud with small intensity appeared, augmented and then disappeared at the same location where the "10.15" rockburst occurred. The conclusions could expand the understanding of rockburst mechanisms and provide significant theoretical reference for rockburst prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Coal rock dynamic disasters have been a persistent threat to mine safety. In recent years, hydraulic fracturing (HF) technique has been proved to be an effective method for preventing coal rock dynamic disasters. But there has been no effective monitoring tool for the hydraulic cracks, which has severely influenced the safety, optimization and effectiveness of HF in coal mines. • In this manuscript, microseismic(MS) technique is introduced to study the distribution of hydraulic cracks induced by HF in coal seam. The highly accurate MS data acquisition apparatus and sensitive sensors were elaborately selected for the field coal seam HF test. And then lots of effective and weak MS waveforms induced by HF are successfully recorded during the field test. • The characteristics of HF induced MS waveforms are studied systematically for the first time. Three sensitive characteristic parameters, the peak frequency, duration time and peak following attenuation, are proposed to distinguish three typical kinds of induced MS waveforms. The conclusions are the theoretical basis of locating the cracks and monitoring the effect of HF in coal seams by MS technique, which is of great significance to coal rock dynamic disasters prevention by HF technique. • The manuscript has been reviewed by two anonymous reviewers, and both of them gave positive comments on the manuscript. They both recommend the publication of this paper after modifying the manuscript based on their comments. We have responded to all of the comments point by point. We also made the modifications after studying the comments very carefully. Abstract Coal rock dynamic disasters have been a persistent threat to mine safety. Hydraulic fracturing(HF) technique has been proved to be an effective method for preventing coal rock dynamic disasters in underground coal mines. In order to monitor the crack extent of HF in coal seam, highly precision microseismic(MS) data acquisition apparatus and sensitive sensors are employed to monitor the cracks induced by coal seam HF in Xieqiao Coal Mine. Lots of effective and weak MS waveforms induced by HF are successfully recorded. Some useful methods such as wavelet transformation, Hilbert-Huang transformation, envelope analysis and curve fitting method help to make comprehensive insights into the amplitude-frequency, time-frequency, duration and peak following attenuation characteristics of these HF induced MS waveforms. The frequency, duration time and peak following attenuation characteristics of MS waveforms induced by mining, blast and coal seam HF are statistically studied. The results show that these characteristic parameters, peak frequency, duration time and peak following attenuation, are very sensitive to distinguish these three typical kinds of induced MS waveforms. Further study shows that the principles of fractures' propagation influenced by the pressurized water and the backfill effect of pores by large volume of pressurized water injection and the pressurized water itself are the key factors influencing the characteristics of MS waveforms. The conclusions are the theoretical basis of locating the cracks and monitoring the effect of HF in coal seams by using MS technique, which can provide the basis reference for designing optimized, safe and effective HF program to prevent the coal rock dynamic disasters, and will be of great significance to coal mine safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Confined space incidents can result in multiple fatalities. • Risk assessment and control measures are required before any confined space entry. • Confined space rescue procedures should be established before any entry. • The hierarchy of rescue is self-rescue, non-entry rescue, and entry rescue. • The proposed procedure will protect rescuers, bystanders, and reduce fatalities. Abstract Each year, workers are killed in incidents involving confined spaces. To minimise and control the risks so far as reasonably practicale, confined space work should be thoroughly considered and carefully planned before any entry. Unfortunately, when would-be rescuers attempt the rescue of fellow workers, multiple fatalities can result. Confined space rescue should always be a deliberate undertaking, planned prior to the confined space entry taking place, and conducted by trained personnel. This paper proposes a five step procedure to safely undertake confined space entry rescue, mindful of the hierarchy for protection (rescuers, bystanders, and casualties); and of the hierarchy of the level of confined space rescue (self-rescue, non-entry rescue, and entry rescue). The proposed confined space rescue procedure is a simplified and broad-based process for the preparation and conduct of a confined space rescue by on-site or in-house rescue teams, and is an adaptation of the procedures used by professional emergency services. The five step procedure is described by the acronym REALE. Step 1 is Reconnaissance of the rescue task. Step 2 is Elimination or reduction of hazards. Step 3 is Accessing the casualty, in which a minimal number of rescuers enter the confined space and make contact with the casualty. Step 4 is the provision of Life-saving first aid to the casualty. Step 5 is the Extrication of the casualty as required. The proposed procedure is suitable for adoption by rescue teams regardless of country or jurisdiction as it meets the requirements for all regulations and standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Middle managers (MMs) play an important role in aviation safety. • MMs' safety-related practices involve influencing others, making decisions and managing information. • Influencing others includes regular collaboration and exchanges with stakeholders. • For their decision making, MMs tend to involve people from different horizons and background. • MMs rely on a variety of sources and types of information. Abstract Aviation today is seen as a very safe industry, yet recent accidents have shown that vulnerabilities still exist. The literature has often drawn attention to the role played by top managers/CEO in running their businesses profitably, and at the same time keeping them safe from threats. Research has also investigated the way people at the sharp-end of organisations are 'mindful' of the possible threats that can occur in their day-to-day activities, and how they can anticipate (most of) them. But what about the role played by middle managers in ensuring safety in every organisational operation? Even if researchers now agree that middle managers' actions are a valuable asset for organisations and central to pursuing key organisational outcomes, very little is known about how middle managers take safety into account in their daily operations, and the challenges they face. This paper reports on the safety-related practices and challenges of middle managers of the civil aviation industry. Within the Future Sky Safety project, over a two-year research activity, 48 middle managers from a range of aviation organisations agreed to talk about the strategies and actions they put in place on a routine basis, to embed safety in the daily operations. Methodologically, semi-structured interviews were conducted and the qualitative content analysis (QCA) method was used to make sense of the raw material, through a data-driven coding frame. The findings of this research suggest that the practices middle managers identify as central in relation to their role in the management of safety can be grouped into three high-level categories: (1) making decisions, (2) influencing key stakeholders to get the job done, and (3) managing information. This research adds knowledge in relation to the middle managers' role in the management of safety, in particular shedding light on the competency that middle managers from the civil aviation industry rely on to get the job done when it comes to contributing to safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Large uncertainty on the situations on which the positive effect of obstacle near exit could be observed. • No established relationship between the exit width, obstacle distance and obstacle size/shape. • Verification of the model's prediction with empirical data with humans is largely unexplored. • Researchers have questioned the implementation of obstacles at bottlenecks in real life scenario. • Testing of "obstacles effects" is largely unexplored for outdoor scenarios. Abstract In a pioneering work in Nature journal, a counter-intuitive prediction that escape rates of people under panic conditions will be enhanced if an obstacle such as a column or a barrier is placed on the "upstream" side of an exit was demonstrated through a simulation model. However, the prediction lacked empirical verification. Despite the substantial works in this topic in the past decade, there is currently a lack of knowledge on how and to what extent the obstacle near an exit can enhance the pedestrian outflow at the bottlenecks during emergency escape. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a critical review on the performance of an obstacle near an exit and identify future research directions. It is found that although there is a general consensus on the beneficial effect of an obstacle, there is a large uncertainty on the situations on which the positive effect of obstacle could be observed. In addition, verification of the model's prediction with empirical data with humans is still largely unexplored. There is no clear established relationship between the exit width, obstacle distance and obstacle size/shape. Also, quantitative understanding of the nature of the clogging transition due to obstacle is a challenging task. Further, researchers have questioned the implementation of such obstacles at bottlenecks in real life scenario. A systematic approach of optimising architectural adjustments that enhances escape dynamics of pedestrians' crowd in indoor and outdoor public spaces needs to be conducted in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Both response time and capacity must be considered for emergency system planning. • Not only the average, but also the maximum response time is an important metric. • We present a mathematical model for response planning that combines these metrics. Abstract While accidents in the petroleum industry are commonly connected to oil spill disasters, helicopter accidents are, in terms of incidence rates, a more grave concern in Norway. In this paper we present a range of mathematical programming models and a workflow that support decision makers in planning an emergency response system. For the models that are difficult to solve directly, we introduce a tailor-made solution method. With respect to the optimization objectives and constraints, we particularly focus on the performance metrics of response capacity and response time and show that the optimal solutions can differ remarkably, depending on which metric is in the optimization objective. Moreover, we present a multi-objective model that combines the optimization goals to achieve a balanced solution. A case study shows the concrete application of our framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Introduces an institutional perspective on disaster development in organizations. • Explains how the institutional environment contributes to disaster recurrence. • Provides an empirical illustration in the offshore oil and gas industry. • Shows how institutionalized beliefs and practices undermine risk management. • Need for professionalization of risk management training across the industry. Abstract Accident researchers have long tried to understand why similar disasters and near misses keep recurring within and across organizations in high hazard industries. So far such explanations have primarily addressed organizational causes and mechanisms. We argue that these models of disaster development do not adequately capture the influence of the external institutional environment that often affects an entire sector. Instead we propose institutional theory as a broader theoretical perspective that helps to understand how the institutional environment affects disaster development in organizations, and why similar disaster development patterns can persist even after they have been identified and targeted in recommendations before. This paper also provides an empirical illustration of the institutional perspective on disaster development in the offshore oil and gas industry. Our qualitative analysis shows how inadequate beliefs about major accident risk have become institutionalized in the offshore industry through occupational training practices. As such, problematic institutionalized beliefs and practices become the accepted normality across many organizations in the industry, leading to systemic shortcomings in risk management in the entire sector. Hence, we argue for the need for professionalization in occupational training in the offshore drilling industry to improve risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A number of actions are subsequently implemented after large-scale events for different reasons. • An interplay of various factors influences the changes in the area of societal safety and security. • Sectorial responsibility hinders cooperation between sectors. Abstract This paper characterizes changes in Norway's civil protection and emergency preparedness five years after the Oslo and Utøya terror attacks. Data from 48 interviews conducted in the period 2014–2016 with civil servants within different levels of the justice sector were qualitatively analyzed. The inductive analysis shows four main changes made related to Norway's civil protection and emergency preparedness within the Ministry of Justice and Public Security: (1) a change in risk perception regarding awareness of security-related risks; (2) the generation of several plans and measures; (3) structural changes at various levels within the justice sector; and (4) increased resources allocated to societal safety and security. The changes following the Oslo terror attacks were not solely in response to the terror attacks, but also the result of previous and subsequent events and reports. The current organization of public administration, however, still fosters siloed thinking and turf wars around the principle of responsibility and each sector's respective area of expertise. Most of the implemented changes can be characterized as structural; diagnoses made after the terror attacks pointed at cultural aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A public-private-people partnership framework to improve city resilience is presented. • A literature review on partnerships and city resilience is exhibited. • A set of 16 relevant characteristics have been defined in the framework. • The characteristics are classified into three dimensions and three layers. • Existing interdependencies between the different characteristics are presented. Abstract Citizens living in cities where public entities are committed to the development of city resilience are increasingly aware that the entire responsibility for preventing, responding to and recovering from crises cannot fully fall on public entities and private companies. In fact, citizens are more and more required to prepare for, respond to and recover from crises. To that end, there is an emerging need to involve not only public entities and private companies but also citizens in the process of building a city's resilience in order to understand the different perspectives on the same reality. This research paper is based on a systematic literature review to develop a framework that defines and describes the successful characteristics of public-private-people partnerships (4Ps) in the city resilience-building process. The framework revolves around two criteria for classification: the dimension of the characteristics (stakeholder relationship, information flow and conflict resolution), and the attributes of the partnership. A preliminary list of relationships among the characteristics found in the literature is also presented. The aim throughout is to define which characteristics need to be developed in order to better ensure successful cooperation among the three main stakeholders: public entities, private companies and citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Cascading events are analysed by identifying vulnerability paths and scenarios. • A strategy to increase resilience to cascading and unknown risks is presented. • It is explained how different triggering hazards can have a similar evolution. • Common escalation points are identified in the domain of critical infrastructure. • Two scenarios based on extreme space weather events and cyberattacks are proposed. Abstract The growing complexity of global interconnected risk suggests that a shift has occurred in the way emergency planners need to improve preparedness and response to cascading events. With reference to the literature from the physical, social and political sciences, this paper analyses extreme space weather events and cyberattacks. The goal of this work is to produce a replicable scenario-building process, based on cross-disciplinary understanding of vulnerability, that could be complementary to probabilistic hazard assessment. Our hypothesis is that the technological and human component of critical infrastructure could be the primary vector for the escalation of secondary emergencies. While not themselves having direct implications in terms of loss of life, elements that are common to different risks could provide particular challenges for disaster management. Our findings identify some vulnerable nodes, such as Global Navigation Satellite System technology and remote-control systems, that could act as paths for the escalations of events. We suggest that these paths may be common to various known and unknown threats. We propose two scenarios of Massive, OveRwhelming Disruption of OpeRations (M.OR.D.OR.) that could be used for testing emergency preparedness strategies, and increasing the response to highly complex, unknown events. The conclusions highlight the open challenges of seeking to increase societal resilience. The limitations of this work are described, as are the possible challenges for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Existing research on collective improvisation not sufficiently described. • Individual improvisation is oftentimes simply aggregated to a collective level. • Methods on measuring improvisation need more precision and transparency. • More research is needed on collective improvisation and performance. Abstract Responding to crises requires the ability to meet the unforeseen and adapt to new conditions. The transboundary nature of crises with e.g. increased interconnectedness among critical infrastructures, involving more actors in response, will call for collective coordination. Collective improvisation can be a tool for handling challenges under these circumstances, however the research is limited and dispersed over disciplines. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the capability to improvise collectively in crisis management, and how it affects performance. To achieve this, we conducted a structured scoping study of improvisation in scientific literature and found that existing research is not sufficiently explained or detailed to fulfill our purpose. Our findings show that individual improvisation seems to be aggregated to a collective level without modifications, and existing methods lack in precision and transparency. Further, there is a need for a more nuanced discussion on improvisation and performance. Implications are that studies on collective improvisation risk measuring individual rather than collective improvisation, if based on existing literature. Moreover, the concept of improvisation is connected to mostly positive outcomes and assumed to have the same meaning for everyone. As a result, one should be careful when using the concept in practice, e.g. when using it as a causal explanation for successful performance, or when suggesting measures aimed at improving the capability to improvise collectively. To move forward, we suggest adopting collective problem solving as a broader analytical frame. Finally, we highlight some theories serving as a starting point for this investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource allocation is difficult in large-scale systems in remote locations with sparse infrastructure and dynamic, demanding requirements, as can be the case in disaster management, emergency and oil spill response, and search and rescue operations. Resource allocation challenges are particularly acute in Arctic oil spill response, where the lack of infrastructure makes logistics challenging and heightens the need for comprehensive and thoughtful resource allocation models. This paper describes data challenges associated with the development of resource allocation models for dynamic network scheduling in support of Arctic oil spill response. A marine transportation traffic analysis and an Arctic resource allocation database, developed to support the resource allocation model development described, were developed using public and private information sources. This paper outlines the challenges associated with the data acquisition and analysis efforts, and provides recommendations for addressing the data challenges, which are similar to those in other complex, safety–critical resource allocation problem settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local Emergency Response Plans (LERP) must be assessed before being triggered, to ensure proper execution of missions in a crisis situation. However, there is very little research on plan assessment methods. Plan assessment has traditionally involved consideration of only two states: complete functioning, or failure. In this paper, we propose an LERP assessment method that evaluates LERP performance under multiple states of its resource degradation. Our method relies on Function-Interaction-Structure (FIS) modeling to describe interaction between resource degradation and plan failure. Our multi-state and model-based approach allows a comprehensive analysis of LERP weak points, and provides the framework for evaluating a wide range of engaged resources. Consideration of multiple states of resource degradation is needed in order to show to what extent an LERP is required. We propose to combine a Fault-Tree embedded in FIS with a Multi-State System approach. With this approach, plan evaluators can study LERP effectiveness at various levels of incomplete functioning, and can analyze the risk of resource degradation leading to functional impairment of LERP missions. The Multi-State System approach provides knowledge about the likelihood of an LERP being in multiple states of degradation on disaster day. Input data for the analysis are gathered using developed questionnaires. These are used by Emergency Response Plan makers to evaluate the probability of resource degradation states, and to develop strategies to increase the likelihood of LERP success. This paper shows how the proposed methodology, based on modeling and Multi-Level Fault-Trees, can inform the analysis of an LERP evacuation function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Low technical factors and distorted emergency information are sufficient conditions for cross-regional emergency cooperation in especially major and major accidents and disasters rescue. • There are three path models including the Autonomous regulation path, the System driven path, and the Demand generation path. • The possibility of Autonomous regulation path is greater than that of the other two paths. Promoting the development of cross-regional emergency cooperation is critical to emergency management. This paper's primary goal is to determine the influencing factors and generation mechanism of cross-regional emergency cooperation during accidents and disasters rescue. The qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method is used to study 26 especially major and major accidents and disasters rescue, aiming to answer the following three questions. First, which factors have the most significant impact on emergency cooperation? Second, how is emergency cooperation generated based on influencing factors? Third, what combination of influencing factors is more likely to produce cross-regional emergency cooperation? Based on the literature review, the influencing factors of cross-regional emergency cooperation include the subjects, objects, environment, methods, regulations, and guarantees of emergency management. There are three path models for cross-regional emergency cooperation in especially major and major accidents and disasters rescue, including the Autonomous regulation path, the System driven path, and the Demand generation path. The possibility of Autonomous regulation cross-regional emergency cooperation is greater than that of the other two paths. Cross-regional emergency cooperation strategies are proposed to build a comprehensive system of cross-regional emergency cooperation environment, regulations, and guarantees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A statistical methodology and the Behavioral Pattern during Disaster Indicator (BPDI) for predicting humans' behaviors during disasters are proposed. • The potential of a lack of significant correlations between typical behavioral factors found in the literature and behavioral patterns during disasters is identified. • The controlled behavioral pattern seems to be dominant across respective patterns both at the individual level and the level of the total population. • The BPDI indicator can be an effective tool for disaster management authorities to apply towards predicting human behaviors during disasters. The importance of the human factor during catastrophic events is increasingly being highlighted in the field of disaster management as human behaviors critically affect the propagation of disasters and the extent of damage they cause. Despite the attempted efforts, the complexities and the inherent difficulties in modeling human behaviors still prevent from an effective tool for predicting them during disasters. This paper contributes to this course of research by proposing a methodology to construct a predictive indicator, namely the Behavioral Pattern during Disaster Indicator (BPDI). First, a systematic literature review on the identification and the relations between behavioral factors, behavioral patterns and humans' reactions during catastrophic events is performed. The review presents also the main typologies for modeling the human factor in the context of disaster management. Then based on the review findings, the paper proposes a statistical methodology that comprises correlation and ordinal regression analysis for constructing a predictive indicator. The methodology is applied to a case study that was created in the context of this research. A questionnaire survey that yielded 573 responses is used for identifying the effect of 18 factors on the adoption of one or more among three behavioral patterns. Several conclusions are drawn through the methodology's application with the most significant one being the potential of a lack of significant correlations between behavioral factors and patterns during catastrophic events. The final output of this research, i.e., the BPDI indicator can be an effective tool that is easy for disaster management authorities to apply towards predicting human behaviors during disastrous events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human Behaviour during emergency situations is a crucial component of any response. The ability of responders to effectively engage with casualties is critical to ensuring that any instructions given are followed and in doing assist rather than hinder the response. In order to improve the likelihood of this occurring it is essential to understand what drives decision making during emergencies in order to be able to effectively influence these. This paper will seek to establish what these behaviours are likely to be and what is likely to influence these in order to inform responder tactics and training. This paper seeks to develop a psychological model of casualty behaviour during a hazardous materials evacuation. The study utilises a survey of members of the public evacuated from their homes or places of work due to a fire impacting an ammonia tank in February 2019 at the Ocado distribution warehouse in Andover. The results of this survey were used to validate a hypothesised psychological model utilising Path Analysis. The research identifies the importance of recognising the ability of casualties involved in emergency situations to remain rational and utilise information and instructions given to them. The paper highlights the importance which trust plays in engaging with casualties in order to provide effective information and instructions and how trust is constructed of both legitimacy and competency and influenced by the communications of responders. Most crucially the paper identified how trust during an emergency situation is the key driver of whether casualties are likely to co-operate with instructions and emergency responders. The research utilised real world data to validate findings demonstrating the need for emergency responders to effectively engage with casualties and has implications for both guidance and training of emergency responders in managing casualties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Gulf of Mexico blowout of 2010, various parties called for the introduction of safety case regulation in the US. Such regulation is well known in various other jurisdictions around the world and is regarded as best practice for the regulation of rare but catastrophic events. New regulation in the US must pass the cost/benefit test or alternatively show why strict cost/benefit analysis is inapplicable. This paper argues that safety case regulation can surmount this hurdle. It argues that strict cost/benefit analysis is impossible for safety case regulation and it demonstrates this by providing a detailed critique of the attempts by the European Commission to provide a cost/benefit justification for the introduction of safety case regulation for offshore oil and gas production in its jurisdiction. The paper argues that such regulation can be justified in the US on other grounds; first, the polluter pays principle, second, the fact that society regards multiple fatalities occurring together far more seriously than the same number of fatalities occurring separately; and third, that the incidents to be prevented are viewed by the courts as criminal and therefore to be prevented as a matter of principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inquiries into the causes of man-made disasters have shown repeatedly that ongoing safety of workers and the public depends on decisions made, often many years earlier, during the design stage of infrastructure or facility development. The potential for disaster represented by incompatibilities that remain undiscovered between design choices and future operating requirements is a classic example of what Turner calls ‘disaster incubation’ – where beliefs about control of hazards are at odds with actual events. This research investigates the motivations and attitudes of people working in a design office environment who determine the form of hazardous facilities such as oil refineries, petrochemical plants and pipelines. It explores particularly the issue of responsibility for public safety. This long-term goal faces serious competition for attention from short-term project priorities of integrity, cost and schedule. Linking requirements for public safety to facility integrity (as is often done in a project environment) is shown to have substantial limitations as a strategy for ensuring the best long term outcomes. As a counter to this, some senior discipline engineers were found to emphasise the real-world potential consequences of their work through use of stories and saw communication of professional values to younger staff as a key aspect of their work. The paper also touches on the perceived role of engineering standards and shows that safety design is seen to go beyond simply compliance. There has been little social science research in this important area. The paper concludes with areas in which further work would be valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major accidents, like toxic gas releases, fires and explosions, may influence a large area. And thus, evacuation is a necessary public protection measure to mitigate the health consequences of major accidents, but risk assessment is still required. This paper focuses on providing an assessment framework of evacuation risk for major accidents, and the exposure dose calculated based on vulnerability model and accident probability is introduced to predict the risk. Evacuation risk evaluation based on “ALARP” guidelines is employed to partition the emergency planning area and to give suggestions for emergency preparation, as well as to classify the alternatives of evacuation flow assignment and find the optimal solution to decide whether to evacuate or to take shelter-in-place for emergency response through using different heuristics. The goal of its application in emergency response planning is to provide a fast heuristic method to select evacuation paths, but neither to minimize the evacuation time nor minimize the evacuation risk. The primary intention is to find an optimal solution within optimized evacuation time and with acceptable evacuation risk. A case study on evacuation risk assessment for phosgene leak accident in Yantai, China is used as an example to illustrate evacuation risk assessment process and its application in emergency preparation and response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency response planning for major accidents in the chemical industry is essential to protect the public and workers’ health and safety, to reduce the environmental impacts, and to accelerate the resumption of normal operations. So far, much attention has been given to developing and implementing emergency planning in single chemical plants. However in chemical industrial areas – also known as chemical clusters – which consist of a number of different plants, less attention has been given to multi-plant emergency response planning. This paper is aimed at developing a multi-plant emergency response decision tool for chemical clusters in case of major accidents so that not only plant emergency levels but also respective response strategies can be determined. This way, a crisis situation within the chemical cluster can be handled in a much faster way than is the case today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A comprehensive review of eight natural and man-made extreme events is presented. • Risk-Informed evaluation of critical infrastructures preparedness is carried out. • Incompatible preparedness of critical infrastructures was observed. • A comprehensive multi-hazard risk assessment and management framework is developed. • R4: redundancy, robustness, resilience and relocation of the nearby population. Critical Infrastructures such as hospitals, power stations and communication centers play a crucial role in the performance of economy and society. Over the last few decades, the number and variety of infrastructures grew rapidly and the interdependencies between them have increased. Consequently, more and more essential services depend on the continuous performance of one, two or even more critical infrastructures such as power supply, communications, etc. It is therefore critical to ensure reliable and robust performance of critical infrastructures on a continuous basis, particularly upon the occurrence of extreme events. This paper presents a review of the contemporary state of preparedness of critical infrastructures, through a comprehensive literature review of significant extreme events that occurred in the past three decades. An effort to identify the common denominators between the different extreme events was carried out in order to universalize the discussion and stimulate thought-provoking conclusions on the present conditions of critical infrastructures and their implications in terms of preparedness, risk assessment, and disaster management. The review reveals incompatibility between the increasing risk and the actual preparedness of critical infrastructure to extreme events. The potential risk is further magnified because of the high and increasing interdependencies between CIs that were observed. A comprehensive framework of multi-hazards risk assessment and management of mitigation strategies as a decision support tool is proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Urban management requires assessing bioterrorism response in micro-spatial environments, modeling potential attacks and carrying out efficient risk assessment. This paper presents the method of crowd evacuation simulation for bioterrorism in micro-spatial environments using the basic theory of Virtual Geographic Environments (VGE), combined with pathogen diffusion and crowd simulation modeling techniques. A framework of evacuation simulation was presented in this paper and the key technologies to implement the framework, including grid-based spatial data environment, agent-based individual model, and the method of associated individual behavior with spatial environment were also proposed to simulating crowd behaviors in bioterrorism. Taking the Olympic Park station of the Beijing Metro Line 8 as a typical study area, a crowd evacuation simulation prototype system was developed and a quasi-experiment using three different scenarios was conducted. The prototype system can be used to demonstrate some emergent individual behaviors in bioterrorism, such as competitive, queuing, and herding. Details can be obtained at each computation step (e.g., the number of people in subway station, the region of population, the geo-location of individual, the exposed population in polluted areas) with the prototype system. In the experiments, the number of people exposed is constantly increasing with the gradually increase of contaminant area as time pass. And different scenes were appeared for the different way of deal with bioterrorism. With the experiment, the number of people affected and the relevant parameters under various bioterrorism scenarios can be estimated, which can support rapid and efficient emergency decision-making for bioterrorism prevention. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of land use planning and emergency panning policies and strategies in EU, the Italian regulations and guidelines are used as example to discuss the distance between the European and national regulation and the disaster management and post-disaster procedures, that together with the land use planning are often conceived for a Municipal scale. Both anthropic and natural risks are dealt with in the emergency planning, but risk information derive from very diverse sources, with different levels of detail – from the risk assessment of major risk plants to the representation of risks provided by sectorial plans, each one focused on a single type of risk (i.e. flood, seismic, fire…). Emergency plans should aim at correlating the various risk evaluations, thus being able to provide a comprehensive emergency programme, both for people and territorial safety, but indeed the land use is often regulated by a completely different legislation and designing system. This lack of linkage between the procedures for Emergency and for Land Use Planning makes the emergency management less effective towards the achievement of a real safety of territories, as proved by recent disastrous events in the European territory. In order to solve these critical issues, the paper aims at providing hints on how to achieve a different approach both in land use and emergency planning, conceiving risk assessment as part of an integrated process composed by many important and interrelated phases, not only post-disaster emergency, but also structural interventions for the long-term prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates a study conducted into the managerial practices implemented to mitigate the consequences of a major fire emergency and to promptly restore normal business operations at a large pediatric hospital. Stemming from prior research on crisis response and recovery in critical infrastructures, this investigation demonstrates that factors such as the complexity of the underlying stakeholder networks, the vulnerability of the involved actors, and several temporal and spatial constraints, all contribute in hampering the intervention of crisis managers. In these situations, relying on consolidated best practices may enable more rapid response and more adequate recovery. This study adopts a qualitative approach to build a retrospective case study that highlights the crucial issues that healthcare crisis managers are requested to face when exposed to thorny work conditions: presence of numerous actors from the public and the private sector, involvement of organizations with contrasting interests, need for a balance among public health, cost containment and legitimacy, etc. The findings of the present investigation expand the theoretical knowledge on the dynamics that characterize crises occurring at critical infrastructures and provide practical recommendations for healthcare emergency managers to improve their response to, and recovery from, major fire emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to evacuate evacuees to safety from islands in disasters is an important issue for the emergency system design of an offshore airport. In this paper, a modeling framework was developed to evaluate and optimize the emergency evacuation capability of an offshore airport. With this framework, the emergency evacuation capability was evaluated and optimized in the context of the cross-sea bridge failure for Dalian International Airport, Dalian, China. With the combination of an evacuation demand analysis and a marine network analysis, a scheduling simulation was developed to evaluate the capability of the marine evacuation system plan under emergency. Based on the evaluation results, two optimization strategies were introduced to improve this plan. The evaluation results show that the emergency evacuation capability of an offshore airport is mainly limited by the marine traffic environment of the urban area in the condition of bridge failure. To improve the emergency evacuation capability, some vessels should be located at the offshore airport, and a wharf should be constructed in the nearby mainland. The current results of this study will be helpful in guiding the emergency evacuation system design of an artificial or a natural island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the likely behaviours of train passengers in an emergency evacuation and examines four crucial theoretical issues on the passengers’ evacuation, including reactive vs. proactive behaviours, cooperative vs. competitive behaviours, symmetry breaking, and route/exit choice. A survey of 1134 train passengers shows that respondents are not homogeneous in their likely behaviours. Overall, they are more likely to be reactive (e.g., wait for instruction from station staff) than proactive (e.g., move to exit) in an emergency situation. We also find that people are more likely to be co-operative (e.g., helping other people) than competitive (e.g., push other passengers). Although passengers are likely to show herding or symmetry breaking behaviour (e.g., following other passengers) than symmetric behaviour (e.g., choose least crowded exit), the degree of symmetry breaking behaviour is not as high as assumed in previous mathematical models. They are also unlikely to use escalators, lifts and train tunnels in their exit/route choice during an emergency escape. In terms of demographic differences in behaviours, results from the ordered logit models demonstrate that there are significant differences in the evacuation behaviours between males and females but not among the different age groups. Besides providing valuable information for developing mathematical models intended to simulate passengers’ evacuation in a train station, our findings can assist managers of emergency response in developing appropriate strategies and training, and in designing solutions and education campaigns for effective evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the variety and destructiveness of disasters, emergency management has emerged as a world theme and attracted more and more public attention. A large quantity of research on optimizing the emergency management has been done while still has improvement space. In this paper, a new method called D-DEMATEL which combines D number theory and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) in emergency management is proposed. Firstly, multiple experts evaluate the direct relations of influential factors in emergency management respectively from positive and negative side. The evaluation results are presented as intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs). Secondly, convert the IFNs into D numbers and use the combination rule of D numbers to fuse group opinions. Thirdly, based on DEMATEL, the cause-effect classification of factors can be obtained. Finally, the factors in cause category are identified as CSFs in emergency management. Based on the proposed method, the optimization of emergency management can be efficiently simplified into optimizing the identified CSFs. The proposed method is well addressed the fuzziness and subjectivity in linguistic assessment. Hence, the proposed method is well applicable to identify the CSFs in emergency management which inherently has a linguistic assessment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of an analysis of the ‘News Divine’ human stampede which occurred on 20th June 2008 in Mexico City. As a consequence of the disaster, twelve people were killed and dozens were left injured. The approach has been the application of the Management Oversight Risk Tree (MORT) technique and the FIST (Force, Information, Space, Time) model. The MORT is intended to look at various organizational failures that have led to an accident; the FIST model, on the other hand, addresses the causes of crowd disasters. The analysis has highlighted a number of causal factors leading to the disaster. Effectively, the stampede could have been prevented. Some potential recommendations have also been identified. It is hoped that by conducting analysis such as this may be prove beneficial for a better understanding of crowd management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines inter-organizational coordination to diminish local communities’ vulnerability to the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus. Avian Influenza caused an important health crisis in Turkey in early 2006. It was a significant threat to both human and animal health for Turkey and the rest of the world. The present study analyzed the 2006 Turkish disaster response to the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus. The study utilized data from content analyses of news reports from the Turkish daily newspapers Cumhuriyet and Sabah . The network analysis, conducted with the UCINET 6.0 social network analysis software program, revealed that existing bureaucratic organizational structure, following a linear policy approach, inhibited the effective implementation of public policies. The formal structure and policies failed to anticipate the informal interactions and circumstances that occurred during the emergency operations. There were problems of coordination and integration between public agencies and other sector organizations from different jurisdictions in responding to the Avian Influenza crisis. According to the findings, a complex organizational design based on organizational flexibility is needed to harness drastic change and contribute to resiliency in local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twitter is increasingly of interest as a social media that can be used to help mitigate disasters. In this paper, we describe the strength and limitations of Twitter in this context, and identify the features needed in a twitter system to support disaster planning, warning and response. To orient the discussion, we describe a local context, Padang Indonesia. We then illustrate the kind of system needed by describing our implementation of TWRsms – a twitter tracking and analysis system for Padang Indonesia. Our implementation collects and analyzes tweets from the shoreline city of Padang Indonesia. This area is exposed to considerable risk from tsunamis, and the purpose of our system is to provide Indonesians information to plan for response to tsunamis, to provide immediate feedback about relevant tweeters in the wake of tsunami warnings, to support an early warning system, and to allow long-term research into how Indonesians tweet about disasters and other topics. We conclude by reviewing ongoing challenges: considering technical, social and policy issues and the challenge for science and the practical challenges of deploying such a system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on mitigating the impact of near-field tsunami detection on humans and the environment. We propose a hybrid network infrastructure that combines an undersea sensor network with fiber optic cable for cost effective, timely, and reliable near-field tsunami detection. We first formulate a cost minimization problem for near-field tsunami detection. To capture important characteristics of the environment, the optimization model incorporates into its formalization important sea environment factors and a realistic acoustic propagation model. A heuristic approach is developed to derive a near-optimal solution to the original cost minimization problem. To demonstrate the viability of the proposed model, a case study, focused on Padang City is used, and a comparative analysis of different network configurations, using different design parameters and cost scenarios is performed. Three different cost functions, namely linear, power-law, and logarithmic, are used in the analysis. The results show that the heuristic computes efficient network configurations when a solution exists, for the linear, logarithmic, and power-law cost functions. However, further assessment should be made on the results to anticipate a local maximum that may exist in the cost function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]