Climate change and transport infrastructures: State of the art

Transport infrastructures are lifelines: They provide transportation of people and goods, in ordinary and emergency conditions, thus they should be resilient to increasing natural disasters and hazards. This work presents several technologies adopted around the world to adapt and defend transport infrastructures against effects of climate change. Three main climate change challenges have been examined: Air temperatures variability and extremization, water bombs, and sea level rise. For each type of the examined phenomena the paper presents engineered, and architectural solutions adopted to prevent disasters and protect citizens. In all cases, the countermeasures require deeper prediction of weather and climate conditions during the service life of the infrastructure. The experience gained supports the fact that strategies adopted or designed to contrast the effects of climate change on transport infrastructures pursue three main goals: To prevent the damages, protect the structures, and monitor and communicate to users the current conditions. Indeed, the analyses show that the ongoing climate change will increase its impact on transport infrastructures, exposing people to unacceptable risks. Therefore, prevention and protection measures shall be adopted more frequently in the interest of collective safety

Integral seismic risk assessment through fuzzy models

The usage of indicators as constituent parts of composite indices is an extended practice in many fields of knowledge. Even if rigorous statistical analyses are implemented, many of the methodologies follow simple arithmetic assumptions to aggregate indicators to build an index. One of the consequences of such assumptions can be the concealment of the influence of some of the composite index’s components. We developed a fuzzy method that aggregates indicators using non-linear methods and, in this paper, compare it to a well-known example in the field of risk assessment, called Moncho’s equation, which combines physical and social components and uses a linear aggregation method to estimate a level of seismic risk. By comparing the spatial pattern of the risk level obtained from these two methodologies, we were able to evaluate to what extent a fuzzy approach allows a more realistic representation of how social vulnerability levels might shape the seismic risk panorama in an urban environment. We found that, in some cases, this approach can lead to risk level values that are up to 80% greater than those obtained using a linear aggregation method for the same areas.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ethical Competence in Master’s Degrees: Definition and Shaping Factors

The inclusion of ethical competence in the training of master’s degree students remains a challenge. It has important links to the professionalization process, but unevenness has been found in its development and implementation, and this appears to generate shortcomings in training processes. The aim of this study is to understand the meaning of ethical competence and to identify factors that facilitate its inclusion in master’s degree programs. A multicentre phenomenological study was carried out at universities in Spain and Argentina. Students and faculty from ten master’s degree programs in different subjects participated. Three broad overall categories emerged from our analysis: competencies related to the professional profile; factors in the professionalizing process; and training in ethical competence. These categories suggest that ethical competence is a core rather than an added value for any professional, thereby stressing the need to address its pedagogical importance in education

Building a Lifeline: A Proposed Global Platform and Responsibility Sharing Model for the Global Compact on Refugees

In 2016, the leaders of 193 governments committed to more equitable and predictable sharing of responsibility for refugees as part of the New York Declaration, to be realized in the Global Compact on Refugees. To encourage debate, this paper presents the first global model to measure the capacity of governments to physically protect and financially support refugees and host communities. The model is based on a new database of indicators covering 193 countries, which assigns a fair share to each country and measures current government contributions to the protection of refugees. The model also proposes a new government-led global platform in support of refugee protection and human development. In January 2019, an overwhelming majority of U.N. Member States adopted a resolution affirming the Global Compact on Refugees. This pact of international solidarity and cooperation is more important today than ever—as powerful countries double-down on xenophobia, promote toxic politics, and drastically narrow their contributions to refugee protection. While the Refugee Compact has the potential to provide better protection and care for refugee and host communities, it is not legally binding. Its promises may only be realized through the adoption of a concrete model for equitable and predictable responsibility sharing based on each nation’s capacity to receive and/or care for refugees. The responsibility sharing model presented here is put forward to challenge policymakers and help shape discussions toward an agreed upon approach to determining each nation’s capacity based on a data-driven approach as contemplated in the Refugee Compact

Methodologies and tools of risk management: Hurricane Risk index (HRi)

Mexico is recognized worldwide for the extension of its coastlines and its tourist exploitation. Quintana Roo is one of the Mexican states, which has a shoreline of approximately 800 km, known as the Mexican Caribbean. The hurricanes that form in the Atlantic Ocean are the main natural hazard to which this region is exposed. In this article, hurricane risk is evaluated for coastal cities through the definition of a system of indicators. Based on this indicators system, the Hurricane Risk Index (HRi) is calculated. This system allows the construction of vulnerability indices for different dimensions: physical, environmental, social, economic, cultural and institutional. The obtained results can contribute to the definition of public prevention policies and actions to reduce the levels of vulnerability and increase the resilience of these communities. This indicators model is applied to two coastal cities of the Mexican Caribbean; Mahahual, obtaining an HRi of 82.13%, and Chetumal obtaining an HRi of 69.31%, corresponding to the impact of Hurricane Dean in 2007. The proposed indicators system can be replicated for different hazards.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Double invisibility: The effects of hidden unemployment on vulnerable populations in Southern European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

La crisis de la COVID-19 se ha caracterizado por una mayor fragilidad del mercado laboral, especialmente en los países del sur de Europa. Sin embargo, los datos oficiales no reflejan con exactitud las transformaciones reales de sus mercados de trabajo. En este contexto, este trabajo compara el comportamiento del mercado laboral de los colectivos vulnerables de población (jóvenes, mujeres e inmigrantes) en tres países del sur de Europa con un análisis cruzado de datos a lo largo del tiempo. Para ello, hemos desarrollado un indicador alternativo de paro oculto que recupera e incluye a los desempleados de las categorías de subempleo involuntario e inactividad. Nuestros análisis incluyen datos de España, Portugal e Italia, y toman como base la encuesta European Union-Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Nuestros resultados muestran que el impacto del desempleo en el sur de Europa se mide mejor cuando se utiliza un indicador ampliado, especialmente cuando se analizan los casos de colectivos vulnerables. Esta herramienta muestra un gran potencial analítico para desvelar el desempleo oculto en el contexto de la pandemia COVID-19

Doble invisibilidad: los efectos del paro oculto en los colectivos vulnerables de población de los países del sur de Europa durante la pandemia del COVID-19

This paper was partly funded by the Xunta de Galicia: Programa de Consolidación e Estructuración de Unidades de investigación competitivas do Sistema Universitario de Galicia (GRC2014/048) and the research project “New mobilities and socio-residental reconfiguration in postcrisis: socioeconomic and demographic consequences in Spanish urban areas (RTI2018-095667-B-I00)”, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness[Abstract]: The COVID-19 crisis has been characterised by an increased fragility of the labour market, especially in the Southern European countries. Nevertheless, official data do not accurately capture the real upheavals of their labour markets. In this context, this paper compares the labour market performance of vulnerable populations (youth, women and migrants) in three Southern European countries with a cross-analysis of data over time. To this end, we have developed an alternative hidden unemployment indicator that recovers and includes unemployed persons from the categories of involuntary underemployment and inactivity. Our analyses include data from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and take the European Union-Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) as their basis. Our results show that the impact of unemployment in the South of Europe is best measured when using an extended indicator, particularly when analysing the cases of vulnerable collectives. This tool shows great analytical potential for unveiling hidden unemployment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.[Resumen]: La crisis de la COVID-19 se ha caracterizado por una mayor fragilidad del mercado laboral, especialmente en los países del sur de Europa. Sin embargo, los datos oficiales no reflejan con exactitud las transformaciones reales de sus mercados de trabajo. En este contexto, este trabajo compara el comportamiento del mercado laboral de los colectivos vulnerables de población (jóvenes, mujeres e inmigrantes) en tres países del sur de Europa con un análisis cruzado de datos a lo largo del tiempo. Para ello, hemos desarrollado un indicador alternativo de paro oculto que recupera e incluye a los desempleados de las categorías de subempleo involuntario e inactividad. Nuestros análisis incluyen datos de España, Portugal e Italia, y toman como base la encuesta European Union-Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Nuestros resultados muestran que el impacto del desempleo en el sur de Europa se mide mejor cuando se utiliza un indicador ampliado, especialmente cuando se analizan los casos de colectivos vulnerables. Esta herramienta muestra un gran potencial analítico para desvelar el desempleo oculto en el contexto de la pandemia COVID-19.Xunta de Galicia; GRC2014/048Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; RTI2018-095667-B-I0

Disaster Resilience and Human Behavior: Hospital Buildings in Malaysia

 Hospitals are themselves vulnerable to numerous types of disasters and can get damaged risking the lives of human being. To a certain extent, despite of hard resilience (structural and non-structural), human behavior is one of the contributing factors affecting the hospital’s capability in achieving disaster resilience. Hence, the objectives of the paper are twofold: to explore human weaknesses; and to investigate strategies for achieving disaster resilience for existing public hospitals. Qualitative research techniques were employed in the form of focus group approach. The findings revealed that six human weaknesses and five strategies have been asserted by the respondents as of utmost critical.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Disaster Resilience; hard and soft resilience; hospital; human behaviou

The seismic vulnerability assessment methodologies : a state-of-the-art review

In the past decades, the research and development of methodologies have received considerable attention which quantified earthquake-related damages to structures. Among these, indices of seismic risk and vulnerability assessment have indeed been developed to quantify the level of damages to structural elements or the whole structural system. In this paper, a detailed investigation has been done on the developed methodologies in the field, and the findings from other works are summarized. The authors have tried to present the most common empirical and analytical methodologies in a concise manner, which would motivate researchers and practicing engineers to use it as a comprehensive guide and reference for their future works