Hazardousness of place : a new comparative approach to the Filipino past

© Ateneo de Manila University. The historiography of the Philippines has been largely bounded by the nation-state, which has defined how its past has been conceived and to whom its peoples are mainly compared. A more transnational environmental history, however, seeks to situate the archipelago within the context of the daily threats that its peoples have to face. This article focuses on the hazardous nature of living in the islands and explores the ways in which Filipinos have adapted to natural hazards as a frequent life experience over time

The Declining Effects of OSHA Inspections on Manufacturing Injuries: 1979 to 1998

This study compares the impact of OSHA inspections on manufacturing industries using data from three time periods: 1979-85, 1987-91, and 1992-98. We find substantial declines in the impact of OSHA inspections since 1979-85. In the earliest period we estimate that having an OSHA inspection that imposed a penalty reduces injuries by about 15%; in the later periods it falls to 8% in 1987-91 and to 1% (and statistically insignificant) in 1992-98. Testing for different effects by inspection type, employment size, and industry, we find differences across size classes, but these cannot explain the overall decline. In fact, we find reductions in OSHA's impact over time for nearly all subgroups we examine, so shifts across subgroups cannot explain the whole decline. We examine various other hypotheses concerning the declining impact, but in the end we are not able to provide a clear explanation for the decline.

Fine Scale Natural Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Identification Informed by Climate

Although many natural disasters have hydro-meteorological antecedents, little advantage has been taken of the availability of weather and climate data, advanced diagnostics and seasonal predictions for disaster risk management. In this study, methodologies for use of hydro-meteorological data in hazard risk assessment are presented laying the ground work for future dynamic hazard predictions. A high-resolution assessment of natural hazards, vulnerability to hazards and of multihazard disaster risk has been carried out for Sri Lanka. Drought, flood, cyclone and landslide hazards, and vulnerability were identified using data from Sri Lankan government agencies. Drought and flood prone areas were mapped using rainfall data that was gridded at a resolution of 10-km. Cyclone and landslide hazardousness were mapped based on long-term historical incidence data. Indices for regional industrial development, infrastructure development and agricultural production were estimated based on proxies. An assessment of regional food insecurity from the World Food Programme was used in the analysis. Records of emergency relief were used in estimating a spatial proxy for disaster risk. A multi-hazardousness map was developed for Sri Lanka. The hazardousness estimates for drought, floods, cyclones, landslides were weighted for their associated disaster risk with proxies for economic losses to provide a risk map or a hotspots map. Our principal findings are summarized below. Useful hazard and vulnerability analysis can be carried out with the type of data that is available in-country. The hazardousness estimates for droughts, floods, cyclones and landslides show marked spatial variability. Vulnerability shows marked spatial variability as well. Thus, the resolution of analysis needs to match the resolution of spatial variations in relief, climate and other features. The higher resolution information is needed in planning and action for disaster management. Multi-hazard analysis brought out regions of high risk in Sri Lanka such as the Kegalle and Ratnapura Districts in the South West and Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Mullaitivu and Killinochchi districts in the North-East and the districts of Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Ampara and Matale that contain some of the sharpest hill slopes of the central mountain massifs. There is a distinct seasonality to risks posed by drought, floods, landslides and cyclones. Whereas the Eastern slopes regions have hotspots during the boreal fall and early winter, the Western slopes regions is risk prone in the summer and the early fall. Thus attention is warranted not only on Hot-Spots but also on "Hot-Seasons." Climate data was useful in estimating hazardousness in the case of droughts, floods and cyclones and for estimating flood and landslide risk. The methodologies presented here for hazard analysis of floods and droughts present an explicit link between climate and hazard. The results from this study coupled with the high-resolution seasonal climate prediction techniques developed in a related study point the way to using historical, current and predictive climate information to inform disaster management policy, and early warning systems. Climate, environmental and social change such as deforestation, urbanization and war affect the hazardousness and vulnerability. It is more difficult to quantify such changes rather than the baseline conditions. Our analysis was carried out for a period since 1960 that included a period of civil war after 1983. This war affected the North-East of the island in particular. To put things in context, while natural disasters accounted for 1,483 fatalities in this period, the civil wars accounted for over 65,000. Wars and conflict poses complications for hazard and vulnerability analysis. Yet, the vulnerabilities created by the war make such efforts to reduce disaster risks all the more important. Technical details of our work have been included in a case study published by the World Bank and in journals listed in the outputs

Preliminary risk assessment of ecotoxic substancesaccidental releases in major risk installationsthrough fuzzy logic

In the present work a fuzzy logic model to preliminary assess the risk of accidental releases of ecotoxic substances in hazard plants has been developed. The methodology is based in three steps, the characterization of the hazardousness of the substance, the delimitation of the soil and groundwater vulnerability and the identification of the protective and preventive measures of the plant. The tool has been tested with a set of storage yards of ecotoxic substances, mainly oil, in the Regione Piemonte area (Italy). The results obtained are in good agreement with the real situation of the surveyed storage yards. Thus, by using this methodology it is possible to preliminary assess the risk from uncertain data.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Severity Message from Hazard Alert Symbol on Caution Signs

Standards for the design of signal word panels specify different combinations of colors, signal words, and a hazard alert symbol. The warning sign standards of the American National Standards Institute specify a yellow signal word panel, with the word Caution and a hazard alert symbol, for signs marking people hazards. The same panel, without the symbol, is intended for property hazards. The purpose of this study was to determine if the presence or absence of the symbol effectively conveys the intended severity messages. A sample of 59 college students rated their impressions of a Caution sign with and without the symbol. Subjects rated the plain Caution sign as communicating significantly higher severity levels than property damage, indicating that a yellow Caution sign inaccurately communicates a hazard to property. Subjects rated the sign with the symbol as connoting significantly greater severity than the sign without the symbol

Pollution Prevention: Factors Behind Toxic Release Reduction in the U.S. Paper Industry

Drs. Tiefenbacher and Solecki analyze the factors associated with, and influential in, the reduction of toxic releases in the U.S. paper industry

Communicating Severity of Hazard with the Signal Word on a Safety Sign

An experiment examined five signal words on safety signs for effectiveness at communicating information about severity of a hazard. Perceived severity was rated by 59 college students for the signal words Deadly, Danger, Warning, Caution, and Notice. Results indicated that Deadly communicated the highest ratings for severity. Danger was second. Warning and Caution were tied for third. The lowest ratings were for Notice

Formats for Section Safety Messages in Printed Manuals

This study compared four formats for safety messages in printed manuals based on layouts found in a new standard of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI Z535.6, 2006). These four designs are specifically for use as section safety messages. Two used a signal word panel, and two used a safety alert symbol (exclamation in a triangle). The four formats were rated by 55 college students from three different classes using a five-point scale for hazardousness. All four messages were presented on the same page of a test booklet, with order balanced using a Latin Square. Results of a Friedman test indicated significant differences in ratings. The ranked order of the formats based on estimated median was yellow safety alert symbol left of the text (3.37), signal word in black panel above text (3.13), signal word in black panel imbedded in first line of text (2.87), and black hazard alert symbol left of the text (2.13). Post-hoc analyses of ratings using a Bonferroni test indicated the signs fit into three groups: the two highest rated signs, the second and third rated signs, and the lowest rated sign