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

Vulnerability Assessment: The Role of Coastal Informal Settlement Growth to Social Vulnerability in Genuk Sub-District, Semarang City

Tidal, land subsidence and flooding in Semarang City brought many consequences to the city's economic and social conditions. In the economic sector, the largest contributor to GDP derives from industries that are located in the coastal area. The environmental problems also affect the ability of social adaptation and vulnerability. This issue encourages the efforts of the public and the government. City conditions are constantly changing force people to adapt for survival, through endogenous. At the same time, the government is trying to help for the same goal, through a variety of urban development. Although it has the same goal, many found gaps, which, if not followed could increase the vulnerability of society and lead social dysfunction. According to of the phenomenon, this article is based on questionnaire surveys, observation, and previous studies in Semarang City. Quantitative data obtained from questionnaire surveys of 133 respondents of the household. The questionnaire distributed in 3 villages in Genuk sub-district, i.e. Terboyo Kulon, Terboyo Wetan, and Trimulyo. Industrialisation in the coastal area is main caused informal settlement hyper growth in the coastal area. For the present study sought to find out how the process of adaptation that naturally affects the vulnerability of communities using qualitative methods. The results showed the social, economic condition is strongly influenced adaptability of society

An empirical analysis of humanitarian warehouse locations

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically verify characteristics of current warehouse locations of humanitarian organizations (based on public information) and to relate those to the model developed by Richardson et al. (2016). Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on desk research. Public data such as (annual) reports and databases are used to empirically verify location characteristics. Findings: A significant portion of our sample co-locates their products at UNHRD premises. This indicates that organizations prefer to cluster warehouse activities, particularly when there is no fee involved for using the warehouse (as is the case in the UNHRD network). We find that the characteristics of the current warehouse locations are aligned with literature on location selection factors. Current location can be characterized by infrastructure characteristics (in particular closeness to airport and safety) and by low occurrence of disasters. Other factors for which we did not find evidence for were labor quality and availability as well as political environment. Research limitations/implications: We have used a limited sample of warehouses. We also focused our research on the countries where two or more organizations have their warehouses located. We did not account for warehouse sizes or product stored in our analysis. Practical implications: The geographic map of the current warehouses together with the quantified location factors provides an overview of current warehouse locations. Originality/value: We empirically verify characteristics of warehouse locations of humanitarian organizations. This differs from other studies that do not provide an empirically grounded perspective

Sustainable development in contract logistics through green warehousing and distribution. Practical case: Maersk warehouse

The thesis is dedicated to the staple part of contract logistics – warehousing and distribution. The nature of this study is to show the sustainable development of (green) warehousing, the crucial changes and achievements in the sector and how these improvements impact the environment and society. The author appeals to the research and analytical methods where he investigates the sources and related documents to analyse the global situation in contract logistics and describe the current situation of green warehousing. The practical method helped to study the Maersk warehouse and to show if it indeed responds to the requirements of sustainable durability as well as highlights the transformations conducting the company towards decarbonisation. The first part dedicated to the general research of warehousing and distribution. The author investigated the main features of warehouse location and its crucial importance, studied different types of layouts, showed the modernisation and application of WMS facilitating the operation’s running, examined the efficiency of equipment usage, light and air conditioning systems and analysed the social impact of warehousing for sustainability. The second chapter observes the practical case of Maersk warehouse as the first logistic centre for the company in Iberia area. The author not only investigated the main features of warehouse, but also showed how the company is implementing the sustainable tools to reduce the environmental impact as well as gave at the glace the future of warehousing via innovation and technology usage

Training Competences in Industrial Risk Prevention with Lego® Serious Play®: A Case Study

This paper proposes the use of the Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) methodology as a facilitating tool for the introduction of competences for Industrial Risk Prevention by engineering students from the industrial branch (electrical, electronic, mechanical and technological engineering), presenting the results obtained in the Universities of Cadiz and Seville in the academic years 2017–2019. Current Spanish legislation does not reserve any special legal attribution, nor does it require specific competence in occupational risk prevention for the regulated profession of a technical industrial engineer (Order CIN 351:2009), and only does so in a generic way for that of an industrial engineer (Order CIN 311:2009). However, these universities consider the training in occupational health and safety for these future graduates as an essential objective in order to develop them for their careers in the industry. The approach is based on a series of challenges proposed (risk assessments, safety inspections, accident investigations and fire protection measures, among others), thanks to the use of “gamification” dynamics with Lego® Serious Play®. In order to carry the training out, a set of specific variables (industrial sector, legal and regulatory framework, business organization and production system), and transversal ones (leadership, teamwork, critical thinking and communication), are incorporated. Through group models, it is possible to identify dangerous situations, establish causes, share and discuss alternative proposals and analyze the economic, environmental and organizational impact of the technical solutions studied, as well as take the appropriate decisions, in a creative, stimulating, inclusive and innovative context. In this way, the theoretical knowledge which is acquired is applied to improve safety and health at work and foster the prevention of occupational risks, promoting the commitment, effort, motivation and proactive participation of the student teams.Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / European Social Fund: Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2017-22222

Exploring the Dynamics of Building Supply: A Duration Model of the Development Cycle

A noticeable omission in the existing body of applied real estate research is the lack of empirical analysis of the commercial development process. We address this shortcoming by utilizing a large panel database of individual building projects that in principle allows us to follow individual projects through various stages of their development life cycle. We begin by examining the basic distributional and time series characteristics of the development cycle, and then examine how these results vary by stage of construction, property sector and geography. We then estimate unconditional transition probabilities and finally, present preliminary results from a formal, nonparametric duration model.

Training Competences in Industrial Risk Prevention with Lego (R) Serious Play (R): A Case Study

This paper proposes the use of the Lego (R) Serious Play (R) (LSP) methodology as a facilitating tool for the introduction of competences for Industrial Risk Prevention by engineering students from the industrial branch (electrical, electronic, mechanical and technological engineering), presenting the results obtained in the Universities of Cadiz and Seville in the academic years 2017-2019. Current Spanish legislation does not reserve any special legal attribution, nor does it require specific competence in occupational risk prevention for the regulated profession of a technical industrial engineer (Order CIN 351:2009), and only does so in a generic way for that of an industrial engineer (Order CIN 311:2009). However, these universities consider the training in occupational health and safety for these future graduates as an essential objective in order to develop them for their careers in the industry. The approach is based on a series of challenges proposed (risk assessments, safety inspections, accident investigations and fire protection measures, among others), thanks to the use of "gamification" dynamics with Lego (R) Serious Play (R). In order to carry the training out, a set of specific variables (industrial sector, legal and regulatory framework, business organization and production system), and transversal ones (leadership, teamwork, critical thinking and communication), are incorporated. Through group models, it is possible to identify dangerous situations, establish causes, share and discuss alternative proposals and analyze the economic, environmental and organizational impact of the technical solutions studied, as well as take the appropriate decisions, in a creative, stimulating, inclusive and innovative context. In this way, the theoretical knowledge which is acquired is applied to improve safety and health at work and foster the prevention of occupational risks, promoting the commitment, effort, motivation and proactive participation of the student teams

Optimization of resource storage location for managing flood emergencies.

Strategic infrastructure plays a key role in the functioning of urban areas, especially when dealing with emergency response to natural disasters. Urban areas and their infrastructure are threatened by natural hazards, which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change and intense urbanization in the near future. The UK National Flood Resilience Review (2016) committed £2.3 billion to be invested to reduce flood risk, of which £12.5 million specifically for temporary defenses. At present, the state of the art does not provide a proven efficient methodology specifically designed to optimally invest these resources; in light of this, a consolidated urban planning spatial optimization methodology is originally used for allocating resource storing space and ultimately optimize flood emergency management. This study developed and applied a RAOGA (Resource Allocation Optimization Genetic Algorithm) to balance the particular trade-off between simultaneous minimization of response time and costs. The presented optimization framework balances several competing tensions that include: (1) the identification of, and the cost of using, possible sites (warehouses) to store flood temporary defenses; (2) the identification of strategic infrastructure location; (3) transport optimization for moving emergency response resources into place. The methodology is applied to a regional case study (Yorkshire, UK) as proof of concept. Such a framework has the potential to lead a new generation of mathematically-based emergency response planning, targeted to policy makers dealing with urban planning and emergency management

Crisis translation: considering language needs in multilingual disaster settings

Purpose: The purpose of this conceptual paper is to highlight the role that language translation can play in disaster prevention and management and to make the case for increased attention to language translation in crisis communication. Approach: The article draws on literature relating to disaster management to suggest that translation is a perennial issue in crisis communication. Findings: Although communication with multicultural and multilinguistic communities is seen as being in urgent need of attention, we find that the role of translation in enabling this is underestimated, if not unrecognised. Value: This article raises awareness of the need for urgent attention to be given by scholars and practitioners to the role of translation in crisis communication