Flood Forecasting Using Machine Learning Methods

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue Flood Forecasting Using Machine Learning Methods that was published in Wate

The World Whole: An Environmental History of Japanese Space Power

This thesis explores the history of Japan's interactions with outer space, largely in the 20th century. It argues for a conception of "Earth-space" wherein the porous boundary between the atmosphere and outer space is a site of rich interactions between society, nature, and technology. Using the topics of Tokyo's urban heat island, satellite meteorology and remote sensing, and Japanese spaceflight in the 1990s, this thesis argues that history must become posthuman, as solar energy, concrete, physical maps, satellites, frogs, and robots play as important a role as humans in the development of the events and changes explored. This theses therefore owes much to the new materialist theory that has been written in the last decade. Ultimately, this thesis argues for a relational conception of agency wherein historical change emerges as a byproduct of the contingent and active relationships that hold between individual people, forces, and objects. Arguing from a deeply interdisciplinary perspective situated between history, philosophy, the applied physical sciences, cognitive science, critical theory, and sociology among others, this thesis finds itself primarily within environmental historiography. In imagining "the world whole," this thesis seeks to synthesize and create a picture of the historical world that is appropriate to the climate regime and blurred metaphysical boundaries that characterize the 21st century.Bachelor of Art

Collective engagement:From disaster-prone to disaster-resilient city

The dissertation is about building urban resilience through collective engagement, with a particular interest in flood-prone cities and their efforts to become disaster-resilient. It looks into the interrelationship, the vertical, horizontal, and transversal, between collective engagement and urban resilience, how collective engagement takes place in cities, and what role it plays in transforming disaster-prone cities to disaster-resilient cities

Exploring the data needs and sources for severe weather impact forecasts and warnings : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Emergency Management at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Figures 2.4 & 2.5 are re-used with permission.The journal articles in Appendices J, L & M are republished under respective Creative Commons licenses. Appendix K has been removed from the thesis until 1 July 2022 in accordance with the American Meteorological Society Copyright Policy, but is available open access at https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-21-0093.1Early warning systems offer an essential, timely, and cost-effective approach for mitigating the impacts of severe weather hazards. Yet, notable historic severe weather events have exposed major communication gaps between warning services and target audiences, resulting in widespread losses. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has proposed Impact Forecasts and Warnings (IFW) to address these communication gaps by bringing in knowledge of exposure, vulnerability, and impacts; thus, leading to warnings that may better align with the position, needs, and capabilities of target audiences. A gap was identified in the literature around implementing IFWs: that of accessing the required knowledge and data around impacts, vulnerability, and exposure. This research aims to address this gap by exploring the data needs of IFWs and identifying existing and potential data sources to support those needs. Using Grounded Theory (GT), 39 interviews were conducted with users and creators of hazard, impact, vulnerability, and exposure (HIVE) data within and outside of Aotearoa New Zealand. Additionally, three virtual workshops provided triangulation with practitioners. In total, 59 people participated in this research. Resulting qualitative data were analysed using GT coding techniques, memo-writing, and diagramming. Findings indicate a growing need for gathering and using impact, vulnerability, and exposure data for IFWs. New insight highlights a growing need to model and warn for social and health impacts. Findings further show that plenty of sources for HIVE data are collected for emergency response and other uses with relevant application to IFWs. Partnerships and collaboration lie at the heart of using HIVE data both for IFWs and for disaster risk reduction. This thesis contributes to the global understanding of how hydrometeorological and emergency management services can implement IFWs, by advancing the discussion around implementing IFWs as per the WMO’s guidelines, and around building up disaster risk data in accordance with the Sendai Framework Priorities. An important outcome of this research is the provision of a pathway for stakeholders to identify data sources and partnerships required for implementing a hydrometeorological IFW system

Enhancing storm surge resilience for coastal habitat: A framework to support sustainable development

More than 2.4 billion people live within 100 km of the sea coastline. Between 2016-2019 there has been a rising trend in tropical cyclone’s intensity and the frequency. Such cyclone events irrespective of their hurricane categorisation have persistently triggered coastal flooding such as storm surges of at least 7 ft (2 m). Over this period disaster losses from tropical cyclones have been estimated as US$ 343 billion, with over 3,333 deaths. A review of previous studies found that 47% of the Atlantic Cyclone’s deaths were caused by storm surges-triggered by hurricanes and not just by hurricanes themselves. The unique characteristics of storm surge and the uncertainty coupled with the lack of hurricane intensity prediction potentially leave coastal communities and the infrastructure directly exposed to the socioeconomic risk. The aim of this research is to develop a framework which helps enhance the resilience of coastal habitat to storm surge hazard. The proposed framework considers the adaptive capacity of developing countries, and its structure is developed by reviewing the current practices and strategies of disaster management for storm surge hazard triggered by tropical cyclones identifying the gaps and challenges. A framework approach could support the future resilience, reducing the disaster losses, both in terms of lives and in terms of socioeconomic, and environmental impacts of countries. This research fits within the wider knowledge field of disaster risk management and sustainable community’s enhancement adopts a qualitative exploratory research design based on case study methodology. The study focused on the implementation of four main disaster phases such as the (i) preparedness (ii) response (iii) recovery and (iv) mitigation of the disaster risk management (DRM) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) which had occurred from different events chosen for the case study and had occurred between 2000-2017. The examination of individual case studies and the cross-case syntheses of the cases resulted in identifying the commonalities and obtain insights into the DRM practices and governance in various countries. Gaps within current DRM strategies and their practices before, during and after the occurrence of the disaster were also identified which has assisted in the recommendations within this study. The findings then led to the proposal of the Disaster Adaptation to Mitigate Storm Surge (DAMSS) framework and guidelines for best practices. The findings and suggested approaches may also help governments, planners, engineers, builders, forecasters, emergency managers, relief workers, regional bodies, insurance, civil protection organisations, public and private officials of all the developing countries, to reduce future losses, where there is not the same supportive development infrastructure

Indigenous Resilience and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the context of Climate Change

Indigenous peoples, in Taiwan and worldwide, need to come up with various ways to cope with and adapt to rapid environmental change. This edited book, which is a follow-up to a conference entitled “Climate Change, Indigenous Resilience and Local Knowledge Systems: Cross-time and Cross-boundary Perspectives” organized by the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, presents 16 papers which explore the various dimensions of Indigenous resilience to climate change and disasters in Taiwan and other regions in the world. This book explores the interrelated themes of climate change and Indigenous knowledge-based responses, and Indigenous (community) resilience with specific reference to Typhoon Morakot and beyond. The goals of this book are to discuss the international experience with Indigenous resilience; to review Indigenous knowledge for adaptation to climate change and disasters; and to generate a conversation among scholars, Indigenous peoples, and policy-makers to move the agenda forward. This book focusses on Indigenous resilience, the ways in which cultural factors such as knowledge and learning, along with the broader political ecology, determine how local and Indigenous people understand, deal with, and adapt to environmental change

The WWRP Polar Prediction Project (PPP)

Mission statement: “Promote cooperative international research enabling development of improved weather and environmental prediction services for the polar regions, on time scales from hours to seasonal”. Increased economic, transportation and research activities in polar regions are leading to more demands for sustained and improved availability of predictive weather and climate information to support decision-making. However, partly as a result of a strong emphasis of previous international efforts on lower and middle latitudes, many gaps in weather, sub-seasonal and seasonal forecasting in polar regions hamper reliable decision making in the Arctic, Antarctic and possibly the middle latitudes as well. In order to advance polar prediction capabilities, the WWRP Polar Prediction Project (PPP) has been established as one of three THORPEX (THe Observing System Research and Predictability EXperiment) legacy activities. The aim of PPP, a ten year endeavour (2013-2022), is to promote cooperative international research enabling development of improved weather and environmental prediction services for the polar regions, on hourly to seasonal time scales. In order to achieve its goals, PPP will enhance international and interdisciplinary collaboration through the development of strong linkages with related initiatives; strengthen linkages between academia, research institutions and operational forecasting centres; promote interactions and communication between research and stakeholders; and foster education and outreach. Flagship research activities of PPP include sea ice prediction, polar-lower latitude linkages and the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) - an intensive observational, coupled modelling, service-oriented research and educational effort in the period mid-2017 to mid-2019