Third sector organizations and earthquake recovery planning in Christchurch, New Zealand

On September 4, 2010, an earthquake struck rural Canterbury and the most deadly of over 2,000 aftershocks devastated the Christchurch Central Business District on February 22, 2011 (Ardagh et al. 2012). Questions have arisen regarding population dynamics (Love 2011), marginalized groups, health and social care, and overall recovery efforts. Addressing some of these concerns are various non-profit, non-governmental, and faith based groups, collectively referred to as Third Sector Organizations (TSOs). By providing an alternative to and back-stopping government and private health and social services, TSOs are able to build resiliency following a natural disaster, and are especially able to identify and address unmet needs within their target audiences and maintain a sense of community within their operating areas. The nature of community recovery, also changes the role of TSOs in formal and grassroots efforts over time. In New Zealand, TSOs have shared community health burdens with government and private practices since the 1990s (Larner and Craig 2005) and have championed healthcare policy measures for ethnic minorities (Came 2014). Nevertheless, the earthquakes have presented challenges to TSOs. An inventory of 92 TSOs four months after the earthquakes, 106 one year after, and 454 two years after by Carlton and Vallance (2013) shows that although many TSOs have emerged to address earthquake related issues, other TSOs may have been unable to re-establish themselves outside areas with earthquake damage found to be too severe to inhabit by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). Others reported “burn-out” and 52 were inactive or closed because of shifting needs during recovery. This research identifies shared experiences across the third sector in Canterbury to illuminate shifting roles in mid to long-term earthquake recovery

The Role of Traditional Knowledge in Coastal Adaptation Priorities: The Pamunkey Indian Reservation

Coastal reservations are increasingly vulnerable to hazards exacerbated by climate change. Resources for restoration projects are limited. Storm surge, storms, tidal flooding, and erosion endanger artifacts and limit livelihoods of tribes in coastal Virginia. GIS offers a platform to increase communication between scientists, planners, and indigenous groups. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe engaged in a participatory mapping exercise to assess the role of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in coastal management decision-making and its capacity to address flooding. Priorities and strategies were spatially referenced using maps of potential sea level rise for 2040, 2060, and 2080, input into a resilience matrix to identify benchmarks for each phase of disaster resilience building, and contextualized with oral histories. Results highlight increased immediacy to protect housing and heritage sites along the shoreline as well as maintain access to the Reservation. Preferences toward structural solutions guided by and facilitating TEK options were expressed. Additional community capacities, tribal council support, federal assistance, impact assessments, and coordination would facilitate risk reduction project implementation. The screening process integrates TEK with planning and is transferable to neighboring tribes

Challenges in Upgrading Emergency Power in Florida Nursing Homes Following Hurricane Irma

Maintaining and restoring electricity after a disaster helps to preserve the health and well-being of the elderly who are at increased risk of heat stress and may be dependent upon life-sustaining medical equipment. Mitigation policies altered in reaction to increased public interest without thorough consideration of industry-specific resources may contribute to delays in implementation and unrealized potential for emergency power coverage within individual facilities. The objectives of this research are twofold: (i) to examine the relationship between preexisting conditions of life-safety systems at facilities and date of implementation of emergency power regulation improvements and (ii) to assess the role of interagency connections—such as emergency management, fire safety, health care administration, and electricity providers—in facilitating compliance with safety regulations. A case study regarding the capacity to implement new emergency power regulations was conducted in Florida with 12 nursing homes affected by Hurricane Irma. The proposals to maintain temperatures and life-sustaining equipment under the updated regulations were not consistent among nursing homes within each county or between counties. Facilities with no preexisting life-safety violations were among the first to comply with new emergency power regulations. Those with prior violations often utilized procedural updates and external resources to comply. Nursing facilities that required additional support for remediation prior to the storm had plans approved earlier or without a second review as compared with those relying on internal resources. These results establish a baseline for the conditions associated with timely compliance including the importance of collective agency to mitigate risk

Nonprofit Capacity to Manage Hurricane-Pandemic Threat: Local and National Perspectives on Resilience During COVID-19

This paper examines nonprofits\u27 capacity for responding to simultaneous hurricane-pandemic threat, addressing: (1) strategies nonprofits use to deliver services during the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) how natural hazards may affect nonprofit roles in emergency service delivery during a pandemic. Data come from a survey of New Orleans-based nonprofits demonstrating effects of pandemic on local nonprofit service delivery, and workshops with U.S. coastal community stakeholders exploring expectations for nonprofit roles in emergency operations nationwide. Nonprofits have applied resilient strategies including virtual operations, staff reductions, and funding diversification, but vulnerabilities remain. Findings guide a research agenda for building nonprofit and community resilience

The Landlab v1.0 OverlandFlow component: a Python tool for computing shallow-water flow across watersheds

Representation of flowing water in landscape evolution models (LEMs) is often simplified compared to hydrodynamic models, as LEMs make assumptions reducing physical complexity in favor of computational efficiency. The Landlab modeling framework can be used to bridge the divide between complex runoff models and more traditional LEMs, creating a new type of framework not commonly used in the geomorphology or hydrology communities. Landlab is a Python-language library that includes tools and process components that can be used to create models of Earth-surface dynamics over a range of temporal and spatial scales. The Landlab OverlandFlow component is based on a simplified inertial approximation of the shallow water equations, following the solution of de Almeida et al. (2012). This explicit two-dimensional hydrodynamic algorithm simulates a flood wave across a model domain, where water discharge and flow depth are calculated at all locations within a structured (raster) grid. Here we illustrate how the OverlandFlow component contained within Landlab can be applied as a simplified event-based runoff model and how to couple the runoff model with an incision model operating on decadal timescales. Examples of flow routing on both real and synthetic landscapes are shown. Hydrographs from a single storm at multiple locations in the Spring Creek watershed, Colorado, USA, are illustrated, along with a map of shear stress applied on the land surface by flowing water. The OverlandFlow component can also be coupled with the Landlab DetachmentLtdErosion component to illustrate how the nonsteady flow routing regime impacts incision across a watershed. The hydrograph and incision results are compared to simulations driven by steady-state runoff. Results from the coupled runoff and incision model indicate that runoff dynamics can impact landscape relief and channel concavity, suggesting that on landscape evolution timescales, the OverlandFlow model may lead to differences in simulated topography in comparison with traditional methods. The exploratory test cases described within demonstrate how the OverlandFlow component can be used in both hydrologic and geomorphic applications

Life in Hampton Roads Report: The 11th Annual Life in Hampton Roads Survey

[From the Executive Summary] The Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Old Dominion University is pleased to present the results from the 11th annual Life in Hampton Roads (LIHR) survey. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into residents’ perceptions of the quality of life in Hampton Roads. It is important to note that the methodology for this year’s survey differs from previous Life in Hampton Roads surveys. The first ten years of the survey were conducted using a random sample of Hampton Roads residents via telephone. However, this year state and university COVID-19 restrictions did not allow for staffing of the SSRC call center during the survey period. Therefore, on-line survey panels were used to solicit respondents to complete a web-based survey. Given the pandemic conditions in Hampton Roads and the rest of the world, many of this year’s questions focused on residents’ experiences with and responses to COVID-19 conditions

Participatory Mapping to Address Neighborhood Level Data Deficiencies for food Security Assessment in Southeastern Virginia, USA

Background: Food is not equitably available. Deficiencies and generalizations limit national datasets, food security assessments, and interventions. Additional neighborhood level studies are needed to develop a scalable and transferable process to complement national and internationally comparative data sets with timely, granular, nuanced data. Participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) offer a means to address these issues by digitizing local knowledge. Methods: The objectives of this study were two-fold: (i) identify granular locations missing from food source and risk datasets and (ii) examine the relation between the spatial, socio-economic, and agency contributors to food security. Twenty-nine subject matter experts from three cities in Southeastern Virginia with backgrounds in food distribution, nutrition management, human services, and associated research engaged in a participatory mapping process. Results: Results show that publicly available and other national datasets are not inclusive of non-traditional food sources or updated frequently enough to reflect changes associated with closures, expansion, or new programs. Almost 6 percent of food sources were missing from publicly available and national datasets. Food pantries, community gardens and fridges, farmers markets, child and adult care programs, and meals served in community centers and homeless shelters were not well represented. Over 24 km2 of participant identified need was outside United States Department of Agriculture low income, low access areas. Economic, physical, and social barriers to food security were interconnected with transportation limitations. Recommendations address an international call from development agencies, countries, and world regions for intervention methods that include systemic and generational issues with poverty, incorporate non-traditional spaces into food distribution systems, incentivize or regulate healthy food options in stores, improve educational opportunities, increase data sharing. Conclusions: Leveraging city and regional agency as appropriate to capitalize upon synergistic activities was seen as critical to achieve these goals, particularly for non-traditional partnership building. To address neighborhood scale food security needs in Southeastern Virginia, data collection and assessment should address both environment and utilization issues from consumer and producer perspectives including availability, proximity, accessibility, awareness, affordability, cooking capacity, and preference. The PGIS process utilized to facilitate information sharing about neighborhood level contributors to food insecurity and translate those contributors to intervention strategies through discussion with local subject matter experts and contextualization within larger scale food systems dynamics is transferable

Anticipating and addressing event-specific alcohol consumption among adolescents.

Background: Various specific events and celebrations are associated with excessive alcohol consumption and related harms. End-of-school celebrations such as Schoolies in Australia are of particular concern given high levels of documented harm among underage and young drinkers. The present study investigated high school students’ expectations of their Schoolies celebrations to inform future interventions to reduce adverse outcomes among members of this vulnerable group and other young people involved in similar rites of passage. Methods: A link to an online survey was distributed via high schools and Schoolies-related websites. The survey included qualitative questions that invited respondents to discuss (i) aspects of Schoolies they were looking forward to most and least and (ii) their perceptions of the likely consequences if they refrained from consuming alcohol during the event. In total, 435 students provided responses. Results: Respondents discussed the role of Schoolies in marking their transition to adulthood. Their comments revealed a cross-temporal focus indicating that Schoolies is simultaneously symbolic of the past, present, and future. Through its ability to enhance social interaction, alcohol was perceived to have a vital role in realising the potential of this event to signify and facilitate this temporal progression. Conclusions: Results suggest interventions that treat Schoolies as an isolated event that occurs in specific locations may fail to appreciate the extent to which these events transcend time for those involved. Instead, harm reduction is likely to involve a reconceptualisation of the event among both participants and authority figures to facilitate the provision of alternative pastimes to drinking during Schoolies that yield similar social benefits

Novel mutations in TARDBP (TDP-43) in patients with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) has been identified as the major disease protein in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin inclusions (FTLD-U), defining a novel class of neurodegenerative conditions: the TDP-43 proteinopathies. The first pathogenic mutations in the gene encoding TDP-43 (TARDBP) were recently reported in familial and sporadic ALS patients, supporting a direct role for TDP-43 in neurodegeneration. In this study, we report the identification and functional analyses of two novel and one known mutation in TARDBP that we identified as a result of extensive mutation analyses in a cohort of 296 patients with variable neurodegenerative diseases associated with TDP-43 histopathology. Three different heterozygous missense mutations in exon 6 of TARDBP (p.M337V, p.N345K, and p.I383V) were identified in the analysis of 92 familial ALS patients (3.3%), while no mutations were detected in 24 patients with sporadic ALS or 180 patients with other TDP-43-positive neurodegenerative diseases. The presence of p.M337V, p.N345K, and p.I383V was excluded in 825 controls and 652 additional sporadic ALS patients. All three mutations affect highly conserved amino acid residues in the C-terminal part of TDP-43 known to be involved in protein-protein interactions. Biochemical analysis of TDP-43 in ALS patient cell lines revealed a substantial increase in caspase cleaved fragments, including the approximately 25 kDa fragment, compared to control cell lines. Our findings support TARDBP mutations as a cause of ALS. Based on the specific C-terminal location of the mutations and the accumulation of a smaller C-terminal fragment, we speculate that TARDBP mutations may cause a toxic gain of function through novel protein interactions or intracellular accumulation of TDP-43 fragments leading to apoptosis

On transient semi‐arid ecosystem dynamics using Landlab: vegetation shifts, topographic refugia, and response to climate

Projecting how arid and semi‐arid ecosystems respond to global change requires the integration of a wide array of analytical and numerical models to address different aspects of complex ecosystems. We used the Landlab earth surface modeling toolkit (Hobley et al., 2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-5-21-2017) to couple several ecohydrologic and vegetation dynamics processes to investigate the controls of exogenous drivers (climate, topography, fires, and grazing) and endogenous grass‐fire feedback mechanisms. Aspect‐controlled ecosystems and historical woody plant encroachment (WPE) narratives in central New Mexico, USA are used to construct simulations. Modeled ecosystem response to climatic wetness (i.e., higher precipitation, lower potential evapotranspiration) on topography follows the Boyko's “geo‐ecological law of distribution.” Shrubs occupy cooler pole‐facing slopes in the dry end of their ecoclimatic range (Mean Annual Precipitation, MAP ≤ 200 mm), and shift toward warmer equator‐facing slopes as regional moisture increases (MAP > 250 mm). Trees begin to occupy pole‐facing slopes when MAP > 200 mm, and gradually move to valleys. Pole‐facing slopes increase species diversity at the landscape scale by hosting relict populations during dry periods. WPE observed in the region since the middle 1800s is predicted as a three‐phase phenomenon. Phase II, rapid expansion, requires the removal of the positive grass‐fire feedback by livestock grazing or fire suppression. Regime shifts from grassland to shrubland are marked by critical thresholds that involve grass cover remaining below 40%, shrub cover increasing to 10%–20% range, and the grass connectivity, Cg, remaining below 0.15. A critical transition to shrubland is predicted when grazing pressure is not removed before shrub cover attains 60%