Long-term impacts of tropical storms and earthquakes on human population growth in Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Since the 18th century, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have experienced similar natural forces, including earthquakes and tropical storms. These countries are two of the most prone of all Latin American and Caribbean countries to natural hazards events, while Haiti seems to be more vulnerable to natural forces. This article discusses to what extent geohazards have shaped both nation's demographic developments. The data show that neither atmospheric nor seismic forces that directly hit the territory of Haiti have significantly affected the country's population growth rates and spatial population densities. Conversely, since the 1950s more people were exposed to atmospheric hazards, in particular, in regions which historically experienced higher storm frequencies

Learning Automata-based Misinformation Mitigation via Hawkes Processes

Mitigating misinformation on social media is an unresolved challenge, particularly because of the complexity of information dissemination. To this end, Multivariate Hawkes Processes (MHP) have become a fundamental tool because they model social network dynamics, which facilitates execution and evaluation of mitigation policies. In this paper, we propose a novel light-weight intervention-based misinformation mitigation framework using decentralized Learning Automata (LA) to control the MHP. Each automaton is associated with a single user and learns to what degree that user should be involved in the mitigation strategy by interacting with a corresponding MHP, and performing a joint random walk over the state space. We use three Twitter datasets to evaluate our approach, one of them being a new COVID-19 dataset provided in this paper. Our approach shows fast convergence and increased valid information exposure. These results persisted independently of network structure, including networks with central nodes, where the latter could be the root of misinformation. Further, the LA obtained these results in a decentralized manner, facilitating distributed deployment in real-life scenarios.acceptedVersio

Methodology for the estimation of the increase in time loss due to future increase in tropical cyclone intensity in Japan

Published version of an article from the journal: Climatic Change. The original publication is available at Spingerlink. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9725-9The present paper develops a methodology for estimating the risks and consequences of possible future increases in tropical cyclone intensities that would allow policy makers to relatively quickly evaluate the cost of different mitigation strategies. The methodology simulates future tropical cyclones by modifying the intensity of historical tropical cyclones between the years 1978 and 2007. It then uses a Monte Carlo Simulation to obtain the expected number of hours that a certain area can expect to be affected by winds of a given strength. The methodology outlined has a range of applications, and the present paper shows as an example the calculation of the expected cost of mitigation of the increased downtime for Japanese ports by 2085 for a variety of economic growth scenario

Here and now: perceptions of Indian Ocean islanders on the climate change and migration nexus

Empirical studies exploring the links between climate change and migration are increasing. Often, perceptions are not fully explored from the people most affected by the climate change and migration nexus. This article contributes to filling this gap by eliciting and analyzing perceptions regarding climate change and migration from an understudied population labelled as being amongst those most immediately and directly affected by climate change: Indian Ocean islanders. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews were conducted in two case study communities in Maldives (Kaafu Guraidhoo with 17 interviews and Raa Dhuvafaaru with 18 interviews) and two case study communities in Lakshadweep, India (Kavaratti with 35 interviews and Minicoy with 26 interviews). The results present the interviewees’ perceptions of climatic variability and change that they experience; how they perceive the causes of these changes; and links to migration decisions. The interviews demonstrate that perceptions of climate change, of migration, and of the links or lack thereof between the two are centred on the interviewees’ own experiences, their own locations, and the immediate timeframe. External information and direction has limited influence. Their perceptions are framed as being the ‘here and now’ through topophilia (here) and tempophilia (now). The islanders’ views do not avoid, but rather encompass, long-term livelihoods and the future. Such a future might be in another location, but the anchor is expressing future hopes and aspirations through the here and now. It is not linked to the wide-scale, long-term issue of climate change

Reinterpreting environmental scarcity and conflict : evidence from Somalia

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Fighting for the Plenty: The Banana Trade in Southern Somalia

In this paper it is argued that economic interests by multinational corporations, local businessmen and faction leaders are significant elements in the perpetuation of civil violence in Somalia. This study examines the banana trade regime in southern Somalia in relation to conflict over export levies at the national level and farm land and water at the regional level. Small but influential groups come to have an economic interest in prolonged conflict. This viewpoint affirms that it can be misleading to associate war with complete collapse or breakdown of an economy—although it may certainly skew the development of an economy. Two further points arise in respect of such analyses. First, are the initial causes of violent conflict necessarily the same as the factors perpetuating this situation? Second, to what extent are more conventional explanations of conflict in Africa, such as ethnicity, religion and economic inequality, of relevance in this case?

Reinterpreting environmental scarcity and conflict

The thesis explores links between resources and conflict in contemporary Somalia. The central research questions were: Why did a society which is believed to be resilient and adaptive to its harsh environment become vulnerable? To what extent did environmental factors contribute to the emergence of conflict? How can natural resource scarcity and abundance be related to the existence of, or potential for, violent conflict, bearing in mind the historical, political, economic and cultural context of conflict? Can other determining factors such as power-relations, access to trade, or clan affiliation be linked to lower economic, institutional, and social performance and associated with higher levels of violent conflict? If a link can be made, this will help to forecast where conflict might take place. Because Somalia is largely an arid country, highly susceptible to natural disasters, and because its people have been victims of severe famine in recent decades, my starting point for this research was to investigate literature on the supposed environmental causes of conflict. Analysis of the literature which links environmental degradation and scarcity to state-collapse or civil war suggested, however, that such linkages are problematic. I argue instead that people engage in violent conflict in Somalia because they struggle to establish control over valuable resources. These resources are likely to be renewables, such as cash crops in the form of plantations in riverine areas, cereals in the Bay region, and charcoal in the coastal region of Brawa. Conflict arose over the struggle to monopolise these resources, and over the distribution of profits. Clan leaders sought to expand a source of 'tax' revenue by controlling trade networks, seaports and airports. This general approach may explain why southern Somalia has experienced continuous insecurity over the past decade.</p

Somalia: A Political Economy Analysis

Somalia has been without a central authority for more than a quarter century. An entire generation is growing up without experiencing stability and security, basic human rights, and economic prosperity. There is no functioning central government with authority over the entire country, extreme weather impacts the country unmitigated, and social challenges such as corruption are rampant. This bears several risks, such as support for radical Islamist groups, such as Al-Shabaab, posing a threat to domestic and international security, or a brain drain with large number of people fleeing the instability and conflict in Somalia. Informal governance actors, formal local authorities, and the private sector have filled the gaps in providing security, education, and health services. Yet, powerful formal and informal, national as well as international actors have vested interests in a weak state or governance failure, with conflict and instability becoming self-perpetuating. This political economy analysis sheds light on the actors, their interests, and power relationships, thus providing a better understanding of these arrangements and their relation with the wider state-building efforts.publishedVersio

Long-term impacts of tropical storms and earthquakes on human population growth in Haiti and Dominican Republic

The two Caribbean states, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, have experienced similar natural forces since the 18th century, including hurricanes and earthquakes. Although, both countries seem to be two of the most prone of all Latin American and Caribbean countries to natural hazard events, historically, Haiti tends to be more vulnerable to natural forces. The purpose of this article is to understand to what extent geohazards shape demographic changes. Research findings of this study show that neither atmospheric nor seismic hazards that directly hit the territory of Haiti have significant impacts on population densities and growth rates. Quantitative evidence is provided, that between 1850 to 2009 urbanization processes have exposed more people to natural forces. Thus, Haiti is willing to take an increasing risk, because, finally, it matters where people settle