Narrow Results

Warning systems enable timely communication of risk during disasters. This study examines the relationship between planning and warning, as well as their effect on capacity in island communities. The study establishes planning as a form of warning and uses empirical evidence from a natural experiment, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (2017), to describe how planning functions as a warning process before, during, and after a disaster. Qualitative interview and participant observation data were gathered before and after the storm event. The study finds that planning, like warning, translates knowledge of risks into appropriate courses of protective action to reduce human suffering. Island communities, which tend to be under-resourced before, during, and after disasters, can benefit from operationalizing planning as a form of warning to build capacity and resilience.

It is important to consider the local people’s evaluation in increasing the effectiveness of the sustainable planning process in urban system planning. In this work, the sustainability of urban system planning in Shu city of Kazakhstan is evaluated according to the defined dimensions, which play a key role in determining the population’s living standard, and the indicators of each dimension are compared. The data are obtained mainly through the household questionnaire survey, field observations, in depth interviews, and focus group discussion. In total, 832 representative respondents were surveyed with five-point Likert scale questions in this paper. The study used 42 indicators based on six dimensions: environmental, social, cultural, economic, religious/spiritual, and institutional dimensions. The results of this analysis show that the sustainability level of urban system planning in Shu city is at a low level in all six dimensions. The results of the indicator analysis show that the people of this region are generally not satisfied with the solution of some environmental, social, and economic problems in Shu city. At the same time, residents rated the indicators of institutional stability as better, on the contrary, they rated cultural and religious/spiritual indicators relatively high. As a result, we initially asserted that the sustainability of the urban system planning in Shu city is not satisfactory considering the existing possibilities. To eliminate this shortcoming, the authorities responsible for planning the urban system should jointly develop a project policy for sustainable development with all interested parties.

Social determinants of health and overall socioeconomic disparities play important factors in determining the resilience of communities in the face of disasters and emergencies. The Emergency Management field is only beginning to address these special populations in their preparedness plans, even though these communities are the most vulnerable and thus the most important for overall resilience. Current response and recovery structures do not focus on addressing these disparities and rebuilding communities to be more resilient in the face of disasters, creating an endless cycle of human suffering and economic waste. Through collaborative partnerships, both federally and private, Emergency Managers can establish a response and recovery model, which informs future planning and mitigation, that addresses inequities building a more resilient nation.