Robert Power, Mahesh Prakash, Bella Robinson, Nikhil Garg, Maria Wikstrom, & Martijn Mooij. (2023). A Climate Resilience Platform for Agriculture. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 164–172). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The changing climate will see an increase in the frequency, scale, and intensity of future natural disasters. While communities and governments need to work together to mitigate the impact of these emergency events, the business community will also need to adapt to ensure the ongoing sustainability of their enterprises. This is especially true of the agricultural sector which is exposed to climate variability. The Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) tool is an online interactive digital platform bringing together a variety of climate information specifically for farmers and the agricultural sector. It will enable agricultural businesses, planners, and communities to explore various climate related datasets to better understand how the expected future climate may impact different regions and commodities. This will help people to anticipate and plan for the impacts of a variable and changing climate. We present the CSA tool, available at https://climateservicesforag.indraweb.io/, outlining how it is being developed in collaboration with key stakeholders in the Australian farming community, the climate data available and usage scenarios.
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Vihan C.N. Weeraratne, Raymond C.Z. Cohen, Mahesh Prakash, Lalitha Ramachandran, Nikhil Garg, & Valentijn Pauwels. (2023). Assessing Climate Vulnerability Under Future Changes to Climate, Demographics and Infrastructure: A Case Study for the Chapel Street Precinct, Melbourne. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 35–44). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The Chapel Street Precinct is a busy commercial and residential corridor in the City of Stonnington Local Government Area (LGA) located in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Authorities and planners in the LGA are interested in understanding how the changing climate affects the socioeconomic environment of the region. By considering existing climate hazards (such as extreme heat, flood and water availability), infrastructure, and demographic information in the region together with future projections of climate change and demographic changes, a Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index (SVI) was created at a Mesh Block scale to better identify relatively high-risk Mesh Blocks in the region. The climate projections under medium and high future emission scenarios (i.e., representative concentration pathways (RCP)) as per IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) fifth assessment report (AR5), RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively for 30-year epochs around 2030, 2050 and 2070 were used in the SVI development. The current-day scenario is considered under Baseline conditions for demographic and asset information representing present-day conditions, whereas the baseline climate dataset considers the climate for the 30 year period 1991-2020 to best represent the present-day climate. The multi-model mean of the future climate projections from 6 different climate models were obtained from the Victoria’s Future Climate tool (https://vicfutureclimatetool.indraweb.io), developed by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Data61 together with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) under Data61’s INDRA framework (https://research.csiro.au/indra/). A version of INDRA is currently under development to allow map-based interactivity, experimentation and scrutiny of the vulnerability indices and their subcomponents across the study region. The SVI was created using a weighted indicator approach utilising a range of indicators belonging to 3 categories, exposure, susceptibility, and baseline adaptive capacity. The indicators were first normalised and the final SVI was given a score between 0-1 for each Mesh Block. The worst levels of vulnerability were observed to be for the RCP8.5 2070 scenario. In general, the RCP8.5 scenarios indicated a worse outcome compared to the RCP4.5 scenario. The area along Chapel Street within the precinct which is a densely built-up area high in population was found to be the most vulnerable area in the study region. It is foreseen that decision makers will be able to use the holistic data-driven outcomes of this study to make better informed decisions whilst adapting to climate change.
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Victor A. Bañuls, Andrzej M. Skulimowski, & José Antonio Román Begines. (2021). Disaster Resilience Modeling of Municipal Water Supply Infrastructures in the Context of Atmospheric Threats. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 198–207). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The resilience of water supply infrastructure (WSI) is of utmost importance as threats to predominantly, although not exclusively, urban WSI may accompany virtually all kinds of natural disasters. In this paper, we present some of the challenges posed by climate change in modeling emergencies in WSIs. Climate change is a global phenomenon that significantly impacts global lifestyle. It is expected that increase in global temperatures causes sea levels to rise, increases the number of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and storms while highly impacting WSI. In this respect, the challenge is to be prepared for the unexpended by modeling various complex scenarios. Only with a multidisciplinary approach at the global, regional, national, and local levels, can success be achieved. We discuss some of the specific challenges posed by climate change in modeling emergencies in WSIs with a case study modeled using EMERTIC. EMERTIC is a software based on AI and scenarios, that is aimed at supporting decision making at different stages of the Emergency Management cycle.
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Murray Turoff, Victor A. Bañuls, & Miguel Ramirez de la Huerga. (2018). Hurricanes Send Signals for the Future of Emergency Preparedness. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 797–805). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: Trends over the past decades when coupled with recent disaster events call into serious question whether our typical reactions to natural disasters will be sufficient for what we can expect in the future. This paper summarizes current events and scientific understanding of our planet to provide insights of the authors into what should be the basis for future policies and plans.
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Marc van den Homberg, Lydia Cumiskey, Esther Oprins, Pablo Suarez, & Anja van der Hulst. (2015). Are you Ready! to take early action? Embedding serious gaming into community managed DRR in Bangladesh. In L. Palen, M. Buscher, T. Comes, & A. Hughes (Eds.), ISCRAM 2015 Conference Proceedings ? 12th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Kristiansand, Norway: University of Agder (UiA).
Abstract: This paper applies a Game-based Learning Evaluation Model (GEM) to assess whether the early warning ? early action serious game ?Ready!? is an effective component to add to existing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) training curricula, facilitated by NGO staff and applied at the community level. We developed a paper-based survey with 17 five-level Likert items and 15 open questions addressing the different GEM indicators to question 16 NGO staff, and used a simplified set of five questions with emoticons for 58 community people. The results showed that the staff saw great potential in embedding Ready! in DRR processes and that the community highly appreciated the game. The GEM was found to be a useful methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of this serious game. However, in the context of a lower educated and partly illiterate community, the importance of designing an individual, largely visual assessment instrument instead of a paper-based survey was acknowledged.
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