Special Issue "Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Hazards and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Jaime Santos-Reyes
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Grupo de Investigación, SARACS, SEPI-ESIME, ZAC. Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 07738 Mexico City, Mexico
Interests: natural hazard risk perception; critical infrastructure interdependency; early warning systems; disaster management systems; human response to emergencies; analysis of past natural/technological disasters

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions represent a significant risk to communities living under such threats. Having a better understanding, among others, of the physics of these events, monitoring, risk assessment and prediction, preparedness (public awareness), and disaster management systems, may help to mitigate the impact of disasters. The aim of this Special issue is to create a forum for discussion on these issues from a multidisciplinary point of view. It is hoped that this interchange of experiences, approaches, and new ideas will help to advance to the challenge of reducing disaster risk. Effectively, achieving this will make vulnerable communities’ development sustainable.

The Special issue aims to cover, without being limited to, the following areas:

  • Earthquake prediction
  • Performance assessment of buildings
  • Vulnerability assessment
  • Emergency response systems
  • Early warning systems
  • Human response to emergencies
  • Risk assessment
  • Risk perception
  • Lessons learned from past disasters
  • Evacuation drills (or exercises)
  • Critical infrastructure failure due to disasters
  • Cascading failure due to disasters
  • Community resilience
  • Social media and disasters
  • Disaster management systems

References

  1. Peduzzi, The Disaster Risk, Global Change, and Sustainability Nexus. Sustainability 2019, 11, 957. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su11040957
  2. Ludovico, D.; D’Ovidio, G.; Santilli, D. Post-earthquake reconstruction as an opportunity for a sustainable reorganization of transport of urban areas. Cities 2020, 96, 102447. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.102447
  3. Turner II, L.; Kasperson, Roger; Matson, Pamela; Mccarthy, James; Corell, Robert; Christensen, Lindsey; Selin, Noelle; Kasperson, Jeanne; Luers, Amy;  Martello, Marybeth; et al. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2003, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1231335100
  4. Cao, ; Li, C.; Yang, Q.; Liu, Y.; Qu, T. A novel multi-objective programming model of relief distribution for sustainable disaster supply chain in large-scale natural disasters. J. Clean. Prod. 2018, 174, 1422-1435.
  5. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030. Available online: https://www.preventionweb.net/sendai-framework/sendai-framework-for-drr (accessed on 13 August 2020)

Dr. Jaime Santos-Reyes
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Risk
  • Disaster
  • Resilience
  • Vulnerability
  • Early warning
  • Emergency response
  • Sustainability

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Article
Brief Literature Review and Classification System of Reliability Methods for Evaluating the Stability of Earth Slopes
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9090; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169090 - 13 Aug 2021
Viewed by 319
Abstract
The issue of slope stability is one of the most important and yet most difficult geotechnical problems. Assessing slope stability is particularly difficult because of the many uncertainties involved in the process. To take these uncertainties into account, probabilistic methods are used, and [...] Read more.
The issue of slope stability is one of the most important and yet most difficult geotechnical problems. Assessing slope stability is particularly difficult because of the many uncertainties involved in the process. To take these uncertainties into account, probabilistic methods are used, and the reliability approach is adopted. There are many methods for reliability assessment of earth slope stability. However, there is no system that would organize all of these methods in an unambiguous way. In fact, these methods can be classified in different ways: by assignment to a deterministic classification of methods, by description of uncertainties of soil parameters, by level of reliability according to the theory of reliability, etc. The huge number of articles summarizing the research in this field, but in various “disordered” directions, certainly do not facilitate the understanding or ultimately the practical application of the reliability approach by the engineer. The paper proposes a universal classification system of reliability methods for evaluating the stability of earth slopes. This proposal is preceded by a brief literature review of both historical background and contemporary research on reliability analysis of earth slope stability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster)
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Article
A Suggested Methodology for Assessing the Failure Risk of the Final Slopes of Former Open-Pits in Case of Flooding
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6919; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126919 - 19 Jun 2021
Viewed by 349
Abstract
Some valuable minerals, such as lignite, are extracted through open-pit mining works. After the cessation of mining activity, large-scale gaps result in the landscape. These gaps, also called “remaining gaps”, represent some of the roughest types of environmental impacts. After the cessation of [...] Read more.
Some valuable minerals, such as lignite, are extracted through open-pit mining works. After the cessation of mining activity, large-scale gaps result in the landscape. These gaps, also called “remaining gaps”, represent some of the roughest types of environmental impacts. After the cessation of mining activity, recovery and ecological restoration works are required. However, it is first necessary to carry out risk assessment studies considering the possible future influences on the final slopes. For this study, flooding of the remaining lignite open-pits gaps was considered as the ecological restoration option. The study was based on extensive research, including sampling, laboratory tests, statistical-mathematical processing, hypothesis formulation, evaluations, interpretations, and field observations, regarding the rock behavior and occurrence of negative geotechnical phenomena (geotechnical phenomena that have a negative impact and a risk on the integrity of the environment and local communities, such as landslides, rockfalls, liquefaction, suffosis) during the flooding process. This paper’s originality consists of combining the methods and methodologies developed with the help of classic methods (Fellenius, Janbu, and Bishop methods) and probabilistic ones (Rosenblueth method) existing in the specialized literature for solving the proposed problem and structuring the information similar to a guide. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster)
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Article
A Chatbot System to Support Mine Safety Procedures during Natural Disasters
Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 654; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020654 - 12 Jan 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 682
Abstract
This study developed a chatbot to improve the efficiency of government activation of mine safety procedures during natural disasters. Taiwan has a comprehensive governmental system dedicated to responding to frequent natural disasters, and the Bureau of Mines has instituted clear procedures to ensure [...] Read more.
This study developed a chatbot to improve the efficiency of government activation of mine safety procedures during natural disasters. Taiwan has a comprehensive governmental system dedicated to responding to frequent natural disasters, and the Bureau of Mines has instituted clear procedures to ensure the delivery of disaster alarms and damage reports. However, the labor- and time-consumption procedures are inefficient. In this study, we propose a system framework for disaster-related information retrieval and immediate notifications to support the execution of mine safety procedures. The framework utilizes instant messaging (IM) applications as the user interface to look up information and send messages to announce the occurrence of disaster events. We evaluated the efficiency of the procedures before and after adopting the system and achieved a time-cost reduction of 55.8 min among three types of disaster events. The study has proven the feasibility of adopting novel techniques for decision-making and assures the improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of the procedure activation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster)
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