Calculating earthquake damage building by building: the case of the city of Cologne, Germany

The creation of building exposure models for seismic risk assessment is frequently challenging due to the lack of availability of detailed information on building structures. Different strategies have been developed in recent years to overcome this, including the use of census data, remote sensing imagery and volunteered graphic information (VGI). This paper presents the development of a building-by-building exposure model based exclusively on openly available datasets, including both VGI and census statistics, which are defined at different levels of spatial resolution and for different moments in time. The initial model stemming purely from building-level data is enriched with statistics aggregated at the neighbourhood and city level by means of a Monte Carlo simulation that enables the generation of full realisations of damage estimates when using the exposure model in the context of an earthquake scenario calculation. Though applicable to any other region of interest where analogous datasets are available, the workflow and approach followed are explained by focusing on the case of the German city of Cologne, for which a scenario earthquake is defined and the potential damage is calculated. The resulting exposure model and damage estimates are presented, and it is shown that the latter are broadly consistent with damage data from the 1978 Albstadt earthquake, notwithstanding the differences in the scenario. Through this real-world application we demonstrate the potential of VGI and open data to be used for exposure modelling for natural risk assessment, when combined with suitable knowledge on building fragility and accounting for the inherent uncertainties.

Prospects for the Use of Mobile Operator Data in Studies of Natural and Man-Made Risk

The article proposes a conceptual substantiation of the possibility of using the cellular operators data in order to assess the population vulnerability in the natural risk studies. Cellular operators data allow obtaining information on the differentiation of the population vulnerability in a large city (the article provides the case of Moscow) to natural and manmade hazards, taking into account the actual population size and its movement within different time cycles (daily, weekly, seasonal). A reliable information of how many people are at each point of the urban space at a certain point in time will allow not only to timely assess the most likely number of people in the potential danger area, thereby simplifying the work of specialized emergencies services, but also to competently develop a set of preventive measures in accordance with the real need.

Soil cryogenesis as a natural risk factor for gas pipelines in the permafrost zone during modern warming

The paper summarizes the experience of studying the effect of modern warming on the thawing depth of sandy and loamy soils in the permafrost zone. The definition of soil cryogenesis as a natural process and facies as the end result of soil cryogenesis as a process is given. The effect of soil cryogenesis facies on stress corrosion cracking of gas pipes of the Gazprom system in cold and warm seasons has been studied. It was found that the facies of soil cryogenesis are interconnected by the process of energy and mass exchange. It is shown that in the annual cycle, each facies formed by soil cryogenesis is the basis for the development of stress corrosion cracking of gas pipelines.

Risk Behavior of Farmers Cultivating Traditional Rice Varieties in Erode District, Tamil Nadu

This study investigates the risk behavior of traditional rice variety growers in Erode District of Tamil Nadu state, using Moscardi and De Janvry approach and Discriminant analysis technique. A well structured questioner was prepared and purposive random sampling was done in three blocks which covers highest cultivable area under paddy namely Gobichettipalayam, Modakurichi and Bhavani in Erode district. Each traditional rice varieties have some unique characteristics i.e some are pest and disease resistant, drought resistant, resistant to waterlogged condition and have medicinal values. The present study was done to identify the major risks, to quantify the risk attitude and to identify the factors influencing risk attitude of the traditional variety growers in Erode District. In the research it was found that the varieties preferred by farmers were Thuyamalli, Kichadi samba, Karuppukavuni, Mapillai samba,Arcaud Kichadi Samba, Poongar, Thanga Samba, Sivan Samba and few other varieties they were cultivating in small areas using organic farming method.The major risk found in cultivating traditional rice varieties were market risk followed by human labour risk, processing risk, input risk, technology risk, institutional risk, natural risk and other risks include transport risk and storage risk. The farmers were grouped into three categories i.e., risk preferrers (63.33 per cent), risk neutral (28.33 per cent) and risk averse (8.33 per cent) based on risk attitude. Once again the farmers in each group was categorized into low, medium, high risk based on nine factors namely, farmers age, major occupation, years of schooling, family size, membership in any of the farmers association, proportion of paddy area to total farm area, proportion of paddy income to total farm income, experience and adequacy of market which were influencing the risk attitude of farmers. In order to conserve the traditional rice varieties from extinction, to restore the soil health, to ensure nutritional security the farmers were willing to take risk.

Antelope space-use and behavioural responses to varying anthropogenic influences may permit long-term persistence in a highly human-dominated landscape

The only means of conserving a species or a habitat in a human-dominated landscape is through promoting coexistence while minimizing conflict. To achieve this, it is vital to understand how wildlife are impacted by direct and indirect human activities. Such information is relatively rare from areas with high human densities. To investigate how animals respond to altered ecological conditions in human-dominated landscapes, we focussed on a wild herbivore of conservation concern in Krishnasaar Conservation Area (KrCA) in Nepal. Here, blackbuck Anticope cervicapra, a generalist grazer, lives in refugia located in a growing human population. We studied the impacts of humans on habitat-use and behaviour of blackbuck. We laid 250 x 250 m grid cells in the entire KrCA and carried out indirect sign surveys with three replications for habitat-use assessment. We observed herds of blackbuck for 89 hours in different possible habitat types, location and time of the day using scan sampling methods. Our habitat-use survey showed that habitats under intensive human use were hardly used by blackbuck, even when high-quality forage was available. In areas with low levels of human activity, natural risk factors, primarily habitat openness, was the major predictor of habitat-use. Interestingly, livestock presence positively influenced habitat-use by blackbuck. Blackbuck were substantially more vigilant when they were in forest than in grassland, again indicating an influence of risk. Overall, blackbuck appear to be sensitive to risk associated with both natural and anthropogenic factors. Our findings have direct implications for managing human-wildlife interactions in this landscape, specifically regarding strategies for livestock grazing in habitats highly used by blackbuck and concerning predictions of how changing land-use will impact long-term persistence of blackbuck. Our work suggests that wild herbivores may be able to persist in landscapes with high human densities so long as there are refuges where levels of human activity are relatively low.

Baronnies Provençales Regional Nature Park Pilot Action Region The Benefit of Large-Scale Rockfall Modelling for Developing Efficient Forest-Based Integrative Management of an Alpine Territory

The choice of a natural risk prevention strategy must be considered at the scale of a territory in order to take into account all its components. Since 2015, France has developed integrated natural risk management (INRM) approaches in Alpine territories. The challenge of INRM lies in the definition and implementation of innovative projects for initiating synergies with respect to natural risks while seeking to increase resilience through the new and different involvement of the territorial actors. The Baronnies Provençales Regional Nature Park is one of the pilot territories for the operational implementation of this approach, with a particular focus on forest-based solutions. For this reason it has been chosen as the French Pilot Action Region (PAR) of the Interreg Alpine Space project GreenRisk4Alps. In this article we present an example of good practice related to the benefit of large-scale rockfall risk modeling, the analysis of potential cascading effects and the added value of a territorial perspective.

Research on the Risk of the Fourth Party Logistics Enterprise Based on the Tripartite Cooperation Model under the Background of Made in China 2025: A Case Study of XCompany

Under the background of "made in China 2025", China's logistics development ushered in new opportunities, which put forward newer and higher requirements for the transformation and upgrading of the logistics industry.The fourth party logistics enterprise is a supply chain integrator.At present, there is a kind of fourth party logistics enterprise based on tripartite cooperation and operation mode in China. That is, fourth party logistics enterprises combine transportation enterprises withinsurance companies, and meanwhile rely on logistics information platform to carry out safety management of freight vehicles. In fact,in the process of tripartite cooperation, there are many uncertain factors, which bring multiple risks to the fourth party logistics enterprises. This paper studies and analyzes the risks faced by the fourth party logistics enterprises, in order to determine the important risk factors, so as to provide decision-making reference for the fourth party logistics enterprises to avoid risks. Firstly, this paper identifies the specific risks in the environment, cooperation, finance and management of the tripartite cooperation model from the internal, external and partnership dimensions, and reveals the mechanism of the risks. Secondly, the analytic hie-rarchy process (AHP) is used to calculate the comprehensive weight of each risk index, and the fuzzy synthetic evaluation method is used to determine the probability of risk. Finally, the overall risk level of X Company is ob-tained by establishing an evaluation matrix and weighting calculation according to the membership relationship between the evaluation matrix and the index weight. The results show that: from the perspective of the dimension of risk importance, cooperation risk and financial risk have the highest risk weight in the second-level index; in the third-level index, the behavioral risk of transportation enterprise, working capital risk and insurance company have the highest risk weight, while the weight of natural risk and political risk is lower. In the dimension of risk generation probability, inter-industry competition risk, transportation enterprise behavior risk, insurance company behavior risk and working capital risk are in the higher probability.

Risk Analysis of Transmission Line Patrol Based on DEMATEL Method

As the scale of power network construction increases, transmission lines that undertake transmission tasks are facing greater challenges in patrol and maintenance work. Therefore, analyzing the factors that affect transmission line patrol and maintenance has become an urgent problem in the power industry. This paper analyzes the influencing factors from the four dimensions of natural risk, transmission operation risk, transmission line risk, and other man-made risks, and uses the DEMATEL analysis method to identify the relationship between different factors, and obtains the key influencing factors, and then proposes Corresponding strategies to deal with the risk of transmission line patrol, hope to have a certain reference effect on the patrol work, so as to ensure the stability of transmission lines.