Geographies of resilience: Challenges and opportunities of a descriptive concept

In disaster science, policy and practice, the transition of resilience from a descriptive concept to a normative agenda provides challenges and opportunities. This paper argues that both are needed to increase resilience. We briefly outline the concept and several recent international resilience-building efforts to elucidate critical questions and less-discussed issues. We highlight the need to move resilience thinking forward by emphasizing structural social-political processes, acknowledging and acting on differences between ecosystems and societies, and looking beyond the quantitative streamlining of resilience into one index. Instead of imposing a technical-reductionist framework, we suggest a starting basis of integrating different knowledge types and experiences to generate scientifically reliable, context-appropriate and socially robust resilience-building activities

Disaster Loss Financing in Germany - The Case of the Elbe River Floods 2002

In August 2002, floods in central Europe caused damage of about Euro 15 billion; insured losses were about Euro 3.1 billion. According to Munich Reinsurance, this was the most expensive natural disaster of the year 2002. In Germany, heavy rains led to some of the worst flooding the Free State of Saxony has witnessed in more than a century. In Dresden, the Elbe River rose from a normal summer level of about two meters to 9.13 meters surpassing the historical flood mark of 8.77 meters seen in March 1845, to reach on August 17, 2002, a water level of 9.40 meters -- the highest level that has ever been recorded in Dresden. Shortly after the flood event, overall damage in Germany was estimated to be Euro 22 billion, which in December 2002 was revised to about Euro 9.1 billion of direct losses. Concerning the regional distribution of losses, Saxony was hit hardest. With direct damage of Euro 6.084 billion the federal state bears 67% of the total losses. About 14.9% (Euro 1.353 billion) of the overall damage is corresponding to the German government and 11.3% (Euro 1.029 billion) to the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The major share of about Euro 3.316 billion accrued to state and municipal infrastructure (36.6%), federal infrastructure losses were Euro 1.353 billion (14.9%); private households suffered about Euro 2.547 billion of losses (28.1%), followed by private companies with Euro 1.438 billion (15.9%). The compensation of the flood losses was mainly financed by a special disaster relief and reconstruction fund set up by both the National Government and the federal states of Germany. This so-called "Sonderfonds Aufbauhilfe" amounted to Euro 7.1 billion, or seventy-eight percent of total direct losses. Other sources of financing were the insurance (estimated to amount to Euro 1.8 billion), an European Union emergency fund (Euro 444 million), and public donations (Euro 243 million). Total financing available amounting to 9.6 billion Euro thus exceeds the direct losses incurred, which will only be financed. Considering that government compensation will be provided in terms of replacement costs rather than current value lost, still all direct losses could be compensated in theory. Compared to total compensation provided in other major events in developed countries, which on average amounted to 45% of total losses, this large financing provided is exceptional. This can be attributed to the following factors: the floods constituted the largest losses ever in Germany and were commonly considered an event with a return period of less than 1000 years ("Jahrtausendhochwasser", millennium floods); the floods mainly affected East Germany that is still struggling economically and where unemployment is high; some observers cite the "hot" election phase as federal elections were in their final stages of what was known to be a very close election. The provision of government funds to the affected private households and companies and municipalities was and is governed by a set of principles that were explicitly set out by the government in order to guarantee the efficient allocation of the funds, allow quick reconstruction and provide and keep incentives for ex-ante measures. These principles include: subsidiarity (the delegation of responsibilities to the lowest administrative level feasible), parallelity (reconstruction in the affected East German region was and is parallel and independent of "Aufbau Ost" (reconstruction in East Germany after reunification), provision of Incentives (inclusion of deductibles in order to maintain incentives for mitigation and insurance), efficiency (financing of direct losses only to primarily compensate those worst affected), and the ability to rebuild (loss financing was provided in terms of reconstruction costs rather than current values). Regarding financing on the municipal level, the Saxon cities of Dresden and Pirna were examined since both experienced large damages to their infrastructure and public assets: Dresden Euro 400 million, equaling forty-seven percent of the municipal budget of 2002, and Pirna Euro 22 million, or thirty-five percent as a fraction of the budget. The cities expect to be reimbursed ninety percent of their damages in the currently ongoing financing negotiations. Also, large losses were suffered by the private households and business, however, these will not be compensated by the local governments but by the "Sonderfonds Aufbauhilfe." Households can expect to receive eighty percent of their losses, businesses up to seventy-five percent

Forschungsdaten in der Psychologie: Disziplinspezifische und disziplinübergreifende Bedürfnisse. Zusammenfassung des Forums (2) der 5. Konferenz für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten

Erkenntnisgewinn in der Psychologie als empirischer Wissenschaft ist unmittelbar an die Produktion und Verarbeitung von Daten gebunden, welche das Erleben und Verhalten von Menschen abbilden. Im Gegensatz zu den Forschungsergebnissen erhalten die Forschungsdaten bislang keine wissenschaftliche Aufmerksamkeit und Anerkennung und sind häufig schwer verfügbar. Die umfassende Dokumentation, Aufbereitung und Vorhaltung von Daten für die Nachnutzung ist in der Psychologie noch nicht selbstverständlicher Bestandteil des Forschungsprozesses. Allerdings weisen Entwicklungen in den letzten Jahren auf ein Umdenken in der Fachkultur hin. Das Forum Forschungsdaten in der Psychologie: Disziplinspezifische und disziplinübergreifende Bedürfnisse im Rahmen der 5. Konferenz für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten (KSWD) in Wiesbaden hatte zum Ziel, existierende Initiativen zum Forschungsdatenmanagement in der Psychologie vorzustellen sowie Anforderungen von Datenprovidern und Datennutzern zu reflektieren. Da die Idee der Weitergabe von Forschungsdaten (data sharing) und das damit zusammenhängende Forschungsdatenmanagement in der Psychologie noch nicht zur Fachkultur gehört, wurden dessen Vorzüge herausgearbeitet, mögliche Anreize (incentives) vorgestellt und dessen Bedeutung für die disziplinübergreifende Zusammenarbeit thematisiert.Psychologie, Forschungsdaten, Längsschnittstudien

Disziplinenspezifische Aspekte des Archivierens von Forschungsdaten am Beispiel der Psychologie

Durch die immensen Fortschritte bei der Digitaltechnik sind nahezu beliebig hohe Specherkapazitäten und weltumspannende Netzwerke selbstverständlich geworden. Der weitere Ausbau der Netzwerke zu Hochgeschwindigkeits-Grids ermöglicht neue Formen des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens, die unter Begriffen wie e-Science oder virtuelle Forschungsumgebungen subsumiert werden. Digitale Objekte aller Art, seien es Texte, Bilder, Filme oder Tonaufzeichnungen, werden rund um den Globus archiviert und häufig kostenlos bereitgestellt. Fachdatenbanken wie PubMed oder Volltext-Repositorien wie arXiv sind Beispiele aus Medizin und Physik für den Technik-indizierten Wandel hin zu freier Verfügbarkeit wissenschaftlicher Information. Durch die Aufhebung der Speicherplatzbeschränkung geraten auch Bestandteile des wissenschaftlichen Forschungsprozesses in den Blickpunkt der Aufmerksamkeit, die man jahrzehntelang wenig beachtet hat: War es noch im 19. Jahrhundert in der Psychologie durchaus üblich, Forschungsdaten als Anhang von Publikationen abzudrucken, wurde dies im 20. Jahrhundert eingestellt. Erst im 21. Jahrhundert besinnt man sich wieder darauf, dass das Archivieren und Weitergeben von Forschungsdaten (data sharing) eine Vielzahl von Vorzügen hat. Die Möglichkeit zu Reanalysen und Metaanalysen einerseits, und die Vermeidung teurer Doppeluntersuchungen andererseits seien nur beispielhaft genannt. Die erwähnten Vorzüge treten aber nur dann zutage, wenn die archiviertenForschungsdaten dauerhaft interpretierbar sind. Dazu müssen sie einerseits in einem Format gesichert werden, das robust gegenüber dem Technikwandel ist. Andererseits sind standardisierte Metadaten beizufügen, die sowohl die Variablen (Kodebuch) als auch die zugehörige Studie in toto (Kontext) umfassend beschreiben. Das psychologische Datenarchiv PsychData des Leibniz-Zentrums für Psychologische Information und Dokumentation (ZPID) setzt zur Festschreibung der Metadaten auf die Standards DC (Dublin Core metadata element set) und DDI (Data Documentation Initiative metadata specification for the social sciences). Zum Kontext gehören die Dokumentation des Erhebungsprozesses und der Erhebungsmethoden, sowie die Beschreibung der zugrunde liegenden Studie und ihres theoretischen Hintergrundes. Die Besonderheiten der psychologischen Forschung erfordern eine exakte und umfassende Dokumentation der Datenerhebung, weil es in der Psychologie kaum Normeinheiten wie den Archivmeter für die physikalische Längenmessung gibt. Deshalb ist es in der Psychologie auch so wichtig, die Forschungskultur im Fach dahingehend zu beeinflussen, dass eine forschungsbegleitende systematische Dokumentation von Datensätzen erfolgt. Spätere Rekonstruktionen binden ein Vielfaches der Ressourcen, als bei einer zeitnahen Dokumentation der Daten im Kontext der Erhebung benötigt worden wären. Da sich die psychologische Forschung mit dem menschlichen Erleben und Verhalten beschäftigt, ist der Anonymisierung der Daten und dem Datenschutz größte Aufmerksamkeit beizumessen.Psychologie, Forschungsdaten, Archivierung

The Barriers to Research and Innovation in Disaster Resilience in Higher Education Institutions in Asia

This paper reports the findings of a research study investigating the barriers to Research and Innovation (R&I) in Disaster Resilience (DR) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Asia. The scope of the study is limited to three Asian countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand, due to their role in the international collaboration entitled ASCENT (Advancing Skills Creation to Enhance Transformation), which contributes to the development of research capacity building in disaster resilience ensuring sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth in these Partner Country HEIs. Responses received from 213 semi-structured interviews and 530 survey questionnaires are used to examine and prioritize the aforementioned barriers in R&I in HEIs in Asia. Findings reveal, amongst others, that there is a crucial need for R&I skills enhancement through implementation of clear and adequate policies. Having a strong policy support, in turn, could play an important role in providing incentives to staff (academic and research staff), increasing awareness on R&I initiatives, and motivation to carry out R&I activities. Lack of training and development on R&I was surprisingly one of the lowest ranked barriers from the survey analysis, although it was the most frequently mentioned barrier during the interviews. Although this is a mixed result, training and development should be considered a priority for promoting and improving R&I in HEIs as such initiatives could help overcome many other barriers such as lack of staff R&I skills, motivation, awareness, and lack of research related performance

LACO-Wiki: A New Online Land Cover Validation Tool Demonstrated Using GlobeLand30 for Kenya

Accuracy assessment, also referred to as validation, is a key process in the workflow of developing a land cover map. To make this process open and transparent, we have developed a new online tool called LACO-Wiki, which encapsulates this process into a set of four simple steps including uploading a land cover map, creating a sample from the map, interpreting the sample with very high resolution satellite imagery and generating a report with accuracy measures. The aim of this paper is to present the main features of this new tool followed by an example of how it can be used for accuracy assessment of a land cover map. For the purpose of illustration, we have chosen GlobeLand30 for Kenya. Two different samples were interpreted by three individuals: one sample was provided by the GlobeLand30 team as part of their international efforts in validating GlobeLand30 with GEO (Group on Earth Observation) member states while a second sample was generated using LACO-Wiki. Using satellite imagery from Google Maps, Bing and Google Earth, the results show overall accuracies between 53% to 61%, which is lower than the global accuracy assessment of GlobeLand30 but may be reasonable given the complex landscapes found in Kenya. Statistical models were then fit to the data to determine what factors affect the agreement between the three interpreters such as the land cover class, the presence of very high resolution satellite imagery and the age of the image in relation to the baseline year for GlobeLand30 (2010). The results showed that all factors had a significant effect on the agreement