On the web

Citation

(2005), "On the web", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314dag.001

On the web

Below are new or updated internet resources that the Natural Hazards Center staff have found informative and useful. For a more complete list, visit the web site: www.colorado.edu/hazards/resources/sites.html

All hazards

National Science Foundation

www.nsf.gov/The National Science Foundation (NSF) has introduced a new web site, entirely redesigned to better serve the research and education community and the general public. Through the new site, the NSF hopes to more effectively explain its use of public funds and the results derived from it, while offering a user-friendly interface for its grantees and contractors.

National Organization on Disability’s Emergency Preparedness

www.nod.org/epiconference2004/index.htmlThe National Organization on Disability’s Emergency Preparedness Initiative has released this “virtual binder” of materials related to the National Capital Region Conference on emergency preparedness for people with disabilities.

Best practices in risk reduction for colleges and universities

www.washington.edu/admin/business/oem/symposium/Presentations from Symposium 2005: Best Practices in Risk Reduction for Colleges and Universities, a two-day symposium/workshop for emergency professionals serving colleges and universities, are posted here.

Community guidelines for developing a spontaneous volunteer plan

www.illinoishomelandsecurity.org/pdf/spontvol.pdfThis document from Illinois Homeland Security, Community Guidelines for Developing a Spontaneous Volunteer Plan, was created to help Illinois communities develop and execute a community spontaneous volunteer plan.

UNISDR

www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/introduction.htmThese web pages from the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction feature statistics, tables, graphics, and maps on disaster occurrence and their impacts for the period 1994-2003.

Science.gov

www.science.gov/alerts/alertmain.shtmlScience.gov, the Web portal for federal science information, now provides this free “alert” service that sends subscribers customized weekly e-mails about the most recent developments in science.

Federal Highway Administration

www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/OpsSecurity/)The Federal Highway Administration has re-engineered and expanded its emergency transportation operations and homeland security web site with the continued purpose of providing state and local agencies with valuable information to help them make wise decisions to improve the security of roadway operations. Resources are organized based on prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery classifications. New content includes sections on cybersecurity and funding.

Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis

www.ldeo.columbia.edu/chrr/research/hotspots/)The World Bank has published a report entitled Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis that presents a global view of disaster risks associated with some major natural hazards: drought, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. The report identifies high-risk geographic regions so that development efforts can be better informed and designed to reduce disaster-related losses. Access the 29-page synthesis report and more at this web site.

Tsunamis

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/sumatra20041226.htmlThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory has put together this list of web links related to the tsunami in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004.

National Science Foundation

www.nsf.gov/news/specialreports/tsunami/Within days of the massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean in late 2004, teams of researchers rushed to survey the disaster, hoping to learn how such loss of life, property, and ecosystems can be prevented in the future. This special report from the NSF describes some of the findings.

American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engineers

www.asce.org/page/?id=53Technical assessment teams comprised of members of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engineers travelled to South Asia to study the catastrophic damage resulting from the recent earthquake and tsunami. Read their field reports here.

Tsunamis: Monitoring, Detection, and Early Warning Systems

www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32739.pdfTsunamis: Monitoring, Detection, and Early Warning Systems, a report from the Congressional Research Service, was released in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for the Indian Ocean

http://ioc.unesco.org/indotsunami/parismarch05.htmThe 1st International Coordination Meeting for the Development of a Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for the Indian Ocean Within a Global Framework concluded on 8 March, 2005, with the adoption of a communiqué outlining the proposed arrangements for the establishment of a Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for the Indian Ocean region (IOTWS) and terms of reference for the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the IOTWS. Access the communiqué, the terms of reference, and the meeting presentations here.

Tsunami in South Asia: Building Financial Protection

www.swissre.com/(Research and Publications)

This new Focus report from Swiss Re, Tsunami in South Asia: Building Financial Protection, examines how the insurance industry should respond to tsunamis and other natural catastrophes occurring in developing countries.

2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/srilanka05/The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: Initial Findings on Tsunami Sand Deposits, Damage, and Inundation in Sri Lanka is a cooperative study by the US Geological Survey (USGS), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, NSF, Geological Survey and Mines Bureau of Sri Lanka, and GeoEnvironmental Consultants of New Zealand.

“Wave That Shook the World”

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tsunami/PBS debuted Nova’s “Wave That Shook the World” on 29 March. This episode-dedicated web site features a transcript, links and books, a teacher’s guide, and more information about tsunamis past and present.

Earthquakes and landslides

USGS (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2005/usuvae/)

The USGS’s preliminary report on the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that occurred in central Iran on 22 February 2005, is available here.

Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

www.eeri.org/lfe/irankerman.htmlThis web page from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute features information about reconnaissance activities associated with the magnitude 6.4 earthquake in central Iran on 22 February 2005.

USGS

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2005/usweax/The USGS’s preliminary earthquake report for the magnitude 8.7 quake that occurred off Indonesia on 28 March 2005, is available here.

NSF

www.nsf.gov/news/specialreports/nees/This special report from the NSF introduces the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, which was created to give researchers tools to learn how earthquakes and tsunamis impact the buildings, bridges, utility systems, and other critical components of today’s society.

USGS

http://eqint.cr.usgs.gov/eq/html/eqprob.htmlThe USGS’s Geologic Hazards Team in Golden, Colorado, has developed this new earthquake probability mapping web site to, in part, acquaint the general public with earthquake hazards in their neighbourhoods. The site allows visitors to calculate estimates of the probability of future earthquakes in a particular part of the United States (e.g. a zip code), based on the earthquake rate, location, and magnitude data used by the USGS’ National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project.

CUREE

www.curee.org/CV/The Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) has posted its membership database on its web site. CUREE has 320 professor members in addition to its 28 member universities. The database can be searched based on specialty area and provides curriculum vitae and other information.

USGS

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1067/On 10 January 2005, a landslide struck the community of La Conchita, California, destroying or seriously damaging 36 houses and killing 10 people. This report from the USGS provides a description of the La Conchita area and its landslide history, a comparison of the 1995 and 2005 landslides, and a discussion of continuing landslide hazards in the La Conchita area.

Hurricanes, coastal management, and floods

Disasters Roundtable Workshop

http://books.nap.edu/html/ndr/floodlosses.pdfA summary of the 2 March 2004, Disasters Roundtable Workshop Reducing Future Flood Losses: The Role of Human Actions is available here.

“Spatial Trends in Coastal Socioeconomics”

http://marineeconomics.noaa.gov/socioeconomics/)The primary objective of this web site from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service, “Spatial Trends in Coastal Socioeconomics”, is to increase awareness and improve access for the coastal stewardship community to socioeconomic information in a timely fashion. The site includes information for all 50 states and provides a set of web-based data analysis and display tools to facilitate data retrieval, mapping, analysis, assessments, and comparative studies and also offers query tools to retrieve data by individual or multiple counties or watersheds.

Disasters Roundtable Workshop Lessons Learned between Hurricanes

http://dels.nas.edu/dr/f13.htmlPresentations from the 8 March, 2005, Disasters Roundtable Workshop Lessons Learned between Hurricanes: From Hugo to Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne are posted on this site.

Climate change

Pew Center on Global Climate Change

http://ealert.pewclimate.org/ctt.asp?u=2965528&&l=78466The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has created this special section on their web site to examine the implications of the Kyoto Protocol’s entry into force, including history, related issues, and reports and analyses. The section devotes significant space to the question of what happens next.

Health

Centers for Disease Control and Preparedness (CDC)

www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/disease/movies.aspThis new site from the CDC addresses some of the most noticeable misconceptions that might be derived about smallpox from fictional film and television programs. It also features links to more detailed CDC smallpox information.

Environmental Health Services

www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/ETP/This web site from the Environmental Health Services Branch of the CDC and Prevention National Center for Environmental Health serves as a clearinghouse of information resources related to emergency and terrorism preparedness for environmental health practitioners.

Homeland security

Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response

www.nyu.edu/ccpr/pubs/NYUEMSreport.pdfThis report from New York University’s Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response identifies critical deficits in the role and organization of emergency medical services (EMS) in homeland security preparedness and provides recommendations to improve the ability of EMS to respond to a terrorist attack.

Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management

www.bepress.com/jhsem/)For its first issue of 2005, the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has published the “Special Issue on Information Systems for Emergency Preparedness and Response”. It provides four feature articles in addition to the regular content of the journal. Non-subscribers can browse the index page for the five issues available to date and may request sample articles to download. For more information, contact Claire B. Rubin at cbrubin@gwu.edu