Doctoral Dissertation Research: Measuring the Environmental Context of Social Vulnerability to Urban Earthquake Hazards: An Integrative Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

博士论文研究：测量城市地震灾害社会脆弱性的环境背景：遥感和地理信息系统综合方法

• 批准号: 0117863
• 负责人: John Weeks
• 金额: $ 0.61万
• 依托单位: San Diego State University Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-08-01 至 2003-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0117863&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Measuring; Environmental

Although many catastrophic events like earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes may be characterized as natural disasters, the amount of devastation associated with such events often is as much a product of the people and human landscapes where they occur as the natural forces themselves. This is especially true if one tries to consider the risks associated with natural hazards. This doctoral dissertation research project will develop an integrative methodology for the analysis of the ecology of urban earthquake risks based on the techniques of remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis. The research is guided by a conceptual framework that takes a human ecological perspective and suggests the use of the built and natural environments as contextual filters to understand social processes associated with urban earthquake disasters. The major thrust of the research is oriented toward the exploration of the utility of remote sensing and GIS techniques in identifying urban land-cover attributes that are strongly associated with high and low levels of social vulnerability to earthquake hazards. The research will test the hypothesis that social vulnerability is reflected in the characteristics of the spatial structure of the urban neighborhoods that various population groups occupy, such as geographic conditions, the form and development of settlements, and structure of open spaces. Many of these characteristics are physically represented by certain urban land-cover attributes, such as constructions materials and soil types, thus providing a means of measuring the relative importance of such characteristics through the use of remote sensing and GIS. The basic hypothesis of this research will be tested in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, a dynamic, data-rich urban region which was affected in 1994 by a major earthquake disaster. The research plan consists of three interrelated tasks. First, a GIS prototype will be developed using a set of measures for assessing vulnerability in the contemporary urban realm of American cities without the inclusion of remotely sensed variables. Second, the utility of remote sensing imagery will be demonstrated using data collected before the earthquake event. These data will provide spatially explicit variables regarding land-cover attributes associated with variations of social vulnerability in the study sites. The third task will consist of a test of the validity of the remotely sensed variables by re-assessing vulnerability in the study sites based exclusively on such variables. The results of the first and third tasks will be compared and validated against reported damage figures from the 1994 earthquake disaster.The motivation for this project comes from the desire to develop an empirical base for a flexible approach to vulnerability analysis that can balance two competing demands. The first need is to improve the understanding of the linkage among various contextual and social factors that produce vulnerability patterns. The second is the need for offering a practical way for planners and decision makers undertaking local mitigation efforts to generate concrete profiles of vulnerable communities and to monitor changes in these profiles. The broader contributions of this project therefore are both theoretical and empirical. From a theoretical perspective, the research will contribute to hazard research by answering questions regarding the ecology of earthquake risk and how differential social vulnerability is connected to variations in the physical settings of urban areas. From an empirical viewpoint, the product of this project will contribute to hazard mitigation efforts by providing decision makers with tools for exploring patterns of vulnerability and hence for implementing policies in a manner that fulfills the needs of sustainable hazard mitigation. The methods employed offer a model of how to translate the technology for assessing vulnerability into procedures for easy use by local governments, which can increase the effectiveness of locally applied measures that could prevent earthquake hazards from becoming major human disasters. The techniques in question are relatively low-cost and therefore the approach could suitably be modified to save lives in other developed and developing countries. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

尽管地震、洪水、飓风和龙卷风等许多灾难性事件可能被定性为自然灾害，但与这些事件相关的破坏程度往往既是自然力量本身的结果，也是发生这些事件的人和人文景观的结果。如果人们试图考虑与自然灾害相关的风险，这一点尤其正确。这项博士论文研究项目将基于遥感、地理信息系统(GIS)和空间分析技术开发一种综合的城市地震风险生态分析方法。这项研究是在一个概念框架的指导下进行的，该框架从人类生态角度出发，建议使用建筑环境和自然环境作为背景过滤器，以了解与城市地震灾害相关的社会过程。这项研究的主要目的是探索遥感和地理信息系统技术在确定与地震灾害的社会脆弱性高低密切相关的城市土地复盖属性方面的效用。本研究将检验这一假设，即社会脆弱性反映在不同人口群体居住的城市社区空间结构特征上，如地理条件、聚落的形成和发展、开放空间的结构等。其中许多特征由某些城市土地覆盖属性，如建筑材料和土壤类型，在物理上表现出来，从而提供了一种通过使用遥感和地理信息系统来衡量这些特征的相对重要性的手段。这项研究的基本假设将在洛杉矶大都会地区得到检验，这是一个充满活力、数据丰富的城市地区，在1994年受到了一场大地震的影响。研究计划由三项相互关联的任务组成。首先，将使用一套评估美国城市当代城市领域脆弱性的措施来开发地理信息系统原型，而不包括遥感变量。其次，将使用地震前收集的数据来演示遥感图像的用途。这些数据将提供与研究地点社会脆弱性变化有关的土地覆盖属性的空间显性变量。第三项任务将包括通过完全根据遥感变量重新评估研究地点的脆弱性来测试遥感变量的有效性。第一项和第三项任务的结果将与1994年地震灾害报告的损失数字进行比较和验证。该项目的动机是希望为能够平衡两种相互竞争的需求的灵活易损性分析建立一个经验基础。首先需要更好地了解产生脆弱性模式的各种背景和社会因素之间的联系。第二个问题是需要提供一种切实可行的方法，使规划者和决策者能够在当地开展缓解工作，以生成脆弱社区的具体概况，并监测这些概况的变化。因此，该项目的更广泛贡献既有理论上的，也有经验上的。从理论的角度来看，这项研究将通过回答有关地震风险的生态以及不同的社会脆弱性如何与城市地区实际环境的变化联系起来的问题，为灾害研究做出贡献。从经验的角度来看，该项目的产品将通过为决策者提供工具来探索脆弱性的模式，从而以满足可持续减灾需要的方式执行政策，从而促进减灾工作。所采用的方法提供了一种模式，说明如何将评估脆弱性的技术转化为便于地方政府使用的程序，从而提高当地应用的措施的有效性，从而防止地震危险成为重大的人类灾难。所讨论的技术成本相对较低，因此可以适当修改这种方法，以挽救其他发达国家和发展中国家的生命。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。