Micro-level assessment of regional and local disaster impacts in tourist destinations

ABSTRACT

The tourism sector faces severe challenges due to the economic impacts from changing natural environments as seen with the increased frequency of natural disasters. Therefore, analyses of disaster impacts models are necessary for managing successful tourism recovery. Typically, disaster assessments are conducted on a countrywide level, which can lead to imbalanced recovery processes, and a distorted distribution of recovery financing or subsidies. We address the challenges of recovery using the tourism disaster management framework by Faulkner. To calculate precise damage assessments, we develop a micro-level assessment model to analyze and understand disaster impacts at the micro-level supporting tourism recovery in an affected destination. We examine economic consequences of a disaster at a small regional scale arguing recovery from a natural disaster is more difficult in individual areas because of differences in geographic location or infrastructure development. The island of Dominica is chosen as an example for the model using statistical data from the tourism sector to outline and detail the consequences of a disaster specifically for communities. The results highlight the importance of damage assessments on a small-scale level, such as communities in order to distinguish between individual regions facing severe changes for resident livelihoods and the local tourism sector. We argue that only after identifying regional impacts it is possible to apply adequate governmental subsidies and development strategies for a country's tourism sector and residents in a continuously changing environment in the hopes of mitigating future financial losses and future climate change impacts.     

Forest as hazard,forest as victim: Community perspectives and disaster mitigation in the aftermath of Kelowna's 2003 wildfires

Situated within the political ecology of hazard, this article is an extended case study of the devastating 2003 wildfires in and around Kelowna, British Columbia (also known as the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire). This article reveals how compliance (or lack thereof) with fire mitigation strategies recommended by provincial, regional, and municipal agencies is complicated by differing social constructions of what constitutes ecologically sustainable forest management and community safety. Three perspectives emerge regarding the urban forests: “nature as hazard”—a volatile force to be controlled; “nature as instrumentally valuable”—a contribution to the character of one's surroundings and subsequent sense of place; and “nature as intrinsically valuable”—a distinct entity to be preserved and protected for its own sake. The article also examines how experiences of disaster influence community perceptions and result in a greater willingness to engage in fire mitigation strategies due to perceptions of heightened vulnerability. Forestry and fire mitigation agencies need to determine multiple courses of action among the varied and valid range of residents’ nature perspectives. The role of human agency in disaster mitigation must be examined, particularly as the risk of fire at the wildland‐urban interface continues to be exacerbated by encroaching human settlements and climate change.     

Capacity Building toward Resilience: How Communities Recover,Learn, and Change in the Aftermath of Extreme Events

When faced with natural disasters, communities respond in diverse ways, with processes that reflect the extent of damage experienced by the community, their resource availability, and stakeholder needs. Local‐level processes drive decisions about mitigating future flood risks, such as if, how, and where to rebuild, as well as changes in zoning practices and public outreach programs. Because of their potentially recurring nature, floods offer an opportunity for communities to learn from and adapt to these experiences with the goal of increasing resiliency through deliberation, modification of former policies, and adoption of new policies. By following the response to the September 2013 floods in seven Colorado communities, this study investigates if, how, and why communities successfully learn from extreme events and change their local government policies to increase resilience and decrease vulnerability to future floods. We find that greater openness of post‐flood decision process is associated with more in‐depth deliberation, learning, and more substantive and frequent policy change.     

Demographic Change,Differential Ageing,and Public Policy in Rural and Regional Australia: A Three‐State Case Study

This paper takes a differential demographic change in six rural settlement categories within rural and regional Australia as the starting point for the measurement of differential ageing using a Relative Ageing Index which compares ageing in sub‐populations with the national norm. The spatial units employed are 412 rural communities, approximated by social catchments each consisting of a country town and its surrounding dispersed population. The study covers the period from 1981 to 2006 and includes the rural areas of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, excluding major cities, peri‐urban areas, and the remote rangelands. It examines demographic change and differential ageing in a selection of the rural settlement categories recommended for further analysis in the report of the ‘Demographic Change and Liveability Panel’, one of three advisory panels established in 2010 by the then Commonwealth Government seeking to develop a sustainable population strategy for Australia. Ageing profiles are produced for the whole study area, for the individual rural settlement categories, and for the urban and rural components within each category separately. Results show that differential ageing is least advanced in the ‘regional cities’, most advanced in the ‘sea change’, but of most concern in the agriculture‐based rural settlement categories where it exacerbates the effects of overall population decline. In all categories, ageing in the dispersed rural population element exceeded that of the urban component. Results emphasise the vital role of the ‘regional cities’ category in future public policy development supported by ameliorative and collaborative measures for their surrounding agriculture‐based communities.     

Mixed Outcomes: The Impact of Regional Autonomy and Decentralization on Indigenous Ethnic Minorities in Indonesia

This article examines how indigenous ethnic minorities in Indonesia are being affected by the implementation of decentralization and regional autonomy policies. New legislation transferred responsibility and authority over various issues, including resource extraction and local governance, from the central government to regional authorities at the district level. Members of the growing indigenous rights movement hoped that this decentralization process would allow ethnic minority communities to retain or regain control over natural resources through local‐level politics. Furthermore, some ethnic minorities saw the implementation of decentralization as an opportunity to return to local forms of land tenure and resource management that had been disparaged by the national government for most of the twentieth century. However, these new laws also encourage district level governments to generate income through natural resource exploitation, as they will receive a certain percentage of these revenues. Minority communities could be adversely affected as local governments disregard their land rights in efforts to raise income to cover their new expenses, essentially continuing the practices of previous governments. This article examines the new opportunities, as well as the new threats, posed by decentralization to ethnic minorities throughout Indonesia.     

Global Public Policy,Transnational Policy Communities,and Their Networks

Public policy has been a prisoner of the word “state.” Yet, the state is reconfigured by globalization. Through “global public–private partnerships” and “transnational executive networks,” new forms of authority are emerging through global and regional policy processes that coexist alongside nation‐state policy processes. Accordingly, this article asks what is “global public policy”? The first part of the article identifies new public spaces where global policies occur. These spaces are multiple in character and variety and will be collectively referred to as the “global agora.” The second section adapts the conventional policy cycle heuristic by conceptually stretching it to the global and regional levels to reveal the higher degree of pluralization of actors and multiple‐authority structures than is the case at national levels. The third section asks: who is involved in the delivery of global public policy? The focus is on transnational policy communities. The global agora is a public space of policymaking and administration, although it is one where authority is more diffuse, decision making is dispersed and sovereignty muddled. Trapped by methodological nationalism and an intellectual agoraphobia of globalization, public policy scholars have yet to examine fully global policy processes and new managerial modes of transnational public administration.     

Arena gets the growth syndrome

Abstract

Geographical educators can make useful contributions to the process of community development by helping local communities to achieve greater understanding of their environments. One way to do this is via the concept of regional synthesis, developed by, and shared with, the local residents of a community through the medium of a course which focuses on their local regional geography. A localised geography course was offered in 1977 to out ‐of‐school adults in the Kohala area of the island of Hawaii. The specific mechanics of the course are described here, and short‐term outcomes are evaluated. The potential of this form of ‘applied geography’ is briefly discussed.     

The (Mis)Use of Disaster as Opportunity: Coerced Relocation from Celaque National Park,Honduras

Abstract: “Disaster capitalism” refers to political economic processes that take advantage of mass trauma to impose neoliberal capitalist economic policies, facilitating the redistribution of wealth and exacerbating socio‐economic divisions. Here the basic tenets of disaster capitalism are applied in another context: how natural disasters can be used to impose exclusionary protected area conservation principles with similar socio‐economic consequences and ecological ramifications. The post‐Hurricane Mitch relocation of resident populations from Celaque National Park, Honduras serves as a case study whereby a natural disaster, combined with the effects of neoliberal structural adjustment policies, created the opportunity to implement a universal model of exclusionary nature protection. The resultant displacement and increased semi‐proletarianization of the affected population effectively served the capitalist interests of international conservation and the agro‐export coffee industry and, contradictorily, worked against the proclaimed goals of nature preservation through exclusionary national park policies.     

Aboriginal Councils and Natural Resource Use Planning: Participation by Bargaining and Negotiation

While the Federal and Queensland governments promote self-management and self-determination policies, many Queensland Aboriginal Councils are still unable to participate fully in the development planning processes that affect their land and marine resources. Aboriginal Councils are often over-worked, under-resourced and inappropriately structured, limiting their control over natural resource use planning in their own communities and participation in regional development planning processes. This has serious implications for the long term future of Aboriginal communities. Thus, in line with recent developments in planning theory, this paper outlines the need to assist Aboriginal Councils to bargain effectively and to negotiate with government agencies and resource developers.     

The space between: using ‘relational ethics’ and ‘relational space’ to explore relationship-building between care providers and care recipients in the home space

Geographers and other social scientists have a longstanding interest in ‘geographies of aging’ focused on the provision of care to vulnerable older populations and the challenges and experiences of caregivers [Skinner, M. W., Cloutier, D., & Andrews, G. J. (2014). Geographies of ageing: Progress and possibilities after two decades of change. Progress in Human Geography, 1–24]. This qualitative research project explores strategies for relationship-building used by home support workers and older residents according to a ‘relational ethics’ framework, enacted in the ‘relational space’ of the home environment. This framework rests on four principles: engagement, embodiment, mutual respect and environment, and argues that ‘relationships’ between care providers and care recipients must be preserved as the real essence or heart of the health care experience. Two linked conclusions are drawn from the research: that the treatment of the environment can be expanded using a social geographic lens to capture the more active influence of ‘homes’ on relationship-building and second, the relational ethics framework is useful in the home care context to characterize and ground the importance of relationships in the home care domain and the importance of home care to foster aging in place for vulnerable older persons.     

城市社区应急避难所评价——以焦作市为例

社区避难所是居民灾后第一时间紧急疏散避难的重要场所,也是城市应急避难体系的重要组成部分。本文从场地规划、基础设施和日常管理方面入手,结合GIS手段对社区避难所服务与建设进行评价。结果表明:焦作市社区避难所具有良好的基础,但是基础设施和日常管理相对落后;同时社区避难所分布不均,服务区域有限,存在较大面积的覆盖盲区。在社区避难所建设中,应综合考虑社区避难所的影响要素,结合人口分布、合理布局,以提高社区避难所的满足性与服务水平。     

General practice access in regional and remote Australia for ageing populations

Identifying and removing access barriers to the timely provision of comprehensive health care is increasingly important for the wellbeing of Australia's rapidly ageing and frail populations, particularly those in non‐metropolitan settings. This study has examined if current general practice (GP) locations in non‐metropolitan South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) are geographically accessible to the rapidly growing frail and prefrail populations known to have a high level of health service use and reduced mobility. Geospatial analysis linking 60‐kilometre GP service catchments, 2016 population counts, and 2027 population projections has estimated that the size of the frail and prefrail population that live outside these GP service catchments will double, reaching 7,800 people by 2027. The maldistribution of GP locations was most evident in WA. As regional and remote populations continue to age, the challenge of health service provision, including geographic access to care, must be resolved to ensure that populations in these areas have the best opportunity to age well. Geospatial methods linking service and demographic information, such as the approach used in this analysis, can aid in planning the equitable provision of health care for older Australians.     

Latinos and Environmental Justice: Examining the Link between Degenerative Policy,Political Representation,and Environmental Policy Implementation

The theory of social construction and policy design is insightful for exploring the circumstances in which the allocation of policy benefits and burdens is attributed to the feed‐forward effect of degenerative policy that institutionalizes bias and reinforces the prevailing categorization and embedded social meaning regarding target populations. However, this theoretical framework has not been broadly adopted to analyze the environment‐related phenomena. With a nationwide, block‐group‐level sample, this study examines the extent to which degenerative policies pertaining to immigrants influence state agencies' environmental regulatory outputs for predominantly Latino communities. Results show that in the states with moderately to most restrictive immigrant policy and high levels of Latino representation in legislatures, the rigorousness of government agencies' compliance monitoring activities decreases for Latino neighborhoods of environmental justice concern, as states' policy stance toward immigrants becomes more unfavorable. More Latino elected officials do not bolster policy implementation efforts for the vulnerable communities or offset the backlash effect of immigrant policy.     

In Situ Urbanization in Rural China: Case Studies from Fujian Province

In most parts of the developing world, the urbanization process has been dominated by rural–urban migration and the growth of existing cities. However, case‐studies in China’s Fujian Province suggest that this process can also be achieved mainly by in situ transformation in rural areas. Such in situ transformation of rural areas has been driven mainly by two forces, the development of township and village enterprises (TVEs) and the inflow of foreign investment; and facilitated by the relevant policies adopted by the Chinese government since 1978. The former has been very effective in the transformation of rural employment structure, while the latter has brought many physical changes to the previously rural landscape. Being mutually complementary, these two ways of rural transformation have not only benefited and urbanized the rural areas, but kept many farmers in their hometowns, replacing the dominant role of rural–urban migration and the growth of existing cities in the urbanization process.     

Structural Adjustment and Subsistence Industry: Artisanal Gold Mining in Ghana

Since the implementation of Ghana's national Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), policies associated with the programme have been criticized for perpetuating poverty within the country's subsistence economy. This article brings new evidence to bear on the contention that the SAP has both fuelled the uncontrolled growth of informal, poverty‐driven artisanal gold mining and further marginalized its impoverished participants. Throughout the adjustment period, it has been a central goal of the government to promote the expansion of large‐scale gold mining through foreign investment. Confronted with the challenge of resuscitating a deteriorating gold mining industry, the government introduced a number of tax breaks and policies in an effort to create an attractive investment climate for foreign multinational mining companies. The rapid rise in exploration and excavation activities that has since taken place has displaced thousands of previously‐undisturbed subsistence artisanal gold miners. This, along with a laissez faire land concession allocation procedure, has exacerbated conflicts between mining parties. Despite legalizing small‐scale mining in 1989, the Ghanaian government continues to implement procedurally complex and bureaucratically unwieldy regulations and policies for artisanal operators which have the effect of favouring the interests of established large‐scale miners.     

A cooperative spatial future for RheinRuhr

As is the case with other metropolitan regions, there are claims that the emerging functional urban region of RheinRuhr needs to develop a cooperative spatial future. This article explores the underlying difficulties in seeking to move forward in regional cooperation and strategic regional development for RheinRuhr. At present, no clear shift can be observed from traditional land use planning and local development approaches towards more strategic planning for the whole urban region. There are still many obstacles to be overcome. Nevertheless, strides have been taken in the direction of improved cooperation. A dense and functionally overlapping (sub)‐regional associationalism seems to be one step towards future city‐regional governance and possibly government. An evaluation is reported of two new innovative modes of structural and regional policies, namely the Regional Conferences and the IBA Emscher Park Planning Company; their impacts on regional policy‐making structures are reviewed. A discussion on more recent approaches to regional cooperation follows. It is argued that, in the long term, as a multi‐regionalized space, RheinRuhr requires some kind of coordinator and moderator and new practices of regional planning and management. The future development of a RheinRuhr metropolitan region requires further steps to be taken towards strategic planning by the Land government as well as a deepening of the level of institutionalization. Some ideas are put forward on how the elaboration of a spatial Leitbild for RheinRuhr could be initiated and supported.     

Dispossession 1990s style: Aborigines,islanders and the policy making process of the Goss labor government

Aboriginal and Islander people in Queensland remain unempowered in the policy making process of government. This is achieved by downgrading and under‐resourcing the relevant portfolio, by co‐locating it with welfare, by giving other departments statutory rights in decision making on indigenous issues which are not reciprocal, by relocating key indigenous policy areas into otherwise antagonistic departments, by ghettoising the issues in Cabinet and by failing to elucidate clear policy guidelines on indigenous issues. The Goss government has also ensured that indigenous people remain unempowered outside of government by failing to legislate for regional land councils, Aboriginal majority on national parks boards of management and an Aboriginal‐controlled statutory acquisitions fund and by retaining excessive discretionary power in the administration of the 1991 Land Acts.     

Planning Policies,Market Processes and Public Attitudes: Evidence from Central Perth

Australian central cities have undergone fundamental changes during the last decade. They have typically experienced massive office construction, while losing much of their residential communities, architectural and cultural heritage, retailing role and some recreational attractions. Government authorities have facilitated and participated in many central city projects. A metropolitan-wide survey conducted in Perth on these subjects shows increased dependence on the private car, increased preference for suburban living and shopping, but some willingness to consider central city living, a demand for further community participation in central city planning, and a preference for the future expansion of most non-office activities in the central area. The survey indentified notable gaps between government policies for the development of Perth's central area on one hand, and the preferences of Perth's residents on the other.     

Morphological changes in the shape of the non‐pathological bony knee joint with age: a morphometric analysis of the distal femur and proximal tibia in three populations of known age at death

This study examines possible morphological variation in the knee joint of Homo sapiens with increasing age in ostensively healthy and non‐pathological distal femora and proximal tibiae. Throughout the lifetime of each individual, the hard tissue of the knee undergoes considerable remodelling as a response to biomechanical stresses, changes in bone microarchitecture and reduction of bone mineral content as a concomitant of ageing. The knee is also subject to greater levels of degenerative joint disease than any other joint. If death occurs whilst such diseases are in the earliest stages, initial bone changes may not be visually obvious in museum specimens. If such specimens are used for comparative analyses, it is hypothesised that changes might render it problematic if all ages are conglomerated into discrete samples. This study therefore investigates the degree to which the distal femur and proximal tibia change shape during ageing and, if changes are present, whether they are expressed similarly in males and females. It also examines whether changes are of greater magnitude than those morphological differences which might exist between populations. In an example population of African‐Americans, results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference in shape between age groups and those differences become progressively greater between the youngest and oldest adults. Results also show that although morphological variation caused by ageing is apparent, those shape differences attributable to sexual dimorphism are more powerful. When two additional populations are analysed jointly with the African‐Americans (Caucasian Americans and the European Spitalfields sample), results indicate that inter‐population shape differences are considerably greater than differences caused by increasing age. Results imply that it is justifiable to combine specimens of all ages into discrete samples for comparative purposes. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.