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Vulnerability studies are commonly used to inform planning, as cities and regions seek to build resilience to environmental hazards. In Shelby County, Tennessee, socioeconomic census tract data were mapped to identify the socially vulnerable population and places to underpin strategies in the Mid-South Regional Resilience Master Plan (RRMP). While this is an important step in identifying vulnerability in the county, this paper aims to enhance the local analysis through an integrated approach that considers both social factors and environmental hazards in assessing vulnerability.

This paper conducts a social vulnerability assessment by integrating a social vulnerability index with risk exposure analysis at the census tract level to identify the population and places vulnerable to riverine flooding in Shelby County.

The analysis reveals that social vulnerability assessments that do not relate socioeconomic factors to specific environmental hazards such as riverine flooding underestimate the population and places that are vulnerable. For Shelby County, this has the tendency to undermine the prioritization and effectiveness of strategies to build resilience to riverine flooding and can worsen preexisting marginalization.

This paper recommends integrated vulnerability assessments for each of the environmental hazards identified in the Mid-South RRMP to augment existing resilience efforts in the county.

This paper enhances the understanding of social vulnerability assessments by consolidating the need for integrated assessment frameworks as basis for resiliency planning.

Studies have proved that wood sawmill workers are exposed to high occupational risks if not well managed. In developing countries, many wood sawmills are found in urban and semi-urban areas. Studies exploring how residents near these wood sawmills perceive and react to these risks is scarce in Nigeria. The application of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technology is possibly one of the ways to manage the likely hazards. This study aims to investigate the possible hazards associated with timber sawmills in residential areas and the role of 4IR technologies in proffering feasible solutions to mitigate them in Nigeria’s cities.

Data were sourced from three cities and nine sawmills across Nigeria. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with authoritative participants (residents, environmentalists, government agencies, sawmill owners, 4IR technology experts and medical experts) who have been championing the regulation and safety of timber sawmill locations within the cities (Lagos, Benin City and Owerri) via a phenomenology type of qualitative research and supplemented by secondary sources.

Findings show that timber sawmills are located across the three cities in Nigeria and may have contributed to the health and environmental challenges of the people living in the neighbourhood. The identified hazards were grouped into three sub-themes (physical, health and environmental hazards). Findings identify robots, modularisation, cyber-physical systems, the internet of things and services and human-computer interaction as the digitalised technology that can be used in sawmills to mitigate hazards for the benefit of mankind.

The paper is limited to hazards that residents in timber sawmills locations may face in Nigeria’s cities and data collected via face-to-face 23 interviews. The paper’s referral to past publications in the findings and discussion section compensated for the small sample size.

As part of this paper’s implications, the emerged recommendations will strengthen collaboration with relevant stakeholders regarding control measures via the use of 4IR technologies in timber sawmills. This will stir up policymakers to develop possible policies that will promote and create the platform for the implementation of 4IR technologies in city sawmills.

Apart from probably being the first paper to explore the hazards of residents in timber sawmill locations and proffer solutions via the usage of the 4IR technology, this paper’s contribution emphasis the need for in-depth future studies regarding the risk perceptions of Nigeria’s residents living in timber sawmill area.

The fast depletion of natural resources that has resulted in the scarcity of resources and degradation of environment and the subsequent conflict over resources within and among the states have given rise to a growing concern for environmental security all over the world. It may be pointed out here that since the beginning of human civilization, humans have been relying on the environment for their needs and demands. Therefore, the concern of human beings to the environment has been always and obvious. But now with the depletion of natural resources, the concern for environmental security is being advocated. The purpose of this paper is to analyze environmental issues in the context of South Asia. It may also be added here that in a situation as stated above, any stress on the environment can cause conflicts involving violence within the state as well as between the nation states. Moreover, this paper will look into other issues related to the environment degradation in India and Bangladesh.

The first approach confines environment to the nature and the problems and constraints related to it. It can be termed as ecological approach. This approach is too narrow in its scope, as nature alone is not responsible for many types of hazards. How it is being exploited and protected is equally important. The other approach has been termed as the maximize approach and it includes both the ecology and its human domains. This approach takes into consideration the interaction between the two. It believes that the excessive dependence of human beings affects the environment. Also, the depletion and degradation of the environment affect human beings. The environmental security has to include both the domains and understand their inter-linkages. In fact, the uses of environment and its proper maintenance are related to the human domains.

The environment-related problems and their implications are more similar in both countries. It is true that there is a growing awareness on environmental issues in almost all the countries in the last few years and the individual countries have persuaded environment-friendly policies in certain sectors. Apart from this regional level, a common approach to securing the environment may involve the following aspects: sharing of knowledge and expertise regarding population control measures, policies and programs; cooperation for development and poverty eradication; regularization of inter-state migrations, evolving a regional framework for controlling, repatriation and rehabilitation of refugees; establishment of a system of disaster management and disaster preparedness at the regional level; exchange of knowledge and research works on seismic tremors, earthquakes, and landslides, their causes and possibilities; evolving common flood control measures and development of a regional flood warning system; common measures can be taken up for increased agriculture productivity, treatment of salinity, development of cyclone warning system, reforestation, development of water resources, air pollution control system, etc.

This research will not only be useful for India and Bangladesh but also for other South Asian countries and developing countries as well.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how Saudis perceive chemical pollution health risks. Also, it attempts to investigate whether there are gender, age, education, and place of residence differences in health risk perception.

A questionnaire was designed and developed as a descriptive survey of the target population's perceptions of the impact of chemical contaminants on health. Statistical data analysis was conducted to determine the response difference among variables.

The survey demonstrated higher perceptions of health risk among females as compared to males in general and that females are more likely than males to rank items as a high risk. Most gender differences were statistically significant (F(23, 516)=4.906, p<0.001). This is in agreement with some other studies in the world. The older age group is, in general, more likely to consider something as being a high‐health risk. Also, respondents with higher education were more likely to rate more health risks as “high risk” than were other respondents. Meanwhile, there was no difference in health risk perception according to place of residence.

Saudis face increasing health risks due to chemical pollution. Very little is known about chemical pollution concern and health risk perceptions in the Saudi society. Understanding public chemicals health risk perceptions is the basis of an effective strategy for environmental health risk management. The results of this survey will provide useful information to policy makers to improve health risk communication and develop effective health risks management policies.

Headlines of increasing financial losses caused by natural hazards and the potential impact of climate change on these raise broad interest in risk management. This paper seeks to claim that the existing decision‐making support, for example through spatial planning, can easily integrate risk assessment schemes.

The paper is based on the results of two EU funded research projects and further applications of those – as well as on conclusions drawn from presentations and discussions at the International Disaster Reduction Conference.

Discussion around risk governance highlights the role of integration. This discussion is still very much in need of further development and successful ways to implement integrative, participatory governance.

The research results presented have been elaborated in close cooperation with stakeholders. One example is based on a commissioned EU task that analyzed the effectiveness of European Regional Fund projects in the case of environmental risks. The other one describes how a town council took a decision which was based on information drawn from a project focusing on climate change adaptation.

The paper describes two examples of successful implementation which make us ask if new approaches are actually required or whether current spatial planning and development practices might be sufficient, when properly applied and fine‐tuned, to respond towards natural hazards and climate change impacts.

The frequency with which hazards turn to disasters is soaring. Besides the factor of climate variation, errors of decision making during planning are the critical factors. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring the relationship between land use planning, development, and disaster management.

This study takes hazardscape as the basis of a dialogue platform for land use planning and disaster management. The first portion of this study is to discuss the needed disaster management items in the planning process through thematic analysis; the second portion is to construct the relationship between disaster management and land use planning by the paired comparison method.

This study proposes the model for integrating planning and disaster management as the foundation of interdisciplinary collaboration. The phase of site choosing and assessment is the most critical point for starting the works of disaster prevention. The major works includes all‐hazard identification/hazardscape analysis and physical vulnerability: damage potential assessment.

This model is helpful to apply to land‐use decision making for evaluating the issues concerning disasters, and avoiding the increasing loss of lives and property. As the next step, attributes of people and environments and assessment techniques from different disciplines can also be included in the model, to achieve the ultimate goal of an environment.

Should disasters strike despite all relevant measures, the associated planning programs monitored and reviewed to enable necessary adjustments.

The current fire protection measures in buildings do not account for all contemporary fire hazard issues, which has made fire safety a growing concern. Therefore, this paper aims to present a critical review of current fire protection measures and their applicability to address current challenges relating to fire hazards in buildings.

To overcome fire hazards in buildings, impact of fire hazards is also reviewed to set the context for fire protection measures. Based on the review, an integrated framework for mitigation of fire hazards is proposed. The proposed framework involves enhancement of fire safety in four key areas: fire protection features in buildings, regulation and enforcement, consumer awareness and technology and resources advancement. Detailed strategies on improving fire safety in buildings in these four key areas are presented, and future research and training needs are identified.

Current fire protection measures lead to an unquantified level of fire safety in buildings, provide minimal strategies to mitigate fire hazard and do not account for contemporary fire hazard issues. Implementing key measures that include reliable fire protection systems, proper regulation and enforcement of building code provisions, enhancement of public awareness and proper use of technology and resources is key to mitigating fire hazard in buildings. Major research and training required to improve fire safety in buildings include developing cost-effective fire suppression systems and rational fire design approaches, characterizing new materials and developing performance-based codes.

The proposed framework encompasses both prevention and management of fire hazard. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified, and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework.

Fire represents a severe hazard in both developing and developed countries and poses significant threat to life, structure, property and environment. The proposed framework has social implications as it addresses some of the current challenges relating to fire hazard in buildings and will enhance overall fire safety.

The novelty of proposed framework lies in encompassing both prevention and management of fire hazard. This is unlike current fire safety improvement strategies, which focus only on improving fire protection features in buildings (i.e. managing impact of fire hazard) using performance-based codes. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework in improving fire safety in buildings, major limitations of current fire protection measures are identified and detailed strategies are provided to address these limitations using proposed fire safety framework. Special emphasis is given to cost-effectiveness of proposed strategies, and research and training needs for further enhancing building fire safety are identified.

Every year, hundreds of people have died and thousands have been injured because of insufficient management of well control at oil and gas drilling and production sites. Major causes which have been reported in previous studies included uncontrollable blowouts and failure of blowout preventers because of insufficient safety practices. These onshore and offshore blowout disasters not only harm the work force but also critically affect the environment and marine life. In this research paper, a detailed quantitative survey and qualitative risk assessments (RA) have been carried out for assessing the potentially hazardous activities associated with well control along with their appropriate controls and risk reduction factors and mitigating measures in Middle East and south East Asian countries.

The sequential explanatory research design has been adopted in this study. Whereas, descriptive statistical approach has been used for the quantitative data analysis of this study. While, in-depth interview approach has been used for qualitative data collection. Similarly, what-if analysis method has been adopted in this study for the identification of effective safety and health risk mitigating factors because it provides in-depth information from health and safety environment experts.

The cumulative quantitative results based on the response from Saudi Arabian drilling industry have indicated that the well control operation is highly hazardous then Malaysian and Pakistani oil and gas industries. Likewise, findings from what-if analysis approach demonstrate that the drilling crewmembers have repetitively faced life threatening hazards which occur (safety and chemical) during well control onshore and offshore operation because of oil base mud, confined space at site, pinch points and falling during working on blow out preventers. According to the overall result, respondents have highly recommended engineering and administrative hazard controlling factors as most suitable for the elimination of safety and chemical hazards during well control activities.

Besides, the developed methodological framework for the identification of suitable hazard controls can also be effectively used for potential hazards reorganization and identification of suitable hazard controls for other drilling and production industries and regions for accident prevention and safety and health management.

This is a first comparative research study which has been carried out in Malaysian, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani onshore and offshore oil and gas industries for well control health and safety management and reorganization of most effective hazards mitigating factors at drilling sites.

The importance of onset speed has been stressed by disaster researchers and inter-governmental bodies for some time, but its meaning and knowledge frontier has not been explored in depth. The purpose of this paper is to contextualise disasters involving slow-onset hazards within the broader literature on disasters, assess the current state of knowledge and identify themes in the literature.

This paper employs a semi-structured review design with the purpose of identifying both scholarship engaging directly with the term and less obvious but related literatures.

The majority of publications that mention slow-onset hazards and their adverse impacts do so only by means of delimitation. The paper finds that there is a great need for empirical and theoretical work on onset and manifestation speed and to test the degree to which existing theories and frameworks of disaster management are also relevant for the study of slow-onset hazard impacts.

The review identifies several gaps in existing research disasters involving slow-onset hazards and proposes research on community, political, policy and practical challenges, including answering the question of how to secure proactive response to emerging slow-onset hazard impacts.

In theory, hazards with a gradual and creeping onset are easier to manage and proactively respond to than that of sudden and unexpected ones. Not only do slow-onset hazards provide more lead time, but also a larger potential for proactive response, which in turn provides ample time to take early action to cushion their impacts. Yet, warnings often go unheard and response is put on hold until impacts become unnecessarily costly to reverse. More research on onset speed and gradual manifestation patterns should therefore be carried out.

Gradually occurring hazards have remained largely absent from the core literature on disasters, including most definitions of the term. This paper represents an initial effort to assess the state-of-the-art on the concept and the phenomenon of disasters involving slow-onset hazards.

With regard to their utility in predicting the adoption of household hazard preparations, traditional approaches to public education directed at increasing awareness and/or risk perception have proven ineffective. Discusses reasons why this may have occurred from public education, vulnerability analysis, and community resilience perspectives and outlines strategies for enhancing preparedness. Describes a model of resilience to hazard effects that has been tested in different communities and for different hazards (toxic waste, environmental degradation and volcanic hazards). Drawing upon the health education literature, introduces a model for promoting the adoption on preparatory behaviour. Discusses links between these models, and the need for their implementation within a community development framework.