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In effort to understand and reduce flood consequences more effectively and strategically, flood risk assessment has been a cornerstone of a long-term flood management. One component of flood risk assessment is the estimation of a range of possible damage to an area exposed to flooding, that is, the vulnerability curve. The vulnerability curve can be depicted by a stage–damage relationship. This study attempts to investigate how vulnerability to flooding can be quantitatively assessed using a micro-scale approach in Malaysia’s vulnerable areas. A residential area in Kota Bharu was chosen as the case study area. Depth–damage relationships from a multiple regression function of Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia and spatial variability of residential buildings were used for the micro-scale assessment. Final estimates of expected annual damage were then calculated for each building type at 1-, 3- and 5-day flood durations. Results show that the methodology adopted is feasible to be applied for local-scale assessment flood risk assessment in Malaysia. The results also suggest that applying the methodology is possible when given wider availability of resources and information. This is particularly important for a robust end-to-end flood risk assessment for long-term effective flood management in Malaysia.

This chapter analyzes the link between the digital divide, infrastructure regulation, and disaster planning and relief through a case study of the flood in San Jose, California triggered by the Anderson dam’s overtopping in February 2017 and an examination of communication failures during the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. This chapter theorizes that regulatory decisions construct social and disaster vulnerability. Rooted in the Whole Community approach to disaster planning and relief espoused by the United Nations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this chapter calls for leadership to end the digital divide. It highlights the imperative of understanding community information needs and argues for linking strategies to close the digital divide with infrastructure and emergency planning. As the Internet’s integration into society increases, the digital divide diminishes access to societal resources including disaster aid, and exacerbates wildfire, flood, pandemic, and other risks. To mitigate climate change, climate-induced disaster, protect access to social services and the economy, and safeguard democracy, it argues for digital inclusion strategies as a centerpiece of community-centered infrastructure regulation and disaster relief.

Los Angeles, California, is facing record drought conditions. As a result, there is interest in all things related to building and maintaining water capabilities. Leaks in the infrastructure can lead to costly losses of water resources. Accordingly, attention increasingly is being devoted to water leak management. Using data available through the City of Los Angeles’ open data movement, the number of leaks is analyzed in order to study both the impact of temperature and whether the number of leaks is decreasing over time. Three different approaches for modeling the number of leaks, including regression, time series, and neural networks, are compared.

Climate change adaptations are today pursed globally to address the threats associated with climate change. The IPCC Third Assessment Report and the Fourth Assessment Report have outlined the most accurate changes to be expected by 2100 with the only uncertainty relating to the timing and magnitude of these changes, not their occurrence (IPCC, 2007). In Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the changes are already manifested through coastal flooding, erosion, salt water intrusion, damaged water sources, and increased storm damages. SIDS are also under threat from their rapidly increasing population that needs settlements, services, and facilities, their limited size that severely confines their options, and their poor resources both in terms of weak financial position and restricted human capacity. This is the reason why SIDS, which will be the first and worst victims, must devote more concerted effort to adapt to these eventualities.

The Morgan Library at Colorado State University in Fort Collins suffered catastrophic flooding as the result of a historic rain storm and flood that swept through the town on July 28, 1997. This study examines this single library's organizational disaster response and identifies the phenomena that the library's employees cited as their motivation for innovation.

Purpose – This study provides an example of a library where a pre-disaster and post-disaster organizational environment was supportive of experimentation. This influenced the employees’ capacity and motivation to create a new tool meant to solve a temporary need. Their invention, a service now called RapidILL, advanced the Morgan Library organization beyond disaster recovery and has become an effective and popular consortium of libraries.

Design/methodology/approach – This is an instrumental case study. This design was chosen to examine the issues in organizational learning that the single case of Morgan Library presents. The researcher interviewed employees who survived the 1997 flood and who worked in the library after the disaster. The interview results and a book written by staff members are the most important data that form the basis for this qualitative research.

The interviews were transcribed, and key phrases and information from both the interviews and the published book were isolated into themes for coding. The coding allowed the use of NVivo 7, a text analysis software, to search in employees’ stories for “feeling” words and themes about change, innovation, motivation, and mental models.

Three research questions for the study sought to learn how employees described their lived experience, how the disaster altered their mental models of change, and what factors in the disaster response experience promoted learning and innovation.

Findings – This study investigates how the disruptive forces of disaster can influence and promote organizational learning and foster innovation. Analysis of the data demonstrates how the library employees’ feelings of trust before and following a workplace disaster shifted their mental models of change. They felt empowered to act and assert their own ideas; they did not simply react to change acting upon them.

Emotions motivate adaptive actions, facilitating change. The library employees’ lived experiences and feelings influenced what they learned, how quickly they learned it, and how that learning contributed to their innovations after the disaster. The library's supervisory and administrative leaders encouraged staff members to try out new ideas. This approach invigorated staff members’ feelings of trust and motivated them to contribute their efforts and ideas. Feeling free to experiment, they tapped their creativity and provided adaptations and innovations.

Practical implications – A disaster imposes immediate and often unanticipated change upon people and organizations. A disaster response urgently demands that employees do things differently; it also may require that employees do different things.

Successful organizations must become adept at creating and implementing changes to remain relevant and effective in the environments in which they operate. They need to ensure that employees generate and test as many ideas as possible in order to maximize the opportunity to uncover the best new thinking. This applies to libraries as well as to any other organizations.

If library leaders understand the conditions under which employees are most motivated to let go of fear and alter the mental models they use to interpret their work world, it should be possible and desirable to re-create those conditions and improve the ability of their organizations to tap into employees’ talent, spur innovation, and generate meaningful change.

Social implications – Trust and opportunities for learning can be central to employees’ ability to embrace change as a positive state in which their creativity flourishes and contributes to the success of the organization. When leaders support experimentation, employees utilize and value their affective connections as much as their professional knowledge. Work environments that promote experimentation and trust are ones in which employees at any rank feel secure enough to propose and experiment with innovative services, products, or workflows.

Originality/value – The first of its kind to examine library organizations, this study offers direct evidence to show that organizational learning and progress flourish through a combination of positive affective experiences and experimentation. The study shows how mental models, organizational learning, and innovation may help employees create significantly effective organizational advances while under duress.

An original formula is presented in Fig. 1.

Khiva is a UNESCO World Heritage site with ancient mudbrick buildings and a complete city wall. These are threatened from below by water and salt, and we seek to understand how the deterioration is happening and can be stopped. We have done investigations in the subsoil over several years to determine that destruction is caused by waterlogging, shifts in the ground, termites, and other damage. The damage has been caused by agricultural practices, especially leaky irrigation systems. Some of Khiva's buildings are becoming structurally unsound from water damage. Our studies at several sites confirm that water diversion will be necessary to prevent further infiltration of salt and water. Khiva's legacy is contained in the ancient buildings which are an important part of Silk Road history. Our research contributes to the understanding how to protect mudbrick buildings from environmental factors and deformation processes.

Drawing on a case study in Hitachi City, Ibaraki prefecture, this chapter aims to analyze the relationship between community support and the behavior of residents after the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake in the regions affected by the disaster. The chapter will examine residents’ behavior and the community’s roles by way of the following process: (1) We will review Japan’s natural disaster prevention regimes; (2) we will examine the result of a field survey conducted in Hitachi City detailing the city’s natural disaster prevention procedures and the operation of some neighborhood evacuation sites; (3) the behavior of residents following the earthquake is analyzed. In this part, questionnaires were sent to 2000 households, of which 492 (24.6%) were collected and used for this analysis. The earthquake and tsunami destroyed lifelines such as water supply for several days in the city. According to the city, a total of 65 buildings were judged to be in dangerous condition, 251 as requiring care, and 478 were only partially damaged. The most serious damage was found mainly in the city’s coastal areas, where a total of 85 houses were entirely or partly damaged, and 483 houses were flooded above the floorboards by the tsunami. On March 11, a total of 69 evacuation sites opened, and 13,607 residents rushed into them. After the disaster, residents initially tried to go back to their homes. Depending on the damage done, they either stayed there or moved to a relative’s or friend’s house, or to a neighborhood evacuation site. Due to the failure of the lifelines, transportation systems, and the damage caused by the disaster, most residents had to stay within an area more limited than usual, around which they could walk or ride by bicycle. Residents had only the human and physical resources of their neighborhoods. Therefore, the characteristics of their local communities affected how residents behaved during and after the earthquake.