The occurrence of tropical storms and hurricanes is a certainty in the Atlantic Basin each year. Many of these never make landfall. Those that do can range in intensity from a weak tropical depression to a very destructive Category 5 hurricane. These storms often produce large amounts of rainfall and flooding, resulting in increases in the mosquito populations in the affected areas. In order to deal with this problem, aerial applications of insecticides over wide areas can provide relief to the impacted area, assisting in the recovery efforts. Meeting the demand for these sudden and large increases in the volume of the insecticide most commonly used in aerial applications requires great coordination, communication, and commitment. We describe the diverse entities involved in the manufacture, distribution, and use of the product and how this increase in need is recognized, managed, and satisfied in a compressed period of time.
After a disaster, it is common to equate repopulation and rebuilding with recovery. Numerous studies link post-disaster relocation to adverse social, economic, and health outcomes. However, there is a need to reconsider these relationships in light of accelerating climate change and associated social and policy shifts in the USA, including the rising cost of flood insurance, the challenge of obtaining aid to rebuild, and growing interest in “managed retreat” from places at greatest risk. This article presents data from a survey of individuals who opted either to rebuild in place or relocate with the help of a voluntary home buyout after Hurricane Sandy. Findings show those who lived in buyout-eligible areas and relocated were significantly less likely to report worsened stress than those who rebuilt in place. This suggests access to a government-supported voluntary relocation option may, under certain circumstances, lessen the negative mental health consequences associated with disaster-related housing damage.
India has reported a high prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against women over the years. Previous Western research has found an increased IPV risk among women in the aftermath of natural disasters, underscoring the need for such studies in India. We could not locate any study focusing on the impact of slow-onset versus rapid-onset disasters, which might have differing impacts on the vulnerable, especially on the incidence of IPV in India. Using data on ever-married women from the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16), we investigated the association of residing in districts exposed to a drought (N = 31,045), and separately, to two cyclones (N = 8469), with three forms of self-reported IPV against women (emotional, physical, and sexual). Survey-adjusted logistic regression models showed that exposure to cyclone was positively associated with emotional IPV (AOR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.20, 2.10) after adjusting for sociodemographic covariates. Although not statistically significant, exposure to cyclone was also positively associated with physical and sexual IPV, and drought with physical IPV. However, we did not find an association of drought with emotional and sexual violence. We corroborated previous findings that women from wealthier households, with greater education, and whose husbands had no history of alcohol consumption, were less likely to experience any form of IPV independent of the influence of other factors. These results highlight the potential increased risk of IPV following natural disasters. In patriarchal societies such as India vulnerable to climate-change, these sobering results highlight the need to prepare for the social disasters that might accompany natural disasters.
This research examines flood risk and adaption to it, including the possibility of out-migration, in two flood-prone coastal locations in the Philippines through the lens of Protection Motivation Theory. Much of the country is at risk of coastal flooding due to sea-level rise and from severe weather-related events. The data analyzed were obtained in 2016 and 2018 from focus group discussions with local residents, individual interviews with local government officials, and field observations. Residents’ and officials’ reports reveal a number of consistent themes in both places and over time, with some important differences. Both locations were grappling with regular minor to moderate flooding in 2016, as well as with occasional severe flooding. Respondents reported serious economic, health, and safety threats associated with flooding events. Recent infrastructure improvements appear to have reduced routine flood risk in one location, but considerable risk from major storms remains in both places. While some housing has been abandoned because of flood damage, and while some better-off residents have moved away, most are not currently considering retreat as a near-term solution. Instead, most people are adapting in place and attempting to devise strategies to mitigate flood risk in their communities.
