Interdependence and dynamics of essential services in an extensive risk context: a case study in Montserrat, West Indies

Abstract

Abstract. The essential services that support urban living are complex and interdependent, and their disruption in disasters directly affects society. Yet there are few empirical studies to inform our understanding of the vulnerabilities and resilience of complex infrastructure systems in disasters.This research takes a systems thinking approach to explore the dynamic behaviour of a network of essential services, in the presence and absence of volcanic ashfall hazards in Montserrat, West Indies. Adopting a case study methodology and qualitative methods to gather empirical data, we centre the study on the healthcare system and its interconnected network of essential services. We identify different types of relationship between sectors and develop a new interdependence classification system for analysis. Relationships are further categorised by hazard conditions, for use in extensive risk contexts.During heightened volcanic activity, relationships between systems transform in both number and type: connections increase across the network by 41 %, and adapt to increase cooperation and information sharing. Interconnections add capacities to the network, increasing the resilience of prioritised sectors. This in-depth and context-specific approach provides a new methodology for studying the dynamics of infrastructure interdependence in an extensive risk context, and can be adapted for use in other hazard contexts.

Integrative Post-event Impact Assessment Framework for Volcanic Eruptions: A Disaster Forensic Investigation of the 2011–2012 Eruption of the Cordón Caulle Volcano (Chile)

“…Depending on the level of knowledge and available data, categories of dependency could be also identified (i.e., physical reliance, cyber transfer, geographic proximity, logical relations, policy and societal dependencies; Rinaldi et al, 2001;Dudenhoeffer et al, 2006). The use of relational diagrams (Rinaldi et al, 2001;Sword-Daniels et al, 2015;Wild et al, 2019) or dependency matrices (Pitilakis et al, 2014) provide a global overview of connections and are very helpful to identify the criticality level among the different analysed systems.…”

“…Pioneering studies have been conducted by the STREVA project (Strengthening resilience in volcanic areas, 2012(Strengthening resilience in volcanic areas, -2019. Most of forensic STREVA outputs are social-oriented analysis of various case studies (e.g., Armijos and Few, 2017;Few et al, 2017;Hicks and Few, 2015;Pyle et al, 2018;Barclay et al, 2019) with the exception of the study of Sword-Daniels et al (2015) that provides an interesting relational analysis for the health care system and associated essential services affected by the recent Soufrière Hills eruption on Montserrat Island (United Kingdom, West Indies). A comprehensive application of forensic analysis of the short and long-term cascading effects associated with the 1999 Mount Cameroon eruption (Cameroon) has been conducted by Wantim et al (2018).…”

“…Even though volcanic risk approaches have evolved with time and important international projects have focused on different components of risk (including systemic and social vulnerabilities, e.g., ENSURE, 2008ENSURE, -2011DEVORA, 2008DEVORA, -2015STREVA, 2012STREVA, -2019, no risk framework exists that encompasses the complexity of cascading impacts associated with volcanic eruptions. Based on a coupled approach including the fundamental concepts of the FORIN (IRDR, 2011) and PERC (Venkateswaran et al, 2015) methodologies, combined with the most innovative techniques used in reliability and incident analysis (e.g., Livingston and Jackson, 2001;Andersen and Fagerhaug, 2006;Sutton, 2015) and more recently in multirisk analysis (e.g., Garcia-Aristizabal et al, 2017;Garcia-Aristizabal et al, 2019), the conceptual post-event impact assessment framework proposed in this study seeks to contribute on the understanding and quantification of cascading impacts associated with volcanic eruptions.…”

Analysis of employment change in response to hurricane landfalls

“…In the aftermath of hurricanes, disruptions to business activities and supply chains, as well as the failure of infrastructures, often result in the redistribution of resources (Chow and Elkind, 2005;Kaisera et al, 2009;Comfort and Haase, 2006;Sword-Daniels et al, 2015). The capability to produce goods and services may be lost and the natural rate of employment may drop, making for higher levels of unemployment Schulte in den Bäumen et al, 2015). During the subsequent recovery phase, affected communities engage in debris cleanup and redevelopment designed to quickly restore local employment and other economic activities to pre-storm levels (Burton, 2015).…”

“…Higher employment in a county, for example, often translates into higher resilience and quicker recovery process through purchasing insurance and upgrading houses (Mayunga, 2007;Xie et al, 2014). Previous research has focused on analyzing the elements of vulnerability and disaster recovery, highlighting the importance of employment status for speeding up the recovery process after a disaster strikes a community (Frazier et al, 2014;Stewart et al, 2014;FEMA, 2018). In addition, the literature related to displacement following the landfall of hurricanes in general suggests that employment instability is an important component of displacement.…”