Space Hazards

Most natural hazards originate from natural events within the Earth, and are more or less measurable and predictable. Space hazards, on the other hand, are a relatively new concept amongst the general population, but that does not mean they are a less threatening hazard. Space hazards come from space weather, which is defined by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as:

“Space weather includes any and all conditions and events on the sun, in the solar wind, in near-Earth space and in our upper atmosphere that can affect space-borne and ground-based technological systems and through these, human life and endeavor.”

Some of the more common forms of space hazard include solar flares, coronal mass ejections and energetic particles. These can lead to electricity interruptions, radio/telecommunications (especially high frequency communications), and GPS problems, and GPS usage (largely affecting air traffic).

While large impact events are spaced out in the decades, recent events such as the 1989 coronal mass ejection and the more recent 2003 “Halloween storms” impacted electricity provision from a few hours up to a few days in Canada and Sweden respectively. The impacts will increase with the increased dependence on electromagnetic usage and electricity. Stoppage of electricity will bring on an even wider range of impact of cascading risks. Health care systems are potentially at the risk themselves or may be required to support health care normal functioning in the wider community.

Issues around cascading risks are complex, can cause critical infrastructure and secondary emergencies, and are mostly associated with functional dependencies, such as in complex networks. Cascading risks often infer that there are vulnerabilities in infrastructure, and are rooted in society, policies and management.

With transitions towards an all-hazard approach, it may be useful for regional partnerships that can strengthen regional resilience against space hazards in order to minimize potential cascading risks when such an event occurs. South Korea and Japan, for example have well established space observatories and mature technology that study and systems to manage such events. It is also beneficial for students to be educated on such space hazards on top of the other more common meteorological, geophysical and hydrological hazards in order to raise overall awareness.

Understanding Risks Forum 2016

The Understanding Risks Forum 2016 was held on the 16-20th May in Venice, Italy. The 4th event in the series was well attended by 650 members from 100 countries, representing over 350 organisations. Participants had the same goal of better understanding of risks and how to better incorporate science and technology knowledge for policy and decision making at a higher level.

Themes emerged from some sessions I attended, some of which were, 1) an all-hazards approach must be employed when working with natural hazards due to cascading risks; 2) scientific knowledge must be useful, useable and used to benefit the wider populations; and 3) there should be a conversion of research focus from natural hazards to vulnerability, as natural hazards are inevitable, but human behaviour can be changed.

Much of the discussion was about on one hand producing scientific knowledge that is useful, usable and used by the wider community (such as policy makers), but also empowering local communities in areas of disaster preparedness so they would have better resilience. It was raised by many speakers that the traditionally perceived vulnerable groups, such as women and aboriginal communities, actually have a lot of knowledge in locally adapted disaster resilience measures that are often ignored by scientists. NGOs and scientists might go into a community and teach them ‘evidence-based’ methods of disaster preparedness but often forget that these natural hazards has been faced by such communities for decades, even centuries. A better approach is to learn from traditional values and practices and incorporating them to our research.

Disaster risk is constantly evolving due to changes in hazard, exposure, and vulnerability; these complex dynamics have led to an increase in disaster-losses over recent decades. Urbanization and population growth are among the key drivers of this risk increase. Decisions on urban design and land use planning all contribute to future levels of risk and resilience. [excerpt taken from here]

Hong Kong is a densely populated city where every decision of land use is closely monitored to reach maximum benefit for the community. Yet land use planning in Hong Kong rarely take into account building a sustainable environment that is resilient towards natural hazards. Hong Kong is a city blessed to not experience a lot of different kinds of natural hazards, but with such rapid changes, it is important to be prepared to minimize impact.

紙上談兵

I was fortunate enough to be invited to visit the Porton Down site of Public Health England (PHE) and was shown around the exercise planning facilities. PHE hosts for the Emergo Train System (ETS), which is used for education and training of command systems, hospital preparedness and surge capacity during emergency and disasters with simulation exercises. This training system was developed in Sweden and is used in over 30 countries. Through this system, hospitals are able to test their own capacity and management in face of scenarios addressing potentially serious events.

In a new programme developed by PHE, a network of hospitals can now be tested for surge capacity and partnership across major trauma hospitals using scenarios. So far this has been shown in exercises to be a useful system as hospital managers and colleagues can, under a safe and controlled environment, experience a complex event and better envision their roles. The communication and interactive nature of these exercises are thought to be the most valuable aspect. The realistic testing of management system allows managers to exercise knowledge in real life scenarios. All hazards can be assessed, and can adapt according to need.

In Hong Kong, where emergency incidents are not common, it is even more important to regularly test such management / triage systems of hospital in order to allow those involved in decision making during emergencies to have an up-to-date knowledge on how to run the response and be trained under realistic conditions.

Habitat III (to be held in October 2016: Quito, Ecuador)

Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development will take place in less than half a year. It is considered as the new urban agenda, and realizes the goals of the Sendai Framework, the SDGs and COP21 in aspects of housing infrastructure in providing a sustainable living environment. The draft roadmap was published earlier in March this year.

Building on the experience of the two previous Habitat conferences, this is the first instance where more grassroot civil societies and local governments are involved, implementing a participatory approach as local actors would be the ones delivering these commitments. This is a huge leap as these stakeholders can promise their own commitments and form effective partnerships. The stress in ‘inclusion’ has also hopefully reduced inequity, where vulnerable groups are not only empowered, but also involved in decision making.

Hong Kong is a highly urbanised city, and although it cannot be generalised as such, urbanisation can be valuable for development. In Hong Kong, urbanisation affects environmental determinants such as increased vulnerabilities of living in dense high-rise properties, lack of public space, and issues of infectious diseases, all of which are predeposited to the economically less advantaged population. Hence it might be beneficial for Hong Kong to exercise this advantage to further improve on its infrastructure in sustainable living. Hong Kong should learn from other big cities with social inequalities as well, such as New York and London, and recognize that city neighbourhoods can be segregated as a spatial unit for targeted interventions.