Compound hazards: An examination of how hurricane protective actions could increase transmission risk of COVID-19.

Hurricane season brings new and complex challenges as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted nearly twice the normal number of tropical storms and hurricanes this season, while projections of COVID-19 models continue to rise in the United States as the Atlantic hurricane season progresses. Our research examines the critical intersection of hurricane response and public health in Harris County, Texas. We examine a hypothetical case of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey occurring amid the current pandemic. This research uses point of interest visitations as location intelligence data provided by SafeGraph together with Social Vulnerability Index and historical flood data to examine the critical intersection of natural hazard planning and response and the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the risks of a compound hazard situation. COVID-19 transmission hotspots and businesses in a community due to storm preparation activity were identified. The main drivers of transmission risk arise from overall pandemic exposure and increased interpersonal contact during hurricane preparation. Residents of health-risk areas will need to make logistical arrangements to visit alternative medical facilities for treatments related to either COVID-19 or physical impacts, such as injuries, due to the hurricane risks. Points of interest needed for disaster preparation are more likely to be situated in high-risk areas, therefore making cross-community spread more likely. Moreover, greater susceptibility could arise from social vulnerability (socioeconomic status and demographic factors) and disrupted access to healthcare facilities. Results from this study can be used to identify high-risk areas for COVID-19 transmission for prioritization in planning for temporary healthcare centers and other essential services in low-risk areas. Understanding the interplay between disaster preparation and the restrictive environment laid out by the pandemic is critical for community leaders and public health officials for ensuring the population has sufficient access to essential infrastructure services. The findings from this study can help guide the direction of disaster planning and pandemic response strategies and policies.

Human-centric infrastructure resilience: Uncovering well-being risk disparity due to infrastructure disruptions in disasters.

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the impacts of infrastructure service disruptions on the well-being of vulnerable populations during disasters. There are limited studies that empirically evaluate the extent to which disruptions in infrastructure system services impact subpopulation groups differently and how these impacts relate to the wellbeing of households. Being able to systematically capture the differential experiences of sub-populations in a community due to infrastructure disruptions is necessary to highlight the differential needs and inequities that households have. In order to address this knowledge gap, this study derives an empirical relationship between sociodemographic factors of households and their subjective well-being impacts due to disruptions in various infrastructure services during and immediately after Hurricane Harvey. Statistical analysis driven by spearman-rank order correlations and fisher-z tests indicated significant disparities in well-being due to service disruptions among vulnerable population groups. The characterization of subjective well-being is used to explain to what extent infrastructure service disruptions influence different subpopulations. The results show that: (1) disruptions in transportation, solid waste, food, and water infrastructure services resulted in more significant well-being impact disparities as compared to electricity and communication services; (2) households identifying as Black and African American experienced well-being impact due to disruptions in food, transportation, and solid waste services; and (3) households were more likely to feel helpless, difficulty doing daily tasks and feeling distance from their community as a result of service disruptions. The findings present novel insights into understanding the role of infrastructure resilience in household well-being and highlights why it is so important to use approaches that consider various factors. Infrastructure resilience models tend to be monolithic. The results provide empirical and quantitative evidence of the inequalities in well-being impacts across various sub-populations. The research approach and findings enable a paradigm shift towards a more human-centric approach to infrastructure resilience.

Complexity versus simplicity in water energy food nexus (WEF) assessment tools.

Approaching water, energy, and food, as interconnected system of systems, as an alternative to traditional silo-based resources planning and management approaches continues to fall short of expectations of its research-backed benefits. The lack of nexus applications in policy and decision making can be related to numerous factors, with the main barrier being the complex nature of "nexus" systems combined with the disarray of tools attempting to model its interconnections. The paper aims to provide a method for comparing the perceived complexity of nexus tools identified by international organizations as well as primary literature sources. Eight separate criteria are introduced and discussed as measures of a tool "complexity index" and used to score the relative simplicity, or complexity, of a given tool. The result of this process is used to identify trends within existing nexus-assessment tools while guiding potential users towards appropriate tool(s) best-suited for their case study needs and objectives. The main objectives of this paper are to: 1) categorize nexus assessment tools according to a criteria-set which allows for suitable tool selection; 2) identify a method for rapid evaluation of the trade-offs for choosing different tools (simple-complex spectrum). The results of the comparative analysis of the selected nexus assessment tools concur with literature citing a growing gap between nexus research and applications in actual policy and decision-making settings. Furthermore, results suggest that tools receiving higher complexity scores, while being able to capture details to specific resource interactions, are unable to cover a larger number of interactions and system components simultaneously, as compared to lower complexity score tools. Lastly, the outcome of the analysis point towards the need for integrating more preliminary assessment capabilities, i.e. diagnostics, guidelines, and capacity building, into existing tools that improve the communication and translation of model outputs into policy and decision-making.