Comments and questions to Harlan D. Underwood . Last updated Friday, September 22nd, 2006 8:50am
Harlan Underwood's Annotated Bibliography 1. Apel, H., Thieken, A. H., Merz, B., & Bloschl, G. (2006). A probabilistic modelling system for assessing flood risks. Natural Hazards, 38(1-2), 79-100. Apel et al. give a mathematical analysis of levee breaches as a function volume of water held back and whether or not any other levees in a system have also been breached. Although used for German levees, a reapplication of the model to New Orleans as it was, or as it may be redesigned, would undoubtedly be useful. The model is not perfect, but generally a breach up stream significantly lowers the probability of a second breach downstream.
2. Austin, D. N., & Theisen, M. S. (1996). Three-dimensional woven geotextiles for containment dike construction. Geotextiles and Geomembranes, 14(5-6), 265-275. Austin and Theisen analyze in their paper the composition of a levee in Houston, Texas, aimed at not only protecting the environment from flood, but rebuilding the environment through the creation of new marshes. The use of the geotextiles for the dike was to protect from erosion, the dike first being built then the synthetic geotextile material being embedded into the dike at three points to prevent erosion and levee failure. Later checks on the levee revealed that even though the levee was at times overtopped, the geotextiles still performed, dissipating wave energy and stopping erosion. Also vegetation readily grew in the geotextile matrices, a positive factor on cost, as the levees were not seeded with natural vegetation.
3. Boyer, M. E., Harris, J. O., & Turner, R. E. (1997). Constructed crevasses and land gain in the mississippi river delta. Restoration Ecology, 5(1), 85-92. This paper explores restoration of wetlands through the intentional cutting of a levees. These cuts in turn cause water to exit the river forming a tributary like reservoir, and overtime with the growth of vegetation the elevation of the wetland rises. Crevasse construction however, still is in its infancy and the perfect methodology is not yet known. Yet, given that wetlands dissipate the power of floods and hurricanes this may be a powerful tool.
4. Brierley, G. J., Ferguson, R. J., & Woolfe, K. J. (1997). What is a fluvial levee? Sedimentary Geology, 114(1-4), 1-9. This paper attempts to categorize and define the different types of levees and their corresponding compositions. In addition, for varying locations it gives the dimensions, texture, bedding and geometries of a given levee system. It surveys levees and dikes around the world, and gives a compendium of data on levees scarcely found elsewhere all in one place.
5. Dawson, R., Hall, J., Sayers, P., Bates, P., & Rosu, C. (2005). Sampling-based flood risk analysis for fluvial dike systems. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 19(6), 388-402. A mathematical analysis of dike failure rates as functions of water height, inundation, flow rate, and levee material. Additionally, it tabulates the types of failures for given construction materials, natural materials mainly failing due to overtopping and erosion, while concrete and masonry fail due to overturning and sliding.
6. Emanuel, K., Ravela, S., Vivant, E., & Risi, C. (2006). A statistical deterministic approach to hurricane risk assessment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87(3), 299-314. Emanuel et al. develop an approach to hurricane risk assessment through the generation of large amounts of synthetic hurricane tracks and correlating those generated tracks to historical data. The synthetic tracks are mainly used to help predict the probability of various categories of hurricanes damaging particular cities such as Boston or Miami.
7. Enserink, B. (2004). Thinking the unthinkable - the end of the dutch river dike system? exploring a new safety concept for the river management. Journal of Risk Research, 7(7-8), 745-757. The Dutch like the people of New Orleans have lived with levee systems and flooding for the course of their history. Here Enserink first proposes reasons both citizens and scientists prefer a dike system; mainly because they can not imagine not having one. Then he delineates how certain models of risk tend to shed uncertainty on a given risk, adding more to the psychological human factor involved in risk assessment. He essentially contends that people first need to lose their common frames when approaching the dike problem, or more simply, think out side of the box for an equitable solution which also protects the land, the sea, and human life.
8. Goldenberg, S. B., Landsea, C. W., Mestas-Nunez, A. M., & Gray, W. M. (2001). The recent increase in atlantic hurricane activity: Causes and implications. Science, 293(5529), 474-479. Goldenberg et al. give an analysis of recent meteorological trends concerning hurricane frequency and intensity relative to the comparatively inactive periods of the 1970's through the early 1990's. They acknowledge the high variability of cyclone activity especially major cyclone activity and the conundrum that the majority of cyclone damage and associated costs are attributed to the fewest but fiercest cyclones. The main reasons offered for the increased cyclone activity are a concert effect of mainly periodic variations in wind shear, sea-surface temperature of the west coast of Africa, and the subsidence of the El Nino effect.
9. Huang, Z. G., Rosowsky, D. V., & Sparks, P. R. (2001). Long-term hurricane risk assessment and expected damage to residential structures. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 74(3), 239-249. Huang et al. offer a mathematical analysis to the damage caused by hurricanes and there actual insurance costs. They also give an analysis of a maximum wind speeds a building may have to endure over its life and extensive tabulations of annual damage for given regions in the US and their damage to claim ratios.
10. Iman, R. L., Johnson, M. E., & Schroeder, T. A. (2002). Assessing hurricane effects. part 1. sensitivity analysis. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 78(2), 131-145. This highly mathematical paper gives perspective on the sheer power of hurricanes. As a sensitivity analysis, it looks at the variance of outputs from a model with the variance of inputs. It gives numerous equations for calculating maximum wind velocity (using the Rankine-vortex function), as well as tabulations on theoretical wind speeds for category 1 and category 5 hurricanes. Additionally, it gives models for the change of hurricane winds over time and a rough correlation between maximum wind velocity and damage costs.
11. Khanduri, A. C., & Morrow, G. C. (2003). Vulnerability of buildings to windstorms and insurance loss estimation. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 91(4), 455-467. This mostly mathematical paper give a analytical historical out look on the damage caused by winds during hurricanes and derives mathematical formulas for calculating wind vulnerability. It defines relations between wind speed and total damage for common construction materials, as well as giving insight into which materials fare best.
12. Mills, N. (2006). A tale of two hurricanes - galveston and new orleans. Dissent, 53(3), 5-6. Mills gives an eerie and insightful comparison of the hurricanes that ravished Galveston in 1900 and New Orleans in 2005. In stark contrast to New Orleans, Galveston received immediate aid from the government and from citizens around the nation, and the rebuilding began quickly and purposefully. However, Galveston's rebirth was at a cost. Although the city was literally lifted up and barricaded for protection against the Sea, Galveston was smaller and half the city it was before. The question stands for New Orleans, if it does rise up again, how much of its former self will it be?
13. Olshansky, R. B. (2006). Planning after hurricane katrina. Journal of the American Planning Association, 72(2), 147-153. Considering major urban catastrophes in US history and also drawing from amazing city rebuilding efforts around the world, especially the destruction of Kobe, Japan in 1995, Olshansky offers a good roadmap and guidance on how to go about planning the city of New Orleans. He address the problems of inaction and lack of initiative and their disservice to the people of New Orleans. For anyone embarking on a plan to rebuild New Orleans, it is a good starting point.
14. Pahl-Wostl, C. (2006). The importance of social learning in restoring the multifunctionality of rivers and floodplains. Ecology and Society, 11(1) There are essentially two camps within water and flood management, one that fights against the water, and another that lives with it. Pahl-Wostl's paper highlights the need for people, especially citizens and policy makers so change their thinking about flood risk, and realize the natural benefits of sustainable water management. Pahl-Wostl offers a model of interaction between all the parties involved in water management, the government, engineers, planners, architects, citizens, business, and stakeholders, to arrive at the best solution for the flood problem, instead of one entity making the entire decision for the whole community, and perhaps being accustomed to a particular solution. In the context of any disaster the paper highlight the need for interaction between all parties involved.
15. Pielke, R. A., Landsea, C., Mayfield, M., Laver, J., & Pasch, R. (2005). Hurricanes and global warming. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86(11), 1571-1575. Pielke et al. analyze the effect of global warming on hurricanes. They acknowledge that there is global warming, but do not over contribute its effects to hurricane development. They hint at the possibility that global warming can increase intensity, by the fact that hurricanes are the natural representations of carnot engines. Yet whether or not it increases hurricane frequency is still uncertain. Ultimately, to say too much about global warming's effect on hurricanes it premature. However, because of population increases in the future Pielke et al. expect hurricane costs to double every 15 years.
16. Shughart, W. F. (2006). Katrinanomics: The politics and economics of disaster relief. Public Choice, 127(1-2), 31-53. Here, Shughart lays down New Orleans recipe for failure, delineating preexisting problems, which lead to the gross inaction and chaos that followed Katrina's wake. He asserts that a quick reaction from the government in disaster should not be expected, especially if some system of mitigation it not already in place. Too often, the hand of the government is tied by the democratic process: debate, creation, and enforcement of new policies. He then establishes three central reasons to the poor response in the Gulf. One, the levee/dike system was inadequate, and known to be so. Two, there was no true evacuation plan beforehand, and the creation of one was bogged down by the ills of the democratic and bureaucratic processes. Three, the most sinister, properly fixing the problem once, implies the next time a catastrophe happens it must also be properly fixed, both being very costly. The nature of government and bureaucracy let New Orleans down.
17. Smith, L. M., & Winkley, B. R. (1996). The response of the lower mississippi river to river engineering. Engineering Geology, 45(1-4), 433-455. This paper discusses and analysis the course of the lower mississippi in a historical context, highlighting the initial reasons behind the controlling of the lower mississippi: economic. It tabulates effect of the engineering on the natural state of the river, such as decrease in sediment deposition due to decreased sediment in the discharge.
18. van Aalst, M. K. (2006). The impacts of climate change on the risk of natural disasters. Disasters, 30(1), 5-18. Van Aalst, in a general paper on natural disasters, considers recent major events around the world that suggest the influence of predominantly anthropogenic climate changes. The paper takes a look at historical and scientific data analyzing temperature change and its effects on the worlds ecosystems as evidenced by the increase of the sea level, thawing polar regions, and shifts in habitats, among other phenomena. He also gives projections of the effects of anthropogenic climate change on weather as a whole.
19. Verworn, H. R. (2002). Advances in urban-drainage management and flood protection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 360(1796), 1451-1460. Acknowledging that absolute flood protection is impossible, in part due to the wide variability of flood prediction, this paper offers solutions to counter balance the human effect on the landscape that makes cities more vulnerable to floods. Those effects being the use of water for human and industrial needs, and the obstruction of natural run off water ways by pavement and other surfaces. It offers improved drainage systems as a solution, essentially, doing what nature would normally do itself during flooding, had human structures not impended natural run off water ways.
20. Waugh, W. L., & Smith, R. B. (2006). Economic development and reconstruction on the gulf after katrina. Economic Development Quarterly, 20(3), 211-218 This paper analysis the possibilities of how to rebuild the gulf. It suggests generally, to reduce risk, loss of lives, and valuable property in the future, to along the low lying areas to build parks, and to revamp public transport, education, and health systems. It also posits making the more susceptible areas the tourist areas, those to recover the quickest after catastrophe. It also sheds light on the cost of effective levees, able to withstand a category 5 hurricane, $10 -$20 billion with a ten year construction time. In addition, it discusses current issues New Orleans faces concerning land development and home demolition as well as the impact on the local economy.
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