Written by Dr Louisa Acciari and Mônica Ribeiro.

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This is the worst tragedy lived by Petrópolis to date, even though floods and landslides are nothing new to this region. According to Agencia Brasil, so far, the Civil Defence was able to count 232 deaths, while over 1,000 people were made homeless. Among the victims, the gender gap is quite expressive: 138 women compared to 94 men. This means that, as of today, about 60% of the victims are women. Similar catastrophic events have hit the city before; in 1988, floods led to 134 deaths, and in 2011, landslides – also provoked by heavy rains – led to 73 fatalities. This comes on top of the on-going pandemic crisis, with a current weekly rate of 5,000 infections and around 70 deaths in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Despite the unprecedented scale of the event, the mechanisms are well-known and this disaster could have been prevented.

 

An avoidable disaster

Investments, containment, and protection projects cannot be treated as a surprise or an emergency when rains are forecasted for every beginning of the year. Nature is implacable: it does not wait for political election or the end of the sanitary crisis. Yet, the state’s responsibility is huge. If local powers were used to invoke the lack of economic resources for structural protection, now, the bill will be higher: we need new houses, new streets, new plans, indemnities, sanitary adjustments, investment in public health. This comes along with mourning and suffering in the face of loss of human life. Numerous testimonies of families affected by the tragedy are being published. Those are people who lost their spouse, children, grandparents… as well as their homes and living environment.

The areas impacted by the landslides are known to be risky: the 2007 Municipal Risk Reduction Plan indicated the ‘high’ and ‘very high risk’ areas, which were precisely those affected in the city of Petrópolis. Despite the existence of such a plan, persistent problems of land tenure, irregular occupation, increasingly intense rain and lack of proper urban planning, keep putting vulnerable populations at risk in the region. Specifically, in the Morro da Oficina, more than 700 houses were in danger, with more than 240 identified at the highest risk level. Those are the houses of low-income families who are left with little alternatives.

In a text published in 2013, Eduardo Antonio Licco already pointed out the deficiencies in urban planning and early warning systems in Petrópolis. For instance, interviews with victims of the 2011 floods reveal that the noise of the rain covered that of the alert sirens, and that people did not how to proceed in this type of situation. In the face of existing evidence, one could expect that local and federal authorities would have taken more robust actions to protect the inhabitants of Petrópolis.

The politics of death

This tragedy comes at a time where the Brazilian government is already being accused of crimes against humanity for its bad management of the Covid-19 crisis. For so many of us, it feels like human life does not matter to decision-makers. Scholars and social movements alike have referred to the concept of necropolitics, coined by the African author, Achille Mbembe (2003), which describes the politics of death organized by the state. According Mbembe, in exceptional situations, the state would have an illegitimate use of force to determine who should live and who should die. The abandonment by the Brazilian state of the most vulnerable sections of the population in the face of Covid-19, and now with the landslides in Petrópolis, can be understood as a way of organizing the death of the poorest.

According to mapping conducted by the journal UOL on the Portal of Transparency of the municipality of Petrópolis, in 2021, 2 million BRL (approximately 290,000 GBP) were reserved – but not actually spent – for works of prevention of landslides. In contrast, the marketing and Christmas lighting budget amounted to 5.5 million BRL (approximately 800,000 GBP); twice the budget for disaster prevention. The amount allocated to “scenic, ornamental and decorative lighting for Imperial Christmas 2021” exceeds the resources for containment works in the 1st District – the most affected by the rains – as indicated in the mapping carried out by the Municipal Risk Reduction Plan.

Gender and intersecting inequalities

Finally, we can notice the higher death rate for women; out of the 232 fatalities, 138 were women and 94 men. Although it is way too soon to draw definitive conclusions, and keeping in mind that this proportion may change, we can try to suggest some possible explanations.

Many studies show that women are more vulnerable to disasters, because of a combination of factors such as their social roles, lack of access to resources or political marginalisation. Research on floods points to the fact that women tend to feel more responsible for their families, making them less likely to evacuate the affected-area on time, and that once in a shelter, they will take on all the reproductive and caring tasks to keep their families alive (see for instance Siena & Valencio, 2009).

An exemplary case of these gendered-dynamics is women affected by dams, as in the city of Morada Nova de Minas. Since 1960, with the construction of the Três Marias dam, forced migration and reduced income have affected the population, especially women. In 2019, after the rupture of the Brumadinho dam and speculation of water contamination, it was noticed that despite the loss of work and reduced income, women stayed and resisted on their lands, often mentioning their support network, bonds of affection, and cultural connection.

The burden of care work has been widely debated in the context of the pandemic crisis, and existing data show that women have absorbed the core needs of their households during the lockdown period, often at the detriment of their own remunerated job and well-being. In Brazil, a survey conducted by the feminist organisation SOF shows that 50% of women started taking care of someone during the pandemic, while 40% said that the situation of social isolation put the sustainability of their household at risk. Thus, we could imagine that many women, mothers, and spouses, were at home taking care of the house or of someone else.

What now?

While rescue services are still working to save lives and identify the names of those missing, we can reflect on the state of public policies in Brazil. Rains are nothing new and they will certainly happen again, so it is time that our elected representative make the right decisions and investments, and start valuing human lives. Local plans for risk reduction and emergency response already exist; all it takes is adequate resources to make them effective. How many more tragedies do we need for governments to take action?

If you read these lines and want to support the victims, here is a link with a list of local actors that are accepting donations: https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/saiba-como-ajudar-as-vitimas-das-chuvas-em-petropolis-rj/.

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Dr Louisa Acciari is Research Fellow and Co-director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster at the University College London (UK), and Research Associate of the Núcleo de Estudos em Sexualidade e Gênero (NESEG) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Louisa is also the Global Network Coordinator for GRRIPP.

Email: l.acciari@ucl.ac.uk

Recent publications: Pinto, C., Acciari, L., Brites, J. et al. (2021) Os sindicatos das trabalhadoras domésticas em tempos de pandemia: memórias da resistência, FACOS-UFSM: https://www.ufsm.br/editoras/facos/os-sindicatos-das-trabalhadoras-domesticas-em-tempos-de-pandemia-memorias-da-resistencia/

Acciari, L., del Carmen Britez, J., & del Carmen Morales Pérez, A. (2021). Right to health, right to live: domestic workers facing the COVID-19 crisis in Latin America. Gender & Development, 29(1), 11-33.

Mônica Ribeiro is a doctoral student at the Graduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, researcher at the Núcleo de Estudos em Sexualidade e Gênero (NESEG). Mônica is Professor of Scientific Methodology at the Instituto de Ensino Superior Planalto – IESPLAN and Coordinator of the Scientific Journal of the Institution.  

Email: monicatsribeiro@gmail.com

Recent publications: Ribeiro, M.T.S. (2021) Vozes Submersas: Políticas Públicas, desenvolvimento e resistência lá na Morada. Belo Horizonte: Editora Dialética.

https://www.amazon.com.br/Vozes-Submersas-pol%C3%ADticas-desenvolvimento-resist%C3%AAncia-ebook/dp/B099SCKWS4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Ribeiro, M. T. S; Collares, I. Z.; Calazans, D.R.N de S. et al (2021): The construction of the Três Marias dam and the absence of public policies for the arrival of the waters in the municipality of Morada Nova de Minas in Brazil. Edward Elgar Publishing:

https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781800889361/9781800889361.00023.xml

If you missed it, last summer UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR) and the Warning Research Centre hosted an online conference exploring Why Warnings Matter. A varied day’s activities full of stimulating discussion with questions from the audience, the IRDR’s 11th Annual Conference has left much to be reflected upon—as well as launching the UCL Warning Research Centre.

This blog is part three of a series presenting the key findings from the conference proceedings.  Today we get a glimpse of Dr Oliver Morgan and Dr Gail Carson in conversation with Andrew Revkin, discussing global public health in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rapporteurs whose notes form this material are Calum MacKay and Simone Phillips, who are both from the University of Glasgow on the MSc Earth Futures Programme. Any mistakes or misrepresentation of the participants’ words are the author’s own.

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Part Three.

“In Conversation”

with Dr Oliver Morgan, WHO, Dr Gail Carson, GOARN,

and Andrew Revkin

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Oliver Morgan is the Director of the Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessment Department in the WHO Health Emergencies Program.

Gail Carson is Director of Network Development at the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium.

Andrew Revkin, moderating this session, is an environmental journalist and is the founding director of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Key points of the session

The session started off with a question being posed to the presenters that asked what was keeping them up at night that was a threat or opportunity that was not being assessed properly. Their main fears were seeing high proportions of disease and death in children alongside the manifestation of under-resourced countries being last in dealing with major risks. The key example of this would be vaccine disparity. A pattern that is consistent across the globe with systems having bias to those who are more capable. Communities that are affected by infectious diseases and other events are often the poorest and most disadvantaged, so they therefore struggle to recover, the impact is long lasting and generational. With COVID-19 we are going to see this in a societal and educational context. Another main challenge is to keep up with a lot of the information that’s been being generated. So, the more we learn, the more interconnected we are, the more information there is about what’s happening in the world. However, in many ways we can get overloaded with that information, and it’s circulating in different media through different communications channels. From this we have to determine what information is of major concern and how to effectively deal with it.

There are so many competing priorities it’s incredibly hard to prioritise action. We need international networks to collaborate effectively so we can be effective at the ground level and listen to local people’s priorities, needs and frustrations to build trust and capacity to recover from events. When working at ground level it is also vital to have teams with people from multiple disciplinary backgrounds. This allows us to take into account all aspects of a community’s needs and generate successful collaboration and coordination.

To achieve this, we also must invest in infrastructure that facilitates transdisciplinary work. Pandemic responses are always difficult as they are typically controlled at a community level all of which are incredibly unique and variable. We must recognise and embrace the diversity of information and peoples’ different circumstances that is gathered from unique public health systems. By combining this information with the use of our social media channels we can shift public health away from an era of traditional surveillance to one that uses and embraces collaborative intelligence. This is where we take information from different parts of our society and different levels of science, to understand what the risks are, and to assess them. By having that engagement upfront, you have a much better way of interacting with your communities when you need to. The lack of community engagement was a huge issue in the UK in its response to COVID-19.

If we’re taking a much more expansive and holistic approach to understanding risk, then our workforce needs to change. We need to value different skill sets, whether they’re from the more community-based skill sets, sciences with a more community-based focus, or whether they’re data science skill sets. One of the grand challenges, therefore, that we now face in public health is that in the contemporary, larger, and interconnected world, we don’t have a contemporary workforce that successfully interacts with all of those different parts of our society. With COVID-19 we can learn some of these lessons, make those investments, and communicate with our governments about what those investments should be. We must think about younger people who are coming into their professional lives, and we need to have a much more broader approach to public health.

We have become sideloaded into specialties in our work. We need to have an interdisciplinary conversation. Collaboration is vital—working together and listening to each other. We need to be better organised to enhance communication and that organisation must be bottom up, middle, and top down. Citizen engagement is therefore key to all of this.

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Questions and Answers

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If you had an unlimited budget, what two things would you spend on to make things better?

Oliver

The more open we are with communication and passing information, the more benefits there are. That’s what I would change. I think those benefits far outweigh any perceived disbenefits from open information and I think that it’s not a financial thing, it’s more of a change in our collective mindset that is actually for our collective benefit. Whether that’s in environmental space, or health space or any other space, in the longer term this is going to be much more beneficial for all of us. The global-good view on public health is something that we should really embrace coming out of the pandemic.

Gail

I would probably try and pull in the experience on IP [intellectual property] and data rights. Not just IP, but the associated data rights. It would help to make sure that those who are less fortunate than some of us in the West can have access to supplies and treatments. Whether it’s accessing therapeutics or vaccines etc. a lot quicker. Obviously, there are issues with the manufacturing capability and all the supply chain issues that have to go with that. But if I was to choose one thing it would be for the lower middle income countries securing IP and data rights.

Are you guys excited about the future of public health due to the increased interest from governments due to COVID-19 or do you think it’s a false dawn?

Oliver

It is hugely exciting and very promising looking forward. There has been a huge increase in public health literacy. Citizen science is a vital positive step, that pushes all of us to engage in issues in a much better way.

 

Next up and the final blog of this series is the second panel discussion from the conference proceedings: Warnings for Organisations. Subscribe to be in the know!

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Don’t forget, last time we presented the keynote speech from Mami Mizutori, the Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

Watch the full conference on youtube here!

Conference URL:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/events/2021/jun/ucl-irdr-11th-annual-conference-why-warnings-matter-and-ucl-warning-research-centre

Conference Rapporteurs: Simone Phillips and Calum Mackay

Conference Convener: Dr. Carina Fearnley

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Please email us for any further information at IRDR-comms@ucl.ac.uk

Or check out our website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/

Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR), University College London (UCL)

Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom (UK)

There are two things we don’t teach our students but we should: to see and to listen. They are virtues–and skills–that are at least as important as writing and speaking. Some would argue that they are even more important. Pierre Bonnard, the great post-Impressionist painter, said that “many people look, but few see”. How very true! It is one thing to receive a visual impression and quite another to interpret it.

For those of us who are in London, a good exercise is to catch the no. 9 bus at Aldwych, go upstairs (it is a double-decker) and travel at least as far as Knightsbridge, if not all the way to Hammersmith. Try it and look up: on the buildings of London there is a wealth of detail that is hard, and sometimes impossible, to see from ground level. There is an astonishing variety of statuary and ornamentation. It is part of the language of architecture through the ages, and its vocabulary is very rich indeed.

It is estimated that, thanks to electronic media, we come into contact with up to 70,000 images a day. Most of them are seen only fleetingly and few of them convey their full message to us. These days it is impossible not to be blasé about imagery. Contrast that with the situation in past ages, when people would travel long distances to view and marvel over a single image. In Florence in 1504, when Michelangelo Buonarroti finished his statue of David, he had it hauled into Piazza della Signoria and left in front of the city hall, Palazzo Vecchio. People came from far and wide to attach the Renaissance equivalent of ‘Post-It’ notes to the pedestal to express what they thought of the work (Forcellino 2009, p. 60). Despite the immense outpouring of creativity in Florence in that period, people were not satiated with images. They had time to weigh up and discuss each one.

Spending many hours each day staring at a small screen we run the risk of suffering from visual illiteracy. Under the constant bombardment of imagery, attention spans easily diminish. More does not mean better. Who now has time to acquire the skills to interpret images? Who now reads, for example, On Growth and Form, or The Story of Art, or The Four Books of Architecture?

To hear a recording of Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982) playing Robert Schumann’s Carnaval is to experience the perfect balance between precision and expression, for Rubinstein was one of the greatest pianists ever. It needs intense self-discipline to acquire that experience: absolute freedom from distraction, even breathing, stillness, perfectly maintained attentiveness. Only then does Rubinstein’s magic work its full wonders. None of these qualities is encouraged by electronic media; indeed, quite the reverse.

We who work or study in universities have one great mission: to interpret the human condition and communicate our findings. This is the acquisition of wisdom, which the OED defines, succinctly, as “soundness of judgement”. Hence, by definition wisdom is the opposite of superficiality. It follows that the quality of the output–shared wisdom–is a function of the quality of the input, the experience and interpretation of knowledge. Fuelling this are the impressions we receive as we live our lives, study and work.

Such is the cacophony of modern life that it may well be true that there is greater virtue  in listening than in speaking. It is never too late to learn to see and hear, to interpret space, form, sound and nuance. Nonetheless, we go to conferences to speak, not to listen. We tap away at the keyboard to write, not to read. This is perhaps not surprising given that the amount of material available to us to absorb is simply overwhelming. The Information Technology Age is of course still very young and it remains to be seen how humanity will cope with it and reach some kind of reconciliation. But as we make our uneasy progress through the ICT revolution, it is time to return to the old skills and develop our ability to understand the many languages of the visual and audible world around us.

References

Forcellino, Antonio 2009. Michelangelo: A Tormented Life. Polity Press, Cambridge UK, 344 pp.

Gombrich, Sir Ernst Hans Josef 1950. The Story of Art. Phaidon Press, London, 688 pp.

Palladio, Andrea 2000. The Four Books of Architecture (I quattro libri dell’architettura, 1570). Dover Press, New York, 110 pp.

Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth 1942. On Growth and Form (2^nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1116 pp.

Rubinstein, Artur, 2016. Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9 & Fantasiestücke, Op. 12. RCA, New York (CD).

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David Alexander is Professor of Risk and Disaster Reduction at IRDR.

Following a challenging year of managing natural hazards, including COVID-19, this one-day online event provided thought-provoking talks, interactive discussions and online networking opportunities on why warnings matter. In addition, the UCL Warning Research Centre as part of the Department of Science and Technology Studies was launched. The event explored the role, design, use, and evaluation of warnings for different hazards from different stakeholder perspectives to examine how effective people-centered warning systems can be developed and help to be prepared for both the expected and unexpected. The event was hosted by the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and the Warning Research Centre.

On the 23^rd of June, the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction welcomed researchers, students, practitioners, policymakers, the media and the general public to a day of thought-provoking discussions on why warnings matter, and how we can do better at warnings both prior and during crises for all hazard types. Our in-house and guest experts presented a global perspective on the latest research and analysis through talks, interactive discussions and in conversation. We explored multi-dimensional aspects of warnings, considering their physical, social, economic, environmental, institutional, political, cultural and gendered dimensions, and the challenges involved in making warnings successful to mitigate against losses.

This blog is part one of a series presenting the key findings from the conference proceedings. The rapporteurs whose notes form this material are Calum MacKay and Simone Phillips who are both from the University of Glasgow on the MSc Earth Futures Programme.

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Part One.

Panel Discussion 1: Warning Systems ‒ Exceptional versus expected events

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The presenters for this session were Dr. Mickey Glantz, University of Colorado, Dr. Daniel Straub, Technical University of Munich, and Rebekah Yore, UCL. The session was moderated by Dr. Joanna Faure Walker, UCL.

Summaries of each presenters’ arguments are as follows:

Mickey Glantz

Not everyone considers a warning a warning. There are 5 key factors to warning hesitancy: complacency, convenience, confidence, low levels of trust, calculation of individual engagement. We don’t research the risks, collective responsibility is lacking as people focus on themselves. Emotional responses are common, not rational. There are also two types of people in hazard scenarios: risk averse people and risk takers.

Early warning systems are a chain. To make them more effective the lead time needs more attention. We need to create more lead time in order to get the warning to people earlier and through the system quicker.

Forecast hesitancy also plays a key role in effective early warning systems. We discount previous disasters we don’t learn from them, therefore we reinstate old vulnerabilities.

Readiness is also missing, society doesn’t have resources for long term preparedness.

Daniel Straub

Calculating the effectiveness of warning systems. If people think it’s a false alarm they won’t comply. This then creates a child who cries wolf scenario for future hazard warnings. We must find the right balance between detection rate and false alarm rate.

It is challenging and near impossible to quantify effectiveness but can still help the study of warning systems.

Rebekah Yore

It is important to identify the vulnerable population when deploying early warning systems. Failure in one element of the warning system can cause failure for the entire system.

Her research focuses on 3 case studies, all islands that are used to hazards: Japan 2011- Tsunami, Philippines 2013- typhoon and Dominica 2017- Hurricane. In all case studies not one warning system reached everyone, therefore these places need multiple types of warning. Some of the issues with the current warning systems were that interestingly modern smartphone warnings did not reach people. There was also mixed messaging from different agencies and government sources leading to room for interpretation from locals. Furthermore, issues such as poverty were not taken into account.

Finally, it must be noted that Individual and group risk perceptions are always changing and are dynamic.

This discussion was then followed by an address to questions from the audience, which are summarised thus:

How do we deal with both false alarms but also misinformation particularly in the context of social media or governments giving misinformation? How can we include groups who are not familiar with local warning systems like tourists or newcomers?

Mickey Glantz

Tourists have never seen a false alarm so unlikely to be affected in the same way in a real event by locals who have faced false alarms. Use of drills is helpful because one of the issues that comes up in the social sciences is that we all recognise that warnings need to be built into our everyday lives. We need to practice them as a way of living rather than just facing them when a hazard approaches. What has become practice then takes over and people are able to respond really quite calmly and really quite cohesively as Mickey thinks drills are a really good mechanism for embedding some key practices that help to familiarise through everyday life with some lifesaving rules.

What can we do to protect assets and livelihoods in the context of warnings?

Rebekah Yore

It is something that requires more research. Preparation mechanisms such as micro insurance for example are very important. So it may be that a mechanism that allows people to put things out and places structures in place before it occurs can help to protect some of those assets and livelihoods. Whether this means the ability to be able to pack things up and leave a location, or ability to be able to move, or an ability to be able to put certain protective measures in place. Maybe not save everything but save something or save enough.

Mickey Glantz

We don’t understand probabilities. We don’t understand nature. Many people don’t really understand the risks in their area. These perceptions become reality, if our perceptions are wrong the actions we take based on them have real consequences. So we tend to look at disasters as in many cases one and done.  But that’s not reality.

In one sentence what change do you think needs to occur to help with warning for exceptional events in an environment that does have expected events?

Daniel Straub

Understanding things through quantification is also to make use of all the data that we can now collect. The social sciences have a better understanding and also have models of factors that make a difference, and it would be useful for social science to do more with quantification in their research.

Rebekah Yore

Addressing structural inequality and addressing why people are disadvantaged and why other people aren’t. I think let’s just put our money where our mouth is; preparation is key.

Mickey Glantz

We have to put more emphasis on readiness and preparedness. People can get ready more easily than they can get prepared because they don’t have the resources. So, warnings are very important to them, I feel we have to push readiness as tactical responses to warnings and threats, as well as long term preparedness which seems to fall to governments and larger organisations. Readiness is for me and preparedness is for the community to deal with.

Next up in this blog series will be notes on “Warnings and the launch of the Warning Research Centre”, keynote speech from Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction in the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mami Mizutori.

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Watch the full conference on youtube here!

Conference URL:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/events/2021/jun/ucl-irdr-11th-annual-conference-why-warnings-matter-and-ucl-warning-research-centre

Conference Rapporteurs: Simone Phillips and Calum Mackay

Conference Convener: Dr. Carina Fearnley

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Please email us for any further information at IRDR-comms@ucl.ac.uk

Or check out our website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/

Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR), University College London (UCL)

Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom (UK)

Author: Shiba Rabiee, recent postgraduate student from IRDR, UCL. Shiba.rabiee.20@ucl.ac.uk | Linked In

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Mars is approximately half of the size of Earth and is the fourth planet from the Sun. Due to its many similarities with Earth, Mars is argued to be the second most habitable planet in our solar system. The definitive goal has, therefore, always been a human exploration mission on Mars. After decades of research and space agencies working towards this goal, the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, announced in an interview that by 2026 they would be able to send astronauts to Mars in cooperation with NASA [1].

However, in deep space astronauts are exposed to dangerous levels of space radiation (i.e. Galactic Cosmic Radiation and Solar Energetic Particles), and Mars is no exception despite its similarities with Earth. In contrast to Earth’s dense atmosphere enabled by its global dipole magnetic field, Mars has residual crustal magnetic fields that cause a very thin atmosphere (~1% of Earth’s) [see Illustration 1] [2, 3]. This creates a highly radioactive and complex environment on Mars that has detrimental, and ultimately lethal, effects for astronaut’s health [3-5].

Throughout the years of sending astronauts into Low Earth Orbit (160-1000 km altitude above Earth), medical doctors and psychiatrists working with astronauts have noticed a decrease in their holistic health when operating a space mission [6, 7]. Space agencies have, therefore, several times encouraged engineers to develop mitigation measures for high radiation exposure but without much success. Shielding measures are essential, yet many issues arise with the creation of shielding such as high financial expense, how to transport the shielding to Mars, and how the material(s) will act in the Martian environment. Space radiation is, therefore, generally acknowledged as a potential barrier for human exploration missions both during Cruise-Phase and whilst on a planet or moon [8].

As space agencies try to create innovative solutions for spacecrafts and crewmembers during Cruise-Phase for a Mars mission, bigger challenges await when arriving on the red planet. A mission to Mars would require astronauts to stay on the planet for several weeks due to the distance between Mars and Earth. In combination with the Martian environment, long-duration space exploration poses several risks and increases the vulnerability to multiple hazards amongst both crewmembers and spacecrafts. Thus, in order to ethically send astronauts to Mars, the radiation problem has to be solved. Research to investigate the mitigation of radiation exposure and associated risks is important to protect good health.

The complexity of creating and transporting affordable mitigation measures has left space agencies with the question of whether to use resources from the Martian environment. A promising mitigation measure currently being discussed is the use of the Martian regolith as a shielding measure by creating a habitat of tunnels beneath the surface of Mars. Yet, this will not provide shielding for astronauts undergoing an extravehicular mission (spacewalk). A human exploration mission will, however, demand exploration of the Martian environment outside the habitat. The need for further investigation and the development of additional mitigation measures, therefore, remains.

The objective of my thesis was to investigate the use of the residual crustal magnetic fields of Mars as a mitigation measure against space radiation exposure during e.g., extravehicular missions. Research on the magnetic fields have been previously conducted [8-16], wherefrom the general argument is that the Martian atmosphere and the magnetic fields provide an equal amount of shielding against space radiation [8] [16]. Yet, these were founded on hypotheses as the Martian atmosphere was not considered during the simulation models [8]. Thus, it was unknown whether the atmosphere could, in fact, provide corresponding shielding measures.

The Martian atmosphere has roughly two orders of magnitude smaller column density than that of Earths and comprises ~95.1% carbon dioxide [16-19]. This, in combination with continuing atmospheric escape, causes the Martian atmosphere to provide almost no shielding against space radiation. Depending on the solar cycle and the chosen location, the estimations conducted for the thesis does, however, imply a potential prolonged extravehicular mission of e.g., ~34 sec/day to ~74 min/day within a field strength of 14 nT [see magnetic fields strength map for the range of field strengths measured at 400 km altitude]. These estimates will increase with increasing field strengths, thus, indicating that the residual crustal magnetic fields can be used as a mitigation measure. Moreover, the estimates imply a significant difference between shielding provided by the atmosphere and the residual crustal magnetic fields.

This conclusion is founded on methods and various assumptions. To confirm the results presented, further investigation of the residual crustal magnetic fields needs to be completed. Suggestions for potential future missions and research has, therefore, additionally been presented and discussed in the thesis.

Mars has been argued to have looked very similar to Earth ~3.8 billion years ago [see Illustration 3] [20]. Further investigations of the residual crustal magnetic fields of Mars will not only enable an understanding of its potential to act as a shielding measure, but similarly to Mars, atmospheric escape can also be found on Earth. Yet, despite long investigations of Earth’s atmospheric escape many questions remain unanswered. A comprehensive investigation of the residual crustal magnetic fields and its relation to the Martian environment could, therefore, inform about the core of Mars and the planets atmospheric escape, consequently enabling an understanding of the atmospheric leakage on Earth. Research in this area may provide essential information of what could be the future of Earth.

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Shiba Rabiee is a recent postgraduate student from IRDR, UCL. Email at Shiba.rabiee.20@ucl.ac.uk| Linked In

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References

[1] Wall, Mike (2020): SpaceX’s 1^st crewed Mars mission could launch as early as 2024, Elon Musk says. SPACE.com. https://www.space.com/spacex-launch-astronauts-mars-2024 [Accessed 17.02.2021].

[2] Matthiä, Daniel; Hassler, Donald M.; Wouter de Wet; Ehresmann, Bent; Firan, Ana; Flores-McLaughlin, John; Guo, Jingnan; Heilbronn, Lawrence H.; Lee, Kerry; Ratliff, Hunter; Rios, Ryan R.; Slaba, Tony C.; Smith, Micheal; Stoffle, Nicholas N.; Townsend, Lawrence W.; Berger, Thomas; Reitz, Günther; Wimmer-Schweingruber, Robert F.; Zeitlin, Cary (2017): The radiation environment on the surface of Mars – Summary of model calculations and comparison to RAD data. Life Science in Space Research, Volume 14. pp. 18-19.

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Illustrations and Map

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Authors: Eleanor King and Fran Kurlansky

At the IRDR Spring Academy, I set each member of the IRDR the challenge of explaining their research using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language (taken from this website).  We were allowed the odd exception for a few essential keywords (in my case “earthquake” and “fault”). We had about ten minutes to do this. Below we share some of our attempts. Would you like to try the same exercise?

Mohamed Alwahedi:

Some scientists think that all earthquakes happen in the same way, and by the same reason. That is called the self-similarity theory. I am going to test that theory.

David Alexander:

My latest research is on a sunken ship that is full of thousands of live bombs. The work looks at how the risk has been managed and what might happen to the wreck. There are several reasons why the ship might explode. Unfortunately, for 75 years, nothing has been done to reduce the risk, which has grown as the wreck has become older. The British Government has failed to create a clear picture of the danger posed by the ship. Hence, in terms of details, the risk is poorly known. An explosion could cause a terrible disaster. It is time to act, defuse the bombs and clear away the ship, but the options are limited by the danger.

Lucy Buck:

I study how a tsunami changes the land after the water has gone and what this means for the people who live there.

Joanna Faure Walker:

What makes an earthquake occur when and where it does? Scientists seek to answer this question using many different methods. My current work has two main approaches. First, if we collect more field data can we improve risk knowledge? Second, how much more can we learn when we measure details of fault structures? Through my work we have learnt more about how faults join and grow, where earthquakes occur and why, and what next steps need to be taken to help us reduce risk from earthquakes.

Jessica Field:

I have been researching in archives (which is a place where old documents are kept) in Delhi to better understand how the Indian government managed aid during emergencies like floods, earthquakes and conflicts during the 1940s-1960s.

Nathanael Harwood:

Not all ‘Global Warming’ has an equal impact across the Globe; the Arctic in particular has warmed at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, causing the region to be warmer and moister than it should be according to the last half-century of records.  At the same time weather extremes, including hot and cold waves that stick around for longer, have become a common occurrence further south of the Arctic where billions of people live in the warmer ‘midlatitudes’.  As Londoners, that includes us.  Normal weather conditions, or at least weather we would expect given the record, rely on a stable temperature and pressure difference between the Arctic and the midlatitudes which drives the wind and blows weather patterns like storms away at a reasonable pace.  But when these differences are changed, and the Arctic warms at a rate never seen before, it seems obvious that wind patterns and the atmosphere as a whole could be disturbed, made wavier and slower, or even blocked.

Despite this, we still don’t know the specific details on how the Arctic is impacting our weather, or the main driver of our weather called the ‘Jet Stream’, which blows above us at about the height you would take a jet plane at.  Computer models have given a wide range of results, and traditional techniques to look at climate records have failed to provide any robust answers.  This project uses ‘Bayesian Networks’, a way of considering how different things relate to each other in a large network, to look at how the Arctic region fits into relationships between the atmosphere and different parts of the world.  These large-scale disturbances of the jet stream, wind and weather are a crucial part of the climate change puzzle because they can cause devastating cold conditions, like on the US East Coast, unbearable heat waves across parts of Europe, as well as floods and droughts.  If we want to understand what the future holds for us in terms of extreme weather, we need to understand the relationships between these different drivers so that we can predict and better prepare for a future with a very warm Arctic.

Ilan Kelman:

There is a lot of talk that people must move because the climate is changing. Counting these numbers of people is very difficult and cannot really be done. People move for many reasons and do not always make decisions using long times. It is hard to pick only one factor.

Claudia Sgambato:

Earthquakes are some of the most dangerous natural events, causing many deaths and damage. It is important to contribute to the knowledge of when and where the next earthquakes will occur, and how destructive they can be. However, it is not an easy task: at present there is no way to predict an earthquake. My research addresses this problem, by studying where the structures responsible for producing earthquakes, called faults, are, and how often they rupture. I also study the geometry of the faults, in other words their changes in shape, because these may have an important role in the seismic hazard, causing a higher rate of deformation.

Mark Shortt:

Alone, I travelled to the north to research sea ice. It was very cold with a lot of wind, but with the help of other scientists I got some strength values. This will be important for oil and gas companies.

Omar Velazquez Ortiz:

I am trying to understand and improve the different escape ways that structures’ occupants can use under a shaking event, considering early warnings

Rory Walshe:

How does the history of risk from major cyclones effect society and culture for institutions and individuals and how can we research history to understand response.

Caroline Wood:

International professional instructions are available to help doctors give drugs to stop disease. Doctors can find it difficult to use these instructions in their practice, particularly for operations. Our research designs digital decision resources (apps) to help improve knowledge and educate doctors about the correct drugs to give.

Punam Yadav:

My recent research, which focusses on political participation of women and their agency, examines the life experiences of women who have been elected at the local government. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of reservation on the everyday life of these women politicians.

I carried out 25 interviews with women politicians and 5 interviews with male politicians. Despite increase in women’s representation in politics in Nepal, these women politicians talked about how difficult it was for them to work in a male dominated environment. They also spoke about opportunities their new roles had brought for them. They have access to new space and earned more respect due to their new roles.

Angus Naylor, an IRDR Masters student alumni and Masters Prize Winner, has published the research conducted for his Independent Research Project. The research was carried out as part of his MSc Risk, Disaster and Resilience with me, his project supervisor, and our collaborator at Tohoku University IRIDeS (International Research Institute of Disaster Science), Dr Anawat Suppasri.

Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, UCL-IRDR and Tohoku University IRIDeS wanted to join forces to learn more about both the fundamental science and impacts of disasters both in Japan and around the world. Naylor’s recently published paper adds to other collaborative outputs from the two institutes: Mildon et al., 2016, investigating Coulomb Stress Transfer within the area of earthquake hazard research; Suppasri et al., 2016 investigating fatality ratios following the 2011 Great East Japan Tsunami; and IRDR Special Report 2014-01 on the destruction from Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. The two institutions have met on a number of occasions, and have an upcoming symposium in October 2018.

In 2014, three and half years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami destroyed much of Tohoku’s coastline, I led and Dr Anawat Suppasri organised a joint UCL-IRDR and Tohoku University IRIDeS team, visiting residents of six temporary housing complexes in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. While there, we used written questionnaires and informal group interviews to investigate the suitability of early warning systems and the temporary housing among the elderly population affected by this event.

When analysing the results, we found overall that age was not the principal factor in affecting whether a warning was received, but did play a significant role regarding what was known before the warning was received, whether action was taken and how temporary and permanent housing was viewed. The results suggest that although the majority of respondents received some form of warning (81%), no one method of warning reached more than 45% of them, demonstrating the need for multiple forms of early warning system alerts. Furthermore, only half the respondents had prior knowledge of evacuation plans with few attending evacuation drills and there was a general lack of knowledge regarding shelter plans following a disaster. Regarding shelter, it seems that the “lessons learned” from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake were perhaps not so learnt, but rather many of the concerns raised among the elderly in temporary housing echoed the complaints from 16 years earlier: solitary living, too small, not enough heating or sound insulation and a lack of privacy.

The research supports previous assertions that disasters can increase the relative vulnerabilities of those already amongst the most vulnerable in society. This highlights that in order to increase resilience against future disasters, we need to consider the elderly and other vulnerable groups within the entire Early Warning System process from education to evacuation and for temporary housing in the transitional phase of recovery.

The paper, ‘Suitability of the early warning systems and temporary housing for the elderly population in the immediacy and transitional recovery phase of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami’ published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, can be accessed for free until 26th July here, after this date please click here for standard access.

The authors are grateful for the fieldwork funds which came from The Great British Sasakawa Foundation funding to UCL-IRDR and MEXT’s funding to IRIDeS. The joint UCL-IRDR1 and IRIDeS2 fieldwork team comprised Joanna Faure Walker1, Anawat Suppasri2, David Alexander1, Sebastian Penmellen Boret2, Peter Sammonds1, Rosanna Smith1, and Carine Yi2.

Angus Naylor is currently doing a PhD at Leeds University
Dr Joanna Faure Walker is a Senior Lecturer at UCL IRDR
Dr Anawat Suppasri is an Associate Professor at IRIDeS-Tohoku University

In 2008 Chaitén Volcano in Chile reawakened spectacularly after what was thought to be over 5000 years of slumber. In early May 2008 the residents of nearby Chaitén town received just 24 hours warning of the imminent eruption in the form of earthquakes strong enough to knock objects from shelves. Residents of the small town, known as the Gateway to Patagonia, one of Chile’s most spectacular and remote regions, evacuated themselves from their vulnerable position at the mouth of the Chaitén River, directly downstream of the volcano.

The eruption began explosively after all residents had safely departed the town and continued effusively for the next 2 years. What made this eruption particularly significant and thrust this small forgotten corner of the world into the global limelight was its extremely sudden onset coupled with the fact that rhyolitic eruptions are so rare that this eruption was the first to be observed in over 100 years. This rarity meant that it was an extremely appealing case study to focus my PhD research on, and an even more appealing place from which to collect experimental samples. This fascination is what led to myself and 6 colleagues, including Professor Peter Sammonds (UCL) and Dr Hugh Tuffen (Lancaster University), to set out on New Years Eve 2013 on the mammoth journey to Southern Chile to visit this incredible volcano.

After four flights, the last of which was in a 9-seater aeroplane that landed on a landing strip that doubled as a main road when flights weren’t expected, and two days, we finally made it to the trailhead of the hike up to the crater rim of Chaitén Volcano.

This relatively short yet steep hike up the flank of the volcano took us up through the blast zone, an area of once-dense forest that was destroyed by pyroclastic flows generated from the eruption. An encouraging sign of recovery on these slopes was the re-colonisation of vegetation where previously only sporadic trees stripped of all foliage and bark remained standing.

Reaching the crater rim and seeing Chaitén’s 400m lava dome come into view was an awe-inspiring sight. Its imposing size and impressive slopes made for some unforgettable first impressions from the rim. We set up camp on the crater rim as the sun was setting and took in the spectacular scenery.

 

 

Despite my enthusiasm for the field trip, I must admit that the descent into the crater the following day was not my favourite activity. The 50m scramble down the perilous near-vertical unconsolidated slope was a challenge, but the end location definitely made the journey worth it. Gazing up at the dome from the crater floor allowed us to fully appreciate its true magnitude.

 

Most of the dome’s lower slopes are covered in scree, but small intact outcrops offered us tantalizing glimpses into the make-up of the dome itself. It was from one of these outcrops on the earliest lobe of the eruption that I collected my largest sample of rhyolite. Weighing in at 26kg it proved a challenge to transport but hopefully will provide an excellent insight into how this rhyolitic dome formed. Littering the crater floor we also found a plethora of incredibly interesting samples. I collected 3 more large blocks of sample material from the crater floor, including a 7kg piece of an obsidian volcanic bomb. As we could only collect what we could carry we had to be selective, however, and several large volcanic bombs had to be admired and recorded but alas left where we found them. With the help of Hugh and Peter and two trips down the volcano I managed to collect 55kg of sample material from Chaitén Volcano, making it a very successful field trip indeed!

The samples collected from Chaitén will enable me to better understand the dynamics of the 2008 eruption via laboratory analogue experiments. I will measure the permeability of cored samples under volcanic conditions simulated in the lab in order to help determine how gas escapes from the volcano during eruptions. Gas escape greatly influences the dynamics of the eruption and ultimately how dangerous a volcano can be.

Earthquakes affect many highly populated areas around the world so understanding what controls the distribution and frequency of them is a top priority for the earth science and disaster risk reduction communities. Often, however, the controlling factors remain elusive because scientists have limited information about what happens deep down in the Earth’s crust where earthquakes initiate. A recent Nature Geoscience article (Cowie et al. (2013) published online on 3rd November, 2013) has shed light on the problem, and has shown how phenomena on the surface can be linked to the movement of rocks in the deep crust.

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