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"Emergency management Mexico, Gulf of."
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BP blowout : inside the Gulf oil disaster
\"BP Blowout is the first comprehensive account of the legal, economic, and environmental consequences of the disaster that resulted from the April 2010 blowout at a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident, which destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killed 11 people. The ensuing oil discharge- the largest ever in U.S. waters-polluted much of the Gulf for months, wreaking havoc on its inhabitants and the environment. Daniel Jacobs tells the story that neither BP nor the federal government wants heard: how the company and the government fell short, both in terms of preventing and responding to the disaster.\"--book flap
Book
BP Blowout
The inside story of the worst environmental disaster in American history.
Blowoutis the first comprehensive account of the legal, economic, and environmental consequences of the April 2010 blowout at a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident destroyed theDeepwater Horizonoil rig and killed eleven people. The resulting offshore oil discharge, the largest ever in the United States, polluted much of the Gulf for months, wreaking havoc on its inhabitants.A former Justice Department lawyer responsible for enforcing environmental laws, Daniel Jacobs tells the story that neither BP nor the federal government want heard: how the company and the government fell short, both in terms of preventing and coping with the accident.All-important details about the cause and aftermath of the disaster have emerged through court proceedings and with the passage of time. The key finding of the federal judge who presided over the civil litigation arising out of the disaster was that theDeepwater Horizonblowout resulted from BP's gross negligence.BP has paid tens of billions of dollars to settle claims and lawsuits arising from the accident. The company also has pled guilty to manslaughter in a separate criminal case. Yet, no one responsible for the accident itself is headed to prison. On the other hand, hundreds of people have been prosecuted for filing false claims against BP, some seventy-five of whom have been sentenced to prison.Blowoutis an important book for readers interested in the environment, sustainability, public policy, leadership, and the consequences of poor risk management.
eBook
Blowout
The inside story of the worst environmental disaster in American history. Blowout is the first comprehensive account of the legal, economic, and environmental consequences of the April 2010 blowout at a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and killed eleven people. The resulting offshore oil discharge, the largest ever in the United States, polluted much of the Gulf for months, wreaking havoc on its inhabitants. A former Justice Department lawyer responsible for enforcing environmental laws, Daniel Jacobs tells the story that neither BP nor the fe
Publication
Comparing public perceptions of sea level rise with scientific projections across five states of the U.S. Gulf Coast region
Sea level rise (SLR) in the twenty-first century poses fundamental risks to coastal residents. The US Gulf of Mexico Coast (Gulf Coast) is among the regions experiencing the most rapid relative SLR. Beyond its increasing exposure to SLR and related coastal flooding, the Gulf Coast is home to a large population and displays high social vulnerability. How the coastal population in this vulnerable region perceives the impending risks posed by SLR warrants further examination. Do coastal residents’ perceptions of SLR conform to the scientific projections? We adopt an integrative approach based on a 2019 survey merged with contextual data including percentage of population living within the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) and social vulnerability at the county level, both of which are extracted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We find that public risk perceptions of sea level change are influenced by political predisposition, with Republicans being less likely than Democrats to expect SLR in the future. Moreover, SLR remains a temporally distant issue among coastal residents. We then directly compare public expectations and scientific estimations of SLR in five states of the US Gulf Coast region and find that coastal residents in states that have experienced faster SLR in the past are more optimistic about future SLR by underestimating its magnitude compared to those experiencing slower SLR. Moreover, we find that people likely conflate the severity with likelihood of SLR risk. The contextual force represented by percentage of population living within the SFHA designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can significantly influence individuals’ estimations of future SLR, with higher percentages leading to higher estimates. We suspect that the SFHA has become a powerful risk communication tool that influences coastal residents’ judgments about future risk.
Journal Article
The Resilience Activation Framework: a Conceptual Model of How Access to Social Resources Promotes Adaptation and Rapid Recovery in Post-disaster Settings
A number of governmental agencies have called for enhancing citizens’ resilience as a means of preparing populations in advance of disasters, and as a counterbalance to social and individual vulnerabilities. This increasing scholarly, policy, and programmatic interest in promoting individual and communal resilience presents a challenge to the research and practice communities: to develop a translational framework that can accommodate multidisciplinary scientific perspectives into a single, applied model. The Resilience Activation Framework provides a basis for testing how access to social resources, such as formal and informal social support and help, promotes positive adaptation or reduced psychopathology among individuals and communities exposed to the acute collective stressors associated with disasters, whether human-made, natural, or technological in origin. Articulating the mechanisms by which access to social resources activate and sustain resilience capacities for optimal mental health outcomes post-disaster can lead to the development of effective preventive and early intervention programs.
Journal Article
A Comprehensive Methodology for Evaluating the Economic Impacts of Floods: An Application to Canada, Mexico, and the United States
In 2020, we developed a comprehensive methodology (henceforth, the methodology) to assess flood-related economic costs. The methodology covers direct damages, indirect effects, and losses and additional costs across 105 social, infrastructure, economic, and emergency response indicators. As a companion paper, this study presents findings from analysis of applying the methodology to investigate economic costs for major flood events between 2013 and 2017 and to assess gaps in the existing datasets across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. In addition, we conducted one case study from each country for an in-depth examination of the applicability of the methodology. Applying the methodology, Mexico showed the most complete flood indicator data availability and accessibility among the three countries. We found that most flood-related economic cost assessments evaluated only direct damages, and indirect effect data were rarely included in datasets in the three countries. Moreover, few of the records from Canada and the United States captured the losses and additional costs. Flood-related economic cost data at the municipal or county level were easily accessible in Mexico and the United States. Mexico’s National Center for Prevention of Disasters (Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres), unique among the three nations, provided access to centralized and comprehensive flood cost data. In the United States and Canada, data collection by multiple agencies that focus on different jurisdictions and scales of flood damage complicated comprehensive data collection and led to incomplete economic cost assessments. Our analysis strongly suggests that countries should aim to expand the set of data indicators available and become more granular across space and time while maintaining data quality. This study provides significant insights about approaches for collating spatial, temporal, and outcome-specific localized flood economic costs and the major data gaps across the three countries.
Journal Article
Drought Vulnerability Indices in Mexico
Drought is one of the most harmful hydro climatic threats to society. Mexico has been historically affected by recurring and long-lasting droughts that have severely impacted society and the economy. Consequently, public programs and policies have been developed in order to reduce the country’s vulnerability to drought, hence the importance of identifying the spatial distribution and the dimension—even in relative terms only—of vulnerability in different regions from social, economic, and environmental perspectives. This article presents a method for obtaining indices and maps of vulnerability to drought in Mexico; indices and maps are based on a set of socioeconomic and environmental indicators that the method combines using an objective analytic procedure that identifies the most vulnerable states and municipalities from social, economic, and environmental perspectives, all of which converge in overall vulnerability to drought. The results obtained indicate that 38.9% of total Mexican population inhabits municipalities with high and very high degrees of overall vulnerability to drought. For this reason, it is necessary to continue implementing actions and preventive and mitigation strategies via public policies and social programs aimed at decreasing the country’s vulnerability to the occurrence of drought events. This is the only way to facilitate the necessary conditions to reduce the impact of drought and to decrease people’s vulnerability to this phenomenon.
Journal Article
Spatial and Temporal Changes in Social Vulnerability to Natural Hazards in Mexico
The spatial and temporal changes in social vulnerability to natural hazards in Mexico are analyzed. To this end, using census data from 2000, 2010, and 2020, and a statistical method, different indices were computed, and with a GIS-based approach, patterns of social vulnerability are examined. In addition, a risk assessment test for severe weather (thunderstorms, hailstorms, and tornadoes) is made out. The results show different common social vulnerability driving factors in the 3 analyzed years, with root causes that have not been addressed since the beginning of the century. Likewise, a wider gap between Mexico’s most and least vulnerable populations is identified. The changes in spatial patterns respond to different historical situations, such as migration, urbanization, and increased population. Also, poverty, ethnicity, and marginalization factors located in very particular regions in Mexico have remained relatively the same in the last 20 twenty years. These situations have strongly influenced the spatial–temporal distribution of vulnerability in the country. The role of social vulnerability in the disaster risk to extreme events such as thunderstorms, hailstorms, and tornadoes in Mexico is fundamental to understanding changes in disaster distribution at the national level, and it is the first step to generating improvements in integrated risk management.
Journal Article
Meteotsunamis characterization for Gulf of Mexico using meteotsunami rose charts
In recent years, there has been an increase in awareness and research on meteotsunamis (MT) caused by atmospheric disturbances (AD), such as widespread and long-lived cold fronts, squalls, and storms. In this work, an AD model that was developed previously has been used along with depth-integrated Navier Stokes equations to conduct 34,560 numerical experiments in the Gulf of Mexico using High-Performance Computing. The data generated is visualized with a newly developed characterization tool—the meteotsunami rose chart, described in detail. For a given location, MT rose charts provide a detailed relationship between the expected maximum MT amplitude and the AD’s path, direction, and forward speed. Another new tool, the severe MT rose charts, complements these by summarizing the case scenarios with an amplitude of more than 0.3 m. An interactive online implementation has also been introduced. A sensitivity study conducted on the various constant parameters associated with it gives an idea of the factors to account for when using MT rose charts. The newly developed visualization tools are used to study the meteotsunami hazard for Clearwater Beach, FL; some critical scenarios were identified, and observations were made. These tools were then applied to 7 other places along the Gulf of Mexico to draw some broad conclusions on how the bathymetry of the region relates to severe MT hazard scenarios. It was observed that relatively slower-moving ADs produce the most severe MTs along coasts with broad continental shelves. In comparison, narrower continental shelves cause the most severe MTs for fast-moving ADs.
Journal Article