Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
90
result(s) for
"Floods Texas Houston."
Sort by:
Hurricane Harvey : disaster in Texas and beyond
\"A chronological look at Hurricane Harvey, its aftermath, the damage caused by the storm, and relief efforts\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Framing the Challenge of Urban Flooding in the United States
Flooding is the natural hazard with the greatest economic and social impact in the United States, and these impacts are becoming more severe over time. Catastrophic flooding from recent hurricanes, including Superstorm Sandy in New York (2012) and Hurricane Harvey in Houston (2017), caused billions of dollars in property damage, adversely affected millions of people, and damaged the economic well-being of major metropolitan areas. Flooding takes a heavy toll even in years without a named storm or event. Major freshwater flood events from 2004 to 2014 cost an average of $9 billion in direct damage and 71 lives annually. These figures do not include the cumulative costs of frequent, small floods, which can be similar to those of infrequent extreme floods.
Framing the Challenge of Urban Flooding in the United States contributes to existing knowledge by examining real-world examples in specific metropolitan areas. This report identifies commonalities and variances among the case study metropolitan areas in terms of causes, adverse impacts, unexpected problems in recovery, or effective mitigation strategies, as well as key themes of urban flooding. It also relates, as appropriate, causes and actions of urban flooding to existing federal resources or policies.
eBook
Houston's Hurricane Harvey floods
\"Young readers will learn about the devastating Hurricane Harvey.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Social inequalities in flooding inside and outside of floodplains during Hurricane Harvey
While previous research often finds flood impacts outside of conventional flood risk zones such as FEMA's 100-year floodplain maps, we have less of a sense of the social and demographic composition of the areas outside of floodplains that experience these impacts, even though social inequalities in flood risk and impacts more broadly is well-documented in the United States. Using data on 100-year floodplains, flood impacts, socio-demographic characteristics, and residential parcels, this study focuses on race as a primary marker of socio-spatial inequality to examine flooding inside and outside of floodplains during Hurricane Harvey in Greater Houston. Descriptive findings show that a large majority of flooding occurred outside of 100-year floodplains. Regression models show that while there is limited evidence of racial inequalities in flood risk as conceptualized as location in 100-year floodplains, there are substantial racial inequalities in flood extent during Hurricane Harvey. Results further show that these overall racial inequalities in flood extent are primarily driven by impacts that occurred outside of 100-year floodplains. Conclusions center on how and why conventional delineations of flood risk can underestimate racial inequalities to natural hazards.
Journal Article
Economic impacts of storm surge and the cost-benefit analysis of a coastal spine as the surge mitigation strategy in Houston-Galveston area in the USA
Rapid population growth, urbanization, and concentration of valuable assets and strategic infrastructure in coastal regions make coastal inundation, flooding, and storm surge national problems for many countries, including the United States of America (USA). Enhancing coastal resilience is a complex problem and involves an integrated risk management approach, entailing both structural protection as well as other risk reduction strategies (e.g., building codes and ecosystem preservation). The former is an increasingly recognized mitigation option for densely populated areas and industrial hubs. Fully justifying benefits of costly flood defense structures is crucial, particularly when lack of funding and other institutional barriers make such projects easy targets for omission from or cuts to a budget. Justification usually requires a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis. This paper explores the economic feasibility of a coastal barrier, i.e., coastal spine, as a potential storm surge mitigation strategy to protect the Houston-Galveston metropolitan area of Texas, one of the most flood-prone and economically important regions in the USA. We provide an assessment of residential and chemical manufacturing plant and refinery exposure to multiple synthetic hurricane storm surge events by comparing losses with and without a coastal spine. While under all scenarios, benefits exceed engineering costs of a spine, our results indicate that the project feasibility largely hinges on accounting for industrial losses and resultant indirect and induced effects. As many regions and industrial hubs globally are designing adaptation and mitigation strategies to combat the consequences of extreme events, structural solution to surge mitigation maybe one of the few mitigation options for them. Unlike population and residential structures that can retreat and insure, these options are not viable for industrial plants that are resource-based. However, expertise and knowledge pertinent to surge barrier systems are relatively scarce as there are only handful of barriers around the world and they are all unique in engineering designs. As storm surge is becoming a threat for many coastal urban centers, one of the recommendations is to consolidate knowledge base and research across countries in order to foster knowledge exchange internationally. This will help identify concerns associated with existing barrier systems, pragmatic ways to improve them and will also aid the investment decision, engineering designs, and operational aspects of barriers in other parts of the world. Furthermore, forming regional research collaborations with developing countries at risk of storm surge and the sea level rise is vital to further facilitate knowledge spillover and exchange of expertise.
Journal Article
Hazardous air pollutants and flooding: a comparative interurban study of environmental injustice
The environmental justice literature, which finds that lower status groups tend to experience disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards, has underemphasized natural hazards, the benefits that accompany exposure to environmental risks, and comparative analytical frameworks. This study addresses these limitations by assessing patterns of environmental injustice with respect to economic deprivation (insecurity and instability), race, and ethnicity at the census tract level in the Miami and Houston Metropolitan Statistical Areas for 100-year flood risk and cancer risk from exposure to air toxics. When predicting air toxic exposure using spatial error regression models, instability was positive and significant in both cities; proportion Hispanic was significantly positive in Houston and significantly negative in Miami; neighborhood economic insecurity was positive and significant in Miami; and proportion black was not significant in either city. For flooding, spatial error regression models showed that proportion black was negative and significant in both cities; proportion Hispanic was significantly negative in Houston and nearly significantly positive in Miami; insecurity was negative and significant in Miami; and instability was not significant in either city. Results demonstrate that environments present benefits as well as risks and that this shapes patterns of environmental injustice in urban areas. The divergent findings for Hispanic suggest that analyzing Hispanic as a monolithic category of social disadvantage in the US context may not be useful in diverse cities with large Hispanic populations. More comparative studies are needed to disentangle the roles of hazard characteristics (frequency/magnitude, suddenness of onset, and divisibility) in shaping patterns of environmental injustice.
Journal Article
A Citizen-Contributed GIS Approach for Evaluating the Impacts of Land Use on Hurricane-Harvey-Induced Flooding in Houston Area
Hurricane Harvey (2017) caused widespread flash flooding by extremely heavy rainfall and resulted in tremendous damage, including 82 fatalities and huge economic loss in the Houston, Texas area. To reduce hazards, loss, and to improve urban resilience, it is important to understand the factors that influence the occurrence of flooding events. People rely on natural resources and different land uses to reduce the severity of flood impacts and mitigate the risk. In this study, we focused the impacts of land use on Hurricane-Harvey-induced flooding inside and outside the Houston city center. With the recent trend that more citizen scientists serve in delivering information about natural disaster response, local residents in Houston areas participated in delineating the flooded areas in Hurricane Harvey. The flooding information used here generated a published map with citizen-contributed flooding data. A regional model framework with spatial autocovariates was employed to understand those interactions. Different land use patterns and types affected the potential of flooding events differently inside and outside Houston’s city center. Explicitly, we found agricultural and open space were associated with high risk of flooding outside the city center, industrial lands increased the high risk of flooding in city center, and residential areas reduced the potential of flooding both inside and outside the city center. The results can assist with future land use strategy in Houston and other areas, and mitigate potential flash flooding. This study also highlighted the contribution of citizen science to responses to natural hazards.
Journal Article
Public Goods in the Field: Katrina Evacuees in Houston
Crises and disasters, whether natural or man-made, are defined by conditions of uncertainty, disorder, and stress. In this research, we explore the extent to which individuals who were evacuated from New Orleans to Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina cooperated with one another in a public goods game. The study focuses on predominantly African-American evacuees from New Orleans who were relocated to Houston-area shelters in the weeks immediately after Hurricane Katrina. In this study, 352 evacuees participated in small groups across six different Houston evacuation shelters from September 10 through 19, 2005. The experiments reported here are adaptations of \"dictator\" and \"public goods\" experiments. We find strong evidence of group cooperation in the Houston-area shelters.
Journal Article
Physical and Mental Health Status of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees in Houston in 2005 and 2006
Objectives . Hurricane Katrina necessitated the evacuation of over 200,000 individuals into Houston. This study compared characteristics of three samples of evacuees with those of the U.S. population and examined how evacuees’ experiences have changed over time. Methods . Sub-populations of evacuees in Houston were surveyed immediately following the hurricane, two months afterwards, and one year later. Demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, physical and mental health status, and access to care of the most disadvantaged evacuees in Houston were analyzed. Results . Predominantly, evacuees surveyed were Black, low-income, unemployed, and facing challenges accessing health care. Twenty-eight percent felt their health was worse than it was before Katrina. Almost 60% of evacuees reported nervousness, restlessness, worthlessness, hopelessness, and spells of terror or panic at least a few times a week. Conclusions . The evacuees displaced by the storm experienced loss of full-time employment, income, and deteriorating health, as well as struggles accessing necessary physical and mental health care.
Journal Article
Illicit Drug Markets among New Orleans Evacuees before and Soon after Hurricane Katrina
This paper analyzes illicit drug markets in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina and access to drug markets following evacuation at many locations and in Houston. Among New Orleans arrestees pre-Katrina, rates of crack and heroin use and market participation was comparable to New York and higher than in other southern cities. Both cities have vigorous outdoor drug markets. Over 100 New Orleans evacuees provide rich accounts describing the illicit markets in New Orleans and elsewhere. The flooding of New Orleans disrupted the city's flourishing drug markets, both during and immediately after the storm. Drug supplies, though limited, were never completely unavailable. Subjects reported that alcohol or drugs were not being used in the Houston Astrodome, and it was a supportive environment. Outside the Astrodome, they were often approached by or could easily locate middlemen and drug sellers. Evacuees could typically access illegal drug markets wherever they went. This paper analyzes the impact of a major disaster upon users of illegal drugs and the illegal drug markets in New Orleans and among the diaspora of New Orleans evacuees following Hurricane Katrina. This analysis includes data from criminal justice sources that specify what the drug markets were like before this disaster occurred. This analysis also includes some comparison cities where no disaster occurred, but which help inform the similarities and differences in drug markets in other cities. The data presented also include an initial analysis of ethnographic interview data from over 100 New Orleans Evacuees recruited in New Orleans and Houston.
Journal Article