Effectiveness of evacuation facilities in Honiara City, Solomon Islands: a spatial perspective

Reginald Reuben () and John H. Lowry ()
Additional contact information
Reginald Reuben: Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology
John H. Lowry: The University of the South Pacific

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2016, vol. 82, issue 1, No 13, 227-244

Abstract: Abstract Urban areas in South Pacific island countries are experiencing the effects of natural disasters related to extreme weather events, cyclones and flooding. The aim of this study was to evaluate 27 existing evacuation facilities in Honiara City and nearby areas from a spatial perspective. We use the concept of “service areas” to determine whether a given facility, or all facilities taken collectively, is accessible to the populations within its geographic proximity. To determine geographic proximity, we use the network analysis capabilities of a geographic information system (GIS) to establish service areas. Service areas are defined as the area within which people can reach a facility along a road network in a given amount of time based on the cost, or impedance, of travel along the network. Using this approach, we use the overlay capabilities of the GIS to estimate the percentage of each facility’s service area that “captures” the populations, or areas, in greatest need. With GIS census data, road network data, flood hazard data and evacuation facility data from the recent April 2014 extreme weather event, we examine the relative effectiveness of the existing facilities. We focus on disasters associated with severe weather, especially flooding and storm surge. Our analysis suggests that the 27 existing evacuation facilities in Honiara and nearby areas taken collectively provide reasonably good coverage of those populations in greatest need in a flooding or storm-surge event. However, we also find some facilities are poorly located and subsequently under used.

Keywords: GIS; Evacuation facilities; Risk assessment; Hazards; Vulnerability; Network analysis; Service areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-016-2189-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:82:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2189-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2189-0

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().