Flood inundation maps derived from coupled hydrologic-hydraulic models are highly sensitive to input data resolution. However, the relative importance of rainfall temporal and terrain spatial resolutions—and their interaction—remains insufficiently quantified in large-basin flood inundation mapping. This study systematically evaluates these effects using a factorial experiment combining rainfall data at 1, 3, 6, and 12 h and digital elevation models (DEMs) at 25, 50, 100, and 250 m resolutions for the June 2024 extreme flood in the Hanjiang Basin, China ( 30,000 km2). With 1 h rainfall, coarsening DEM spatial resolution from 25 to 50, 100, and 250 m increases inundation area by 41, 82, and 277
Bangladesh is increasingly experiencing severe heatwaves, which remain an overlooked hazard disproportionately affecting people with disabilities because of structural, environmental, and social barriers. This qualitative community-based study explores how people with disabilities in urban and suburban Bangladesh experience and cope with extreme heat through a decolonial framework that centers lived experiences, community knowledge, and everyday adaptation practices. Between July and September 2025, eight semistructured interviews were conducted in Dhaka, Rajshahi, and Pabna with participants experiencing mobility, intellectual, and speech disabilities, including caregiver-supported interviews where direct communication was not possible. Data were analyzed using relational thematic analysis informed by decolonial qualitative methodologies. Findings reveal that heatwaves intensify physical and mental health challenges, disrupt mobility and livelihoods, and expose significant gaps in healthcare, infrastructure, accessible communication, and institutional preparedness. At the same time, family care networks, spiritual practices, and community solidarity emerged as critical forms of resilience and adaptation. The study argues that heatwaves should be recognized as inclusive disaster risks within Bangladesh’s disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation frameworks. Embedding disability-inclusive planning, accessible infrastructure, and community-based support systems into heatwave preparedness is essential for equitable resilience and climate justice.
Social capital is considered to protect health when facing natural hazard-related disasters and pandemics. We further differentiated the effects of increased and decreased cognitive social capital (measured using generalized trust, trust in neighbors, trust in local government officials, and reciprocity) on depressive symptoms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and examined the moderating effect of household income on these effects, while controlling for unobserved time-invariant factors. Using follow-up data from the 2018 and 2020 China Family Panel Studies (N = 14,908), we conducted asymmetric fixed-effects regression. We found that decreased generalized trust and decreased reciprocity were associated with greater depressive symptoms, whereas their increased components were not associated with depressive symptoms. Furthermore, decreased equivalized household income exacerbated the effect of decreased reciprocity on greater depressive symptoms. Therefore, attention should be paid to preventing cognitive social capital decline to safeguard mental health during a pandemic, especially for people with declining household income. Future studies and policies should consider the distinct health effects of increased and decreased social capital when facing a pandemic.
Abstract Earthquake impacts vary dramatically across countries experiencing comparable seismic hazard, indicating that prevention capacity plays a fundamental role in shaping human and economic losses. In this study, we introduce the Global Seismic Prevention Index (GSPI), a composite and reproducible metric designed to quantify national seismic prevention capacity across seven structural, institutional, and societal domains, including building code enforcement, early warning systems, urban planning, governance, preparedness, retrofitting, and exposure–vulnerability profiles. The GSPI is applied to 12 earthquake-prone countries using harmonized global datasets spanning 1970–2024, integrating earthquake impacts from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), seismic parameters from the USGS, and population and economic baselines from the World Bank. To evaluate real-world consequences, three normalized impact indicators are computed: Fatality Rate (FR), Casualty Efficiency (CE), and Damage-to-GDP ratio (DG). Results reveal distinct descriptive groupings of prevention capacity across countries, while principal component analysis identifies a dominant pattern of covariation among the seven GSPI domains. The GSPI provides a robust framework for benchmarking prevention architectures and diagnosing structural weaknesses in seismic governance. The findings highlight the need for event-level and time-resolved analyses to isolate prevention effects and support evidence-based disaster risk reduction policies.
Abstract Under the dual pressures of climate change and rapid urbanization, flood risk in the Dongting Lake region, a key grain-producing area in China, has intensified over the past two decades. However, the spatiotemporal change and driving mechanisms of flood exposure in this region remain unclear, constraining effective flood risk reduction and management. Using multi-source remote sensing imagery and population data, this study quantified population exposure during five typical floods (August 2002, July 2010, July 2016, July 2017, and July 2020) in the Dongting Lake region between 2000 and 2020, and selected comparable floods to analyze exposure dynamics. An XGBoost-SHAP framework was further applied to examine the nonlinear effects of environmental and socioeconomic factors on flood exposure. The findings show that: (1) Of the Dongting Lake floodplain areas, 93.2% are at low flood exposure, with moderate to high exposure concentrated near urban areas and tributaries. (2) The proportion of flood-exposed population around East Dongting Lake showed a persistent upward trend, with decomposition analysis indicating that changes in inundation expansion contributed more strongly to this trend than population redistribution. (3) Population density, building density, annual average temperature, terrain wetness index, and vegetation cover were important drivers shaping flood exposure patterns. This study offers insights for flood resilience planning in lakeside urban areas along the Yangtze River and supports adaptive flood management under climate change.
