Search results

AbstractThis paper probes the perspectives of resistance against large‐scale surface mining in developing countries. It draws extensively on scientific literature, governance sector policies and interventions, and mining industry reports. The paper finds that in resource‐rich developing countries, land use is the dominant issue between the mining industry and local communities. Communities that do not have previous experience with mining usually base their resistance on perception, uncertainties, and outside informants. It also found that the basic causes of local resistance are limited to narratives and impression management. Whilst a recognition of mechanisms developed by governments, the industry, and the scientific community toward addressing local communities' concerns is crucial, these approaches are rather inhibitory to mediations between the mining sector and host communities. There is the need to develop new mechanisms that would enhance mediation for optimum mining sector development in local space. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

AbstractWe investigate how distance from healthcare centres affects service utilization for women and children. Relying on five rounds of recent nationally representative demographic and health survey data from Bangladesh, our logistic regression analyses reveal that proximity to healthcare centres barely affects the utilization of healthcare services for women and children, even in rural areas. Interestingly, this indicates that the government's preferred Community Clinics have not significantly contributed to the country's uptake of healthcare services. The low‐service utilization may result from their poor standard at the local health centres indicating that improving the service quality can help Bangladesh raise the uptake of healthcare services.

AbstractThe accurate evaluation of public transport (PT) services in developing countries is a challenging task due to a lack of reliable data and formal guidelines. The aim of this study was to develop a framework addressing these data limitations and quantify PT performance using output‐oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The local bus service operation of Chattogram City Corporation area of Bangladesh was used as a case study. A performance assessment inventory was developed identifying the major stakeholders related to local bus service operations. The relative efficiencies of different bus routes (from users' and operators' perspectives) were estimated using the DEA model, which incorporated data from a semi‐structured questionnaire survey linked with the inventory. The PT authority also ranked all bus routes according to their degree of efficiency. Results indicated that relative efficiency scores in various routes varied according to the stakeholders' perspectives. A range of different parameters were considered when evaluating the performance of the service. The proposed inventory and framework would be useful for policymakers and urban planners in sequencing and prioritising different routes. This optimisation process would provide improved transport services to the general public.

Abstract
A database of lightning-related deaths and injuries in Bangladesh was developed from 1990 to mid-2016 from a variety of sources that contains a total of 5468 casualties, composed of 3086 fatalities and 2382 injuries. Spatial, temporal, and demographic aspects of these lightning casualties are evaluated in order to aid relevant entities in effective management of lightning-related meteorological hazards. The annual averages for Bangladesh are 114 fatalities and 89 injuries over the entire period. Weighting by population reveals a fatality rate of 0.92 per million people per year and an injury rate of 0.71. In contrast, the latest 6 years have a fatality rate of 1.6 and injury rate of 1.4. The rural portion of lightning fatalities is 93%. Most fatalities occurred between early morning (0600 LST) and early evening (2000). Through the year, more fatalities occur during the premonsoon season of March through May than during the monsoon season (June–September). The interannual time series of fatalities indicates an increase since the late 2000s, which is a result of greatly improved communications leading to better media reporting of lightning casualties. Bangladesh has also become much more populous in recent years. As a result, the most recent 6 years have 251 fatalities per year, which may be considered as the current estimate. The majority of lightning-related deaths occurred to males. Farming is the major activity at the time of lightning fatalities followed by being inside a dwelling and returning home or walking around homesteads/courtyards.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project passes through the Karakoram Highway in northern Pakistan, which is one of the most hazardous regions of the world. The most common hazards in this region are landslides and debris flows, which result in loss of life and severe infrastructure damage every year. This study assessed geohazards (landslides and debris flows) and developed susceptibility maps by considering four standalone machine-learning and statistical approaches, namely, Logistic Regression (LR), Shannon Entropy (SE),Weights-of-Evidence (WoE), and Frequency Ratio (FR) models. To this end, geohazard inventories were prepared using remote sensing techniques with field observations and historical hazard datasets. The spatial relationship of thirteen conditioning factors, namely, slope (degree), distance to faults, geology, elevation, distance to rivers, slope aspect, distance to road, annual mean rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index, profile curvature, stream power index, topographic wetness index, and land cover, with hazard distribution was analyzed. The results showed that faults, slope angles, elevation, lithology, land cover, and mean annual rainfall play a key role in controlling the spatial distribution of geohazards in the study area. The final susceptibility maps were validated against ground truth points and by plotting Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) curves. According to the AUROC curves, the success rates of the LR, WoE, FR, and SE models were 85.30%, 76.00, 74.60%, and 71.40%, and their prediction rates were 83.10%, 75.00%, 73.50%, and 70.10%, respectively; these values show higher performance of LR over the other three models. Furthermore, 11.19%, 9.24%, 10.18%, 39.14%, and 30.25% of the areas corresponded to classes of very-high, high, moderate, low, and very-low susceptibility, respectively. The developed geohazard susceptibility map can be used by relevant government officials for the smooth implementation of the CPEC project at the regional scale.

AbstractA World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Climatology international panel was convened to examine and assess the available evidence associated with five weather-related mortality extremes: 1) lightning (indirect), 2) lightning (direct), 3) tropical cyclones, 4) tornadoes, and 5) hail. After recommending for acceptance of only events after 1873 (the formation of the predecessor of the WMO), the committee evaluated and accepted the following mortality extremes: 1) "highest mortality (indirect strike) associated with lightning" as the 469 people killed in a lightning-caused oil tank fire in Dronka, Egypt, on 2 November 1994; 2) "highest mortality directly associated with a single lightning flash" as the lightning flash that killed 21 people in a hut in Manica Tribal Trust Lands, Zimbabwe (at time of incident, eastern Rhodesia), on 23 December 1975; 3) "highest mortality associated with a tropical cyclone" as the Bangladesh (at time of incident, East Pakistan) cyclone of 12–13 November 1970 with an estimated death toll of 300 000 people; 4) "highest mortality associated with a tornado" as the 26 April 1989 tornado that destroyed the Manikganj district, Bangladesh, with an estimated death toll of 1300 individuals; and 5) "highest mortality associated with a hailstorm" as the storm occurring near Moradabad, India, on 30 April 1888 that killed 246 people. These mortality extremes serve to further atmospheric science by giving baseline mortality values for comparison to future weather-related catastrophes and also allow for adjudication of new meteorological information as it becomes available.