the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Design and Testing of a Multi-Hazard Risk Rapid Assessment Questionnaire for Hill Communities in the Indian Himalayan Region
Shivani Chouhan
Mahua Mukherjee
Abstract. The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is prone to multiple hazards and suffers great loss of life and damage to infrastructure and property every year. Poor engineering construction, unplanned and unregulated development, and relatively low awareness and capacity in communities for supporting disaster risk mitigation are, directly and indirectly, contributing to the risk and severity of disasters.
A comprehensive review of various existing survey forms for Risk assessment has found that the survey questionnaires themselves have not been designed or optimized, specifically, for hill communities. Hill communities are distinctly different from low-land communities, with distinct characteristics and susceptibility to specific hazard and risk scenarios. Previous studies have, on the whole, underrepresented the specific characteristics of hill communities, and the increasing threat of natural disasters in the IHR creates an imperative to design hill-specific questionnaires for multi-hazards risk assessment.
The main objective of this study is to design and test a hill-specific risk assessment survey form that contains more accurate information for hill communities and hill-based infrastructure and allows for the surveys to be completed efficiently and in less time. The enhanced survey form is described herein and is validated through a pilot survey at several locations in the hills of Uttarakhand, India. The survey form covers data related to vulnerability from Earthquake (Rapid Visual Screening), Flood, Landslide, High Wind, Industrial, etc. The proposed form is self-explanatory, pictorial with easy terminologies, and is divided into various sections for a better understanding of the surveyor, etc.
The testing and validation process confirmed that the survey questionnaire performed well and met expectations in its application. The form is readily transferrable to other locations in the IHR and could be internationalized and used throughout the Himalaya.
Shivani Chouhan and Mahua Mukherjee
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2022-91', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jun 2022
- Topic selected for study is appropriate, however, the treatment is not up to the mark.
- References cited are not correct and some references are missing.
- Paper claims about multi hazard risk assessment, however, there is not explanation given on how various hazards and risks are integrated.
- Table 2 show the comparison of survey forms. Some of the hazards mentioned are not relevant to the methods listed, e.g., NDMA forms is only meant to earthquake risk, it has no mention of floods, 2) There is no mention of high winds in BMTPC form. It is suggested to mention only the objectives for which the individual forms have been generated.
- Also, manuscript is largely in the report format I.e., with bullets and objective mentioned in the form of flow chart. It is suggested to follow research paper.
- Refereces:
- Some of the links provided as references are not either not available or there no paper by that references.
- E.g. 1)Pradesh, H., Pradeep, R. and Anoop, K. (2016) ‘Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies’, Natural 672 Hazards. Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3.
- Full author list is needed in the paper “Aksha, S. K. et al. (2020) ‘A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in’, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk. 604 Taylor & Francis, 11(1), pp. 88–111. doi: 10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580.”
- IS-1893 has been revised in 2016. Subsequently there were two amendments. However, authors still use 2002 version.
- Authors have prepared a comprehensive multi-hazard form however, they have not indicated how the multi-hazard is computed.
- Title of the paper says “Design and Testing of Multi-hazard Rapid assessment questionnaire”. However, neither Design part is not discussed in detail nor the testing part is not discussed. It is suggested to include the same for better understanding by the readers.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-91-RC1 -
RC2: 'Reply on RC1', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Jun 2022
Please, see the comments in the attached PDF file
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
Dear Referee/ Editor,
We would like to thank the reviewer for their positive and insightful comments on the manuscript. Our responses to the comments has been attached for your reference.
We would like to thank the referees once again for taking the time to examine our manuscript. Our manuscript quality has been enhanced by your comments and suggestions.
Thanking you
Best Regards
Shivani Chouhan (author 1)
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
We would like to thank the reviewers for their positive and insightful comments on the manuscript. Our responses to the comments are given below:
Comment (R1)-1: Topic selected for study is appropriate, however, the treatment is not up to the mark.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer for pointing this out. Taking this comment into consideration, we have revised the title as follow: “Design and Application of a Multi Hazard Risk Assessment Survey Questionnaire for the Indian Himalayan Region”. Replaced ‘testing’ with ‘application’.
Comment (R1)-2: References cited are not correct and some references are missing.
Response: Taking this important comment into consideration, we have corrected and included the missing references.
Comment (R1)-3: Paper claims about multi hazard risk assessment, however, there is no explanation given on how various hazards and risks are integrated.
Response: Taking this comment into consideration, we have added Results of Pilot Survey in section 4.5. for better clarity and improved the discussion on multi-hazard risk assessment in Section 5.3.
Comment (R1)-4: Table 2 show the comparison of survey forms. Some of the hazards mentioned are not relevant to the methods listed, e.g.,
1)NDMA forms is only meant to earthquake risk, it has no mention of floods,
Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s insightful observation and we agree that NDMA forms have major concern towards earthquake risk, but NDMA forms also shows concern towards flood. In (NDMA, 2020) form under Soil & foundation conditions, it shows concern towards building built on river terrace, ground with high water table, liquefiable soil etc. i.e. multi-hazards.
2) There is no mention of high winds in BMTPC form. It is suggested to mention only the objectives for which the individual forms have been generated.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s insightful suggestion. I would like to highlight that BMTPC (Refer Table 5- Damage Risk to Housing under Various Hazard Intensities of BMTPC, 2019) shows vulnerability of houses towards earthquakes, wind/cyclones, floods etc. Thus, this form includes concern for other hazards.
Comment (R1)-5: Also, manuscript is largely in the report format i.e., with bullets and objective mentioned in the form of flow chart. It is suggested to follow research paper.
Response: We have revised it in section 3.1, 3.3.2.1, 4.2 and 4.2.1 of the manuscript.
Comment (R1)-6: References: Some of the links provided as references are not either not available or there no paper by that reference
E.g. 1)Pradesh, H., Pradeep, R. and Anoop, K. (2016) ‘Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies’, Natural 672 Hazards. Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3.
Eg.2) Full author list is needed in the paper “Aksha, S. K. et al.(2020) ‘A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in’, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk. 604 Taylor & Francis, 11(1), pp. 88–111. doi: 10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580.”
Response: We have updated this section as per referencing format of the Journal. Some of the modifications are as follow:
Eg.1: Kumar, S. A., Rajaram, C., Mishra, S., Kumar, R. P., and Karnath, A.: Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies in Himachal Pradesh, India, Nat Hazards, 85(3), 1851-1875, doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3, (2016).
Eg.2: Sanam, K. A., Lynn, M. R., Luke, j., and Laurence, W. C. Jr.: A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in Dharan, Nepal, Geomatics, Nat. Hazards Risk., 11(1), 88-111, https://doi.org/10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580, 2020.
IS-1893 has been revised in 2016. Subsequently there were two amendments. However, authors still use 2002 version.
Response: We would like to thank the reviewer for this positive evaluation. Taking this comment into consideration, we have added the IS Code 2016 provisions in section 4.4 of the manuscript as suggested.
Comment (R1)-7: Authors have prepared a comprehensive multi-hazard form however; they have not indicated how the multi-hazard is computed.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer for highlighting this point and we agree that step wise detail of multi-hazard risk computation is not part of the manuscript, as scope of Risk Calculation study by itself is huge and we have plan to detail it in separate article. Taking this comment into consideration, we have updated basic Multi-Hazard Risk Computation in section 4.4 and added Results of Pilot Survey in section 4.5. This will improve clarity about risk computation using this proposed Survey form. The aim behind this manuscript is to design a Hill specific MHRA Survey form that simplifies data collection process with higher level of respondents’ involvement.
Comment (R1)-8: Title of the paper says “Design and Testing of Multi-hazard Rapid assessment questionnaire”. However, neither Design part is not discussed in detail nor the testing part is not discussed. It is suggested to include the same for better understanding by the readers.
As mentioned earlier, we have revised the title as follow: “Design and Application of a Multi Hazard Risk Assessment Survey Questionnaire for the Indian Himalayan Region”. The design methodology has been updated in section 3.1, Overall research methodology is updated in section 3.2 and figure 2. Application and discussion of the proposed survey form has been added in section 4.5 and section 5.0 of the manuscript.
We would like to thank the referees once again for taking the time to examine our manuscript. Our manuscript quality has been enhanced by your comments and suggestions.
Thank you
Best Regards
Shivani Chouhan (author 1)
Prof. Mahua Mukherjee (author 2)
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2022-91', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jun 2022
- Topic selected for study is appropriate, however, the treatment is not up to the mark.
- References cited are not correct and some references are missing.
- Paper claims about multi hazard risk assessment, however, there is not explanation given on how various hazards and risks are integrated.
- Table 2 show the comparison of survey forms. Some of the hazards mentioned are not relevant to the methods listed, e.g., NDMA forms is only meant to earthquake risk, it has no mention of floods, 2) There is no mention of high winds in BMTPC form. It is suggested to mention only the objectives for which the individual forms have been generated.
- Also, manuscript is largely in the report format I.e., with bullets and objective mentioned in the form of flow chart. It is suggested to follow research paper.
- Refereces:
- Some of the links provided as references are not either not available or there no paper by that references.
- E.g. 1)Pradesh, H., Pradeep, R. and Anoop, K. (2016) ‘Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies’, Natural 672 Hazards. Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3.
- Full author list is needed in the paper “Aksha, S. K. et al. (2020) ‘A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in’, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk. 604 Taylor & Francis, 11(1), pp. 88–111. doi: 10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580.”
- IS-1893 has been revised in 2016. Subsequently there were two amendments. However, authors still use 2002 version.
- Authors have prepared a comprehensive multi-hazard form however, they have not indicated how the multi-hazard is computed.
- Title of the paper says “Design and Testing of Multi-hazard Rapid assessment questionnaire”. However, neither Design part is not discussed in detail nor the testing part is not discussed. It is suggested to include the same for better understanding by the readers.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-91-RC1 -
RC2: 'Reply on RC1', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Jun 2022
Please, see the comments in the attached PDF file
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
Dear Referee/ Editor,
We would like to thank the reviewer for their positive and insightful comments on the manuscript. Our responses to the comments has been attached for your reference.
We would like to thank the referees once again for taking the time to examine our manuscript. Our manuscript quality has been enhanced by your comments and suggestions.
Thanking you
Best Regards
Shivani Chouhan (author 1)
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Shivani Chouhan, 29 Jul 2022
We would like to thank the reviewers for their positive and insightful comments on the manuscript. Our responses to the comments are given below:
Comment (R1)-1: Topic selected for study is appropriate, however, the treatment is not up to the mark.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer for pointing this out. Taking this comment into consideration, we have revised the title as follow: “Design and Application of a Multi Hazard Risk Assessment Survey Questionnaire for the Indian Himalayan Region”. Replaced ‘testing’ with ‘application’.
Comment (R1)-2: References cited are not correct and some references are missing.
Response: Taking this important comment into consideration, we have corrected and included the missing references.
Comment (R1)-3: Paper claims about multi hazard risk assessment, however, there is no explanation given on how various hazards and risks are integrated.
Response: Taking this comment into consideration, we have added Results of Pilot Survey in section 4.5. for better clarity and improved the discussion on multi-hazard risk assessment in Section 5.3.
Comment (R1)-4: Table 2 show the comparison of survey forms. Some of the hazards mentioned are not relevant to the methods listed, e.g.,
1)NDMA forms is only meant to earthquake risk, it has no mention of floods,
Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s insightful observation and we agree that NDMA forms have major concern towards earthquake risk, but NDMA forms also shows concern towards flood. In (NDMA, 2020) form under Soil & foundation conditions, it shows concern towards building built on river terrace, ground with high water table, liquefiable soil etc. i.e. multi-hazards.
2) There is no mention of high winds in BMTPC form. It is suggested to mention only the objectives for which the individual forms have been generated.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s insightful suggestion. I would like to highlight that BMTPC (Refer Table 5- Damage Risk to Housing under Various Hazard Intensities of BMTPC, 2019) shows vulnerability of houses towards earthquakes, wind/cyclones, floods etc. Thus, this form includes concern for other hazards.
Comment (R1)-5: Also, manuscript is largely in the report format i.e., with bullets and objective mentioned in the form of flow chart. It is suggested to follow research paper.
Response: We have revised it in section 3.1, 3.3.2.1, 4.2 and 4.2.1 of the manuscript.
Comment (R1)-6: References: Some of the links provided as references are not either not available or there no paper by that reference
E.g. 1)Pradesh, H., Pradeep, R. and Anoop, K. (2016) ‘Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies’, Natural 672 Hazards. Springer Netherlands. doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3.
Eg.2) Full author list is needed in the paper “Aksha, S. K. et al.(2020) ‘A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in’, Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk. 604 Taylor & Francis, 11(1), pp. 88–111. doi: 10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580.”
Response: We have updated this section as per referencing format of the Journal. Some of the modifications are as follow:
Eg.1: Kumar, S. A., Rajaram, C., Mishra, S., Kumar, R. P., and Karnath, A.: Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies in Himachal Pradesh, India, Nat Hazards, 85(3), 1851-1875, doi: 10.1007/s11069-016-2668-3, (2016).
Eg.2: Sanam, K. A., Lynn, M. R., Luke, j., and Laurence, W. C. Jr.: A geospatial analysis of multi-hazard risk in Dharan, Nepal, Geomatics, Nat. Hazards Risk., 11(1), 88-111, https://doi.org/10.1080/19475705.2019.1710580, 2020.
IS-1893 has been revised in 2016. Subsequently there were two amendments. However, authors still use 2002 version.
Response: We would like to thank the reviewer for this positive evaluation. Taking this comment into consideration, we have added the IS Code 2016 provisions in section 4.4 of the manuscript as suggested.
Comment (R1)-7: Authors have prepared a comprehensive multi-hazard form however; they have not indicated how the multi-hazard is computed.
Response: We appreciate the reviewer for highlighting this point and we agree that step wise detail of multi-hazard risk computation is not part of the manuscript, as scope of Risk Calculation study by itself is huge and we have plan to detail it in separate article. Taking this comment into consideration, we have updated basic Multi-Hazard Risk Computation in section 4.4 and added Results of Pilot Survey in section 4.5. This will improve clarity about risk computation using this proposed Survey form. The aim behind this manuscript is to design a Hill specific MHRA Survey form that simplifies data collection process with higher level of respondents’ involvement.
Comment (R1)-8: Title of the paper says “Design and Testing of Multi-hazard Rapid assessment questionnaire”. However, neither Design part is not discussed in detail nor the testing part is not discussed. It is suggested to include the same for better understanding by the readers.
As mentioned earlier, we have revised the title as follow: “Design and Application of a Multi Hazard Risk Assessment Survey Questionnaire for the Indian Himalayan Region”. The design methodology has been updated in section 3.1, Overall research methodology is updated in section 3.2 and figure 2. Application and discussion of the proposed survey form has been added in section 4.5 and section 5.0 of the manuscript.
We would like to thank the referees once again for taking the time to examine our manuscript. Our manuscript quality has been enhanced by your comments and suggestions.
Thank you
Best Regards
Shivani Chouhan (author 1)
Prof. Mahua Mukherjee (author 2)
Shivani Chouhan and Mahua Mukherjee
Shivani Chouhan and Mahua Mukherjee
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