the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Earthquake Response Timeliness: Disaster Managers Experience in Responding to Earthquakes in Iran
Abstract. This paper explores the timeliness of main response activities in the Bam earthquake in order to shed light in disaster response effectiveness in the aftermath of the earthquake. Disaster managers who were involved in disaster response activities in the Bam earthquake were selected using snowball sampling method and 30 participants were interviewed. The interviews data were analyzed applying thematic analysis method. The results showed that the extensive damage and large number of casualties challenged the local emergency response services. The problem was compounded by the lack of personnel in the first few hours after the earthquake. Iran’s disaster management system was not prepared to cope with a disaster of this scale. According to the interview data, a response timeline to the earthquake was developed for 48 hours after the earthquake that can assist disaster manager in designing a proper action plan (strategic response plan) prior to an earthquake in the region. This is an efficient way of dealing with disaster response challenges in the aftermath of earthquakes.
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Reza Hassanzadeh
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2023-12', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Jun 2023
This manuscript evaluates societal response timeliness on earthquake disasters, using the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran as an example. The data used for the evaluation consist of interviews with several actors in the emergency response chain that is processed and structured to extract significant information on the timeliness of different response actions. The paper concludes with general and specific recommendations on earthquake disaster response measures. Although the paper is readable, it requires extensive spell-checking before resubmission. The Figures are partly of inacceptable quality.
The scientific work presented belongs to the field of social sciences and does not exploit geoscientific or at least environmental information. It is solely based on interview information and uses socio-scientific methods, where I am not sure the general audience of NHESS is familiar with. Consequently, I may suggest to present this work to a journal in the field of social sciences. If, however, the work would be suitable for NHESS, I would recommend the authors to present the data and especially the methodology applied in much more detail, also accompanied by appropriate illustrations and presentations of examples.
Abstract: Please specify Magnitude, Location and Date of the Bam earthquake when first mentioning it.
P107: The mentioned “Thematic analysis” is not well-know to a geoscientific community, I may suppose. Please explain.
P153: Please explain “snowball sampling” applied to your data sufficiently using an example
P207: Which “criteria”? How many? Please specify
P213: How was the assignment done? Automatically? Manually? Please explain and provide examples
P216: Please supply a list or a Figure showing “thematic analysis”: “themes”, “criteria”, “assignement”…
Figure 2: What is shown in the map?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-12-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply to RC1', Reza Hassanzadeh, 19 Jun 2023
Reply to RC1
Dear Editor,
I greatly appreciate the valuable comments of reviewer. I have tried to incorporate changes to reflect all of the suggestions provided by the reviewers.
I have highlighted the changes within the manuscript. Here is a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments.
We hope the manuscript after careful revisions meet your high standards.
Yours sincerely,
RC1: (C: Reviever’s comment)
C: This manuscript evaluates societal response timeliness on earthquake disasters, using the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran as an example. The data used for the evaluation consist of interviews with several actors in the emergency response chain that is processed and structured to extract significant information on the timeliness of different response actions. The paper concludes with general and specific recommendations on earthquake disaster response measures. Although the paper is readable, it requires extensive spell-checking before resubmission. The Figures are partly of inacceptable quality.
Answer: I have read the paper several times and revised all spelling mistakes. Also, I have increased the quality of the figures and replaced them in the text.
C: The scientific work presented belongs to the field of social sciences and does not exploit geoscientific or at least environmental information. It is solely based on interview information and uses socio-scientific methods, where I am not sure the general audience of NHESS is familiar with. Consequently, I may suggest to present this work to a journal in the field of social sciences. If, however, the work would be suitable for NHESS, I would recommend the authors to present the data and especially the methodology applied in much more detail, also accompanied by appropriate illustrations and presentations of examples.
Answer: I have tried to review response phase activities timeliness in the aftermath of the Bam earthquaks. This paper will give readers an idea on what are the main respose activities and how they should be done in a timely manner. It will open up new questions regarding response activities by evelauting real situation in the Bam City after the earthquake occurrence.
C: Abstract: Please specify Magnitude, Location and Date of the Bam earthquake when first mentioning it.
Answer: I have revised the abstract as shown in the following:
Abstract. This paper explores the timeliness of main response activities in the Bam earthquake in order to shed light in disaster response effectiveness in the aftermath of the earthquake. Disaster managers who were involved in disaster response activities in the Bam earthquake (on 26 December 2003 with the magnitude of 6.3 mb) were selected using snowball sampling method and 30 participants were interviewed.
C: P107: The mentioned “Thematic analysis” is not well-know to a geoscientific community, I may suppose. Please explain.
Answer: I have explained “Thematic analysis” in line number 194 - 206 as mentioned in the following:
Transcribing the recording by the researcher helped an initial familiarisation with the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Through the transcribing process, all identifiable information was removed from the transcripts and the researcher called them interview 1 (Int1) to interview 30 (Int30). The unit of analysis is formed by individual lines of the transcript, and eachspoken passage contains a section in the transcripts. The coding was done manually using Excel software to be able to conduct the study using the well-known Thematic Analysis (TA) method (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun and Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting main themes in data that consists of the following stages, as seen in Figure 4. Based on this method, qualitative data were analized with aim of looking for patterns in the meaning of the data to find themes. “It is an active process of reflexivity in which the researcher's subjective experience is at the center of making sense of the data” (Braun and Clarke, 2006).
Figure 4. Thematic analysis flowchart
In order to facilitate analysing data deductively, in the early steps of analysis, “borrowing” concepts and codes from existing literature was utilized (Benaquisto and Given, 2008). Thus, the initial codes and concepts were identified by a review of existing literature documenting disaster response activities, timeliness and effectiveness in the aftermath of earthquakes, and concepts associated with disaster response metrics (Abir et al., 2017). These were mainly useful in terms of organizing the data relevant to borrowed themes (e.g. ‘response activities’, ‘warning and alerting’, ‘response timeliness’, ‘response effectiveness’, ‘resources distribution’ , etc.), specifically ‘timeliness and efficacy’ (Abir et al., 2017).
C: P153: Please explain “snowball sampling” applied to your data sufficiently using an example.
Answer: I have explained “snowball sampling” in line 153 and line 163 as follow:
They were selected based on the snowball sampling or chain-referral sampling method (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). In this method after observing the initial subject, the researcher asks for assistance from the subject to help identify people with a similar trait of interest. The researcher then observes the nominated subjects and continues in the same way until a sufficient number of subjects are obtained.
Disaster responders (managers and experts) in main organizations who were involved in the response activities to the Bam earthquake, and they were experienced in a variety of response activities to the other earthquake with varying degrees of education and age were selected by the researcher using snowball sampling method. This is a non-probability sampling method where new interviewee are introduced by other interviewees to form part of the sample.
C: P207: Which “criteria”? How many? Please specify.
Answer: This section was revised in line 213.
Three criteria were determined in order to assign data to different themes. These criteria were included as mentioned in the following: 1. which response activity participants was referred to, 2. the time of reaching to the damaged area by responders of that specific response activity, and 3. describing how that activity was done in the damaged area.
C: P213: How was the assignment done? Automatically? Manually? Please explain and provide examples.
Answer: This was mentioned in line 198.
The coding was done manually using Excel software to be able to conduct the study using well-known Thematic Analysis (TA) method (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun and Clarke, 2006).
C: P216: Please supply a list or a Figure showing “thematic analysis”: “themes”, “criteria”, “assignement”…
Answer: This was mentioned in line 215.
Thus, participant must referred to a specific response activity in their comments in order to be assigned to the specific code such as “alerting and warning, situational awareness (damage, loss and needs assessment), conducting USAR operations, evacuating casualties and providing medical services, delivering supplies and distributing resources, burying corpses, and international support”. In certain circumstances, it was difficult to clearly assign some comments solely to one particular component of cognitive process (theme). In such cases, the comments were attributed to relevant themes for completeness of data and then were analysed within the broader context of the results.
Figure 4. Thematic analysis flowchart
C: Figure 2: What is shown in the map?
Answer: I have redesigned the map. It is shown the geographical location of Bam city in Kerman Province, Southwest of Iran.
Figure 2. The geographical location of Bam city in Kerman Province, Southeast of Iran.
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AC1: 'Reply to RC1', Reza Hassanzadeh, 19 Jun 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2023-12', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Sep 2023
Summary
This paper presents a qualitative investigation of crisis response to Iran earthquakes (between 1981 and 2003). Based on interviewing and content analysis, the authors detail the manifestation of timeliness in an empirical case study that primarily comprise interviewing. The paper concludes by identifying critical aspects of timeliness and situational awareness.
Strengths
This paper provides a deep investigation of crisis response in Iran, a region from which crisis response remains less documented. The authors made the efforts to interview a diversified spectrum of actors. To that extent, the empirical data seems to be very rich and, in my view, can support conceptualization. Finally, timeliness is a burning challenge and is worth examining, in particular in relation to situational awareness.
Scope of investigation and methodology
The authors provide clear information about the diversity of organizations involved in earthquake response and also explain very well how they proceeded with data collection. However, I suggest that they clarify their peculiar interest in timeliness in the methodology section.
The findings section starts by mentioning that 8 themes were identified in the analysis of empirical data. My understanding is that all these themes relate to timeliness. The cognitive and methodological process by which the authors came up with the 8 themes and relate them to timeliness remains unclear to me. Did the authors first theoretically identify timeliness and then searched for its manifestation in empirical data? Or, alternatively, did they identify themes and then related these themes (in a more abductive fashion) to timeliness?
In every case, the reader needs more transparency and explanation of the authors’ choices and focus on timeliness. In particular, I invite them to explain when, and why, they focused on timeliness through the research.
Also, they could also explain whether they identified other themes in their research.
Qualitative research is frequently collaborative or, at least, led by dialogical reasoning (Klein & Myers, 1999). Had the authors any occasion to be challenged on their qualitative analysis? Confrontation of findings with peers and practitioners can drive research reliability and accountability. If the authors had any chance to refine their analysis by doing so, they should state it and explain how discussions, presentation or previous reviewing helped them refine their work.
Further conceptualization of timeliness
Consistently with my previous comments on the author’s focus on timeliness, I strongly recommend further exploration of the notion of timeliness (at least from a theoretical perspective). In my view, this concept is central to the paper and I strongly recommend the authors to define and further review it. They can relate on books that extensively documented time issues in crisis response (Hardt, 2014).
I also invite them to discuss this notion. What do we already know on the importance and impact of timeliness on crisis response, as well as its inner challenges? Also, by reviewing the literature, the authors might identify that many papers focus on time constraints and need for timely response (rather than focusing on timeliness). Hence, they might need to put into perspective the concept of timeliness with notions, such as time constraints and response.
In my view, further conceptualization of timeliness will also help the authors define the theoretical contribution of their work. In other words, they will more easily explain how their research enriched existing knowledge and approaches to this concept.
Relevance of the case study
The authors focus on a specific sequence of earthquakes that took place in Iran between 1981 and 2003 (20 years ago). At a global scale, the impact of natural hazards has increased, and disruptive events have multiplied and changed. Subsequently, governments have designed and implemented technologies and processes to address disasters and hazards. These technologies significantly change the course of any crisis response (for instance Copernicus was created in 1998, then social media developed).
This means that: i) other more recent cases do exist, ii) one could assume that the reality of disaster management has significantly changed since the events that the paper focuses on.
For this reason, I invite the authors to argue the relevance of the cases under study, rather than more recent cases.
Also, I invite the authors to further argue the generalizability of their findings, in particular the relevance of findings in light of more recent events that involved information sharing between organizations and on social media.
Theoretical foundation of concepts
The findings comprise the notion of situational awareness. However, the provided definition differs from the common definitions that can be found in the literature (the authors do not provide any formal definition on p.12). This is confusing for the reader. Empirically, the presented phenomenon (delays in understanding the loss and the need for resources), rather refers to difficulties inherent to sensemaking rather than situational awareness. Situational awareness can be defined as an individual or collective capacity to keep track of a situation, reflect it and anticipate what could be achieved, depending on the evolution of the situation (Fathi & Fiedrich, 2022). Both sensemaking and situational awareness are important in crisis response. However, the former is a means to reach the latter. In the findings, (line 256 and line 261), the verbatims rather express the difficulty to make sense of the situation because of the lack of resources.
For this reason, I would invite the authors to further put into perspective their data with the concepts they propose.
Findings structure
The articulation of the various elements provided by the authors in the findings section remains unclear. In particular, the reader needs to understand what the demonstration is about. Why do the authors focus on various occurrences of timeliness? Why these (and not others)? Do the authors want to highlight what the crisis responders managed to achieve in relation to timeliness? Or on the contrary, do they intend to point at sources of struggle for crisis responders? I invite the authors to clarify the meaning of each topic presented in the findings (as well as their interconnection). I think that they can improve the findings by explaining what they intend to demonstrate at the beginning of the section.
Also, they could further articulate the points that they present in the findings, but also in the discussion and conclusion. In particular, I would be curious to further understand whether timeliness in alerting and warning affected timeliness in delivering supplies and burying corpses (or whether the problems were independent).
Also, every subsection of the empirical findings comprises information about situational awareness. I strongly invite the authors to further explore, both empirically and theoretically, the connection between timeliness and situational awareness. I could easily figure that situational awareness supports timely reaction and response. However, the causal-effect could also work in the other direction (meaning that timely response is a way not to loose track of the crisis response and maintain a satisfactory level of situational awareness). In sum, I really think that the empirical cases are promising. But I believe that the authors could significantly improve the impact of their work by further theorizing and further articulation of the various notions (and facts).
Scientific contribution
I believe that further examining the ties between timeliness and situation awareness would help strengthen the contribution of the paper. The contribution to knowledge, theory and practice remains undetailed in this version of the paper.
English editing
The document requires extensive editing. The grammar of some sentences should be corrected and remain difficult to understand. For instance, the use of which/that is sometimes wrong.
Good luck with your paper!
References
Fathi, R., & Fiedrich, F. (2022). Social Media Analytics by Virtual Operations Support Teams in disaster management: Situational awareness and actionable information for decision-makers. Frontiers in Earth Science, 10, 941803. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.941803
Hardt, H. (2014). Time to react: The efficiency of international organizations in crisis response. Oxford University Press.
Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies in Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 23(1), 67–93. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/249410
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-12-RC2
Reza Hassanzadeh
Reza Hassanzadeh
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