Download Extreme Weather Events: Infrastructure Damage and Impact on

Extreme Weather Events:
Infrastructure Damage
and Impact on Vulnerable
Populations
Cindy L. Parker MD, MPH
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
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Climate change: A risk
amplifier
Often affecting the social determinants of
health
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Heat Waves
• More frequent, more severe, lasting longer
• Worse in the Northern Hemisphere
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Heat-related Deaths during
1995 Chicago Heat Wave
MMWR, August 11, 1995, 44(31):577-579
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U.S. EPA, Heat Island Effect
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Baltimore’s Urban Heat Island
Effect
NASA images by Robert Simmon, based on data from the National Land Cover
Database and Landsat 7.
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Heat Stress: Risk Factors for Harm


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

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Being very young
Being elderly
Living in the inner-city
Being poor
Having chronic medical conditions
Being socially isolated
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70,000+ Died of Heat Stress in Western
Europe during Summer 2003
Most
Vulnerable
•Elderly
•Poor
-Couldn’t leave cities
(Italy)
•Urban (except Spain)
•NOT infants, children
•↑mortality in cities that
also had ↑ozone and
PM10 levels
•Social isolation
Western Europe: Summer 2003 temperatures relative to 2000-2004
From NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, courtesy of Reto Stöckli
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One-Meter Sea Level Rise in Southern
U.S.
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Sea Level Rise in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
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Health Effects of Sea-Level
Rise
• Inundation of living areas; expansion of flood
plains, inability to get insurance
 Erosion and loss of coastal land


Worsening protection against future storm surge
Contamination of fresh water

Coastal wells tend to be shallow

Population displacement
 Mental health effects
 Loss of critical infrastructure

Hurricane Katrina as example
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Health Care After Katrina
• Of 7 hospitals “pre-K”
– 2007, only 1 operating fully, 2 partially
– 2010, 5 hospitals in full operation
• Hundreds of doctors never returned, others are
leaving
• Many people newly uninsured
• Doctors won’t come back until there are patients and
facilities, patients won’t come back until there are
doctors
• Blocking economic revival
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3-day average Sea Surface
Temp
27.8°C=82°
F
27.8° C
needed for
hurricanes
to
strengthen
Min 26° C
needed for
hurricanes
to form.
Adapted from NEJM, October 6, 2005, 353;14
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More Hurricanes with Climate
Change?
• Likely more in some areas; fewer in others
• Hurricanes that do form are likely to be
stronger
• Hurricanes that do form are likely to hold—
and drop—more water
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How Does Climate Change Affect
Water Supplies?
• More precipitation expected to fall as rain instead of
snow
• Reduced snowpacks, which release water slowly
throughout the summer
• Earlier melting of snowpacks—flooding, low flows in
late spring and summer when irrigation demands
greatest
• Snowpacks in Cascade mountains in OR, WA drop
by 60% reducing summer stream flows by 20-50%
• Glaciers melting (Alps, Andes, Himalayas)
– 1/6 of the global population relies on water from melting
Himalayan glaciers for their water supply
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Health Effects of Droughts

Concentrate micro-organisms and contaminants
in water supplies

Crop failures (current)


>1 billion people hungry
>5 million children die starvation every year

Water shortages for hygiene

Increase risk of forest fires

Increase risk of infectious disease
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Droughts and Famine


30-40% of disaster-related deaths
Causes of famine—usually multifactorial
–
–
–
–
–
Global climate change
Natural variation
Water overuse/mismanagement
Regional deforestation or forest fires
Loss of healthy soil from erosion, salting from overirrigation, overuse leading to nutrients exhausted
– Conflict
– Ecosystem failure
Worldwatch Institute, 2001
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Hurricane Katrina & The Bayou
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Louisiana Wetlands Lost

1500 sq mi lost since 1940
– Loss of Mississippi sediment
– Canals dug for oil and gas


Nutria introduced in 1930s
25+ sq. miles disappearing every year
– 217 sq. miles lost from Katrina
– Katrina pushed salt water far up into marsh
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Potential Actions to Reduce Disastrous
Consequences of Disasters
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
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Reversing environmental degradation
– Protecting, replacing natural environmental
buffers
Early warning systems
Improved evacuation and disaster response
Sensible zoning—stop building in high-risk areas
Voluntary relocation of people & infrastructure in
high-risk areas
Health professionals can get involved in local policymaking, such as zoning
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Ecosystem Restoration
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
Watch this brief video for a great example of a
restoration here in Maryland
http://ecosystemrestoration.com/bishopvillevideo/
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