Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Earthquakes – Nepal'

Background:  Earthquakes and other natural disasters have increased over recent years, more people around the world are living with disabilities. The physical therapists have an important role to increase function and restore quality of life. Although it is stated that early rehabilitation intervention is an essential part of the health response there is limited information about the work and the experiences from physical therapists.  Aim: The aim of this study is to examine physical therapists’ experiences after the earthquakes in Nepal 2015.  Design: This study had a qualitative exploratory design, based on five individual semi-structured interviews using the communication platform zoom. The data was analysed by a qualitative content analysis and had an inductive approach.   Result: The physical therapists’ describes a chaotic situation, the psychological vulnerability in patients made it challenging to motivate and keep the patients focused on their rehabilitation. The huge influx of patients made it hard for the physical therapists to manage their time and led to compromised treatments and the need of early discharge of patients. The physical therapists had dual experiences about their role in the healthcare teams. There was a clear system on how to prioritize the patients based on severity of injuries. Conclusion: This study showed that physical therapists in Nepal had an important role from acute care to follow-up after the earthquakes. The study provides an insight from physical therapists in disaster settings and may contribute to identify barriers in performing their work tasks in future disaster settings.
Bakgrund: Jordbävningar och andra naturkatastrofer har ökat de senaste åren, fler människor runt om i världen lever med kvarstående funktionshinder. Fysioterapeuterna har en viktig roll genom att öka funktionen och återställa livskvaliteten hos dessa patienter. Även om det tydligt anges att en tidig rehabiliteringsinsats är en väsentlig del av arbetet finns det begränsad information om erfarenheterna från fysioterapeuter. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka fysioterapeuters erfarenheter efter jordbävningarna i Nepal 2015. Metod: Denna studie hade en kvalitativ utforskande design, baserad på fem individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer med hjälp av kommunikationsplattformen zoom. Data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys och hade en induktiv ansats. Resultatsammanfattning: Fysioterapeuterna beskriver en kaotisk situation, den psykologiska sårbarheten hos patienter gjorde det svårt att motivera och hålla patienterna fokuserade på deras rehabilitering. En stor tillströmning av patienter gjorde det svårt för fysioterapeuterna att hantera sin tid och detta ledde till att behandlingar behövde kompromissas och ökade behovet av tidig utskrivning av patienter. Fysioterapeuterna hade tvetydiga erfarenheter av sin roll i vårdteamet. Det fanns ett tydligt system för hur man skulle prioritera patienterna baserat på svårighetsgraden av skador. Slutsats: Denna studie visar att fysioterapeuter i Nepal hade en viktig roll för patienten efter jordbävningarna, en roll som sträcker sig från akutvården till uppföljning. Studien ger tydlig insikt i hur fysioterapeuterna upplevde sitt jobb vilket skulle kunna bidra till identifiering av hinder för fysioterapeuter i utförandet sina uppgifter vid framtida katastrofsituationer.

Master of Science
Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Jessica L. Heier Stamm
Coordination between humanitarian organizations is critical during the response effort to a disaster, as coordinating aid improves efficiency, reduces duplication of efforts, and ultimately leads to better outcomes for beneficiaries. One particular challenge arises when temporary facilities must be established post-disaster due to the destruction of buildings. For example, the 2015 Nepal earthquakes created a need for the placement of over 4,000 temporary learning facilities after several school buildings were damaged or destroyed. It is important that humanitarians coordinate well to fill these needs efficiently and effectively, while maintaining equity among beneficiaries in the affected areas. This means ensuring that enough facilities are provided in a timely manner, and are distributed fairly to all in need. The goals of this thesis are to study coordination strategies focusing primarily on the placement of temporary educational facilities for children following a disaster. This research also aims to gather useful data by surveying active humanitarians in order to better understand their decisions made in the field. This work uses the results of this survey, along with publicly available data published after the 2015 Nepal earthquakes to create an agent-based simulation model, and uses the Nepal case study to demonstrate the efficacy of the model framework. This research finds that organizations' initial location of operation can greatly impact the number of facilities they are collectively able to establish, the geographic disparity across the region, and the organizations' utilization. Specifically, while focusing efforts on the districts with the most need is most efficient and effective, a more uniform approach yields a more equitable response. This work also finds that there can be a trade-off between overall effectiveness and the number of partnerships established in the field. These findings show a need for further study into the intricacies of coordination between humanitarian workers. This author advocates for the use of information sharing mechanisms among practitioners, as well as further utilization of agent-based modeling as a means of studying the complex nature of disaster response. Specifically there is a need to further study educational needs as a logistical problem, and strategies for solving the post-disaster facility location problem.

Field observations of the Greater Himalayan Sequence in Eastern Nepal demonstrate a ductile, highly strained package of metamorphic rocks that show extensive evidence of crustal anatexis throughout. These can be distinguished from the Lesser Himalayan sequence below by a distinct reduction in metamorphic grade, an inverted metamorphic sequence and a high strain zone corresponding to the Main Central Thrust. Metamorphic studies are combined with geochronology to demonstrate a protracted period of crustal melting followed by rapid decompression from 18.7 Ma to 15.6 Ma. A metamorphic decompression rate is quantified at c.2mm/yr during this period. This is interpreted to represent exhumation of the Greater Himalayan Sequence by a process of ductile, channelised flow from the mid-crust beneath Tibet. Below a prominent band of kyanite gneiss, previously used to locate the Main Central Thrust, but here mapped within the Greater Himalayan Sequence, partial melting is still exhibited. Here monazites are dated at 10.6 Ma. In the Lesser Himalaya below, allanites record a similar 10.1 Ma event. This implies that following channel flow during the mid-Miocene, the channel widened in the lower-Miocene to incorporate a greater structural thickness. Following these two periods of exhumation and ductile extrusion, separated in time and space, Fission Track studies indicate that much slower, erosion driven exhumation proceeded, at <1 mm/yr. This rate increases slightly in the Pliocene, most likely in response to Northern Hemisphere glaciation; no difference in exhumation is seen across the Greater Himalayan Sequence with respect to the different, earlier, phases of ductile channel flow related exhumation. These results demonstrate the episodic nature of channel flow in the Himalaya and reconcile arguments about the position of the MCT in Eastern Nepal.

This thesis examines how and to what extent humanitarian aid organizations strategically focus on gender roles following disasters, and how they contribute to potential changes in gender roles. The case selected for the study is Nepal after the 2015 earthquakes where the reports of four international humanitarian aid organizations were examined through a qualitative content analysis. The thesis aims to provide a contribution to the disaster risk reduction literature with a special focus on the possibilities to use disasters as catalysts for changes in traditional gender roles. As humanitarian organizations are major actors in the aftermath of disasters, the purpose is to evaluate their efforts and connect that to previous literature in the field. As a theoretical foundation two contrasting theories are incorporated in the study, the first is the idea that a disaster can be a ’window of opportunity’ for changes in gender roles whereas the other one is that vulnerable people is often left more vulnerable after a disaster due to secondary consequences, a so called double disaster.  The main findings of the study demonstrate that none of the four international humanitarian organizations incorporated a gendered perspective in their aid efforts following the earthquakes in Nepal 2015. The organizations seldom separate women from men in their reports, demonstrating an unawareness of the gender power structures at play. Few activities had a potential to empower women and the ones that did lacked a long-term perspective to enhance gender equality and lower vulnerability.

Although the Main Himalayan Frontal Thrust (MHT/MFT), largest and fastest‐slipping continental megathrust, poses a major threat to the northern Indian sub‐continent, seismic hazard along it remains to be quantified. Based on historical descriptions of the two main 20th century earthquakes (1905, 1934), a consensus has emerged that neither produced surface ruptures, a view recently reinforced by paleo‐seismological investigations in which only faulting much older than 1900 was found. This leaves us with fundamental, unanswered questions (recurrence times, rupture lengths, geomorphic signature of large events), and the ominous perspective of even greater quakes with displacements in excess of 15m, potentially on par with M ≈ 9 oceanic subduction events. Knowing the precise geometry and history of earthquake ruptures along this very active fault is thus more than ever critical to assess seismic hazard in the area. To address such questions we have engaged high‐resolution geomorphic and paleo‐seismic studies of Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) in eastern Nepal. Long wavelength warping of river terraces show that late Pleistocene/Holocene deformation is well expressed across frontal folds above the thrust, which have been successfully used to determine a shortening rate on order of 2 cm/yr, but the surface trace of the MFT, where sharpest, remains the best location to document whether large earthquakes break the ground and to determine their sizes and recurrence times. Our survey of the area between the Mahara Khola and Arun/Sun Khosi valleys shows many clear outcrops with young, pristine scarps, challenging the consensus that no surface rupture took place in the 19th century. This area is also located at the centre of the region comprised entirely within the 1934 isoseismal VIII. In the valley of the Sir Khola, which crosses the northern branch of the MFT, we logged in detail a refreshed river‐cut face across the 26 m‐high cumulative thrust scarp. Newly dated charcoal samples collected in the gravel layers of an uplifted strath terrace offset by thrusts reaching the surface confirm the young age of the last event. Six distinct 14C calibrated dates indicate that the terrace was emplaced less than 250 years ago, in the 18th or early 19thcentury, and was subsequently offset by F1, with a vertical throw of ≈ 1. 5 m (≈ 3 m of slip). This same terrace is offset again by another fault at the base of the main scarp. Since no other large earthquake than the Bihar‐Nepal event was recorded locally in the 19th and 20th century, it must be concluded that the Sir Khola rivercut exposes the first unambiguous surface trace ever found of the 1934 earthquake. Similarly, a trench excavated 30 m east of the Natural river‐cut shows two events approximately 700 years apart. We thus interpret the great 1934 earthquake to be a repeat of the 1255 AD event that destroyed Kathmandu. Other charcoal ages in lower fluvial units of the footwall rapidly jump to 3000 years BP, and to older ages just below (up to 7000 yrs), nearly at the same level as that of the present river. This implies that stratigraphic section is missing, but also that there has been no significant longterm incision by the river just south of the thrust. In the Charnath Khola area, the dating of different uplifted terraces on the MFT hanging‐wall, and of one on the footwall, supports our findings at the Sirkhola and Ratu Nadi. Here, the 14‐16 m high Tintale terrace, whose age is only 1‐1. 25 kyr, appears to have been uplifted by at least two events (possibly three) with 4‐5m of vertical coseismic throw in each event since its abandonment. 14C dating of the lowest hanging‐wall terrace (≈ 4 m‐high) in Tintale creek, which was abandoned less than three centuries ago supports the existence of the 1934 rupture. Geophysical surveys including three shallow seismic profiles and Electrical Resistivity Tomographic (ERT) sections, ≈ 1. 5 km‐long each, in the Charnath, Sirkhola and Ratu Valleys, and one Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) profile at Thapatol near Bardibas, add invaluable information at various depths, complementing our morpho‐tectonic interpretation of the area. In particular, the seismic profiles shot across the MFT image well the shallow part of the thrust‐plane down to ≈ 400mepth. To our knowledge, at least in Nepal, this is the first effort of this kind to study the MFT at such detailed scale in combination with paleo‐seismological trenching.

This study aims to examine the motivation, experience and benefits of Nepalese domestic tourists visiting the seismic memorial sites after the 25 April 2015 earthquake (known as Gorkha earthquake). A total of 403 surveys was gathered from seismic sites of Nepal (Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan). Data were tested to analyze why the tourists are interested in disaster sites and how their experience during their visit impact the benefits of the visits. Additionally, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the relationships among tourist motivations, experiences, and perceived benefits at the dark tourism sites in Nepal. Among the five motivational factors discovered, the empirical results depict that emotional reaction is the strongest factor of the dark tourism motivation, affecting both cognitive and affective experiences. Additionally, this study confirms that cognitive experience is more influenced by dark tourism motivations than affective experience. Among the four experience factors examined in the study, self-reflection is found to have the strongest impact of three aspects of perceived dark tourism benefits, such as knowledge gain, fulfillment, and appreciation. Overall, the findings of the study provide important implications to the management sectors of dark tourism sites, enhancing the importance of providing cognitive experiences (i.e. distributing the educational materials about the dark tourism events and offering the knowledgeable tour guide who can guide the sites) and affective experience of the tourists (storytelling about the events, organizing educational and volunteering programs at the sites). Further, this study contributes to the limited literature in the context of dark tourism and provide important managerial and practical implications based on the case of Nepal earthquake in 2015.

The Tamakoshi Dam in Nepal experienced 19 cm of settlement due to three earthquakes that took place from December 14, 2014 to May 12, 2015. This settlement caused massive damage and halted construction and was believed to have been caused by seismic compression. Seismic compression is the accrual of contractive volumetric strain in sandy soils during earthquake shaking for cases where the generated excess pore water pressures are low. The purpose of this case study is to investigate the settlements of the dam intake block relative to the right abutment block of the dam during the three earthquakes. Towards this end, soil profiles for the dam were developed from the boring logs and suites of ground motions were selected and scaled to be representative of the shaking at the base of the dam for the two of the three earthquakes which were well documented. Equivalent linear analysis was completed for the suites of ground motions to produce shear strain time histories which were then utilized in the Jiang et al. (2020) proposed procedure for seismic compression prediction. The results were found to not align with the settlement that was observed in the field, so post-liquefaction consolidation was also considered to be a possible cause of the settlement. The results from that analysis also showed that consideration of post-liquefaction consolidation did not yield settlements representative of those observed in the field. More detailed studies are recommended to assess the settlements that were observed at the dam site, particularly analyses that take into account below and above grade topographic effects on the ground motions and settlements at the ground surface.
Master of Science
The Tamakoshi Dam in Nepal experienced 19 cm of settlement due to three earthquakes that took place from December 14, 2014 to May 12, 2015. This settlement caused massive damage and halted construction and was believed to have been caused by seismic compression. Seismic compression is the accrual of contractive volumetric strain in sandy soils during earthquake shaking for cases where the generated excess pore water pressures are low. The purpose of this case study is to investigate the settlements of the dam intake block relative to the right abutment block of the dam during the three earthquakes. Representative soil profiles were developed based on data collected from the site for analysis of the settlement. Two approaches were used to compute predicted settlement, one which considered only seismic compression as the cause of settlement and a hybrid method that considered both seismic compression and post-liquefaction consolidation. Both approaches predicted settlement values that were less than what was observed in the field. It was found that the ground motion prediction equations used in the analysis were not representative of the tectonic setting in Nepal and thus was the main reason for the under-prediction. The relevance of this research lies in using methodology developed in academia to analyze a real world event and draw conclusions about the methodology's applicability.

This mixed-method study examined the disaster recovery process with the help of a sample survey on 744 disaster-affected households, over 36 in-depth interviews, two focus group discussions, and several informal conversations to identify the factors impacting recovery. The study concludes that community resilience and factors, such as caste hierarchy system, household economy, receipt of house grants, the trust held towards the government, and geographical vulnerability played a vital role in the recovery after a disaster in Nepal.

Focusing on the rising attention towards including the local population in humanitarian action, this study demonstrates how youth participation can produce effective results in a humanitarian response, making use of the post-disaster response to the 2015 Nepal earthquake as a case study. The research was intended to investigate the specific factors that enable youth participation to produce effective results in humanitarian programming, examining the methods that organisations used to involve youth, the benefits and challenges that arose from the process, and how effectiveness could be measured for the purpose of qualitative analysis. After constructing a conceptual framework around the key themes of the study, the thesis analysed the findings from 3 in-depth semi-structured interviews with informants from Restless Development Nepal, an organisation that actively involved youth volunteers in its emergency response. The activities which included these youth volunteers, most notably those that involved working closely with the local community through community mobilisation, benefitted from three main qualities embodied by the volunteers, these being their availability, flexibility and embeddedness within their own localities. The prior expertise of the implementing organisation in working with youth was another factor contributing to the programme outputs, as they possessed the social network and resources necessary to quickly train and mobilise the volunteers. The effectiveness of youth participation, which was measured not only through an examination of the programme results, but also through an assessment of how well the participatory activities managed to achieve the intended purposes of participation discussed in theoretical texts, revealed the possibility of youth participation in humanitarian responses to contribute to improving operational functions while still leading to self-empowerment and inner growth. The actual capacity of each organisation to include youth in their responses, however, is a defining factor in the methods in which youth may be able to use their inherent capabilities to contribute to the effectiveness of any operation.

付記する学位プログラム名: グローバル生存学大学院連携プログラム
Kyoto University (京都大学)
0048
新制・課程博士
博士(地球環境学)
甲第21242号
地環博第178号
新制||地環||35(附属図書館)
京都大学大学院地球環境学舎環境マネジメント専攻
(主査)教授 岡﨑 健二, 准教授 小林 広英, 准教授 西前 出
学位規則第4条第1項該当

This dissertation investigates the past and present status of local knowledge, skills and capacity of rural communities in India and Nepal for reducing their vulnerability to earthquakes. Disaster vulnerability is investigated not only as pre disaster condition but also as a continuous process, which is influenced by underdevelopment, process and various response decisions in post disaster situation. To get an integrated and dynamic picture of how local knowledge and capacity and disaster vulnerability influence each other, three case studies are investigated, namely Marathwada region in India, Kutch and Saurashtra regions in Gujarat in India and Kathmandu valley in Nepal. While the first case looks into the impact of post earthquake rehabilitation after seven-eight years, the second case looks in detail into the immediate transition phase from relief to rehabilitation, in a span of one year after the quake. To get an overview of total situation in both the cases, post disaster situation is essentially linked to the pre-disaster vulnerability situation. The third case looks into various transformation processes in rural communities, which create conditions for predisaster vulnerability. The three case studies are analysed for various underlying structural and non-structural causes that create negative conditions in which disaster vulnerability of these communities is increasing because of weakening local knowledge and capacity.

These case studies throw significant light on three inter-related aspects. First, they show key features of local knowledge and capacity of rural communities for mitigation, preparedness and recovery from earthquakes. They are embodied in physical planning and buildings, skills for using local resources, mutual support systems and informal livelihood mechanisms. Second, these (especially the Kathmandu case) provide an in-depth understanding of various transformation processes (pertaining to changes in built form, land use and ownership, occupational structure and social and economic structure) and their impact on traditional knowledge and capacity and resulting pre-disaster vulnerability to earthquakes. Third, these (especially Marathwada and Gujarat cases) show the implications of post earthquake rehabilitation on disaster vulnerability in the long run. These show, how certain decisions taken as part of rehabilitation not only reinforce pre-disaster vulnerabilities but also create new ones.

Five main issues and challenges in the context of rural communities of India and Nepal are pointed at for reducing their disaster vulnerability through building local knowledge and capacities. These are loss of material and land resources, loss of traditional skills, cultural incompatibility of external interventions, increasing social and economic inequity and weakening of local governance. The issue of culturally insensitive "transfer" of local knowledge is also taken up here. The research concludes by articulating socio-cultural, territorial and eco-developmental perspectives that can contribute towards developing a new framework (paradigm) for disaster management in India and Nepal.

Finally, I suggest strategies for introducing disaster management into strategies for rural development by regenerating rural livelihoods, formulating strategies for rural land management, improving spatial planning and building, improving quality of education on disaster mitigation and preparedness and most importantly finding out ways of intervening in local power structure. Several measures for improving post earthquake rehabilitation are also suggested.

This report is the outcome of a case study conducted in Kathmandu, Nepal in April 2016. The purpose of the study is to investigate in the consequences of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, from the perspective of women within socioeconomically vulnerable groups. The caste system is still practiced nearly all over Nepal and women are still facing multiple forms of discrimination. A woman belonging to the Dalits, which is the group considered to be at the bottom of the hierarchy and below the castes, have no right to control land, housing or money and are exposed to violence and forced sexual labour. The aim of the study is to shed light over how already existing discrimination leads to further examples of discrimination in the aftermath of a natural disaster and the “class-consciousness” of natural disasters. People within a society are living under different conditions and these conditions lead to different consequences when facing a natural disaster. The components of these conditions are often intertwined with each other and should therefore not be examined separately, which is why an intersectional perspective is used for this study. Furthermore, standpoint theory is used as well, to look at these issues from the viewpoint of the marginalized people of the society. Interviews were made with 6 different respondents, who are working for NGOs in and outside of Kathmandu and who through their work are coming on contact with the issues mentioned. My findings show several examples of post-earthquake consequences for women which can be linked to the strong patriarchy, the use of caste system and mistreatment from the government.

Current trends have seen a rise in the frequency and severity of disasters on a global scale, with disasters in recent years having some of the most devastating impacts ever seen on the societies they affect. As a result, there are increasing pressures on the Formal Humanitarian Sector (FHS) and their resources, resulting in a growing need to examine the logistical processes essential to humanitarian operations. Existing research within the humanitarian logistics (HL) domain has highlighted a plethora of challenges relating to the efficient and effective delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by disasters. Through a systematic literature review, it was discovered that current research predominantly focuses on the activities of humanitarian organisations (HOs); overlooking the social and logistical capacity already present within affected communities. In order to address the gap left by HO-centric HL research, this investigation approaches the challenges of efficient and effective humanitarian assistance from a novel perspective. Drawing upon the notion of Collaborative Aid Networks (CANs), this research explores the role of communities as drivers of HL processes, and of their own relief and recovery. In a field in which empirical data is lacking, this enquiry utilises a constructivist grounded theory methodology in order to gather empirical insights from post-earthquake Nepal. Interviews and observations were conducted over a period of seven weeks, with data being continuously analysed and refined throughout this process. The findings from this research culminated in the development of a theoretical framework which illustrates the interrelationships between CAN characteristics and their outcomes on HL. This study contributes to the emerging debates concerning community participation in disaster contexts, and provides revelatory insights regarding CANs’ unique attributes and competencies, which enable them to positively impact disaster affected communities. In levying CAN support, the FHS could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their HL operations, whilst improving collaboration and communication between the FHS and the community; in turn supporting the legitimacy and downward accountability of FHS programmes.

Chemical weathering of silicate rock consumes atmospheric CO2 and supplies the oceans with cations, thereby controlling both seawater chemistry and climate. The rate of CO2 consumption is closely linked to the rate of CO2 outgassing from the planetary interior, providing a negative feedback loop essential to maintaining an equable climate on Earth. Reconstruction of past global temperatures indicates that a pronounced episode of global cooling began ~50 million years ago, coincident with the collision of India and Asia, and the subsequent exhumation of the Himalayas and Tibet. This has drawn attention to the possible links between exhumation, erosion, changes in silicate weathering rates, and climate. However, many of the present-day weathering processes operating on the continents remain debated and poorly constrained, hampering our interpretations of marine geochemical archives and past climatic shifts. To constrain the controls on silicate weathering, this thesis investigates the lithium (Li) isotopic composition of river waters, suspended sediments and bed load sediments in the Alaknanda river basin, forming the headwaters of the Ganges. Due to the large fractionation of Li isotopes in the Earth’s surface environment, Li is sensitive to small changes in silicate weathering processes. As a consequence of the pronounced gradients in climate (rainfall and temperature) and erosion across the basin, the river waters show large variations in their Li isotopic composition (δ7Li), ranging from +7.4 to +35.4‰, covering much of the observed global variation. This allows a detailed investigation of the controls on Li isotope fractionation, and by extension silicate weathering. The Li isotopic composition is modelled using a one-dimensional reactive transport model. The model incorporates the continuous input of Li from rock dissolution, removal due to secondary mineral formation, and hydrology along subsurface flow paths. Modelling shows that the Li isotopic variations can be described by two dimensionless variables; (1) the Damköhler number, ND, which relates the silicate dissolution rate to the fluid transit time, and (2) the net partition coefficient of Li during weathering, kp, describing the partitioning of Li between secondary clay minerals and water, which is primarily controlled by the stoichiometry of the weathering reactions. The derived values of the controlling parameters ND and kp, are investigated over a range of climatic conditions and on a seasonal basis, shedding light onto variations in the silicate weathering cycle. In a kinetically limited weathering regime such as the Himalayan Mountains, both climate and erosion exert critical controls the weathering intensity (the fraction of eroded rock which is dissolved) and the weathering progression (which minerals that are being weathered), and consequently the fractionation of Li isotopes and silicate weathering in general. Modelling of the Li isotopic composition provides an independent estimate of the parameters which control silicate weathering. These estimates are then used to constrain variables such as subsurface fluid flux, silicate dissolution rates, fluid transit times and the fraction of rock which is weathered to form secondary clay minerals. The simple one-dimensional reactive transport model therefore provides a powerful tool to investigate the minimum controls on silicate weathering on the continents.

Home to hundreds of millions of souls and land of excessiveness, the Himalaya is also the locus of a unique seismicity whose scope and peculiarities still remain to this day somewhat mysterious. Having claimed the lives of kings, or turned ancient timeworn cities into heaps of rubbles and ruins, earthquakes eerily inhabit Nepalese folk tales with the fatalistic message that nothing lasts forever. From a scientific point of view as much as from a human perspective, solving the mysteries of Himalayan seismicity thus represents a challenge of prime importance. Documenting geodetic strain across the Nepal Himalaya with various GPS and leveling data, we show that unlike other subduction zones that exhibit a heterogeneous and patchy coupling pattern along strike, the last hundred kilometers of the Main Himalayan Thrust fault, or MHT, appear to be uniformly locked, devoid of any of the “creeping barriers” that traditionally ward off the propagation of large events. The approximately 20 mm/yr of reckoned convergence across the Himalaya matching previously established estimates of the secular deformation at the front of the arc, the slip accumulated at depth has to somehow elastically propagate all the way to the surface at some point. And yet, neither large events from the past nor currently recorded microseismicity nearly compensate for the massive moment deficit that quietly builds up under the giant mountains. Along with this large unbalanced moment deficit, the uncommonly homogeneous coupling pattern on the MHT raises the question of whether or not the locked portion of the MHT can rupture all at once in a giant earthquake. Univocally answering this question appears contingent on the still elusive estimate of the magnitude of the largest possible earthquake in the Himalaya, and requires tight constraints on local fault properties. What makes the Himalaya enigmatic also makes it the potential source of an incredible wealth of information, and we exploit some of the oddities of Himalayan seismicity in an effort to improve the understanding of earthquake physics and cipher out the properties of the MHT. Thanks to the Himalaya, the Indo-Gangetic plain is deluged each year under a tremendous amount of water during the annual summer monsoon that collects and bears down on the Indian plate enough to pull it away from the Eurasian plate slightly, temporarily relieving a small portion of the stress mounting on the MHT. As the rainwater evaporates in the dry winter season, the plate rebounds and tension is increased back on the fault. Interestingly, the mild waggle of stress induced by the monsoon rains is about the same size as that from solid-Earth tides which gently tug at the planets solid layers, but whereas changes in earthquake frequency correspond with the annually occurring monsoon, there is no such correlation with Earth tides, which oscillate back-and-forth twice a day. We therefore investigate the general response of the creeping and seismogenic parts of MHT to periodic stresses in order to link these observations to physical parameters. First, the response of the creeping part of the MHT is analyzed with a simple spring-and-slider system bearing rate-strengthening rheology, and we show that at the transition with the locked zone, where the friction becomes near velocity neutral, the response of the slip rate may be amplified at some periods, which values are analytically related to the physical parameters of the problem. Such predictions therefore hold the potential of constraining fault properties on the MHT, but still await observational counterparts to be applied, as nothing indicates that the variations of seismicity rate on the locked part of the MHT are the direct expressions of variations of the slip rate on its creeping part, and no variations of the slip rate have been singled out from the GPS measurements to this day. When shifting to the locked seismogenic part of the MHT, spring-and-slider models with rate-weakening rheology are insufficient to explain the contrasted responses of the seismicity to the periodic loads that tides and monsoon both place on the MHT. Instead, we resort to numerical simulations using the Boundary Integral CYCLes of Earthquakes algorithm and examine the response of a 2D finite fault embedded with a rate-weakening patch to harmonic stress perturbations of various periods. We show that such simulations are able to reproduce results consistent with a gradual amplification of sensitivity as the perturbing period get larger, up to a critical period corresponding to the characteristic time of evolution of the seismicity in response to a step-like perturbation of stress. This increase of sensitivity was not reproduced by simple 1D-spring-slider systems, probably because of the complexity of the nucleation process, reproduced only by 2D-fault models. When the nucleation zone is close to its critical unstable size, its growth becomes highly sensitive to any external perturbations and the timings of produced events may therefore find themselves highly affected. A fully analytical framework has yet to be developed and further work is needed to fully describe the behavior of the fault in terms of physical parameters, which will likely provide the keys to deduce constitutive properties of the MHT from seismological observations.

碩士
中國文化大學
地學研究所地質組
106
On April 25, 2015, the Mw 7.8 Nepal earthquake occurred at the collision zone between the Indian and Eurasian plates. Previous studies using P-wave back-projection and finite fault modeling revealed the kinematic features about the earthquake. In this study, we used Rayleigh-wave phase velocity to perform the rupture directivity analysis and adopted P-wave to analyze multiple sources of the Nepal earthquake. Here, we not only determined the fault parameters but also provided information about the dynamic features for the 2015 Nepal earthquake. First, we used the 100-s Rayleigh-wave phase-velocity to obtain the azimuth-dependent source duration, and then merged with the spectral-node periods of Rayleigh waves to complete a joint inversion to derive the fault parameters of Nepal earthquake. Results showed an optimal rupture azimuth of 127, consistent with the aftershock distributions, and a total source duration of 70.2 s. The rupture time and rises time were 58.7 s and 11.5 s, respectively. The earthquake had a rupture length of ~147 km and an average rupture velocity of 2.5 km/s, about 0.74 times of the crustal S-wave velocity. Such results were comparable with previous studies. By using the time-domain deconvolution of teleseismic P-wave to retrieve the relative source time function, the Nepal earthquake was composed of 7 sub-events. The total duration was 59.5 s, less than that from surface-wave rupture directivity analysis but similar to those from the P-wave back-projection. The seismic moment (M0) was estimated to be 7.251020 Nm (corresponding to Mw 7.84). The energy release reached about 90 % of total seismic moment for the first 45 s. From the source time function, two energy peaks appeared at 22 s and 33 s after the initiation of the earthquake. The total radiated seismic energy (ES) was 1.02×1016 Nm, leading to the ES/M0 ratio of 1.41×10-5, less than ordinary large earthquakes. This implied that the Nepal earthquake had a lower static stress drop and the friction on the fault plane slowly dropped off during the rupture on average. Maximum static stress drop, ~23 bars, occurred between 38 and 48 s. This indicated that the friction on the fault plane quickly dropped off relative to the rest of ruptures. The average static stress drop was approximately 20 bars for the Nepal earthquake, corresponding to that for interplate earthquakes. We calculated the dynamic stress drop of the Nepal earthquake to be 13.7 bars from the derived rise time. Then, the rupture width and rupture area were estimated at 93.5 km 13744 km2, respectively, for the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Key words: 2015 Nepal earthquake, rupture directivity, source duration, rupture velocity, time-domain deconvolution, radiated seismic energy, static stress drop

In April and May 2015 Nepal suffered two massive earthquakes of 7.5 and 6 5 magnitudes in the Richter scale, killing 8856 and injuring 22309. Two years later in September 2017, Puerto Rico underwent the Category 5 Hurricane Maria, killing an estimate of 800 to 8000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans (Kishore et al., 2018). This dissertation project is the comparative study of Nepal’s and Puerto Rico’s networked communities, their actors, participants (Potts, 2014), and the users (Ingraham, 2015; Johnson, 1998) who used crisis communication practices to address the havoc created by the disaster. Using a mixed-methods research approach and with framework created with the Assemblage Theory (DeLanda, 2016), I argue that disasters create situations in which various networked communities are formed into transnational assemblages along with an emergence of innovative digital technical and professional communication practices.

碩士
南華大學
企業管理學系非營利事業管理碩士班
106
The purpose of this study is to explore the motivation and process of professional medical volunteers participating in international medical relief and their willingness to continue to participate in international medical relief in the future. According to the research results, we expect to provide some specific suggestions to the international medical relief corps and medical volunteers. 　　This study based on semi-structured interview, interviewed six professional medical volunteers who had been participated in Nepal earthquake relief of Taiwan root medical corps in May, 2015 and with a purpose to explore the impacts of participating motivation and their international medical relief exerting on the professional medical volunteers. 　　The results are showed: 1.The experience of the professional medical volunteers participating in international medical relief facilitates a virtuous circle of participating in international medical relief in the future. 2.The impact of international medical relief on the professional medical volunteers is to increase clinical experience, cross-cultural learning experience, accumulated experience and more flexibility of role playing. 3.The professional medical volunteers participating in international medical relief was valid as an effective model to facilitate the participants’ positive value themselves. 　　According to the research results, suggestions were made in regard to the volunteers for international medical relief is to respect the perspective of life, respect for local culture, have team spirit and self-health care.