Temporal vulnerability: historical ecologies of monitoring, memory, and meaning in changing United States floodplain landscapes

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • March 22, 2019
Creator
  • De Vries, Daniel H.
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Abstract
  • This dissertation addresses the relationship between temporality—being bounded in time—and population vulnerability to hazards. Researchers and program managers typically integrate temporality in vulnerability assessments by analyzing either historical change in the level of population vulnerability or the historical (root) causes for disasters. The thesis of this dissertation is that the influence of temporality on population vulnerability is further determined by human relationships to time. In the modern context of fast changing hazardscapes and a diminishing sense of place in a globalizing world, how do temporal reference making practices such as landscape monitoring, memorialization, and meaning attribution influence population-level emergency preparedness? Based on historical ecological fieldwork in four United States floodplains—New Orleans (LA), Savannah (GA), Kinston (NC), and Felton (CA)—the results of this study illustrate how temporal vulnerability, defined as the condition of population surprise, decreases population resilience in the contexts of hazard mitigation, historical preservation, early warning, and disaster evacuation. A dwelling model is constructed that can be used to guide temporal vulnerability assessments, adaptive management, and interventions aimed at increasing hazard resilience.
Date of publication
DOI
Resource type
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Crumley, Carole L.
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language
Access right
  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 19, 2010

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details Temporal vulnerability : historical ecologies of monitoring, memory, and meaning in changing United States floodplain landscapes 2019-04-08 Public Download