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On July 16th 1979, the largest by volume radioactive spill in US history took place in Church Rock (Kinłitsosinil), which is located in the southeastern “checkerboard area” of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah) and northwestern New Mexico. Due to a breach in the former United Nuclear Corporation’s uranium mill tailings dam, an estimated ninety-four (~94) million gallons of radioactive, toxic, and highly acidic effluent spilled into the Puerco River (Brugge et al. 2002; SRIC 2009).

The Church Rock Uranium Mill Tailings Spill marked the disastrous beginning of the end for the uranium mining industry in the Navajo Nation and New Mexico. Ironically, the spill occurred on the very same day as an event 34 years prior that marked the beginning of the uranium boom and the dawn of the atomic age: the Trinity Test of July 16th 1945, “the day the sun rose twice.” (Szasz 1984) Unlike the world’s first nuclear explosion in southern New Mexico, the Church Rock mill spill remains relatively underreported and has not yet registered at a national scale of collective memory.

The case study findings in the text have been discussed with senior staff at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and members of the California Latino Legislative Caucus. It has also been presented at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration during a Scoping Analysis workshop with California policymakers and advocates.

“Despite these disadvantages, the state of California has failed to map wildfire vulnerability based on socioeconomic status. Without an accurate identification and mapping process, the state is unable to provide local governments and community-based groups with a reliable rendering of the populations most vulnerable to the impacts of wildfire. Most importantly, by failing to identify socially vulnerable communities across California, government entities are unable to understand in advance where to target limited resources and programs (Sadd et al., 2011).” (Mendez 57)

“To further ensure participation and strengthen capacity, federal, state and local governments should provide appropriate funding to community-based organizations working directly with vulnerable populations.Community-based organizations have stronger cultural competency in engaging with communities of color and immigrants,

greater levels of trust, and more flexibility to explicitly assist these populations. In community-based planning processes, vulnerable communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis and interventions, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster risks. This approach helps reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities.” (Mendez 59)

This text highlights the importance of a mixed methods approach to disaster planning. Specifically, the importance of incorporating qualitative research methods as a way to anchor the voices of marginalized communities within disaster planning and provide context to emerging trends observed in climate related risks.  Regarding disaster planning and undocumented immigrant communities for example, Mendez (2020) stresses that practitioners must go beyond addressing the contextual vulnerability of these communities and consider how to address systemic problems perpetuated by the agricultural industry. The lack of accountability and disregard for human life within the industry, coupled with the lack political power within undocumented immigrant communities, particularly those belonging to the Mixteco/ Indigena indigenous groups, are systems of oppression which must be addressed if climate disaster risks are to be truly addressed.

Mendez (2020) stresses that the intersectionality of race, class, gender, indigeneity, and many other dimensions of identities coalesce to shape the lived experiences of people in their local environments. Traditional quantitative methods, though useful in providing snapshots of disaster vulnerability, can do little in capturing the social environmental conditions which determine responses to extreme weather and climatic events. At best, it can serve to provide an obscured understanding of disaster risks, at worst, this one-dimensional methodology approach may exacerbate existing inequalities perpetuated by systems of racism, classicism, and sexism by rendering whole communities invisible simply by virtue of sampling biases (Mendez, 2020). The case study by which Mendez frames his central argument focuses on how Indigenous immigrants were systematically ignored in emergency response and alleviation efforts following the Thomas Fire in California’s Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. 

The publisher is Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement. The article is initial contribution by Jean-Marc Biquet and refer to Andrea Binder.

NGO report, and Revues.org which is a platform for journals in the humanities and social sciences run by the CLEO.

The report collect the data after the Haiti's earthquake and epidemic, most reference data is between the 2011 to 2013. It is found many people in Haiti is still live in tents or under tarpaulins. The problem of emergency or reconsttuctions is come out. 

It descripts the situation and problems when face the cholera epidemic. The serious problem of lacking water, hygiene and sanitation forced MSF have to take charging. The United Nations cluster system is not flexible to respond in a constantly changing environment and emergency relief. In addtion, the report shows the failure of the international promises is not match the expectation of Haitian people. It addressd to the success or failure of Humanitarian discourse is influenced by an important point which is management. The capacity deliver and the intergrity mangament can promoting the system and made a success humanitarian operation.