 |
||
 |
 |
|
|
MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
 |
|
Schumann, Christiana (MA). Loss and disillusionment: Short term effects of evacuation in the Mt. Tungurahua area, Ecuador (Whiteford). 2002.
When a volcanic hazard threatens to affect directly human settlements near it, one mitigation strategy is to evacuate the people living nearby. Although the goal is to protect human lives, this action can often have unintentional adverse effects. One such case has been that of Mt. Tungurahua in Ecuador. In August 1999, Mt. Tungurahua became active again after many decades of inactivity. By October 1999, the government evacuated over 25,000 people as a strategy to protect them from the volcanic threat. Mt. Tungurahua did not have the major eruption that was predicted, but the evacuation has had many unanticipated effects on the communities that were evacuated.
This paper is based on interviews conducted by a team of University of South Florida researchers in June 2000 with 131 people affected by the volcano. The sample of people involved with the interviews is divided into three groups, which are based on the interview participants' situation during the time of the interviews: evacuated, returned from evacuation, and never evacuated. The evacuated group includes people living in shelters and relocated communities. In the returned group are people who, by choice, went back to their home communities. The group of people who had never been evacuated came from a community near Mt. Tungurahua that is not in direct danger of volcanic activity. This group acted as a control.
The results of this research indicated that some of the short-term effects of this evacuation have been diverse perceptions of risk, higher self-reported agricultural loss for the evacuees, higher self-reported digestive problems for the evacuees, and varied perceptions of the assistance provided. Regarding perception of risk, the group that returned early to their home communities expressed a much lower level of worry about the volcano than those who were still evacuated and had never been evacuated. Agricultural loss was reported to be greater for all the evacuees in comparison to the control group. Digestive problems were reported only by those who had been evacuated. The results also suggest that of the agencies that provided services, people perceived NGOs more favorably than the government. However, these perceptions often differed according to evacuation status.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|