A unique interdisciplinary approach to disaster risk research, including global hazards and case-studies, for researchers, graduate students and professionals.
A unique interdisciplinary approach to disaster risk research, including global hazards and case-studies, for researchers, graduate students and professionals.
This book presents a unique, interdisciplinary approach to disaster risk research, combining cutting-edge natural science and social science methodologies. Bringing together leading scientists, policy makers and practitioners from around the world, it presents the risks of global hazards such as volcanoes, seismic events, landslides, hurricanes, precipitation floods and space weather, and provides real-world hazard case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific region. Avoiding complex mathematics, the authors provide insight into topics such as the vulnerability of society, disaster risk reduction policy, relations between disaster policy and climate change, adaptation to hazards, and (re)insurance approaches to extreme events. This is a key resource for academic researchers and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines linked to hazard and risk studies, including geophysics, volcanology, hydrology, atmospheric science, geomorphology, oceanography and remote sensing, and for professionals and policy makers working in disaster prevention and mitigation.
The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.
Global Change and Future Earth is derived from the work of several programs of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). It demonstrates how multi- and inter-disciplinary research outputs from the geoscience community can be applied to tackle the physical and societal impacts of climate change and contribute to the Future Earth programme of the International Council for Science. The volume brings together an international team of eminent researchers to provide authoritative reviews on the wide-ranging ramifications of climate change spanning eight key themes: planetary issues; geodetic issues; the Earth's fluid environment; regions of the Earth; urban environments; food security; and risk, safety and security; and climate change and global change. Covering the challenges faced by urban and rural areas, and in both developed and developing counties, this volume provides an important resource for a global audience of graduate students and researchers from a broad range of disciplines, as well as policy advisors and practitioners.
Environmental Hazards and Disasters: Contexts, Perspectives and Management focuses on manifested threats to humans and their welfare as a result of natural disasters. The book uses an integrative approach to address socio-cultural, political and physical components of the disaster process. Human and social vulnerability as well as risk to environmental hazards are explored within the comprehensive context of diverse natural hazards and disasters. In addition to scientific explanations of disastrous occurrences, people and governments of hazard-prone countries often have their own interpretations for why natural disasters occur. In such interpretations they often either blame others, in order to conceal their inability to protect themselves, or they blame themselves, attributing the events to either real or imagined misdeeds. The book contains a chapter devoted to the neglected topic of such reactions and explanations. Includes chapters on key topics such as the application of GIS in hazard studies; resiliency; disasters and poverty; climate change and sustainability and development. This book is designed as a primary text for an interdisciplinary course on hazards for upper-level undergraduate and Graduate students. Although not targeted for an introductory hazards course, students in such a course may find it very useful as well. Additionally, emergency managers, planners, and both public and private organizations involved in disaster response, and mitigation could benefit from this book along with hazard researchers. It not only includes traditional and popular hazard topics (e.g., disaster cycles, disaster relief, and risk and vulnerability), it also includes neglected topics, such as the positive impacts of disasters, disaster myths and different accounts of disasters, and disasters and gender.
This book is a collection of works written by young scientists involved in the Integrated Disaster Risk Research (IRDR). Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) is a decade-long research programme co-sponsored by the International Science Council (merged by International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). It is a global, multi-disciplinary approach to dealing with the challenges brought by natural disasters, mitigating their impacts, and improving related policy-making mechanisms. The book examines multidisciplinary research and actions related to disaster risk reduction internationally. The Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Young Scientists programme is: • A sub-programme within IRDR which promotes capacity building of young professionals and encourages them to undertake innovative and need-based research which makes science–policy and science–practice linkages stronger. • IRDR Young Scientists Programme was started in late 2016. Currently, it is a community of 115 young researchers from over 40 countries after 3 batches of application. • IRDR network and partners provide academic advice and training courses, workshops, and programmes for IRDR young scientists. • IRDR young scientists contribute to innovative research in the field of disaster risk reduction and participate in conferences and/or social media as the ambassador of IRDR. The book is of interest to researchers and scholars in the field of governance of sustainability and environmental governance. Postgraduate students will benefit this book within courses on environmental governance, on climate change governance, and on transformation and social change processes. Societal actors in climate change adaptation and other environmental governance fields on local, national, and international levels can benefit from the focus on societally relevant findings in the past 10 years of research on adaptiveness.
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume contains peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth World Landslide Forum organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), University of Ljubljana (UL) and Geological Survey of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia from May 29 to June 2, 2017. The complete collection of papers from the Forum is published in five full-color volumes. Thisfirst volume contains the following: • Three forum lectures • Background and Content of the Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 • Contribution from the signatory organizations of the Sendai Partnerships • Landslide Dynamics: ISDR-ICL Landslide Interactive Teaching Tools (LIT T) • Progress of the World Report on Landslides (WRL) • International Programme on Landslides (IPL): Objects, History and List of WCoE/IPL projects • UNESCO-KU-ICL UNITIWIN Network supporting IPL • Landslides: Journal of International Consortium on Landslides • International Programme on Landslides (IPL): WCoEs and IPL Projects • Landslides and Society Prof. Kyoji Sassa is the Founding President of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). He is Executive Director of ICL and the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal Landslides since its foundation in 2004. Prof. Matjaž Mikoš is the Forum Chair of the Fourth World Landslide Forum. He is the Vice President of International Consortium on Landslides and President of the Slovenian National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. Prof. Yueping Yin is the President of the International Consortium on Landslides and the Chairman of the Committee of Geo-Hazards Prevention of China, and the Chief Geologist of Geo-Hazard Emergency Technology, Ministry of Land and Resources, P.R. China. IPL (International Programme on Landslides) is a programme of the ICL. The programme is managed by the IPL Global Promotion Committee including ICL and ICL supporting organizations, UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UNISDR, UNU, ICSU, WFEO, IUGS and IUGG. The IPL contributes to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025.
This work responds to the increasing global need of measuring and analyzing impacts, vulnerabilities and coping capacity of countries, regions and communities regarding climate change, extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and institutional constraints. The case of Mexico, analyzed in this work, provides lessons for further developing countries to assess natural disasters vulnerability, for making informed adaptation decisions and to optimize resources for reducing country and community vulnerability. This book’s analyses contribute to the current debate of the long-term economic impact of natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.), as well as offer an integral methodology combining natural and social sciences for studies of country and community level vulnerability to climate change. The lessons derived from this analysis provide useful elements for the design and improvement of governmental policies concerning social and economic development as well. In addition, the desegregation of this analysis has the advantage of facilitating the design and evaluation of governmental projects at municipal, sub-national and national level, as well as provides conceptual-empirical elements for international cooperation in matters of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, rural development and poverty reduction.
This book discusses the interconnected, complex and emerging risks in today’s societies and deliberates on the various aspects of disaster risk reduction strategies especially through community resilience and responses. It consists of selected papers presented at the World Congress on Disaster Management, which focused on community resilience and responses towards disaster risk reduction based on South Asian experiences, and closely examines the coordinated research activities involving all stakeholders, especially the communities at risk. Further, it narrates the experiences of disaster risk-reduction in different communities that have policy implications for mitigation of future disaster risks in the societies affected by these types of disasters. Written from the social science perspective to disasters rather than an engineering approach, the book helps development and governance institutions to prioritize disasters as a problem of development rather than being parallel to it.
Mathematically, natural disasters of all types are characterized by heavy tailed distributions. The analysis of such distributions with common methods, such as averages and dispersions, can therefore lead to erroneous conclusions. The statistical methods described in this book avoid such pitfalls. Seismic disasters are studied, primarily thanks to the availability of an ample statistical database. New approaches are presented to seismic risk estimation and forecasting the damage caused by earthquakes, ranging from typical, moderate events to very rare, extreme disasters. Analysis of these latter events is based on the limit theorems of probability and the duality of the generalized Pareto distribution and generalized extreme value distribution. It is shown that the parameter most widely used to estimate seismic risk – Mmax, the maximum possible earthquake value – is potentially non-robust. Robust analogues of this parameter are suggested and calculated for some seismic catalogues. Trends in the costs inferred by damage from natural disasters as related to changing social and economic situations are examined for different regions. The results obtained argue for sustainable development, whereas entirely different, incorrect conclusions can be drawn if the specific properties of the heavy-tailed distribution and change in completeness of data on natural hazards are neglected. This pioneering work is directed at risk assessment specialists in general, seismologists, administrators and all those interested in natural disasters and their impact on society.
The Environment as Hazard offers an understanding of how people around the world deal with dramatic fluctuations in the local natural systems of air, water, and terrain. Reviewing recent theoretical and methodological changes in the investigation of natural hazards, the authors describe how research findings are being incorporated into public policy, particularly research on slow cumulative events, technological hazards, the role played by social systems, and the relation of hazards theory to risk analysis. Through vivid examples from a broad sample of countries, this volume illuminates the range of experiences associated with natural hazards. The authors show how modes of coping change with levels of economic development by contrasting hazards in developing countries with those in high income countries - comparing the results of hurricanes in Bangladesh and the United States, and earthquakes in Nicaragua and California. In new introductory and concluding chapters that supplement the original text, the authors present new global data sets, as well as a trenchant discussion of implications of hazards research for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and for attempts by the world community to come to grips with the threats of climate change.
