The book is expressly written for the young minds because they are our best hope for a safer tomorrow. The book is profusely illustrated, as it offers a joyride to the world of the whole range of hazards through simplified teaching-learning process, with less of teaching and more of learning. This is because most readers would love to learn without actually being taught. The book is designed to take advantage of distilled wisdom of centuries to inspire and enlighten the common man to turn them into prime movers of safer societies. Senior citizens, community leaders, self-trained disaster managers, social workers, media personnel, bureaucrats and those averse to the very thought of reading will also find the book useful as it is illustrative and inviting.

This book examines old and new data on some of the 18th and 19th century earthquakes that either occurred or were clearly felt in southern regions of Poland. Particular emphasis is put on a detailed study and reinterpretation of the unusually severe Outer Western Carpathians earthquake on December 3, 1786 (7 I0, 5.3 Mw, 35 km depth), which was the last in a series of seismic events in the years 1785 and 1786. An assessment is also made of what we presently know about the seismicity of the Western Carpathians in Poland based on to instrumental data. The book also presents material relating to earthquakes of 6-9 I0 that affected south Poland and the surrounding regions: Zilina in Slovakia (1858), Gera in Thuringia (1872), the Sudetes on the Czech-Polish border (1883, 1901), and Lower Silesia, Poland (1895). These are analyzed and illustrated by 17 contemporary macroseismic intensity maps, some of which are considered to be remarkable for those times. A new seismic catalog for Poland is provided with amendments and updates up to the end of 2014. Noteworthy is the data on two unforeseen events: one about 60 km NE of the Polish border in 2004 and one in central Poland in 2012. It shows how important it is, not least for practical engineering purposes, to perform seismic monitoring even in seemingly aseismic regions.

This book offers a broad perspective on important topics in earthquake geotechnical engineering and gives specialists and those that are involved with research and application a more comprehensive understanding about the various topics. Consisting of eighteen chapters written by authors from the most seismic active regions of the world, such as USA, Japan, Canada, Chile, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Taiwan, and Turkey, the book reflects different views concerning how to assess and minimize earthquake damage. The authors, a prominent group of specialists in the field of earthquake geotechnical engineering, are the invited lecturers of the International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering from Case History to Practice in the honour of Professor Kenji Ishihara held in Istanbul, Turkey during 17-19 June 2013.

This thesis is remarkable for the wide range of the techniques and observations used and for its insights, which cross several disciplines. It begins by solving a famous puzzle of the ancient world, which is what was responsible for the tsunami that destroyed settlements in the eastern Mediterranean in 365 AD. By radiocarbon dating of preserved marine organisms, Shaw demonstrates that the whole of western Crete was lifted out of the sea by up to 10 meters in a massive earthquake at that time, which occured on a previously unknown fault. The author shows that the resulting tsunami would have the characteristics described by ancient writers, and uses modern GPS measurements and coastline geomorphology to show that the strain build-up near Crete requires such a tsunami-earthquake about every 6.000 years - a major insight into Mediterranean tsunami hazard. A detailed seismological study of earthquakes in the Cretan arc over the last 50 years reveals other important features of its behaviour that were previously unknown. Finally, she provides fundamental insights into the limitations of radiocarbon dating marine organisms, relating to how they secrete carbon into their skeletons. The thesis resulted in three major papers in top journals.

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vulnerable to a variety of natural and manmade hazards. This edited book productively brings together scholars and senior public officials having direct experience in dealing with or researching on recent major natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific. The chapters focus on disaster preparedness and management, including pre-event planning and mitigation, crisis leadership and emergency response, and disaster recovery. Specific events discussed in this book include a broad spectrum of disasters such as tropical storms and typhoons in the Philippines; earthquakes in China; tsunamis in Indonesia, Japan, and Maldives; and bushfires in Australia. The book aims to generate discussions about improved risk reduction strategies throughout the region. It seeks to provide a comparative perspective across countries to draw lessons from three perspectives: public policy, humanitarian systems, and community engagement.

This second edition reflects significant progress in tsunami research, monitoring and mitigation within the last decade. Primarily meant to summarize the state-of-the-art knowledge on physics of tsunamis, it describes up-to-date models of tsunamis generated by a submarine earthquake, landslide, volcanic eruption, meteorite impact, and moving atmospheric pressure inhomogeneities. Models of tsunami propagation and run-up are also discussed. The book investigates methods of tsunami monitoring including coastal mareographs, deep-water pressure gauges, GPS buoys, satellite altimetry, the study of ionospheric disturbances caused by tsunamis and the study of paleotsunamis. Non-linear phenomena in tsunami source and manifestations of water compressibility are discussed in the context of their contribution to the wave amplitude and energy. The practical method of calculating the initial elevation on a water surface at a seismotectonic tsunami source is expounded. Potential and eddy traces of a tsunamigenic earthquake in the ocean are examined in terms of their applicability to tsunami warning. The first edition of this book was published in 2009. Since then, a few catastrophic events occurred, including the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, which is well known all over the world. The book is intended for researchers, students and specialists in oceanography, geophysics, seismology, hydro-acoustics, geology, and geomorphology, including the engineering and insurance industries.

The major challenges of the 21st century faced by human beings are how to achieve water security, food security, energy security and environmental security. Owing to enhanced natural/anthropogenic disasters worldwide, these challenges become much more complicated and daunting especially for developing countries. Therefore, it is important to highlight the risk of different disasters as well as the modern tools and techniques for minimizing disaster incidence and losses. Disaster management being highly multidisciplinary in nature, a comprehensive book dealing with different aspects of disaster management, and encompassing important disasters faced by humankind is presently not available. This book is an attempt to fulfill this gap. It provides clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about different facets of disaster management along with salient case studies. The book highlights the current status of disaster management focusing on developing nations, discusses vital issues such as climate change and sustainable development, modern approaches and tools/techniques, and the challenges of and future R&D needs for sustainable disaster management.

This volume synthesizes critical environmental challenges of dynamic earth and human environment systems in South Asia emphasizing geographical dimensions. It deals with spaceborne monitoring, climate, ecohydrology, forests and biodiversity, land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), natural hazards, and disasters in order to contribute towards a sustainable future. The contributions range from traditional field techniques to the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems. The book integrates environmental attributes relating the past, present, and future of South Asia broadly based on biophysical and human dimensions in spatio-temporal perspectives. The monitoring of natural hazards and climate issues is considered a vital component in the context of environmental geography, especially in observation and understanding of climate and water-induced disasters. It is important to communicate the advances in geoscience techniques to increase the resilience of the vulnerable society of South Asia and to promote livelihood security. The sustainability of South Asia depends strongly on the earth environment, and thus the development of geo-environmental monitoring is critical for a better understanding of our living environment. The aim of the book is to present dynamic aspects of environmental geography to contribute to future earth initiatives in South Asia.

This book presents the latest research developments in geoinformation science, which includes all the sub-disciplines of the subject, such as: geomatic engineering, GIS, remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, digital cartography, etc.

Sustainability of rural communities is threatened by a plethora of factors including climate change and disasters which interact in an intricate manner in making rural people vulnerable and poor. This book is the output of empirical research on communities and livelihood strategies in developing countries. It reveals how rural communities are functioning and earning their livelihoods by making the best use of the resources, local/internal or external/new and the combination of the two to counteract the various challenges they face, with the ultimate goal of becoming resilient to local or global shocks and sustaining that resilience. Local governance is identified as crucial in ensuring sustainable livelihoods as it ensures healthy collaboration between communities, on the one hand and civil society and those communities, on the other hand, in promoting self-sustaining development trajectories. Similarly, the role of social capital is not ignored as it brings in community drive and a sense of purpose, direction and solidarity among community members which facilitates problem solving in periods of crises and disasters.

This book presents the latest research developments in geoinformation science, which includes all the sub-disciplines of the field, such as: geomatic engineering, GIS, remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, digital cartography, etc.

This book provides an integrated approach to the assessment of seismic hazards. The reduction of losses expected by future earthquakes is probably the most important contribution of seismology to society. Large earthquakes occurred in densely populated areas highlight the dramatic inadequacy of a massive portion of the buildings demonstrating the high risks of modern industrial societies. Building earthquake-resistant structures and retrofitting old buildings on a national scale can be extremely expensive and can represent an economic challenge even for developed western countries. Earthquakes can cause also several psychological problems due to the fact that such kind of disasters will result in casualties, collapsing of houses, strategic buildings and facilities and deeply affect a community. Moreover in our society it is necessary to properly plan emergency responses and rescues taking into account any possible secondary effect in order to avoid more casualties.

This book is an original and novel contribution to flood hazard assessment, climate change and land use change and is intended to serve both as an effective source of information and a valuable basis for priority setting and further technical, financial and political decisions regarding flood hazard assessment. The study area is located on the floodplain of the Ubaye River in the Barcelonnette area, part of the Alpes de Haute Provence in southeast France. The book offers a comparative overview of the major challenges faced when dealing with flood hazards. The research presented is intended to promote a deeper understanding of how climate change and land use change processes have evolved from past to present, and how they affect the flow regime of the Ubaye River based on sound and reproducible scientific arguments. The methodology implemented ranges from remote sensing interpretation to hydrodynamic modeling and includes the application of spatial and statistical modeling. The results of this research provide essential information for policymaking, decision-making support and flood hazard planning in the Barcelonnette area.

This book focuses on exploring the linkages between natural disasters and sustainable development at the global, regional, and national levels. Disasters and development are closely related, yet the disciplinary silos prevail and there is little communication and cooperation between the disaster management, environment, and development communities. One catastrophic event, such as an earthquake, tsunami, or cyclone, can destroy infrastructure, people's lives and livelihoods, and set back development. Similarly, slow onset disasters-often associated with global climate change-pose threats to development, livelihoods, food security, and long-term sustainable development. This book is uniquely aimed at bridging the gaps between the environmental, development, and disaster management communities. It traces the evolution of concepts and practice and highlights the linkages between natural disasters and sustainable development in key sectors, including food security, health, and water. The book includes case studies from the field highlighting the complex issues that challenge sustainable development and disaster risk management in practice. It draws policy conclusions for the global community based on state-of-the art knowledge from research and practice. The primary target groups for the book are researchers, including graduate students, in the fields of environment and sustainable development, geography, disaster risk reduction, and climate change studies. The second target group comprises practitioners and policymakers working in national and international organizations, the private sector, and civil society.

Presented here is the story of the mining and sale of uranium and radium ore through biographical vignettes, chemistry, physics, geology, geography, occupational health, medical utilization, environmental safety and industrial history. Included are the people and places involved over the course of over 90 years of interconnected mining and sale of radium and uranium, finally ending in 1991 with the abandonment of radium paint and medical devices, Soviet nuclear parity, and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

This book is a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art studies of seafloor slope instability and their societal implications. The volume captures the most recent and exciting scientific progress made in this research field. As the world's climate and energy needs change, the conditions under which slope instability occurs and needs to be considered, are also changing. The science and engineering of submarine - or more widely subaqueous - mass movements is greatly benefiting from advances in seafloor and sub-seafloor surveying technologies. Ultra-high-resolution seafloor mapping and 3D seismic reflection cubes are becoming commonly available datasets that are dramatically increasing our knowledge of the mechanisms and controls of subaqueous slope failure. Monitoring of slope deformation, repeat surveying and deep drilling, on the other hand, are emerging as important new techniques for understanding the temporal scales of slope instability. In essence, rapid advances in technology are being readily incorporated into scientific research and as a result, our understanding of submarine mass movements is increasing at a very fast rate. The volume also marks the beginning of the third IGCP project for the submarine mass movement research community, IGCP-640 S4SLIDE (Significance of Modern and Ancient Submarine Slope LandSLIDEs). The Submarine Mass Movements and Their Consequences symposium is the biannual meeting under the IGCP umbrella.

This book documents seven examples of Early Warning Systems for hydrometeorological and other hazards that have proven effective in reducing losses due to these hazards. The cases studied encompass a variety of climatic regimes and stages of economic development, raging across the industrialized countries of Germany, France, Japan and the United States, to Bangladesh, the island nation of Cuba and the mega-city of Shanghai. Demonstrated characteristics of these exemplary cases are synthesized into ten guiding principles for successful early warning systems that will, it is hoped, prove useful to countries seeking to develop or strengthen such systems within their own borders.

Plant tissue culture is an essential component of Biotechnology which has gained unbeatable recognition in plant sciences for successful micropropagation and improvement of plant species, leading to the commercial application. A number of plant species have been investigated around the globe. This book presents current research on the application of in vitro technology in the improvement of Balanites aegyptiaca Del., a medicinal plant of semi-arid tropics. The worldwide importance of forestry, summed to the lengthy generation cycles of tree species, makes unavoidable development of new technologies that complement conventional tree breeding programmes in order to obtain improved genotypes. Recently, a new set of tools has become available in the past 20 years that combined with traditional plant breeding will allow scientists to generate products that are genetically improved varieties of the future. These set of tools come under the general title of ‘Biotechnology’. The three specific biotechnological tools have been successfully used in several programmes of plant conservation, namely, tissue culture techniques for in vitro propagation, the use of molecular markers to assess the degree of variability among population and techniques of long-term conservation such as encapsulation and cryopreservation. Plant tissue culture techniques are particularly relevant and become an alternative not only for large scale propagation of individuals that are threatened, reduce production costs and increase gains to the industry, but also to provide ecological advantages as in phytoremediation or in the establishment of artificial plantings in weed infested site. The book gives a complete documentation of the results and demonstration of Balanites aegyptiaca conducted by the authors over the past 5 years. The end-to-end approach developed through plant tissue culture techniques is reflected in the book and there has been a successful transfer of technology from lab to field. The authors hope that this information would provide valuable data and also be a reference material for future research activities in this area.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Disaster Risk Reduction Education (DRRE) have overlapping areas of concern focusing on strengthening the link to local communities. In reality, there is significant synergy in ESD and disaster risk reduction (DRR). Both concepts urge looking at the communities, both focus on behavior changes and both call for linking knowledge to action. The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) ends in 2014 and the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) ends in 2015. Therefore, at this junction, it is important to review the progress made over the past 10 years and to suggest future synergy options. This book is the first attempt to review these two emerging fields and to provide input to the future direction of education. The book has 11 chapters, drawing lessons mainly from Japan and discussing their implications for the world. The first four chapters provide an overview of the ESD-DRR linkage, ESD and its evolution, DRRE and Climate Change Education. These are followed by case studies from ESD practices in Japan, in schools, universities and communities. The primary target groups for this book are students and researchers in the fields of environment, disaster risk reduction and climate change studies. The book provides them with a good idea of the current research trends in the field and furnishes basic knowledge about these vital topics. Another target group comprises practitioners and policy makers, who will be able to apply the knowledge collected here to establishing policy and making decisions.

​The classical field dealing with earthquakes is called “earthquake engineering” and considered to be a branch of structural engineering. In projects dealing with strategies for earthquake risk mitigation, urban planning approaches are often neglected. Today interventions are needed on a city, rather than a building, scale. This work deals with the impact of earthquakes, including also a broader view on multihazards in urban areas. Uniquely among other works in the field, particular importance is given to urban planning issues, in conservation of heritage and emergency management. Multicriteria decision making and broad participation of those affected by disasters are included.

This short manuscript is both a distillation of some of the latest work on disaster risk reduction and an interpretation of this distillation from the author's political economic perspective. It is based on information found in the flagship reports on disaster risk reduction of the United Nations. The book sums up and interprets issues of disaster risk reduction and makes them accessible to professional and non-professional readers alike, including governmental policy makers.

This edited volume emphasizes risk and crisis communication principles and practices within the up-to the minute context of new technologies, a new focus on resiliency, and global environmental change. It includes contributions from experts from around the globe whose research, advocacy, teaching, work, or service in the natural or social sciences deals with risk communication and/or management surrounding natural and technological disasters, with a particular focus on climate change-related phenomena. Resilience and good communication are intimately linked and with climate change precipitating more numerous and onerous weather-related catastrophes, a conversation on resilience is timely and necessary. The goal is robust communities that are able to withstand the shock of disaster. Communicating well under ordinary circumstances is challenging; communicating during a crisis is extraordinarily difficult. This book is dedicated to all those who have directly or indirectly suffered the effects of climate change end extreme events with the hope that the advance of knowledge, implementation of sound science and appropriate policies and use of effective communication will help in reducing their vulnerability while also improving resilience in the face of often devastating natural and technological disasters.

This comprehensive book addresses the pressing need for up-to-date literature on volcanic destinations (active and dormant) and their role in tourism worldwide in chapters and case studies. The book presents a balanced view about the volcano-based tourism sector worldwide and discusses important issues such as the different volcanic hazards, potential for disasters and accidents and safety recommendations for visitors. Individual chapters and case studies are contributed by a number of internationally based co-authors, with expertise in geology, risk management, environmental science and other relevant disciplines associated with volcanoes. Also covered are risk aspects of volcano tourism such as risk perception, risk management and public safety in volcanic environments. Discussions of the demand for volcano tourism, including geotourism and adventure tourism as well as some historical facts related to volcanoes, with case studies of interesting socio-cultural settings are included.

In the present authors attempted to have a clear insight into the interworking of geotectonic, geomorphic, hydrologic and anthropogenic factors leading to landslide in the Shiv khola Watershed, the most worst affected region of Darjiling Himalaya. This book includes the parameters responsible for landslide events in mountainous areas. It provides knowledge and understanding to the local people, planners, and policy makers about the causes and consequences of landslides as well as provides a suitable method to mitigate the landslips. The book deals with the role of land, water and soil in landslide phenomena. These three attributes have been described in terms of critical rainfall, critical slope, critical height and changes and development of drainage network in landslides. Mitigations and site-specific management options are evaluated considering the roles of local govt., community and other organizations in both pre-slide and post-slide periods. Various scientific methods have been used to assess the landslides that will bring about tremendous help to researchers in the field. In particular, Researchers in Mountain Geomorphology and Geological and Geographical Society will get tremendous help from some topics such as 1-D slope stability model, SCS Curve Number Technique, Assessment of morphological parameters, application of RS & GIS, Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process. Semi-quantitative approach is followed for understanding spatial distribution of cohesion, friction angle slope, lithology and lineaments, drainage, upslope contributing area, land use and land cover types etc. This book also reveals some techniques and models for initiating slope instability.

This book explores economic concepts related to disaster losses, describes mechanisms that determine the economic consequences of a disaster, and reviews methodologies for making decisions regarding risk management and adaptation. The author addresses the need for better understanding of the consequences of disasters and reviews and analyzes three scientific debates on linkage between disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change. The first involves the existence and magnitude of long-term economic impact of natural disasters on development. The second is the disagreement over whether any development is the proper solution to high vulnerability to disaster risk. The third debate involves the difficulty of drawing connections between natural disasters and climate change and the challenge in managing them through an integrated strategy. The introduction describes economic views of disaster, including direct and indirect costs, output and welfare losses, and use of econometric tools to measure losses. The next section defines disaster risk, delineates between "good" and "bad" risk-taking, and discusses a pathway to balanced growth. A section entitled "Trends in Hazards and the Role of Climate Change" sets scenarios for climate change analysis, discusses statistical and physical models for downscaling global climate scenarios to extreme event scenarios, and considers how to consider extremes of hot and cold, storms, wind, drought and flood. Another section analyzes case studies on hurricanes and the US coastline; sea-level rises and storm surge in Copenhagen; and heavy precipitation in Mumbai. A section on Methodologies for disaster risk management includes a study on cost-benefit analysis of coastal protections in New Orleans, and one on early-warning systems in developing countries. The next section outlines decision-making in disaster risk management, including robust decision-making, No-regret and No-risk strategies; and strategies that reduce time horizons for decision-making. Among the conclusions is the assertion that risk management policies must recognize the benefits of risk-taking and avoid suppressing it entirely. The main message is that a combination of disaster-risk-reduction, resilience-building and adaptation policies can yield large potential gains and synergies.