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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental impact of natural disasters & phenomena
The Elkhorn River originates in north-central Nebraska and empties
into the Platte River just west of Omaha. One of the first written
records of the Elkhorn describes a flood. A flood hindered travel
up the river by the valley's first non-Indian settlers. Decade
after decade, floods have swept away mill dams, destroyed crops,
drowned stock, soaked inventories, filled basements, undercut
roads, washed out railroads and bridges, turned unfortunate
riverside homesaEURO"even a dance hallaEURO"into unwieldy
watercraft, and killed people. Everyone in the Elkhorn Valley
agreed the Flood of 1944 was the worst in history. Until the deadly
Flood of 2010 took the title. From a perspective unusual on the
Great PlainsaEURO"the problem of too much wateraEURO" Flood on the
Tracks offers an intimate portrait of life in the Elkhorn River
Basin of northeast Nebraska. In a region often defined by aridity,
rivers and their basins have provided sustenance, shelter, fertile
soil, and overland highways. In many ways Plains rivers organize
human lives. When they overflow, which they can be counted on to
do, they disorganize them. Using Plains Indian winter counts,
postcards, photographs, newspaper accounts, government records, and
more, Flood on the Tracks chronicles the river's natural and human
history from the Plains Indians into the twenty-first century. The
Elkhorn's floods show us how the nature of disaster has changed and
how Plainsfolk liveaEURO"and dieaEURO"with a river.
This volume encompasses latest research presented on the 6th
edition of the Disaster Management Conference. The research
published in this book is contributed by academics and experts on
public health, security and disaster management in order to assess
the potential risk from various disasters and discuss ways to
prevent or alleviate damage. As the human population has continued
to concentrate in urban areas the number of people and the value of
property affected by both natural and man-produced disasters has
also grown. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes
and forest fires have all taken their toll, as have man-made
catastrophes such as industrial spillages and terrorist attacks. It
is important to understand the nature of these global risks to be
able to develop strategies to prepare for these events and plan
effective responses in terms of disaster management and the
associated human health impacts. The included paper cover various
subject areas, including: Disaster analysis; Disaster monitoring
and mitigation; Emergency preparedness; Risk mitigation; Risk and
security; Resilience; Socio-economic issues; Health risk; Human
factors; Multi-hazard risk assessment; Case studies; Learning from
disasters and man-made disasters.
The demand for oil and gas has brought exploration and production
to unprecedented depths of the world's oceans. Currently, over 50%
of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico now comes from waters in excess
of 1,500 meters (one mile) deep, where no oil was produced just 20
years ago. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill blowout did much to
change the perception of oil spills as coming just from tanker
accidents, train derailments, and pipeline ruptures. In fact,
beginning with the Ixtoc 1 spill off Campeche, Mexico in 1979-1980,
there have been a series of large spill events originating at the
sea bottom and creating a myriad of new environmental and well
control challenges. This volume explores the physics, chemistry,
sub-surface oil deposition and environmental impacts of deep oil
spills. Key lessons learned from the responses to previous deep
spills, as well as unresolved scientific questions for additional
research are highlighted, all of which are appropriate for
governmental regulators, politicians, industry decision-makers,
first responders, researchers and students wanting an incisive
overview of issues surrounding deep-water oil and gas production.
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. This
fifth volume contains the following: * Landslide Interactions with
the Built Environment * Landslides in Natural Environment *
Landslides and Water * Landslides as Environmental Change Proxies:
Looking at the Past * Student Papers Prof. Matjaz Mikos 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.
Assoc. Prof. Vit Vilimek is the editor of Volume 5. He is member of
the Evaluation committee of International Consortium on Landslides
and head of the Czech Geomorphological Association. 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. 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. 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 book discusses various statistical models and their
implications for developing landslide susceptibility and risk
zonation maps. It also presents a range of statistical techniques,
i.e. bivariate and multivariate statistical models and machine
learning models, as well as multi-criteria evaluation,
pseudo-quantitative and probabilistic approaches. As such, it
provides methods and techniques for RS & GIS-based models in
spatial distribution for all those engaged in the preparation and
development of projects, research, training courses and
postgraduate studies. Further, the book offers a valuable resource
for students using RS & GIS techniques in their studies.
This book contains the best contributions presented during the 6th
National Conference on Earthquake Engineering and the 2nd National
Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology - 6CNIS &
2CNISS, that took place on June 14-17, 2017 in Bucharest - Romania,
at the Romanian Academy and Technical University of Civil
Engineering of Bucharest. The book offers an updated overview of
seismic hazard and risk assessment activities, with an emphasis on
recent developments in Romania, a very challenging case study
because of its peculiar intermediate-depth seismicity and evolutive
code-compliant building stock. Moreover, the book collects input of
renowned scientists and professionals from Germany, Greece, Italy,
Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and United
Kingdom.The content of the book focuses on seismicity of Romania,
geotechnical earthquake engineering, structural analysis and
seismic design regulations, innovative solutions for seismic
protection of building structures, seismic risk evaluation,
resilience-based assessment of structures and management of
emergency situations. The sub-chapters consist of the best papers
of 6CNIS & 2CNISS selected by the International Advisory and
Scientific Committees. The book is targeted at researchers and
experts in seismic hazard and risk, evaluation and rehabilitation
of buildings and structures, insurers and re-insurers, and decision
makers in the field of emergency situations and recovery
activities.
This book presents review papers and research articles focusing on
the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, China, discussing
cross-disciplinary and multiple thematic aspects of modern
seismological, geophysical, geological and stochastic methodology
and technology. Resulting from international and regional
earthquake research and disaster mitigation collaborations, and
written by international authors from multiple institutions and
disciplines, it describes methods and techniques in earthquake
science based on investigations of the Wenchuan earthquake. It also
includes extensive reference lists to aid further research. The
book helps both senior researchers and graduate students in
earthquake science to broaden their horizons in data analysis,
numerical modeling and structural retrieval for the tectonic,
geological, geophysical and mechanical interpretation of the 2008
M8 Wenchuan earthquake to support a global and regional cooperation
for preparedness, and the mitigation and management of seismic
risk.
This book provides a unique and comprehensive assessment of the
changes that have been taking place in the Himalayas. It describes
in detail all the aspects of change, both natural and cultural,
along with their implications, and suggests policy measures to help
mitigate them. The book is divided into two major sections - on
natural changes and cultural changes - and 11 chapters: an
introduction, six addressing changes that concern natural aspects,
and four exploring cultural changes and presenting the book's
conclusions. The content is based on a study conducted using a
participatory observation/empirical method. Time series data from
secondary sources is also included, helping to analyze the various
changes. The findings are presented in the form of color graphs,
models, maps, photographs, and tables. The book offers a valuable
resource for policymakers, and will prove equally useful for all
other stakeholders, e.g. researchers, students and development
agents.
The 50th anniversary of the Disaster Research Center of the
University of Delaware provoked a discussion of the field's
background, its accomplishments, and its future directions.
Participants representing many disciplines brought new methods to
bear on perennial problems relevant to effective disaster
management and policy formation. However, new concerns were raised,
stemming from the fact that we live today in a globally unfolding
environmental crisis every bit as pressing and worrisome as that of
the 1960s when the Disaster Research center was founded. This
volume brings together ideas of participants from that workshop as
well as other contributors. Topics include: the history and
evolution of disaster research, innovations in disaster management,
disaster policy, and ethical considerations of disaster research.
Readers interested in science and technology, public policy,
community action, and the evolution of the social sciences will
find much of interest in this collection.
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