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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental impact of natural disasters & phenomena
Recent major earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and other
natural phenomena have resulted in huge losses in terms of human
life and property destruction. A new range of human-made disasters
have afflicted humanity in modern times; terrorist activities have
been added to more classical disasters such as those due to the
failure of industrial installations. 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
selected papers contained in this book have been written by
academics and professionals and represent some of the latest
developments in the field.
Research presented at the 7th International Conference on Disaster
Management and Human Health: Reducing Risk, Improving Outcomes is
contained in this volume. These contributions from academics and
experts focus on public health, security and disaster management
with the goal to assess the potential risk from various types of
disaster and highlight ways to prevent or alleviate any damage.
There is a need for academia and practitioners to exchange
knowledge and experience on the way to handle the increasing risk
of natural and human-made disasters. Recent major earthquakes,
tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and other natural phenomena have
resulted in huge losses in terms of human life and property
destruction. A new range of human-made disasters have afflicted
humanity in modern times; terrorist activities have been added to
more classical disasters such as those due to the failure of
industrial installations for instance. 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 papers included in this volume cover such topics as
Public health risk; Socio-economic issues; Environmental issues;
Emergency preparedness and risk mitigation.
The author examines natural disasters around the Pacific Rim
throughout history together with scientific data context to produce
enlightening-and highly readable-entries. On March 11, 2011, a
magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's coast, triggering a
powerful tsunami. The massive destruction that resulted proved that
not even sophisticated, industrialized nations are immune from
nature's fury. Written to take some of the mystery out of the
earth's behavior, this encyclopedia chronicles major natural
disasters that have occurred around the Pacific Rim, an area
nicknamed the "Ring of Fire" because of the volatile earth that
lies above and below. The encyclopedia offers descriptions of
deadly earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis through time.
The entries provide in-depth information that promotes an
understanding of the structure of the earth and earth processes and
shares the insights of scientists whose work helps clarify the
causes and effects of these cataclysmic events. At the same time,
the work examines how the people and cultures of the Pacific Rim
view this active part of the earth, how they live with the threat
of disaster, and how they have been affected by major events that
have occurred. Readers will come away with a holistic view of what
is known, how this knowledge was gained, and what its implications
may be. Features approximately 100 alphabetically arranged entries
with insights into specific disasters, technology, key geographic
features of the area, significant people, cultural beliefs, and
more Includes a general introduction and overview of the geography
and tectonic activity in the Pacific Rim countries Offers both
historical and scientific information Explains complex natural
phenomena and scientific concepts using nontechnical language and
clear illustrations Provides relevant cross-references to related
topics as well as to articles, books, and websites that offer
further information
The world's population is expected to increase to over 8 billion by
2020. About 60% of the total population of the world lives in
coastal areas and 65% of the cities with a population of over 2.5
million are located in coastal areas. Written by an international
panel of experts in the fields of engineering and risk management,
The Handbook of Coastal Disasters Mitigation presents a coherent
overview of 10 years of coastal disaster risk management and
engineering, during which some of the most relevant events of
recent time have taken place, including the Indian Ocean tsunami,
hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the United States or the 2011
Japanese tsunami.
This book presents comprehensive information on the types of
geohazards that impact not only the human society but also the
natural resources as well. Authored by experts working on
characterization and modeling geohazard phenomena and vulnerability
of different regions of World towards specific types of geohazards.
Individual s are devoted to every geohazard type, detailing it in
terms of definition, types, causes, likely impacts on
socio-economic milieu and natural environment, methods of
mitigation and relief and rescue procedures. Case studies and
specific s on systematic of geohazard vulnerability mapping,
information dissemination and relief and rescue operations are also
included in this book.
"Coastal Disasters and Climate Change in Vietnam "is the first
book to focus specifically on natural hazards and climate change in
Vietnam. The book examines threats such as tropical cyclones,
sea-level rise, flooding, erosion, and salinity intrusion, and
their respective effects on coastal structures and environments. It
also looks at crucial management and mitigation efforts, including
breakwater design, irrigation systems, coastal dunes and dikes, and
more.
The challenges faced by this country in the future will have
important regional and global repercussions; areas such as the
Mekong Delta produce a significant proportion of the world s rice,
and coastal impacts on this region will have far-reaching economic
and public health effects. This book is an important source of
information for government and local policy makers, environmental
and climate scientists, and engineers.
Broad coverage of climate challenges specific to the region,
including sea-level rise, storms, erosion, and moreAssessments of
impact on, and effects of, economic development and port
constructionExamination of public policy responses to climate
change"
This book focuses on the mechanical properties and permeability of
coal, and the gas flow in coal seams. Based on coal permeability
models, it establishes different models for coal seam gas, from the
linear flow model to the gas-solid coupling flow model. It also
provides the theoretical basis for the exploitation and safe
production of coal as well as coal seam gas resources. As such, it
is a valuable reference for researchers, advanced students and
practitioners working in mining engineering and coalbed methane
engineering.
This book is of paramount importance in the fields of engineering
and applied sciences, given that through the values obtained by
these procedures, many structures, like spillways of dams and
highway culverts, are designed and constructed. The main aim of
this book is to provide procedures for implementing many
probability distribution functions, all of them based on using a
standard and a common computational application known as Excel,
which is available to any personal computer user. The computer
procedures are given in enough detail, so readers can develop their
own Excel worksheets. All the probability distribution functions in
the book have schemes to estimate its parameters, quantiles, and
confidence limits through the methods of moments and maximum
likelihood.
Stress tests highlight a system's weak spots. This second edition
provides a stress testing of the United States by exploring in
detail the background to the disasters of the War on Terror,
Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis, the Gulf oil spill and the
COVID-19 epidemic. These major stresses-the country's longest war,
its biggest natural disaster, its biggest financial collapse since
the Great Depression, its biggest oil spill and its worst pandemic
since the influenza pandemic of 1918-tell us much about structural
flaws in the United States. This book explores each of these events
in detail to locate the seed of the disasters, and highlights what
we have learned and not learned from these stress tests.
This book covers the multidisciplinary nature of environment,
public awareness case studies related to environment, current
issues environment and natural changes. The book includes disaster
management, mitigation and application of Remote Sensing and GIS
for disaster management and environmental changes. It also consists
of drawing a long-term policy to overcome the problems of
environmental pollution and disaster management. The other
important environmental issues that are highlighted are
environmental impact assessment studies, environmental health
hazards and ecological consequences in relation to the
inter-linking of rivers in India. The issues of natural disasters
includes landslides, flood and flood control, earthquakes and
tsunamis. The book is useful for students and researchers of
various disciplines like biology, microbiology, environment,
ecology, pedology, geology, geography, hydrologists, remote sensing
experts, social sciences, etc and others who are concerned with
environment and disaster management. The whole book is divided into
2 parts including 30 chaptePart I covers environmental changes:
their causes, impacts and assessment and part II highlights natural
disasters: mitigation and management and other related aspects.
This book recognizes Mexico's effects and challenges in a natural
disaster and offers empirical risk-reduction methods in critical
cases. The proposals considered here include real and detailed
analysis, a set of models, frameworks, strategies, and findings in
the three stages of the disaster (before-during-after). This book:
describes the methodology to find secure locations for the Regional
Humanitarian Response Depot; offers recommendations for the sites
and creation of an Export Logistics Cluster; shows how to use
available technology and information to locate volunteers in the
right spots describes mathematical models to help to allocate
procedure of resources for restoring the affected community and
proposes actions to create resilience in the country's main
economic sectors, including agriculture and industry. The processes
applied at recent disasters such as the 19S earthquake and their
results are used as case studies, identifying possibilities for
further improvement. The book also describes new trends for Mexico
due to climate change and makes suggestions for mitigating future
disasters. The proposals are also replicable to other highly
populated societies with similar socio-economic structures.
Finally, this book is the basis for generating more innovative
recommendations by researchers, graduate students, academics,
professionals, and practitioners to obtain better planning and
better collaboration between all the humanitarian chain actors.
This book intends to be of interest as a fundamental tool for
decision-makers, governments, non-governmental organizations, and
enterprises.
There is evidence that the world has been witnessing more intense
tropical cyclones. Accompanying these tropical cyclones are
heightened levels of devastation that witness the loss of human
life and wildlife, destruction of natural resources and property
and the disruption of major economic and social activities. To this
end, there is a growing demand for publications focusing on
tropical cyclones at various levels that include regional, national
and local levels, especially from Africa. One sub-region that has
been witnessing the harsh realities of the increasing intensity of
tropical cyclones in southern Africa. However, within this region,
countries are usually impacted at varying degrees of damage. Among
the countries that usually encounter the harshness of these
tropical cyclones are the Comoros, Botswana, Madagascar, Mauritius,
Malawi, Mozambique, Reunion, the Seychelles, South Africa and
Zimbabwe. From the history books, the following tropical cyclones
made landfall and hit southern Africa: Eline (2000), Favio (2007),
Dineo (2017), Idai (2019), Kenneth (2019), Eliose (2021), and
Chalane (2020). Although all these tropical cyclones had negative
impacts, it is undoubtedly Tropical Cyclone Idai that shocked the
world with its devastation mainly in Mozambique, Malawi and
Zimbabwe in March 2019. Key infrastructure was destroyed,
livelihoods were lost, and the environment was degraded. Thousands
of people died, many more were injured, many remain unaccounted for
and others remained homeless as of the time of finalising this book
in February 2021. This book, therefore focuses on the devastating
impacts of Tropical Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe. The book interfaces
Tropical Cyclone Idai's impacts with the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development and some of the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). This linkage was deliberate given that there is still
time remaining until 2030, and the world has generally agreed to
move into the future along the pathways of sustainable development
and sustainability. The book adds to the first comprehensive
profiling of the impacts of tropical cyclones on southern African
economies, particularly that of Zimbabwe. It also comes up as the
first in a three-volume series. The other volumes to look out for
are Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol 2: Foundational and Fundamental
Topics; and Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol 3: Implications for the
Sustainable Development Goals. To this end, this book is suitable
as a read for several professionals and disciplines such as tourism
and hospitality studies, economics, sustainable development,
development studies, environmental sciences, arts, geography, life
sciences, politics, planning and public health.
Monitoring drought’s slow evolution and identifying the end of a
drought is still a big challenge for scientists, natural resource
managers, and decision makers. This comprehensive two-volume set
with contributions from over 200 experts, and featuring case
studies representing numerous countries throughout the world,
discusses different aspects of drought from types, indices, and
forecasting to monitoring, modeling, and mitigation measures. It
also addresses how climate change is impacting drought and
decision-making concluding with lessons learned about science,
policy, and managing uncertainty. Features: Provides a global
perspective on drought prediction and management and a synthesis of
the recent state of knowledge. Covers a wide range of topics from
essential concepts and advanced techniques for forecasting and
modeling drought to societal impacts, consequences, and planning
Presents numerous case studies with different management approaches
from different regions and countries. Addresses how climate change
impacts drought, the increasing challenges associated with managing
drought, decision making, and policy implications. Includes
contributions from hundreds of experts around the world.
Professionals, researchers, academics, and postgraduate students
with knowledge in Environmental Sciences, Ecology, Agriculture,
Forestry, Hydrology, Water Resources Engineering, and Earth
Sciences, as well as those interested in how climate change impacts
drought management, will gain new insights from the experts
featured in this two-volume handbook.
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