???????????? Katrina, a natural hurricane, struck New Orleans on August 29th 2005. ???????????? Nobody envisaged the damage and destruction it would wreak on the southern US city, and it became on a much greater scale a manmade disaster of civil engineering and social discrimination. ???????????? Because of government failure, millions viewed political ineptitude, social inequity and an unpaved America where the streets were lined with anything but gold. ???????????? The images in this book show the abandoned and hardest-hit district of the Lower Ninth Ward, now over two years later, and still counting. ???????????? Vacant and dilapidated, the city is a shadow of its former self. However, in these seemingly lifeless shadows, and through the broken windows of empty houses, one can eerily see the ghostly reflections of life and death in the form of PER SONAL OBJECT S. ???????????? These intensely personal items have been abandoned and left, and in most cases, will never be reclaimed. ???????????? This small format book touches on the ephemeral, and surprisingly often beautiful, remnants of belongings that once made up the memories and precious moments of peoples' lives.

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.

This contributed volume discusses essential topics and the fundamentals for Big Data Emergency Management and primarily focusses on the application of Big Data for Emergency Management. It walks the reader through the state of the art, in different facets of the big disaster data field. This includes many elements that are important for these technologies to have real-world impact. This book brings together different computational techniques from: machine learning, communication network analysis, natural language processing, knowledge graphs, data mining, and information visualization, aiming at methods that are typically used for processing big emergency data. This book also provides authoritative insights and highlights valuable lessons by distinguished authors, who are leaders in this field. Emergencies are severe, large-scale, non-routine events that disrupt the normal functioning of a community or a society, causing widespread and overwhelming losses and impacts. Emergency Management is the process of planning and taking actions to minimize the social and physical impact of emergencies and reduces the community's vulnerability to the consequences of emergencies. Information exchange before, during and after the disaster periods can greatly reduce the losses caused by the emergency. This allows people to make better use of the available resources, such as relief materials and medical supplies. It also provides a channel through which reports on casualties and losses in each affected area, can be delivered expeditiously. Big Data-Driven Emergency Management refers to applying advanced data collection and analysis technologies to achieve more effective and responsive decision-making during emergencies. Researchers, engineers and computer scientists working in Big Data Emergency Management, who need to deal with large and complex sets of data will want to purchase this book. Advanced-level students interested in data-driven emergency/crisis/disaster management will also want to purchase this book as a study guide.

Flooding claims many lives worldwide each year. In addition, many more lives are affected by homelessness, disease and crop failures as a result of floods' destructiveness. The number of recent flood events coupled with climate change predictions and urban development, suggest that these statistics are likely to worsen in the future. Flooding in populated areas can cause substantial property damage as well as threaten human life. Apart from the obvious physical damage to buildings, contents and loss of life, there other more indirect losses that are often overlooked. These intangible impacts are generally associated with disruption to normal life as well as longer term health issues, including stress-related illness. The conference papers cover the following topics: Flood Risk Management; Flood Risk Vulnerability; Emergency Preparedness and Response; Flood Forecasting; Flood Case Studies; Responses to Reduce Vulnerability to Flooding.

This book is a joint endeavour of the three partner universities to develop a book with in-depth and state-of-art analysis for the academic community of East Asia and the world. Past disasters, like the 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake in China and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, saw good efforts of East Asian countries in helping each other. Such a trend has been further strengthened in these countries' recent cooperation and mutual support in their fight against Covid-19 pandemic. While China, Japan, and South Korea are geographically and culturally contiguous and hence may share some characteristics in their risk management principles and practices, there may also be many significant differences due to their different socioeconomic and political systems. The commonalities and variances in East Asia risk management systems are also reflected by their recent responses to the Covid-19 challenges. While all three countries demonstrated overall success in controlling the epidemic, the measures taken by them were different. This research will be of interest to policymakers, scholars and economists.

This book analyzes recent advances, trends, challenges and potentials of the role of media in disaster risk reduction. Collaboration, co-design and co-delivery with other stakeholders in science technology, private sectors, and civil society are found to be effective in reaching people and communities.The media is considered to be of utmost importance in all phases of disasters, before, during and after, with different types of media having different proactive roles to play in disaster risk reduction. Before disasters, they play essential roles not only in bringing early warning to people but also in enhancing their perception of the need to take action. At during- and post-disaster response recovery phases, community radio and social media are the key. These necessitate a resilient media infrastructure as the core of uninterrupted coverage. Media literacy has become an important issue for several stakeholders, including governments. In addition, more focus is placed on media governance to look at the priorities of disaster risk reduction initiatives within the media. All of these are considered to lead to trust in the media, which further improves people's disaster response actions based on information from the media, before and during disasters. Covering different aspects of media, this book is a valuable source for students, researchers, academics, policy-makers and development practitioners.

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.

This timely volume describes and analyzes the collaborative nursing response to a variety of historic and recent global disasters that occurred between 1908 and 2012, including Hurricane Sandy. The book is unique in its discussion of the trans-national character of disaster response regarding the mobilization of individuals across national borders and continents. It examines how these transnational partnerships developed, their implications for policy, and how we can use lessons learned to improve care in the future. The book addresses such questions as: How did local, regional, and national communities mobilize for emergency care? What was the role of local nurses in emergency care after disasters? What was the role of the national or international Red Cross, local and federal government, physicians, nurses, and other first responders? What was the impact of social attitudes and issues of race, class, and gender on the ways nurses and other health care professionals reacted to the disasters? How did food shortages and food insecurity, and /or violence reshape health care goals? How did unpreparedness for the type or scope of the disaster affect the response? How can our ideas about trans-national exchange and/or transformation of health care knowledge be enhanced when nurses from across the globe contribute their experiences to the disaster response? The book will be of value to a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate students in nursing, social work, history, health policy, women's studies, public health, and urban studies. Key Features: Addresses the trans-national character of disaster response Explains in detail what nurses can expect during disasters and what measures to take when disaster strikes Examines previous natural disasters and calls into question whether disasters were caused by accidents or intentional/unintentional human error Discusses policy implications of the different disasters, focusing on transnational partnerships

This book evaluates the seismic performance of concrete gravity dams, considering the effects of strong motion duration, mainshock-aftershock seismic sequence, and near-fault ground motion. It employs both the extended finite element method (XFEM) and concrete damaged plasticity (CDP) models to characterize the mechanical behavior of concrete gravity dams under strong ground motions, including the dam-reservoir-foundation interaction. In addition, it discusses the effects of the initial crack, earthquake direction, and cross-stream seismic excitation on the nonlinear dynamic response to strong ground motions, and on the damage-cracking risk of concrete gravity dams. This book provides a theoretical basis for the seismic performance evaluation of high dams, and can also be used as a reference resource for researchers and graduate students engaged in the seismic design of high dams.

The main objective of the book is to offer a vision of the dynamics of the main disasters in South America, describing their mechanisms and consequences on South American societies. The chapters are written by selected specialists of each country. Human-induced disasters are also included, such as desertification in Patagonia and soil erosion in Brazil. The receding of South-American glaciers as a response to recent climatic trends and sea-level scenarios are discussed.
The approach is broad in analyzing causes and consequences and includes social and economic costs, discussing environmental and planning problems, but always describing the geomorphologic/geologic involved processes with a good scientific substantiation. This is important to differentiate the book from others of a more 'social' impact that discuss risks and disasters with emphases mainly on economy and simple impacts.
* actual theme, interesting for a variety of professionals.
* fills in the scarcity of specialized literature in geosciences from South America.
* is the first book in the market exclusively devoted to geomorphology of disasters in South America.

This book presents a comprehensive selection of applications employed in environmental remote sensing using optical and thermal infrared satellite-sensors aiming to map natural resources, crops, groundwater, surface water, aquatic ecosystem, land degradation, air quality, renewable energy, regional resources, and climate-related geophysical processes. The technologies presented in this book also include satellite images, space-borne radar sensors focusing on the most versatile one, data from synthetic aperture radar (SAR), scatterometers and radar altimeters in Egypt. This volume also presents a thorough explanation of the remote sensing role showing physical fundamentals of the climate change phenomenon including gas emissions, and the impact on resources concerning the sustainable development of Egypt. Besides, the book includes an analysis of oil pollution in both Mediterranean and Red Seas This book is intended for environmental policymakers working in Egypt as well as scientists working with remote sensing technologies in highly populated arid regions.

This volume presents select papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. The papers discuss advances in the fields of soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering. Some of the themes include seismic risk assessment, engineering seismology, wave propagation, remote sensing applications for geohazards,engineering vibrations, etc. A strong emphasis is placed on connecting academic research and field practice, with many examples, case studies, best practices, and discussions on performance based design. This volume will be of interest to researchers and practicing engineers alike.

Along the Gulf Coast, history is often referenced as pre-Katrina or post-Katrina. However, the natural disaster that appalled the world in 2005 has been joined by another catastrophe, this one man-made--the greatest environmental and maritime accident of all time, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. In less than five years, the Gulf Coast has experienced two colossal disasters, very different, yet very similar. And these two equally complex crises have resulted in a steep learning curve for all, but especially the journalists covering these enduring stories.

In "Oil and Water," the authors explore the media-fed experiences, the visuals and narratives associated with both disasters. Katrina journalists have reluctantly had to transform into oil spill journalists. The authors look at this process of growth from the viewpoints not only of the journalists, but also of the public and of the scientific community. Through a detailed analysis of the journalists' content, the authors tackle significant questions. This book assesses the quality of journalism and the effects that quality may have on the public. The authors argue that regardless of the type of journalism involved or the immensity of the events covered, successful reportage still depends on the fundamentals of journalism and the importance of following these tenets consistently in a crisis atmosphere, especially when confronted with enduring crises that are just years apart.

Japan, which is among the most earthquake-prone regions in the world, has a long history of responding to seismic disasters. However, despite advances in earthquake-related safety technologies, the destructiveness of the magnitude 9 class earthquake and tsunami that struck the country on 3/11 raised profound questions about how societies can deal effectively with seismic hazards. This important book places the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown disaster in historical perspective, examining conceptions of earthquakes since the seventeenth century, the diverse ways actual earthquakes and their aftermath played out, and their enduring social and scientific significance. By looking backward, Gregory Smits identifies future pitfalls to avoid and assesses the allocation of resources for dealing with future earthquake and tsunami disasters. He criticizes Japan's postwar quest for earthquake prediction and the concept of "characteristic" earthquakes. Smits argues that earthquakes are so chaotic as to be unpredictable, not only geologically but also in their social and cultural effects. Therefore, he contends, the best hope for future disaster mitigation is antiseismic engineering and flexible disaster-relief capabilities. As the first sustained historical analysis of destructive earthquakes and tsunamis, this book is an essential resource for anyone interested in Japan, natural disasters, seismology, and environmental history.

This book summarizes the research being pursued as part of the Erasmus+ CBHE KA2 project entitled "Development of master curricula for natural disasters risk management in Western Balkan countries" (NatRisk), which aims to educate experts on the prevention and management of natural disasters in the Western Balkan region in line with national and EU policies. The project has successfully developed and implemented master curricula and educational training in the field of natural disasters risk management, and a methodology for the identification and prevention of natural disasters. Consisting of 11 chapters, the book analyzes and discusses topics such as risk assessment tools and quality methods, the different approaches for civil-military collaboration, natural disasters risk management in Bosnia and Herzegovina, leadership models for managing crises resulting from natural disasters, natural disasters in industrial areas, natural risk management in geotechnics, flood risk modeling, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference models for flood prediction, collapse prediction of masonry arches, an algorithm for fire truck dispatch in emergency situations, and processing drought data in a GIS environment.

This volume brings together contributions from world renowned researchers and practitioners in the field of geotechnical engineering. The chapters of this book are based on the keynote and invited lectures delivered at the 7th International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. The book presents advances in the field of soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering. A strong emphasis is placed on proving connections between academic research and field practice, with many examples, case studies, best practices, and discussions on performance-based design. This volume will be of interest to research scholars, academicians and industry professionals alike.

A crisis is a period of uncertainty that may or may not lead to disaster, depending in part on the capacity of actors to make sense of what is happening and respond effectively. Disasters in different spheres occur and recur at different speeds and in idiosyncratic ways, but in essence they follow the same pattern. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and Eurozone upheavals this timely book argues that the disaster cycle - a framework normally used in the context of natural disasters - is equally applicable to the analysis of other types of catastrophe.Employing a modified version of the disaster cycle framework to compare and analyse a range of catastrophes in different spheres, the author draws on ideas from a variety of disciplines including economics and economic history, disaster studies, management, and political science. This unique comparative approach presents case studies of several important disasters: Hurricane Katrina, the First World War, the depression of the early 1930s, Welsh coal mining accidents, the deadly effects of smoking tobacco, and the Global Financial Crisis and Eurozone catastrophe of the early twenty first century. The author argues that economists and economic policy makers routinely misuse the term crisis to describe episodes that ought to be called disasters. This accessible and fascinating exploration will appeal to students and scholars in economic history, disaster studies, management, public policy, and related disciplines. The comparison of crisis and disaster management is also essential reading for policy makers.