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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental impact of natural disasters & phenomena
In the early months of 2020, the world's attention was riveted on
Australia, where the nation's iconic wildlife fought for survival
in the face of unprecedented wildfires. Images of koalas drinking
from firefighters' water bottles went viral and became the global
face of a catastrophe that would kill as many as three billion
animals. Known as the Black Summer, the fire season was responsible
for more wildlife deaths and near-extinctions than any other single
event in Australian history. Flames of Extinction, written by a
journalist at the heart of this news coverage, is the first book to
tell the stories of Australia's record-setting fires, focusing on
the wild animals and plants that will be forever changed. As news
of the fires spread around the world, journalist John Pickrell was
inundated with requests for articles about the danger to
Australia's wildlife. The picture seemed grim, from charred koalas
to flames that burned so hot not even animal skeletons remained.
But Pickrell's reporting exposed a larger picture of hope. Flames
of Extinction tells the story of the scientists, wildlife
rehabilitators, and community members who came together to save
wildlife and protect them in the future. As climate change
intensifies and devastating wildfires become more commonplace,
Australia's Black Summer offers a poignant warning to the rest of
the world. Through evocative and urgent storytelling, Flames of
Extinction puts readers on the ground to witness the aftermath of
one of Australia's greatest tragedies and inside the inspiring
effort to save lives.
Most landslides are triggered by rainfall. In previous studies,
slope stability is often evaluated based on the infiltration
analysis. Hydro-mechanical coupling is significant to
rainfall-caused landslide evolution. This book covers theoretical
models of unsaturated infiltration, and provides hydro-mechanical
models for rainfall-induced landslides. The influences of rainfall
patterns, boundary conditions, layered structures, and SWCC
hysteresis on the coupled unsaturated infiltration and deformation
are discussed. Laboratory testing of rainfall-induced landslides is
performed to study the developing process of landslide upon
rainfall infiltration. The results provide a better understanding
of rainfall-induced landslides.
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 richly illustrated book describes statistical extreme value
theory for the quantification of natural hazards, such as strong
winds, floods and rainfall, and discusses an interdisciplinary
approach to allow the theoretical methods to be applied. The
approach consists of a number of steps: data selection and
correction, non-stationary theory (to account for trends due to
climate change), and selecting appropriate estimation techniques
based on both decision-theoretic features (e.g., Bayesian theory),
empirical robustness and a valid treatment of uncertainties. It
also examines and critically reviews alternative approaches based
on stochastic and dynamic numerical models, as well as recently
emerging data analysis issues and presents large-scale,
multidisciplinary, state-of-the-art case studies. Intended for all
those with a basic knowledge of statistical methods interested in
the quantification of natural hazards, the book is also a valuable
resource for engineers conducting risk analyses in collaboration
with scientists from other fields (such as hydrologists,
meteorologists, climatologists).
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.
After the storm, a community comes togetherFramed by the stories of
Hurricane Maria evacuees, Tossed to the Wind is the gripping
account of the wreckage, despair, and displacement left in the wake
of one of the deadliest natural disasters on U.S. soil. It is also
a story of hope and endurance as Puerto Ricans on the island shared
what little they had and the diaspora in Florida offered
refuge.Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico as a high-end Category 4,
and the storm surge, flash flooding, and countless landslides
created widespread devastation. One hundred percent of the island
lost drinking water and electricity. More than 3 million U.S.
citizens lived for months without power, making it the worst
blackout in American history. The slow recovery led to a mass
evacuation. Thousands gathered what they had left and traveled to
central Florida-already home to 1 million Puerto Ricans. In Tossed
to the Wind, Maria Padilla and Nancy Rosado interview Puerto Ricans
from all walks of life who now live in Orlando and Kissimmee, who
fight every day to pick up the pieces of their world after
Hurricane Maria. In their own words, evacuees describe families
living temporarily out of motels, parents anxious about providing
for their children, children starting new schools, and everyone
worried about the families and friends they left behind. Told from
the midst of chaos and incomprehensible loss, these are the
stories-filled with pain and wisdom, sadness and laughter-that
showcase the strength and resolve of Puerto Ricans.
The recent explosion of global and regional seismicity data in the
world requires new methods of investigation of microseismicity and
development of their modelling to understand the nature of whole
earth mechanics. In this book, the author proposes a powerful tool
to reveal the characteristic features of global and regional
microseismicity big data accumulated in the databases of the world.
The method proposed in this monograph is based on (1)
transformation of stored big data to seismicity density data
archives, (2) linear transformation of microseismicity density data
matrixes to correlated seismicity matrixes by means of the singular
value decomposition method, (3) time series analyses of globally
and regionally correlated seismicity rates, and (4) the minimal
non-linear equations approximation of their correlated seismicity
rate dynamics. Minimal non-linear modelling is the manifestation
for strongly correlated seismicity time series controlled by
Langevin-type stochastic dynamic equations involving deterministic
terms and random Gaussian noises. A deterministic term is composed
minimally with correlated seismicity rate vectors of a linear term
and of a term with a third exponent. Thus, the dynamics of
correlated seismicity in the world contains linearly changing
stable nodes and rapid transitions between them with transient
states. This book contains discussions of future possibilities of
stochastic extrapolations of global and regional seismicity in
order to reduce earthquake disasters worldwide. The dataset files
are available online and can be downloaded at springer.com.
This book, for the first time, introduces comprehensively all main
topics of lifeline earthquake engineering, including the structure
analysis, network evaluation, and network design. The distinctive
features involved in this book are the construction of theories and
methods for stochastic analysis of structures based the physical
idea, probability analytical algorithms for network evaluation by
employing Boolean Algebra, functional evaluation of water
distribution networks using hydraulic analysis, and network design
methods by employing genetic, simulated annealing, and hybrid
algorithms.
Popular culture is flourishing again, with a renewed interest in
the ET and UFO phenomena. We are inundated with films, TV
programmes and books, plus many conspiracy theories, dealing with
the phenomena. Governments and security agencies are denying any
interest in the issue, yet releasing masses of documents (mostly
unreadable) after being compelled to, by the Freedom of Information
Act. Such speculation and documentation in ancient writings
suggests that an unearthly presence has been in Earth-space for
many generations. The question of this situation must reach a
culminating point sometime in the near future. This book is
concerned with the cultural shock and social disorientation that
would obviously occur with a sudden appearance en-mass of an alien
race finally revealing themselves to humanity and how the people of
Earth would react.
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.
This book provides a complete study of the Central Andean volcanism
and its most distinctive features, from the lower Paleozoic to the
Cenozoic times in the framework of its processes, eruptive
mechanisms and geodynamic conditions. It helps readers understand
the nature of the volcanic geology and the volcaniclastic related
deposits linked to the evolution of the Andean continental margin.
Special attention is paid to the analysis of the ancient volcanic
successions and the difficulties in recognition of the original
rock type caused by the effects of deformation, metamorphism and
alteration. The authors use distinctive cases to describe how to
apply different tools in analysis and interpretation. The selected
representative, well exposed and preserved volcanic records of the
Southern Central Andes analyzed in this book open new perspectives
in the understanding of the volcanic processes linked to active
continental margins as the Central Andes. This book will be of
special interest to volcanologists and specialists in the earth
sciences and appeal to both undergraduate and graduate students in
geology.
Unless they research the subject for themselves, many people do not
realise that the origins and development of the human entity are
largely an unresolved mystery. Before the Author's own research, he
was among them. He found that he also had been subtly indoctrinated
with such remarks 'cousins' and 'relatives' with regard to the apes
and assumed like most others, that all the facts where in. When you
read the work, you will find that this is simply not true. So
begins 'The Human Enigma', a truly epic enquiry into the origins of
our world and the creatures that walk upon. In particular, it
examines the human brain as a uniquely wonderful creation which can
be viewed as a gift from God (or was it the gods?) besides
Darwinian evolution and Biblical creation. This book explores the
fanatic proposition that mankind's rapid development with regard to
the human brain may have been influenced by extra terrestrial
sources. This work refers to, and draws together the previous work
of respected scientists and looks at the future scenarios that the
latest genetic and environmental sciences are pointing towards.
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