Urbanisation and climate change are among the major challenges for sustainable development in Africa. The overall aim of this book is to present innovative approaches to vulnerability analysis and for enhancing the resilience of African cities against climate change-induced risks. Locally adapted IPCC climate change scenarios, which also consider possible changes in urban population, have been developed. Innovative strategies to land use and spatial planning are proposed that seek synergies between the adaptation to climate change and the need to solve social problems. Furthermore, the book explores the role of governance in successfully coping with climate-induced risks in urban areas. The book is unique in that it combines: a top-down perspective of climate change modeling with a bottom-up perspective of vulnerability assessment; quantitative approaches from engineering sciences and qualitative approaches of the social sciences; a novel multi-risk modeling methodology; and strategic approaches to urban and green infrastructure planning with neighborhood perspectives of adaptation.

Seismic early warning is being recognized as a methodology which offers the biggest potential for real time seismic risk mitigation, particularly in towns and industrial areas. In order to be effectively applied it requires close cooperation between seismologists, communication experts and seismic engineers. The added value of this book is to offer an overview of frontier problems related to all aspects of the seismic early warning chain, from basic seismological issues to engineering problems and system reliability. Early warning seismic networks also provide near real time shake maps for damage estimation and emergency management immediately after an event. The state of the major early warning systems in operation and in the course of development (e.g. those operated in Japan, Taiwan, Rumania, Turkey and those being implemented in California and Southern Italy) is also presented. It is the first time that all these aspects are specifically focused upon within a single book. It will constitute a reference not only for researchers and students, but for all institutions which are willing to face the development and/or implementation of this methodology, including International organizations (UNDP, European Civil Protection, European Commision) National Civil Defence organizations, industry and town-planners.

Urbanisation and climate change are among the major challenges for sustainable development in Africa. The overall aim of this book is to present innovative approaches to vulnerability analysis and for enhancing the resilience of African cities against climate change-induced risks. Locally adapted IPCC climate change scenarios, which also consider possible changes in urban population, have been developed. Innovative strategies to land use and spatial planning are proposed that seek synergies between the adaptation to climate change and the need to solve social problems. Furthermore, the book explores the role of governance in successfully coping with climate-induced risks in urban areas. The book is unique in that it combines: a top-down perspective of climate change modeling with a bottom-up perspective of vulnerability assessment; quantitative approaches from engineering sciences and qualitative approaches of the social sciences; a novel multi-risk modeling methodology; and strategic approaches to urban and green infrastructure planning with neighborhood perspectives of adaptation.

For many centuries people living on volcanoes have known that the outset of seismic activity is often a forerunner of a volcanic eruption. This understand ing allowed people living close to the sites of the Mt. Nuovo 1538 eruption at Campi Flegrei, Italy, and of the Mt. Usu 1663 eruption, in Hokkaido, Japan (to quote only two examples) to flee before the eruptions started. During the second half of the 19th century seismographs were installed on some volcanoes, and the link between seismic and eruptive activity started to be assessed on a firmer scientific basis. The first systematic observations of the correlations existing between seismic activity and volcanic eruptions were probably those carried out at Mt. Vesuvius by Luigi Palmieri in 1856. Palmieri was the Director of Osservatorio Vesuviano and built an electromagnetic seismograph with the aim of "making visible the smallest ground motions by recording them on paper and indicating direction, intensity and duration." He was able to show the relationship between earthquakes and the different phases of volcanic activity. He identified the harmonic tremor which he indicated was a precursor of volcanic activity: "the characteristic feature of the ground mo tions preceding eruption is its continuity . . . (before the eruption of 1861) the electromagnetic seismograph began to show a continuous tremor." The Palmieri seismograph was also utilized in Japan until 1883, when it was replaced by the new Gray-Milne seismographs, and, later, by the Omori in struments."

Seismic early warning is being recognized as a methodology which offers the biggest potential for real time seismic risk mitigation, particularly in towns and industrial areas. In order to be effectively applied it requires close cooperation between seismologists, communication experts and seismic engineers. The added value of this book is to offer an overview of frontier problems related to all aspects of the seismic early warning chain, from basic seismological issues to engineering problems and system reliability. Early warning seismic networks also provide near real time shake maps for damage estimation and emergency management immediately after an event. The state of the major early warning systems in operation and in the course of development (e.g. those operated in Japan, Taiwan, Rumania, Turkey and those being implemented in California and Southern Italy) is also presented. It is the first time that all these aspects are specifically focused upon within a single book. It will constitute a reference not only for researchers and students, but for all institutions which are willing to face the development and/or implementation of this methodology, including International organizations (UNDP, European Civil Protection, European Commision) National Civil Defence organizations, industry and town-planners.

The number of megacities worldwide is rapidly increasing and contemporary cities are also expanding fast. As a result, cities and their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic natural events such as extreme weather events (recently more frequent and intense as a result of the ongoing climate changes), earthquakes, tsunamis or man-induced events such as terrorist attacks or accidents. Furthermore, due to increasing technological complexity of urban areas, along with increasing population density, cities are becoming more and more risk attractors.

The resilience of cities against catastrophic events is a major challenge of today. It requires city transformation processes to be rethought, to mitigate the effects of extreme events on the vital functions of cities and communities. Redundancy and robustness of the components of the urban fabric are essential to restore the full efficiency of the city's vital functions after an extreme event has taken place. These items were addressed by an interdisciplinary and international selection of scientists during the 6th UN-World Urban Forum that was held in Naples, Italy in September 2012.

Thisvolume represents in six chapters the views from sociologists, economists and scientists working on natural risk and physical vulnerability on resilience and sustainability for future cities in relation to natural disasters."