The Cure for Catastrophe

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Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465096476
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cure for Catastrophe by : Robert Muir-Wood

Download or read book The Cure for Catastrophe written by Robert Muir-Wood and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

Natural Hazards

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315508680
Total Pages : 575 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (155 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Hazards by : Edward A. Keller

Download or read book Natural Hazards written by Edward A. Keller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural Hazards: Earth Processes as Hazards, Disasters and Catastrophes, Fourth Edition, is an introductory-level survey intended for university and college courses that are concerned with earth processes that have direct, and often sudden and violent, impacts on human society. The text integrates principles of geology, hydrology, meteorology, climatology, oceanography, soil science, ecology and solar system astronomy. The book is designed for a course in natural hazards for non-science majors, and a primary goal of the text is to assist instructors in guiding students who may have little background in science to understand physical earth processes as natural hazards and their consequences to society. Natural Hazards uses historical to recent examples of hazards and disasters to explore how and why they happen and what we can do to limit their effects. The text's up-to-date coverage of recent disasters brings a fresh perspective to the material. The Fourth Edition continues our new active learning approach that includes reinforcement of learning objective with a fully updated visual program and pedagogical tools that highlight fundamental concepts of the text. This program will provide an interactive and engaging learning experience for your students. Here's how: Provide a balanced approach to the study of natural hazards: Focus on the basic earth science of hazards as well as roles of human processes and effects on our planet in a broader, more balanced approach to the study of natural hazards. Enhance understanding and comprehension of natural hazards: Newly revised stories and case studies give students a behind the scenes glimpse into how hazards are evaluated from a scientific and human perspective; the stories of real people who survive natural hazards, and the lives and research of professionals who have contributed significantly to the research of hazardous events. Strong pedagogical tools reinforce the text's core features: Chapter structure and design organizes the material into three major sections to help students learn, digest, and review learning objectives.

After Great Disasters

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781558443310
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis After Great Disasters by : Laurie A. Johnson

Download or read book After Great Disasters written by Laurie A. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great natural disasters are rare, but their aftermath can change the fortunes of a city or region forever. This book and its companion Policy Focus Report identify lessons from different parts of the world to help communities and government leaders better organize for recovery after future disasters. The authors consider the processes and outcomes of community recovery and reconstruction following major disasters in six countries: China, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. Post-disaster reconstruction offers opportunities to improve construction and design standards, renew infrastructure, create new land use arrangements, reinvent economies, and improve governance. If done well, reconstruction can help break the cycle of disaster-related impacts and losses, and improve the resilience of a city or region.

Disasters

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0805081704
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Disasters by : Brenda Z. Guiberson

Download or read book Disasters written by Brenda Z. Guiberson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-06-08 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Natural and man-made disasters have the power to destroy thousands of lives very quickly. Both as they unfold and in the aftermath, these forces of nature astonish the rest of the world with their incredible devastation and magnitude. In this collection of ten well-known catastrophes ... Brenda Guiberson explores the causes and effects, as well as the local and global reverberations of these calamitous events."--Barnesandnoble.com.

Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History

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Publisher : Infobase Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1438130120
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History by : Ballard C. Campbell

Download or read book Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History written by Ballard C. Campbell and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a chronologically-arranged reference to catastrophic events in American history, including natural disasters, economic depressions, riots, murders, and terrorist attacks.

Nursing Management of Pediatric Disaster

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Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030434281
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Nursing Management of Pediatric Disaster by : Catherine J. Goodhue

Download or read book Nursing Management of Pediatric Disaster written by Catherine J. Goodhue and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-13 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook describes what nurses need to know about pediatric disaster nursing, including public policy, and addresses preparedness for all types of disasters (natural and man-made) and strategies for hospital, school and community preparedness. The book opens with a brief history of disaster nursing and explains the key differences between pediatric and adult disaster nursing. Recent years have been marked by numerous man-made and natural disasters, which have led nurses to seek new resources to be better prepared, in their role as nurses, for all types of disasters. Responding to this lack of resources, the book focuses on the unique needs of babies and children. It is the first and only textbook on pediatric disaster preparedness to include both the physical and psychological effects of disaster. Key aspects covered include: the psychosocial differences in and how to approach children; family reunification; medications, supplies and equipment; and decontamination. Given its breadth of coverage, the book is well suited as a textbook for nursing classes, while also offering a valuable resource for nurses working in the field.

A Safer Future

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309045460
Total Pages : 85 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis A Safer Future by : National Research Council

Download or read book A Safer Future written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initial priorities for U.S. participation in the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, declared by the United Nations, are contained in this volume. It focuses on seven issues: hazard and risk assessment; awareness and education; mitigation; preparedness for emergency response; recovery and reconstruction; prediction and warning; learning from disasters; and U.S. participation internationally. The committee presents its philosophy of calls for broad public and private participation to reduce the toll of disasters.

The Disaster Profiteers

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1137278986
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis The Disaster Profiteers by : John C. Mutter

Download or read book The Disaster Profiteers written by John C. Mutter and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, a leading geoscientist argues that natural disasters too often push the modern world towards more extremes of inequality

The Culture of Calamity

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226725707
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis The Culture of Calamity by : Kevin Rozario

Download or read book The Culture of Calamity written by Kevin Rozario and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turn on the news and it looks as if we live in a time and place unusually consumed by the specter of disaster. The events of 9/11 and the promise of future attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the inevitable consequences of environmental devastation all contribute to an atmosphere of imminent doom. But reading an account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with its vivid evocation of buildings “crumbling as one might crush a biscuit,” we see that calamities—whether natural or man-made—have long had an impact on the American consciousness. Uncovering the history of Americans’ responses to disaster from their colonial past up to the present, Kevin Rozario reveals the vital role that calamity—and our abiding fascination with it—has played in the development of this nation. Beginning with the Puritan view of disaster as God’s instrument of correction, Rozario explores how catastrophic events frequently inspired positive reactions. He argues that they have shaped American life by providing an opportunity to take stock of our values and social institutions. Destruction leads naturally to rebuilding, and here we learn that disasters have been a boon to capitalism, and, paradoxically, indispensable to the construction of dominant American ideas of progress. As Rozario turns to the present, he finds that the impulse to respond creatively to disasters is mitigated by a mania for security. Terror alerts and duct tape represent the cynical politician’s attitude about 9/11, but Rozario focuses on how the attacks registered in the popular imagination—how responses to genuine calamity were mediated by the hyperreal thrills of movies; how apocalyptic literature, like the best-selling Left Behind series, recycles Puritan religious outlooks while adopting Hollywood’s style; and how the convergence of these two ways of imagining disaster points to a new postmodern culture of calamity. The Culture of Calamity will stand as the definitive diagnosis of the peculiarly American addiction to the spectacle of destruction.

Heat Wave

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022627621X
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Heat Wave by : Eric Klinenberg

Download or read book Heat Wave written by Eric Klinenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-05-06 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “compelling” story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society (Boston Globe). On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. By July 20, over seven hundred people had perished—twenty times the number of those struck down by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Heat waves kill more Americans than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city’s vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a “social autopsy,” examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. He investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how city government responded, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported and explained these events. Through years of fieldwork, interviews, and research, he uncovers the surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown that contributed to this human catastrophe as hundreds died alone behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies. As this incisive and gripping account demonstrates, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities made visible by the 1995 heat wave remain in play in America’s cities today—and we ignore them at our peril. Includes photos and a new preface on meeting the challenges of climate change in urban centers “Heat Wave is not so much a book about weather, as it is about the calamitous consequences of forgetting our fellow citizens. . . . A provocative, fascinating book, one that applies to much more than weather disasters.” —Chicago Sun-Times “It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy.” —Salon “A classic. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Chris Hayes

The Ostrich Paradox

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 1613630794
Total Pages : 133 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (136 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ostrich Paradox by : Robert Meyer

Download or read book The Ostrich Paradox written by Robert Meyer and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Ostrich Paradox boldly addresses a key question of our time: Why are we humans so poor at dealing with disastrous risks, and what can we humans do about it? It is a must-read for everyone who cares about risk." —Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow We fail to evacuate when advised. We rebuild in flood zones. We don't wear helmets. We fail to purchase insurance. We would rather avoid the risk of "crying wolf" than sound an alarm. Our ability to foresee and protect against natural catastrophes has never been greater; yet, we consistently fail to heed the warnings and protect ourselves and our communities, with devastating consequences. What explains this contradiction? In The Ostrich Paradox, Wharton professors Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther draw on years of teaching and research to explain why disaster preparedness efforts consistently fall short. Filled with heartbreaking stories of loss and resilience, the book addresses: •How people make decisions when confronted with high-consequence, low-probability events—and how these decisions can go awry •The 6 biases that lead individuals, communities, and institutions to make grave errors that cost lives •The Behavioral Risk Audit, a systematic approach for improving preparedness by recognizing these biases and designing strategies that anticipate them •Why, if we are to be better prepared for disasters, we need to learn to be more like ostriches, not less Fast-reading and critically important, The Ostrich Paradox is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand why we consistently underprepare for disasters, as well as private and public leaders, planners, and policy-makers who want to build more prepared communities.

Inventing Disaster

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Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469652528
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Inventing Disaster by : Cynthia A. Kierner

Download or read book Inventing Disaster written by Cynthia A. Kierner and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Amply illustrated and expansively researched, Inventing Disaster explains the origins and development of this predictable, even ritualized, culture of calamity over three centuries, exploring its roots in the revolutions in science, information, and emotion that were part of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and America. Beginning with the collapse of the early seventeenth-century Jamestown colony, ending with the deadly Johnstown flood of 1889, and highlighting fires, epidemics, earthquakes, and exploding steamboats along the way, Cynthia A. Kierner tells horrific stories of culturally significant calamities and their victims and charts efforts to explain, prevent, and relieve disaster-related losses. Although how we interpret and respond to disasters has changed in some ways since the nineteenth century, Kierner demonstrates that, for better or worse, the intellectual, economic, and political environments of earlier eras forged our own twenty-first-century approach to disaster, shaping the stories we tell, the precautions we ponder, and the remedies we prescribe for disaster-ravaged communities.

Dancing with Disaster

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Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813936896
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

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Book Synopsis Dancing with Disaster by : Kate Rigby

Download or read book Dancing with Disaster written by Kate Rigby and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The calamitous impacts of climate change that are beginning to be felt around the world today expose the inextricability of human and natural histories. Arguing for a more complex account of such calamities, Kate Rigby examines a variety of past disasters, from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to the mega-hurricanes of the twenty-first century, revealing the dynamic interaction of diverse human and nonhuman factors in their causation, unfolding, and aftermath. Focusing on the link between the ways disasters are framed by the stories told about them and how people tend to respond to them in practice, Rigby also shows how works of narrative fiction invite ethical reflection on human relations with one another, with our often unruly earthly environs, and with other species in the face of eco-catastrophe. In its investigation of an array of authors from the Romantic period to the present—including Heinrich von Kleist, Mary Shelley, Theodor Storm, Colin Thiele, and Alexis Wright— Dancing with Disaster demonstrates the importance of the environmental humanities in the development of more creative, compassionate, ecologically oriented, and socially just responses to the perils and possibilities of the Anthropocene. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

Roman Disasters

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0745665497
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (456 download)

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Book Synopsis Roman Disasters by : Jerry Toner

Download or read book Roman Disasters written by Jerry Toner and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roman Disasters looks at how the Romans coped with, thought about, and used disasters for their own ends. Rome has been famous throughout history for its great triumphs. Yet Rome also suffered colossal disasters. From the battle of Cannae, where fifty thousand men fell in a single day, to the destruction of Pompeii, to the first appearance of the bubonic plague, the Romans experienced large scale calamities.Earthquakes, fires, floods and famines also regularly afflicted them. This insightful book is the first to treat such disasters as a conceptual unity. It shows that vulnerability to disasters was affected by politics, social status, ideology and economics. Above all, it illustrates how the resilience of their political and cultural system allowed the Romans to survive the impact of these life-threatening events. The book also explores the important role disaster narratives played in Christian thought and rhetoric. Engaging and accessible, Roman Disasters will be enjoyed by students and general readers alike.

Disaster by Choice

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192578286
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Disaster by Choice by : Ilan Kelman

Download or read book Disaster by Choice written by Ilan Kelman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An earthquake shatters Haiti and a hurricane slices through Texas. We hear that nature runs rampant, seeking to destroy us through these 'natural disasters'. Science recounts a different story, however: disasters are not the consequence of natural causes; they are the consequence of human choices and decisions. we put ourselves in harm's way; we fail to take measures which we know would prevent disasters, no matter what the environment does. This can be both hard to accept, and hard to unravel. A complex of factors shape disasters. They arise from the political processes dictating where and what we build, and from social circumstances which create and perpetuate poverty and discrimination. They develop from the social preference to blame nature for the damage wrought, when in fact events such as earthquakes and storms are entirely commonplace environmental processes We feel the need to fight natural forces, to reclaim what we assume is ours, and to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be wrath from outside our communities. This attitude distracts us from the real causes of disasters: humanity's decisions, as societies and as individuals. It stops us accepting the real solutions to disasters: making better decisions. This book explores stories of some of our worst disasters to show how we can and should act to stop people dying when nature unleashes its energies. The disaster is not the tornado, the volcanic eruption, or climate change, but the deaths and injuries, the loss of irreplaceable property, and the lack and even denial of support to affected people, so that a short-term interruption becomes a long-term recovery nightmare. But we can combat this, as Kelman shows, describing inspiring examples of effective human action that limits damage, such as managing flooding in Toronto and villages in Bangladesh, or wildfire in Colorado. Throughout, his message is clear: there is no such thing as a natural disaster. The disaster lies in our inability to deal with the environment and with ourselves.

Natural Disaster at the Closing of the Dutch Golden Age

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108924689
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Disaster at the Closing of the Dutch Golden Age by : Adam Sundberg

Download or read book Natural Disaster at the Closing of the Dutch Golden Age written by Adam Sundberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural disasters repeatedly beset the Dutch Republic during the eighteenth century and coincided with environmental, political, economic, and social changes many characterized as decline. This book explores the connections between disasters and Dutch decline and uncovers lessons these eighteenth-century experiences offer for the present.

Natural Disasters

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Author :
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 9781857280944
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Disasters by : David C. Alexander

Download or read book Natural Disasters written by David C. Alexander and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1993-07-29 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a well balanced and fully illustrated introductory text, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the physical, technological and social components of natural disaster. The main disaster-producing agents are reviewed systematically in terms of geophysical processes and effects, monitoring, mitigation and warning. The relationship between disasters and society is examined with respect to a wide variety of themes, including damage assessment and prevention, hazard mapping, emergency preparedness, the provision of shelter and the nature of reconstruction. Medical emergencies and the epidemiology of disasters are described, and refugee management and aid to the Third World are discussed. A chapter is devoted to the sociology, psychology, economics and history of disasters.; In many parts of the world the toll of death, injury, damage and deprivation caused by natural disasters is becoming increasingly serious. Major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, floods and other similar catastrophes are often followed by large relief operations characterized by substantial involvement of the international community. The years 1990-2000 have therefore been designated by the United Nations as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.; The book goes beyond mere description and elevates the field of natural catastrophes to a serious academic level. The author's insights and perspectives are also informed by his practical experience of being a disaster victim and survivor, and hence the unique perspective of a participant observer. Only by surmounting the boundaries between disciplines can natural catastrophe be understood and mitigation efforts made effective. Thus, this book is perhaps the first completely interdisciplinary, fully comprehensive survey of natural hazards and disasters. It has a clear theoretical basis and it recognizes the importance of six fundamental approaches to the field, which it blends carefully in the text in order to avoid the partiality of previous works. It covers the earth and social sciences, as well as engineering, architecture and development studies. This breadth is made possible by virtue of a strong emphasis on simple principles of the interaction of geophysical agents with human vulnerability and response.; All students of environmental sciences/studies and geography should find this book useful. It is an introductory text which treats this dramatic subject area as something demanding serious academic treatment and not just as an assemblage of horror stories.; This book is intended for undergraduate students in geography and environmental studies/sciences. The book should also appeal to any professional or researcher concerned with man- environment relations, whether in social science or natural science or engineering.