Disasters Development And Environment

A compilation of research-based essays within a political economy framework concerned with assessing the prediction, control and management of natural disasters in vulnerable Third World countries. Focuses on mitigating suffering and economic and environmental loss by sustainable control, appropriate forecasting and impact reduction measures. Includes first-hand accounts from disaster workers and academic researchers.

Natural disasters are a clear example of people living in conflict with the environment. Disasters cause human, social and environmental losses and, sometimes, even threaten geopolitical stability, as in many less developed countries. They are also a problem of global concern, even when damage is local: the mechanisms are often dependent on global meteoro-climatic circulation. Losses frequently affect several countries, as could be seen in the floods in central Europe in 2002. It is obvious that there is a clear need for a new approach, capable of incorporating the prevention of natural disasters, whilst mitigating strategies within the cycle of sustainable development. There are no thematic disciplines or political boundaries limitating initiatives: the integration of data providers, data users/information providers and information users, in a global and holistic manner, is the desired outcome of the new frontier. This book falls into this new category: multidisciplinary interventions and socio-economic point of views are the basic inputs for a changing science, implementing sustainable development for the benefit of citizens and society. It is comprised of studies and investigations which explain natural processes and modelling, as well as assessing hazards and risks and is rounded of with suggestions for sustainable development. Thus reflecting the best results of research on this topic funded by the European Commission.

This book offers a systematic, empirical examination of the concepts of disasters and sustainable economic development applied to many cases around the world. It presents comprehensive coverage of the complex and dynamic relationship between disaster and development, making a vital contribution to the literature on disaster management, disaster resilience and sustainable development. The book collects twenty-three chapters, examining theoretical issues and investigating practical cases on policy, governance, and lessons learned in dealing with different types of disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods and hurricanes) in twenty countries and communities around the world.

This book focuses on exploring the linkages between natural disasters and sustainable development at the global, regional, and national levels. Disasters and development are closely related, yet the disciplinary silos prevail and there is little communication and cooperation between the disaster management, environment, and development communities. One catastrophic event, such as an earthquake, tsunami, or cyclone, can destroy infrastructure, people’s lives and livelihoods, and set back development. Similarly, slow onset disasters—often associated with global climate change—pose threats to development, livelihoods, food security, and long-term sustainable development. This book is uniquely aimed at bridging the gaps between the environmental, development, and disaster management communities. It traces the evolution of concepts and practice and highlights the linkages between natural disasters and sustainable development in key sectors, including food security, health, and water. The book includes case studies from the field highlighting the complex issues that challenge sustainable development and disaster risk management in practice. It draws policy conclusions for the global community based on state-of-the art knowledge from research and practice. The primary target groups for the book are researchers, including graduate students, in the fields of environment and sustainable development, geography, disaster risk reduction, and climate change studies. The second target group comprises practitioners and policymakers working in national and international organizations, the private sector, and civil society.

Environmental Hazards and Disasters: Contexts, Perspectives and Management focuses on manifested threats to humans and their welfare as a result of natural disasters. The book uses an integrative approach to address socio-cultural, political and physical components of the disaster process. Human and social vulnerability as well as risk to environmental hazards are explored within the comprehensive context of diverse natural hazards and disasters. In addition to scientific explanations of disastrous occurrences, people and governments of hazard-prone countries often have their own interpretations for why natural disasters occur. In such interpretations they often either blame others, in order to conceal their inability to protect themselves, or they blame themselves, attributing the events to either real or imagined misdeeds. The book contains a chapter devoted to the neglected topic of such reactions and explanations. Includes chapters on key topics such as the application of GIS in hazard studies; resiliency; disasters and poverty; climate change and sustainability and development. This book is designed as a primary text for an interdisciplinary course on hazards for upper-level undergraduate and Graduate students. Although not targeted for an introductory hazards course, students in such a course may find it very useful as well. Additionally, emergency managers, planners, and both public and private organizations involved in disaster response, and mitigation could benefit from this book along with hazard researchers. It not only includes traditional and popular hazard topics (e.g., disaster cycles, disaster relief, and risk and vulnerability), it also includes neglected topics, such as the positive impacts of disasters, disaster myths and different accounts of disasters, and disasters and gender.

Raging floods, massive storms and cataclysmic earthquakes: every year up to 340 million people are affected by these and other disasters, which cause loss of life and damage to personal property, agriculture, and infrastructure. So what can be done? The key to understanding the causes of disasters and mitigating their impacts is the concept of 'vulnerability'. Mapping Vulnerability analyses 'vulnerability' as a concept central to the way we understand disasters and their magnitude and impact. Written and edited by a distinguished group of disaster scholars and practitioners, this book is a counterbalance to those technocratic approaches that limit themselves to simply looking at disasters as natural phenomena. Through the notion of vulnerability, the authors stress the importance of social processes and human-environmental interactions as causal agents in the making of disasters. They critically examine what renders communities unsafe - a condition, they argue, that depends primarily on the relative position of advantage or disadvantage that a particular group occupies within a society's social order. The book also looks at vulnerability in terms of its relationship to development and its impact on policy and people's lives, through consideration of selected case studies drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mapping Vulnerability is essential reading for academics, students, policymakers and practitioners in disaster studies, geography, development studies, economics, environmental studies and sociology.

Displacements in the Asia Pacific region are escalating. The region has for decades experienced more than half of the world’s natural disasters and, in recent years, a disproportionately high share of extreme weather-related disasters, which displaced 19 million people in 2013 alone. This volume offers an innovative and thought-provoking Asia-Pacific perspective on an intensifying global problem: the forced displacement of people from their land, homes, and livelihoods due to development, disasters and environmental change. This book draws together theoretical and multidisciplinary perspectives with diverse case studies from around the region – including China’s Three Gorges Reservoir, Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and the Pacific’s Banaba resettlement. Focusing on responses to displacement in the context of power asymmetries and questions of the public interest, the book highlights shared experiences of displacement, seeking new approaches and solutions that have potential global application. This book shows how displaced peoples respond to interlinked impacts that unravel their social fabric and productive bases, whether through sporadic protest, organised campaigns, empowered mobility or; even community-based negotiation of resettlement solutions. . The volume will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, environmental and climate change studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, international law and human rights.

This book discusses the science, causes, impacts and risk reduction strategies for climate change and disasters. It focuses on the use of traditional knowledge, new innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels in order to promote sustainable development goals in general and disaster risk reduction in particular. The global climate has changed substantially over the last century. There is strong evidence of global climate change in the form of increase in air and sea surface temperature, recession of glaciers, changes and shifting of climate regimes, increasing number of extreme events and sea levels changes. The increasing frequency of climate change induced disasters in particular is posing a threat to resilience, lives and livelihoods at global, regional and local levels. Major ecosystems of the world have experienced several climate induced disaster events in recent past. This book provides new insights into the occurrence and impacts of climatic extremes and strategies for disaster risk reduction. It includes studies on rainfall and temperature trends, floods and drought disasters, weather and climatic related disasters in mountains, changes in plant activities, risk assessment and responses in different ecosystems of the world. The book is particularly useful for environmental and disaster managers, researchers and graduate students, as well as policy makers.