Preparedness For The 2008 Wildfire Season

Wildfires represent a growing threat to environments, to people, communities, and to societies worldwide, particularly in the United States, Southern Europe, and Australia. Recognition of this growing risk has highlighted a need to develop people's capacity to adapt to annually occurring events that could increase in frequency and severity over the coming years and decades. The goal of ensuring sustained levels of protective measures in communities susceptible to wildfire hazard consequences has proved to be elusive. This book examines why this is so and identifies ways in which sustained levels of preparedness can be facilitated. Major topics include: wildfire preparedness and resiliency in community contexts; socially disastrous landscape fires in southeastern Australia; landscape typology of residential wildfire risk; proactive human response to wildfires outbreak; forest fires in wildland-urban interface, wildfire risk management; “stay or go” policy in the line of fire; social dimensions of forest fire; the influence of community diversity; evaluating a community engagement initiative; response to fire threats; social media and resiliency; and building on lessons learned. Additional information includes the landscape fires in southeastern Australia, wildfire risk management in Portugal; fire preparedness in Greece, Cyprus, and the Pine Barrens in the northeastern United States. The findings of research programs being conducted in the United States, Australia, Europe, India and South America are presented. The book includes case studies on the analysis and proposed actions of the wildland-urban interface being faced by Central Chile and South America. This book will provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the wildfire preparedness research and its application to the development of risk communications and public education programs.

Many countries are increasingly threatened by major landslide disasters and fatalities due to extreme weather events which have major implications for public safety and the sustainability of infrastructure and the built environment. A further increase in such a trend could come from climate change. This book helps to fill in the gap due to the fact that landslide hazards are commonly not covered under the policy debate on climate change. The book highlights the importance of raising awareness to the challenges of landslide hazards due to climate impact. It provides a holistic frame for understanding the key issues and new tools that could be used to assess and manage the landslide risks. The book gathers contributions from 21 countries and regions in the form of national reports or summaries with respect to four key aspects: a) the methods used for evaluating changing weather and changing landslide patterns; b) the changing weather patterns; c) the changing landslide patterns and hazard scenarios; d) the applications to risk management and the formulation of adaptation measures. Recommendations are made for enhanced preparedness and resilience. Improved crisis management and areas for future work are suggested.