Product Description
A book designed for readers interested in the environment, this is an excellent source for Earth science information about hazardous Earth processes which affect virtually everyone living on this planet.Interesting and well-written, this book includes broad coverage of many natural hazards, including earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, landslides, coastal erosion, extreme weather, and wildfires.For those interested in a comprehensive book about our environment and the impact of natural hazardous processes; also useful as a reference work for science writers and editors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good
The book was as described, but the seller did not mention it did not come with the CD. They also were hard to get a hold of since I needed to return the item. I ended up having to re-sell it, which I was not happy about.

fast shippint
My book arrived quickly and before classes started even though I ordered at the end of the last week before the semester began. ... Read more

Product Description

Emphasizes Resilient Policies, Rather Than Rigid Philosophy

Economic and environmental consequences of natural and man-made disasters have grown exponentially during the past few decades. Whether from hurricanes, chemical spills, terrorist incidents, or other catastrophes, the negative impacts can often be felt on a global scale. Natural Hazards Analysis: Reducing the Impacts of Disasters evaluates critical preparedness issues that emergency managers must face before, during, and after disasters of any kind.

Using a cross-disciplinary approach, this book effectively demonstrates how to use the results of GIS tools, spatial analysis, and remote sensing to reduce adverse disaster outcomes and to foster social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Complete with clearly set objectives, key terms, discussion questions, satellite images and maps, and ancillary websites for further study, this authoritative guide covers every element of the hazard analysis process in a step-by-step format.

Provides Framework for Understanding Hazard Consequences in Variety of Environments

This handbook-style volume stresses the key roles problem solving, decision making, and risk communication serve as means of ensuring all hazard elements are accurately identified and appropriately addressed. It is filled with proven techniques for effective community planning and hazard mitigation and for ongoing restorative efforts in disaster-ridden areas. In one comprehensive source, this book contains all the information needed to analyze risks and establish successful disaster prevention and relief strategies prior to a disaster event.

This resource provides ready-to-implement tools that will benefit for a wide audience, including:

• National, federal, and local emergency management teams
• Environmental planning professionals in the public and private sectors
• Recovery response entities including the Red Cross and Salvation Army
• Students enrolled in university emergency management programs

Product Description
The main objective of the book is to offer a vision of the dynamics of the main disasters in South America, describing their mechanisms and consequences on South American societies. The chapters are written by selected specialists of each country. Human-induced disasters are also included, such as desertification in Patagonia and soil erosion in Brazil. The receding of South-American glaciers as a response to recent climatic trends and sea-level scenarios are discussed.
The approach is broad in analyzing causes and consequences and includes social and economic costs, discussing environmental and planning problems, but always describing the geomorphologic/geologic involved processes with a good scientific substantiation. This is important to differentiate the book from others of a more 'social' impact that discuss risks and disasters with emphases mainly on economy and simple impacts.

* actual theme, interesting for a variety of professionals.
* fills in the scarcity of specialized literature in geosciences from South America.
* is the first book in the market exclusively devoted to geomorphology of disasters in South America. ... Read more

Product Description

The first half of the 1990s have seen the largest and most costly floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes in the history of the United States. While natural hazards cannot be prevented, their human impacts can be greatly reduced through advance action that mitigates risks and reduces vulnerability.

Natural Hazard Mitigation describes and analyzes the way that hazard mitigation has been carried out in the U.S. under our national disaster law, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. It is the first systematic study of the complete intergovernmental system for natural hazard mitigation, including its major elements and the linkages among them.

The book:

• analyzes the effectiveness of the Stafford Act and investigates what is contained in state hazard mitigation plans required by the Act
• studies how federal hazard mitigation funds have been spent
• explores what goes into decision making following a major disaster
• looks at how government mitigation officials rate the effectiveness of the mitigation system
• suggests changes that could help solve the widely recognized problems with current methods of coping with disasters

Damages from natural disasters are reaching catastrophic proportions, making natural hazard mitigation an important national policy issue. The findings and recommendations presented in this volume should help to strengthen natural hazard mitigation policy and practice, thereby serving to reduce drains on the federal treasury that pay for preventable recovery and relief costs, and to spare residents in areas hit by natural disasters undue suffering and expense. It is an informative and eye-opening study for planners, policy-makers, students of planning and geography, and professionals working for government agencies that deal with natural hazards. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: National Academies in 1987 in 118 pages; Original Identifier: NAP:00171; Subjects: Natural disasters; Emergency management; Juvenile Nonfiction / Science & Nature / Disasters; Nature / Natural Disasters; Social Science / Human Services; Social Science / Disasters & Disaster Relief; ... Read more

Product Description
The small community of Saragosa, Texas, was devastated by a violent multiple-vortex tornado on Friday, May 22, 1987. Despite the extensive warning dissemination efforts, which are documented in this book, the overall warning system in Saragosa failed to reach most of the residents in time for them to take effective safety measures. The primary purpose of this book is to combine the information provided by the respondents to a post disaster survey with the facts surrounding the tornado in order to understand and evaluate the severe weather warning procedures used in Reeves County, Texas, where Saragosa is located. The evaluation of this survey is intended to determine ways of adjusting existing warning systems and better prepare the citizens, public officials, and news media in Reeves County, as well as in every city, county, and township where severe weather threatens lives and property. ... Read more

Product Description
On November 13, 1985, catastrophic mudflows swept down the slopes of the erupting Nevado del Ruiz volcano, destroying structures in their paths. Various estimates of deaths ranged as high as 24,000 residents. Though the nature and extent of risk posed by the mudflows to local communities were well documented before the event and extensive efforts had been made to communicate this information to those at risk, the affected communities were caught largely unaware. This volume analyzes the disaster's many aspects: the extent, constitution, and behavior of the mudflows; the nature of damage to structures; the status of the area's disaster warning system; and the extent of the area's disaster preparedness, emergency response actions, and disaster relief efforts-both at the time of the disaster and in the first few months following the event. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Hemisphere, published by Latin American and Caribbean Center on September 22, 1997. The length of the article is 1539 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability, and Disasters.
Author: Betty Hearn Morrow
Publication: Hemisphere (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 1997
Publisher: Latin American and Caribbean Center
Volume: v8Issue: n1Page: p62(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Journal, published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd. on June 1, 2007. The length of the article is 578 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters.(Book review)
Author: Norman Kin-Wai Cheung
Publication: The Geographical Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2007
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Volume: 173Issue: 2Page: 189(2)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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Mathematically, natural disasters of all types are characterized by heavy tailed distributions. The analysis of such distributions with common methods, such as averages and dispersions, can therefore lead to erroneous conclusions. The statistical methods described in this book avoid such pitfalls. Seismic disasters are studied, primarily thanks to the availability of an ample statistical database. New approaches are presented to seismic risk estimation and forecasting the damage caused by earthquakes, ranging from typical, moderate events to very rare, extreme disasters. Analysis of these latter events is based on the limit theorems of probability and the duality of the generalized Pareto distribution and generalized extreme value distribution. It is shown that the parameter most widely used to estimate seismic risk – Mmax, the maximum possible earthquake value – is potentially non-robust. Robust analogues of this parameter are suggested and calculated for some seismic catalogues. Trends in the costs inferred by damage from natural disasters as related to changing social and economic situations are examined for different regions.

The results obtained argue for sustainable development, whereas entirely different, incorrect conclusions can be drawn if the specific properties of the heavy-tailed distribution and change in completeness of data on natural hazards are neglected.

This pioneering work is directed at risk assessment specialists in general, seismologists, administrators and all those interested in natural disasters and their impact on society.

Product Description
This book assesses wind engineering research studies in the past two decades to identify an interdisciplinary research agenda and delineate an action plan for evaluation of critical wind engineering efforts. It promotes the interdisciplinary approach to achieve collaborative research, assesses the feasibility of formalizing undergraduate wind engineering curricula, and assesses international wind engineering research activities and transfer approaches for U.S. applications. ... Read more