Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster (Routledge Physical Environment)

by KeithSmith (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.23

  Disasters - both natural and tchnological - continue to take their toll on human life and property world-wide. This substantially revised 3rd edition of Environmental Hazards , maintains that knowledge about hazards and hazard mitigation, must still be better applied to reduce death and destruction, especially in developing countries. Environmental Hazards is an objective and thoughtful introduction to key findings from the natural and social sciences and integrates them to provide a comprehensvie assessment of environmental risk and the policy responses which are required to achieve a safer world. Environmental Hazards covers all the major rapid onset events, whether natural or human in origin, which are directly threaten humans, and what they value, on a community scale. The first-half overview emphasises that all disasters arise from a combination of physical exposure and human vulnerability, It includes topics such as disaster databases, problems of monitering the impact of disaster in both developed and developing countries and the management and evaluation of risk. The second half gives a systematic treatment of environmental hazards. Different types of hazard create different losses in different countries. Extensive global case studies and policy responses are examined and the hazard reduction strategies that are relevant in each case are explained. The revised 3rd edition includes new material on disaster debates, El nino events, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, mega-cities and sustainabiltiy, epidemics, storms, IT and disasters. This complicated subject is presented with a clarity which is re-inforced with excellent summary figures and diagrams. A new colour plate section reflects the new disasters which have occurred since the last edition. References have also been fully up-dated and the author looks towards to future problems in the 21st century. This important book provides a balanced and up-to-date approach to environmental hazards and is ideally suited to act as a course text.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.23

  The expanded fifth edition of Environmental Hazards provides a balanced overview of all the major rapid-onset events that threaten people and what they value in the twenty-first century. It integrates cutting-edge material from the physical and social sciences to demonstrate how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. It also shows how the existing losses to life and property can be reduced.

  Part I of this established textbook defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster. Critical attention is given to the evolution of theory, to the scale of disaster impact and to the various strategies that have been developed to minimise the impact of damaging events. Part II employs a consistent chapter structure to explain how individual hazards, such as earthquakes, severe storms, floods and droughts, plus biophysical and technological processes, create distinctive patterns of loss throughout the world. The ways in which different societies make a positive response to these threats are placed in the context of ongoing global change.

  In this extensively revised edition:

  • An entirely new and innovative chapter explains how modern-day complexity contributes to the generation of hazard and risk
  • Additional material supplies fresh perspectives on landslides, biophysical hazards and the increasingly important role of global-scale processes
  • The increased use of boxed sections allows a greater focus on significant generic issues and offers more opportunity to examine a carefully selected range of up-to-date case studies
  • Each chapter now concludes with an annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites.

  Environmental Hazards is a well-written and generously illustrated introduction to all the natural, social and technological events that combine to cause death and destruction across the globe. It draws on the latest research findings to guide the student from common problems, theories and policies to explore practical, real-world situations. This authoritative, yet accessible, book captures both the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and has become essential reading for students of every kind seeking to understand the nature and consequences of a most important contemporary issue.