International Perspectives on Natural Disasters: Occurrence, Mitigation, and Consequences

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

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2. Earthquakes

   • Walter Hays

   Pages 11-36

3. Volcanoes

   • Raymundo S. Punongbayan

   Pages 37-62

4. Windstorms

   • Tony Gibbs

   Pages 63-86

5. Global Flooding

   • John Handmer

   Pages 87-106

6. Wildfires

   • Steven Yool

   Pages 107-130

7. Mass Movement

   • Lisa M. Dechano

   Pages 131-146

8. Drought

   • D. A. Wilhite

   Pages 147-162

9. Natural Hazards in Japan

   • Hiroshi Sasaki, Shuji Yamakawa

   Pages 163-180

10. Natural Disasters in China

    • Yang Hua Ting

    Pages 181-192

11. Natural Disasters in Oceania

    • George Pararas-Carayannis

    Pages 193-210

12. Hazard Mitigation in South and Southeast Asia

    • Nehal Karim

    Pages 211-230

13. Natural Disasters in Africa

    • Belinda Dodson

    Pages 231-245

14. Natural Disasters in Russia

    • V. M. Kotlyakov

    Pages 247-262

15. Natural Disasters in Europe

    • Lea Houtsonen, Arvo Peltonen

    Pages 263-280

16. Natural Disasters and Their Impact in Latin America

    • James J. Biles, Daniel Cobos

    Pages 281-302

17. Disaster Impacts on the Caribbean

    • Jeremy Collymore

    Pages 303-322

18. A Perspective on North American Natural Disasters

    • Joseph Scanlon

    Pages 323-340

19. Teaching and Learning to Live with the Environment

    • Kath Murdoch

    Pages 341-358

20. Educational Aims and the Question of Priorities

    • Graham Haydon

    Pages 359-367

Reports of natural disasters fill the media with regularity. Places in the world are affected by natural disaster events every day. Such events include earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, wildfires – the list could go on for considerable length. In the 1990s there was a concentrated focus on natural disaster information and mitigation during the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction (IDNDR). The information was technical and provided the basis for major initiatives in building structures designed for seismic safety, slope stability, severe storm warning systems, and global monitoring and reporting. Mitigation, or planning in the event that natural hazards prevalent in a region would suddenly become natural disasters, was a major goal of the decade-long program. During the IDNDR, this book was conceptualized, and planning for its completion began. The editors saw the need for a book that would reach a broad range of readers who were not actively or directly engaged in natural disasters relief or mitigation planning, but who were in decision-making positions that provided an open window for addressing natural disaster issues. Those people were largely elected public officials, teachers, non-governmental organization staff, and staff of faith-based organizations. Those people, for the most part, come to know very well the human and physical characteristics of the place in which they are based. With that local outreach in mind, the editors intended the book to encourage readers to: 1.

• drought
• earthquakes
• mass movements
• mitigation strategies
• natural disasters
• natural hazards
• volcanoes
• wildfires
• windstorms
• adaptation
• education
• Europe
• innovation
• natural disaster
• Natural Hazard
• ocean
• training
• climate change

• Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

  John Lidstone

• Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA

  Lisa M. Dechano, Joseph P. Stoltman

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