Extreme Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications

This book presents a unique, interdisciplinary approach to disaster risk research, combining cutting-edge natural science and social science methodologies. Bringing together leading scientists, policy makers and practitioners from around the world, it presents the risks of global hazards such as volcanoes, seismic events, landslides, hurricanes, precipitation floods and space weather, and provides real-world hazard case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific region. Avoiding complex mathematics, the authors provide insight into topics such as the vulnerability of society, disaster risk reduction policy, relations between disaster policy and climate change, adaptation to hazards, and (re)insurance approaches to extreme events. This is a key resource for academic researchers and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines linked to hazard and risk studies, including geophysics, volcanology, hydrology, atmospheric science, geomorphology, oceanography and remote sensing, and for professionals and policy makers working in disaster prevention and mitigation.

Alik Ismail-Zadeh is Senior Scientist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany and Chief Scientist at the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His scientific interests cover studies of dynamics of the lithosphere and upper mantle and their surface manifestations including seismicity, seismic hazard and risk. Professor Ismail-Zadeh is Secretary-General of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), and has also served as President of the Natural Hazards Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), President of the IUGG Union Commission of Geophysical Risk and Sustainability, and the leader of the ENHANS project. He is a recipient of the Academia Europaea Young Scientist Award, 2009 AGU International Award, and the 2012 AOGS Ian Axford Lecture Award on Natural Hazards.

Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi is Professor of Geophysics at Instituto de Geofisica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and is a leading expert in geomagnetism and volcanism. He is President of the Mexican Physics Society and a member of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics, the National University of Mexico and the Science Advisory Council of Mexico. Professor Urrutia-Fucugauchi has been awarded the Mexican Government's National Science Award, the Organization of American States' 'Manuel Noriega Morales' Prize, and the American Geophysical Union's 2013 International Award.

Andrzej Kijko is the Director of the University of Pretoria Natural Hazards Centre, Pretoria, South Africa, and also a Professor of the University of Pretoria. As an internationally acclaimed researcher, he has been active in engineering geophysics and seismology for about 40 years. Professor Kijko's interests and responsibilities have taken him around the world and he has a wide range of experience from the various research posts and consulting positions he has held.

Kuniyoshi Takeuchi is the founding Director of the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) in Tsukuba, and is also Professor Emeritus of the University of Yamanashi in Kofu, Japan. He is a distinguished hydrologist whose research interests cover water resources, flood management, extreme floods and societal needs of hydrological forecasting, sustainability analysis of water resources. Professor Takeuchi is Chair of the IUGG GeoRisk Commission and Vice Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Program 'Integrated Research on Disaster Risk' (IRDR). He has received numerous awards including the 2012 International Hydrological Prize.

Ilya Zaliapin is Associate Professor of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Nevada, USA. His broad research interests cover problems of self-similarity, network transport, aggregation processes, delay equations, multiscale methods of time series analysis, random sums of heavy-tailed variables, geostatistics, extreme value theory with applications to atmospheric, hydrological and seismological research. He has been Secretary of the Natural Hazards Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union.