Vulnerability is complex because it involves many characteristics of people and groups that
expose them to harm and limit their ability to anticipate, cope with, and recover from harm …

Negative consequences of natural hazards are the result of both the frequency and intensity
of the hazard and the vulnerability of the society or element at risk exposed. Therefore …

Generally speaking, vulnerability to environmental hazards means the potential for loss.
Since losses vary geographically, over time, and among different social groups, vulnerability …

In order to understand how people are affected by disasters, it is clearly not enough to
understand only the hazards themselves. Disasters happen when a natural phenomenon …

For over 50 years, hazards researchers have focused on a series of fundamental ques-tions:
1) what is the human occupancy of hazard zones? 2) How do people and societies respond …

Extreme climatic and geophysical events exert enormous negative consequences on people
around the world. Faced with ever-increasing societal impacts from natural hazards, a …

What makes people and places vulnerable to natural hazards? What technologies and
methods are required to assess this vulnerability? These questions are used to illustrate the …

Human development has led humankind to idealise the elements of its own habitat and
environment and the possibilities of interaction between them. In spite of confused …

Extreme geophysical events, such as those which recently occurred in the United States
(hurricane Katrina), Europe and Pakistan (floods), New Zealand and Japan (earthquake and …

Not very many years ago, most people assumed that the disasters associated with
earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other natural hazards were themselves natural …