Geomorphological Hazards and Disaster Prevention

by Edited by Irasema Alcántara-Ayala , Andrew S. Goudie

• ISBN13: 9780521769259
• ISBN10: 0521769256
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Human activities have had a huge impact on the environment and landscape, through industrialisation and land-use change, leading to climate change, deforestation, desertification, land degradation, air and water pollution. These impacts are strongly linked to the occurrence of geomorphological hazards, such as floods, landslides, snow avalanches, soil erosion, and others. Geomorphological work includes not only the understanding but the mapping and modelling of Earth's surface processes, many of which directly affect human societies. In addition, geomorphologists are becoming increasingly involved with the dimensions of societal problem solving, through vulnerability analysis, hazard and risk assessment and management. The work of geomorphologists is therefore of prime importance for disaster prevention. An international team of geomorphologists have contributed their expertise to this volume, making this a scientifically rigorous work for a wide audience of geomorphologists and other Earth scientists, including those involved in environmental science, hazard and risk assessment, management and policy.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Introduction

Processes

Regional seismic shaking hazards in mountains

Volcanic hazards and risks: a geomorphic perspective

Mountain hazards

Review and future challenges in snow avalanche risk analysis

Landslide hazards

Catastrophic landslides and sedimentary budgets

Landslides and climactic change

The hazardness of high-magnitude floods

Flood hazards: the context of fluvial geomorphology

Geomorphology and coastal hazards

Weathering hazards

Hazards associated to Karst

Soil erosion

Desertification and land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions

Processes and Applications of Geomorphology to Risk Assessment and Management

GIS for the assessment of risk from geomorphological hazards

Hazards assessment for risk analysis and risk management

Vulnerability analysis in geomorphic risk assessment

Geomorphological hazards and global climate change

Geomorphic hazards and sustainable development

Geomorphology and disaster prevention

Concluding remarks: geomorphology and the international agenda

Index

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