At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters

by Blaikie,Piers

• ISBN13: 9780415252157
• ISBN10: 0415252156
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-12-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The term "natural disaster" is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods. However, the phrase suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth.At Riskquestions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. This new edition ofAt Riskconfronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters since it was first published, and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream development. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant root causes to unsafe conditions in a progression of vulnerability. The other uses the concepts of access and livelihood to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. The book then concludes with strategies to create a safer world.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Foreword: The Great Wave	xi
Preface to 2004 edition	xiv
Preface to 1994 edition	xvi
List of abbreviations and acronyms	xviii
PART I Framework and theory	1	(124)
1 The challenge of disasters and our approach	3	(46)
In at the deep end	3	(7)
Conventional views of disaster	10	(1)
What is vulnerability?	11	(9)
Changes since the first edition	20	(9)
Convergence and critique	29	(3)
Audiences	32	(3)
Scope and plan of the book	35	(2)
Limits and assumptions	37	(39)
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1.1 Naturalness versus the 'social causation' of disasters	76
2 The Disaster Pressure and Release model	49	(38)
The nature of vulnerability	49	(3)
Cause and effect in the Disaster Pressure model	52	(7)
Time and the chain of explanation	59	(1)
Limits to our knowledge	60	(2)
Global trends and dynamic pressures	62	(21)
Uses of the PAR model	83
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2.1 Landles squatters in Dhaka	56	(1)
2.2 Karakoram and house collapse	57	(8)
2.3 Problems with disaster statistics	65	(3)
2.4 Age structure and vulnerabilities	68	(19)
3 Access to resources and coping in adversity	87	(38)
Access to resources-an introduction	87	(8)
New thinking since 1994	95	(3)
'Normal life' - the formal Access model	98	(14)
Coping and access to safety	112	(13)
PART II Vulnerability and hazard types	125	(194)
4 Famine and natural hazards	127	(40)
Introduction	127	(1)
Famines and their causes	128	(5)
Explanations of famine	133	(11)
Complex emergencies, policy famines and human rights	144	(3)
Causes, pressures, unsafe conditions and famine	147	(2)
Access and famines	149	(10)
Policy	159	(4)
Conclusion	163
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4.1 Famine in Malawi, 2002	131	(36)
5 Biological hazards	167	(34)
Introduction	167	(1)
What are biological hazards?	168	(4)
Biological links with other hazards	172	(2)
Livelihoods, resources and disease	174	(1)
Vulnerability-creating processes	175	(5)
Pressures affecting defences against biological hazards	180	(3)
Root causes and pressures	183	(10)
Steps towards risk reduction	193
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5.1 The Irish Potato Famine, 1845-1848	178	(7)
5.2 HIV-AIDS in Africa	185	(16)
6 Floods	201	(42)
Introduction	201	(4)
Floods as known risks	205	(11)
Disastrous outcomes for vulnerable people	216	(22)
Summary: floods and vulnerability	238	(1)
Flood prevention and mitigation	239
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6.1 Floods in China, 1998	208	(10)
6.2 'Small' floods - a hidden problem	218	(7)
6.3 Bangladesh - reducing vulnerability to floods is not the same as stopping floods	225	(11)
6.4 Flooding and deforestation: the causation controversy	236	(7)
7 Coastal storms	243	(31)
Introduction	243	(3)
The physical hazard	246	(1)
Patterns of vulnerability	247	(9)
Case studies	256	(12)
Policy response	268	(6)
8 Earthquakes and volcanoes	274	(45)
Introduction	274	(5)
Classic case studies: Guatemala and Mexico	279	(13)
Recent case studies	292	(11)
Volcanoes and related hazards	303	(12)
Policy response and mitigation	315
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8.1 Progression of vulnerability - the Kobe earthquake	298	(4)
8.2 Progression of vulnerability - the Gujarat earthquake	302	(7)
8.3 Chronology of events during the Montserrat eruptions	309	(2)
8.4 Progression of vulnerability - the Montserrat eruptions	311	(8)
PART III Towards a safer environment	319	(58)
9 Towards a safer environment	321	(56)
'Towards a safer environment': are statements of intent merely hot air?	321	(2)
From Yokohama to Johannesburg via Geneva	323	(7)
Risk-reduction objectives	330	(7)
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9.1 Emergency Management Australia - extract from a study on the assessment of personal and community resilience and vulnerability	337	(10)
9.2 Four point plan for a safer world	347	(8)
9.3 Central America - implementing comprehensive recovery?	355	(7)
9.4 Flood recovery in Anhui province China, 1993	362	(1)
9.5 Flood recovery in Mozambique, 2000	363	(14)
Bibliography	377	(70)
Index	447