Topic
Natural disaster
About: Natural disaster is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5456 publications have been published within this topic receiving 104808 citations. The topic is also known as: natural calamity & natural hazard.
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TL;DR: The design principles and methodological approaches used to study children’s reactions to three recent major disasters—the September 11, 2001, attacks; the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami; and Hurricane Katrina are identified.
Abstract: Background
A comprehensive review of the design principles and methodological approaches that have been used to make inferences from the research on disasters in children is needed.
65 citations
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, a damage assessment is proposed to evaluate the damage costs of direct losses in residential areas; the economic damage is estimated for the study area of Prague, which was subjected to dramatic flooding in August 2002.
Abstract: In recent years, extreme river flooding has occurred in several regions of Europe. This phenomenon, which includes the dramatic flood events in central Europe in summer 2002, is mainly due to an increase in the vulnerability of regions to flooding. An extreme natural event becomes a disaster when it has a large impact on human settlements and activities. Therefore, the study of floods includes a strong component of both social and natural science, and flood risk management must consider several aspects, such as climatic, social, economic, institutional and technical issues. The reasons for the increased flood hazard are several and correlated. Potential climate changes are expected to cause a rise in the frequency as well as the intensity of rainfall, which may lead to more widespread and severe natural disaster. On the other hand, built- up areas are spreading across Europe and increasing much faster than population. Social changes in Europe are being driven by EU enlargement, demographic processes and globalization. Demographic and socio-economic trends are playing a role in increasing society's exposure to weatherand climate-related damage, through factors such as housing developments in areas vulnerable to flooding and other risks. This twofold expansion increases the exposure and vulnerability of urban areas to flooding, and also, as a consequence, the social and economic damage in case of a catastrophic flood event. This publication describes impacts of water-related risks, with the aim to establish an overall cost-estimate of losses. In particular, the work focuses on the economic aspects of flood damages by investigating the value of physical assets affected by the event. A damage assessment is proposed to evaluate the damage costs of direct losses in residential areas; the economic damage is estimated for the study area of Prague, which was subjected to dramatic flooding in August 2002.
65 citations
TL;DR: The United States is becoming more vulnerable to natural hazards mostly because of changes in population and national wealth density as discussed by the authors, more people and more societal infrastructure have become concentrated in disaster-prone areas.
Abstract: The United States is becoming more vulnerable to natural hazards mostly because of changes in population and national wealth density—more people and more societal infrastructure have become concentrated in disaster-prone areas For most of the 20th century, the United States has been largely spared the expense of a catastrophic natural disaster A great earthquake (magnitude 8 or larger) has not struck a major metropolitan area since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake An extreme or catastrophic hurricane (Class 4 or 5) has not struck directly a major urban area since the one that hit Miami, Florida, in 1926 Yet even without such disasters, which might create losses well over $100 billion, the overall costs of natural hazards, such as extreme weather, drought, and wildfires, are estimated at $54 billion per year for the past 5 years, or approximately $1 billion per week [National Science and Technology Council, 1997]
65 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the social dimension of knowledge, in the sense of being cognizant, conscious, and aware of natural disasters and their implications for development, and argue that by divorcing the natural disaster debate from the development debate, half of this disaster equation is ignored.
65 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report a comparative analysis of citizen evacuation response to three different types of environmental threats: a riverine flood, a volcanic eruption, and the nuclear reaction accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.
Abstract: This paper reports a comparative analysis of citizen evacuation response to three different types of environmental threats: a riverine flood, a volcanic eruption, and the nuclear reaction accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. While there have been numerous discussions in the theoretical literature regarding the extent to which human response to nuclear and nonnuclear threats are likely to be comparable, to date there have been no empirical studies of the phenomenon. It was found that citizen belief in real situational danger and warnings from authorities were most frequently cited by evacuees as reasons for leaving in both nuclear and nonnuclear incidents. Mass media warnings were infrequently cited as important reasons for evacuating, and social network contacts were relatively more important to evacuation decision making in the natural disasters than at Three Mile Island. For both the natural disasters and the nuclear accident, most citizens who did not evacuate chose not to do so because they did not believe that a real danger existed.
65 citations