Group items tagged

Natural Hazards Center Publications Descriptions and links to publications of the Natural Hazards Center are provided below. In most cases, downloadable versions of the publications are available, along with archives of past publications. An updated PDF file listing all of the Natural Hazards Center Publications is available. For information on ordering hard copies of any publications, visit our publications purchasing page. Natural Hazards Observer The Natural Hazards Observer is the bimonthly periodical of the Natural Hazards Center. It covers current disaster issues; new international, national, and local disaster management, mitigation, and education programs; hazards research; political and policy developments; new information sources and Web sites; upcoming conferences; and recent publications. Disaster Research Disaster Research (DR) is a biweekly e-newsletter that includes some news items that also appear in the Natural Hazards Observer as well as other timely articles about new developments, policies, conference announcements, job vacancies, Web resources, and information sources in the field of hazards management. Quick Response Reports With funds contributed by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Center Quick Response program offers social scientists small grants to travel to the site of a disaster soon after it occurs to gather valuable information concerning immediate impact and response. Scholars participating in the program submit reports, which the Center makes available for free online. Research Digest Research Digest is a quarterly online publication that compiles recent research into an easily accessible format for the hazards and disasters community. It provides complete references and abstracts (when available) for current research in the field. The issues include more than 35 peer reviewed publications. Natural Hazards Review The Natural Hazards Review is a joint publication of the Natural Hazards Center and the American Societ

Broadmoor Project: New OrleansThe Broadmoor Project: New Orleans Recovery is an effort initiated in 2006 to assist residents of New Orleans' hard-hit Broadmoor neighborhood in designing and implementing a strategy for post-Katrina neighborhood recovery. Launched and hosted by the Belfer Center, the project enables Kennedy School students to put their governance skills into action to help bring back one of America's great cities. The collaboration also creates the opportunity for local New Orleans leaders to build their leadership skills through intensive leadership courses at the Kennedy School. 

Environmental principles: from political slogans to legal rules Nicolas de Sadeleer 3 Resenhas Oxford University Press, 2002 - 433 páginas Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of norm formation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality.

Normal accidents: living with high-risk technologies Charles Perrow 2 Resenhas Princeton University Press, 1999 - 451 páginas Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

Recent decades of globalisation have created a more interconnected, interdependent and complex world than ever witnessed before. While global policy has focused on facilitating integration, the implications of growing interdependence have been largely ignored. While the acceleration in global integration has brought many benefits, it has also created fragility through the underlying production of new kinds of systemic risks. The paper conceptualises systemic risk in the 21st Century and examines the challenges it poses to global governance regimes. The 2008-2009 financial crisis illustrates the failure of even sophisticated global institutions to manage the underlying forces of systemic risk, and this is symptomatic of institutional failure to keep pace with globalisation. The lessons from the financial crisis highlight the real threat of systemic risk to other 21st Century challenges, but more importantly, they expose the profound shortcomings of global institutions to manage global systemic risks in the future. The failure of the most developed and best-equipped global governance system, finance, to recognize or manage the new vulnerabilities associated with globalisation in the 21st Century highlights the scale and urgency of the challenge.  Policy Implications The rise of systemic risk requires a systemic response. Effective global governance and policy development has never been so necessary and urgent. The financial crisis illustrated that current global financial institutions are inadequate in their policy response to systemic risk and cannot keep pace with innovation and increasing system complexity in global finance. Deeper structural changes are required, including with respect to regulatory reforms. The institutional rigidity and profound shortcomings of global institutions applies not only to global finance, but to other looming systemic risks in the future. Neither the current global governance system, nor the planned reforms, meets the test of addre

Scribd Launches Readcast, Integrates With Facebook® Social Plugins to Make Reading More Social SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - April 21, 2010) -   f8 Developer Conference -- Scribd, the world's largest social publishing and reading site, launches Scribd Readcast along with Facebook's new social plugins. Readcast is a set of features that enables people to automatically share what they're reading on Scribd with their friends on Facebook and other social sites. The Facebook Like button and Activity Feed are also now part of the Scribd social reading experience. "Scribd is the place where connections form around shared reading interests," said Trip Adler, CEO and co-founder Scribd. "Now, the universe of social reading suddenly opens up to include Twilight fan fiction, investigative reports about Goldman Sachs, Mary Meeker's Web 2.0 presentation, tips for using solar power. This reflects the breadth and depth of what people read on a daily basis, not just what they're reading on news sites." Readcast is a customizable feature that enables people to automatically share what they're reading on Scribd with friends on Facebook and contacts on other social media sites. People can also choose to share Scribd reading events such as scribbles, comments, ratings, downloads, and eventually mobile reading activity, printing and purchases. Visit http://blog.scribd.com for more information about Readcast. Faceboook social plugins integration enables Scribd users to "like" their favorite reading material and to see -- without leaving Scribd.com -- which Scribd books, research, presentations, illustrations and other written works their friends on Facebook friends "like," comment on, and share. "Scribd's integration with our new social plugins allows people to create social connections around written works," said Ethan Beard, director of Facebook Developer Network. "Now, it's easier to connect with friends on Facebook who are reading the same books, researching the same topics or s

The Social Contours of Risk: Risk analysis, corporations and the globalization of risk Jeanne X. Kasperson, Roger E. Kasperson 0 Resenhas Earthscan, 2005 - 326 páginas We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence. Jeanne and Roger Kasperson are two of the world's leading and most influential analysts of the social dimensions of risk. 'The Social Contours of Risk' brings together in two volumes their most important contributions to this fundamental and wide-ranging field. Volume 2 centers on the analysis and management of risk in society, in international business and multinationals, and globally. The 'acceptability' of risk to an individual depends on the context, whether in the larger society or in, say, a corporate framework. Their work clarifies the structures and processes for managing risks in the private sector, and the factors that produce or impede effective decisions. Corporate culture is crucial as they show in determining risk management. They analyze the transfer of corporate risk management systems from industrial to developing countries, and how globalization is spreading and creating new kinds of risk -- the combination of traditional and modern hazards presented by climate change, technology transfer and economic growth. They describe the new priorities and capacities needed to deal with these enhanced vulnerabilities around the globe.

Natural disasters and sustainable development Riccardo Casale, Claudio Margottini 0 Resenhas Springer, 2004 - 397 páginas nbsp;Natural disasters are a clear example of people living in conflict with the environment. Disasters cause human, social and environmental losses and, sometimes, even threaten geopolitical stability, as in many less developed countries. They are also a problem of global concern, even when damage is local: the mechanisms are often dependent on global meteoro-climatic circulation. Losses frequently affect severalnbsp; countries, as could be seen in the floods in central Europe in 2002. It is obvious that there is a clear need for a new approach, capable of incorporating the prevention of natural disasters, whilst mitigating strategies within the cycle of sustainable development. There are no thematic disciplines or political boundaries limitating initiatives: the integration of data providers, data users/information providers and information users,nbsp;in a global and holistic manner, is the desired outcome of the new frontier. This book falls into this new category: multidisciplinary interventions and socio-economic point of views are the basic inputs for a changing science, implementing sustainable development for the benefit of citizens and society. It is comprised of studies and investigations which explain natural processes and modelling, as well as assessing hazards and risks and is rounded of with suggestions for sustainable development. Thus reflecting the best results of research on this topic funded by the European Commission. « Menos

Does The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Mean That The U.S. Is Headed For Gas Lines, Higher Food Prices And A Broken Economy? The Economic Collapse June 23, 2010 As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis enters a third month, the economic impact of this environmental nightmare is starting to become clearer.  The truth is that the "oil volcano" spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf has absolutely decimated the seafood, tourism and real estate industries along the Gulf coast.  Not only that, but energy industry insiders are now warning that the chilling effect that this crisis will have on offshore drilling could precipitate a new 1970s-style energy crisis.  Considering the fact that the U.S. economy was already on incredibly shaky ground even before the oil leak, the last thing we needed was a disaster of this magnitude.  But it has happened, and the reality is that the long-term effects of this crisis are potentially going to reverberate for decades.  The American people certainly have a negative view on the impact that this oil spill will have on the economy.  According to a new poll, about eight out of every 10 Americans expect the oil spill to damage the U.S. economy and drive up the cost of gas and food. But is a new 1970s-style energy crisis really a possibility? Could we actually soon be headed for blackouts and gas lines? Well, former Shell executive John Hofmeister believes that is exactly what we are headed for…. "Within a decade I predict the energy abyss looks like brownouts, blackouts and gas lines."  In fact, Hofmeister claims that some of his fellow energy industry insiders expect things to be even worse than he is projecting in the years ahead. Why? Hofmeister says that the problem is the U.S. government…. "Our federal government, when it comes to energy and the environment, is dysfunctional, it's broken, and it's unfixable in its current form." Without a doubt, the oil spill will have a chilling effect

Handbook of environmental risk assessment and management Peter Calow 0 Resenhas Wiley-Blackwell, 1998 - 590 páginas At the heart of environmental protection is risk assessment: the likelihood of pollution from accidents; the likelihood of problems from normal and abnormal operation of industrial processes; the likely impacts associated with new synthetic chemicals; and so on. Currently, risk assessment has been very much in the news--the risks from BSE and E. coli, and the public perception of risks from nuclear waste, etc. This new publication explains how scientific methodologies are used to assess risk from human activities and the resultant objects and wastes, on people and the environment. Understanding such risks supplies crucial information--to frame legislation, manage major habitats, businesses and industries, and create development programmes. Unique in combining the science of risk assessment with the development of management strategies. Covers science and social science (politics, economics, psychology) aspects. Very timely - risk assessment lies at the heart of decision making in various topical environmental questions (BSE, Brent Spar, nuclear waste).

Responsabilidade Penal e Análise Econômica Horas-aula: 30 Professor(es): Giácomo Balbinotto Neto, Tupinambá Pinto de Azevedo Súmula A teoria econômica do comportamento humano Introdução a Teoria Econômica do Crime A contribuição de Gary Becker A Contribuição de Gordon Tullock As bases teóricas da econômica do crime O modelo básico de análise - Gary Becker O modelo de alocação do tempo O modelo de migração O modelo de portfólio O modelo de agente principal O modelo de interação social A teoria do crime organizado A teoria econômica da corrupção A organização industrial da corrupção O sistema de justiça criminal e a economia das prisões Aplicações: controle de armas, roubos a bancos; evasão fiscal, pena de morte. Evidências empíricas para o caso brasileiro. Objetivos da Disciplina Introdução de conceitos econômicos fundamentais, autores, abordagem referentes à teoria econômica do crime, bem como aplicações a temas correlacionados e aplicações ao caso brasileiro. Metodologia de Ensino Aulas expositivas com lâminas de power point e debates em aula sobre temas e textos específicos. Critérios de Avaliação A avaliação será baseada no desempenho de uma prova escritas, com conteúdo bem como num conjunto de exercícios que serão propostos ao longo do curso. As datas das provas serão marcadas em datas oportunas. A nota final será obtida da seguinte forma: provas escritas (0,80) + exercícios propostos (0,20). Aulas Teoria Econômica do Crime Artigos para leitura ARAÚJO, A.F.; FAJNZYLBER, P. Crime e Economia: um estudo das microrregiões mineiras. In: IX Seminário sobre a Economia Mineira, UFMG, 2000. ARAÚJO, A.F.V.; RAMOS, F.S. Estimação da Perda de Bem-estar causada pela Criminalidade: o caso da cidade de João Pessoa-PB. In: XII Encontro Regional de Economia, 19 e 20 de julho de 2007, Fortaleza-CE. BERGER, Luiz Marcelo. Um modelo baseado em agentes para estudo das propriedades emergentes decorrent

The Perfect Spill: Solutions for Averting the Next Deepwater Horizon By Robert Costanza, David Batker, John Day, Rusty Feagin, M. Luisa Martinez, Joe Roman National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) f we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction-if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs-we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future." -President Barack Obama, Carnegie Mellon University, June 2, 2010 he continuing oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon is causing enormous economic and ecological damage. Estimates of the size and duration continue to escalate, but it is now the largest in U.S. history and clearly among the largest oil spills on record.1 s efforts to plug the leak and clean up the damages continue, it is not too soon to begin to draw lessons from this disaster. We need to learn from this experience so we can prevent future oil spills, reevaluate society's current trajectory, and set a better course. ne major lesson is that our natural capital assets and other public goods are far too valuable to continue to put them at such high risk from private interests. We need better (not necessarily more) regulation and strong incentives to protect these assets against actions that put them at risk. While the Obama administration's demand for a trust fund to compensate injured parties is appropriate, it arrived only after the fact. Common asset trusts and new financial instruments like assurance bonds would be better able to shift risk incentives and prevent disasters like the Deepwater Horizon. The Costs: Damages to Natural Capital Assets he spill has directly and indirectly affected at least 20 categories of valuable ecosystem services in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The $2.5 billion per year Louisiana commercial fishery has been almost completely shut down. As the oil extends to popular Gulf Coast beaches, the loss of tourism

Socializing Risk: The New Energy Economics May 27, 2010frankackermanLeave a commentGo to comments from Frank Ackerman Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department's Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water. Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs would explode in flames and then sink, causing oil to gush out uncontrollably and befoul the oceans. The odds seemed low, and still do: Aren't there lots of drilling rigs in use, year after year? Twenty years ago, your elected representatives thought that you'd be happy to have them adopt a very low cap on industry's liability for oil spill damages.  Nuclear power was never quite free of fears; it was too clearly a spin-off of nuclear weapons to ignore the risk of a very big bang. Yet as its advocates point out, we have had hundreds of reactor-years of experience, with only a few accidents. (And someday when Nevada's politicians aren't looking, maybe we can slip all of our nuclear waste into a cave in the desert.) Again, the risks are so low that you'd be happy to learn about a law limiting industry's liability for accidents, wouldn't you?  Environmentalists have long warned that the world could run out of energy and resources, from the "limits to growth" theories of the 1970s to the more recently popular notion of "peak oil." The response from economists has been that prices for energy and raw materials are still moderate, and declined over the course of the 20th century; if we are running out of something, why doesn't its price skyrocket? The problem is that what we're running out of is low-risk conventional energy supplies. Because our economy conceals and socializes energy risks, prices remain deceptively low for an increasingly risky energy supply. The market wasn't supposed to work this way. In the

Governing Disasters The Challenges of Emergency Risk Regulation Alberto Alemanno Edited by Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law and Risk Regulation, HEC Paris, France 2011 320 pp Hardback 978 0 85793 572 4 Hardback £75.00 on-line price £67.50 Qty This book is also available as an ebook  978 0 85793 573 1 from - www.EBSCOhost.com www.myilibrary www.ebooks.com www.ebookscorporation.com www.dawsonera.com www.ebrary.com/corp/ www.books.google.com/ebooks Description 'This comprehensive edited volume makes an important and much needed contribution to an increasingly important dimension of risk assessment and management, namely emergency risk regulation. Drawing upon the responses of government, businesses, and the public to the 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland - which disrupted European air travel, it offers important lessons for policy-makers who are likely to confront similar unanticipated global risks. The recent nuclear power disaster in Japan makes this volume both timely and prescient.' - David Vogel, University of California, Berkeley, US Contents Contributors: A. Alemanno, N. Bernard, V. Brannigan, C.M. Briggs, M. Broberg, A. Burgess, G.G. Castellano, S. Chakraborty, A. Fioritto, F. Hansstein, L. Jachia, A. Jeunemaitre, C. Johnson, C. Lawless, F.B. López-Jurado, D. Macrae, M. Mazzocchi, V. Nikonov, M. Ragona, M. Simoncini, A.M. Viens Further information 'The challenges posed by risky decisions are well documented. These decisions become even more daunting when they must be made in a midst of a crisis. Using the European volcanic risk crisis as the principal case study, Alberto Alemanno and the other contributors to this thought provoking volume derive valuable lessons for how policy makers can cope with the attendant time pressures, uncertainties, coordination issues, and risk communication problems. Once the next emergency risk situation occurs, it may be too late to learn about how to respond. Governing Disasters should be re

Energy Frank M. Truesdale Jan 7, 2010For the last month "Energy" has become a chronology of the BP Oil Rig Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, built from news releases, news reports, and blogs.

10 MAY 2010: ANALYSIS The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: An Accident Waiting to Happen The oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico has shattered the notion that offshore drilling had become safe. A close look at the accident shows that lax federal oversight, complacency by BP and the other companies involved, and the complexities of drilling a mile deep all combined to create the perfect environmental storm. by john mcquaid It's hard to believe now, as oil from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon well encroaches on the Louisiana marshes. But it was only six weeks ago that President Obama announced a major push to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Obama's commitment to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling reflected the widely-held belief that offshore oil operations, once perceived as dirty and dangerous, were now so safe and technologically advanced that the risks of a major disaster were infinitesimal, and managing them a matter of technocratic skill. But in the space of two weeks, both the politics and the practice of offshore drilling have been turned upside down. Today, the notion that offshore drilling is safe seems absurd. The Gulf spill harks back to drilling disasters from decades past - including one off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. in 1969 that dumped three million gallons into coastal waters and led to the current moratorium. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is a classic "low probability, high impact event" - the kind we've seen more than our share of recently, including space shuttle disasters, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. And if there's a single lesson from those disparate catastrophes, it's that pre-disaster assumptions tend to be dramatically off-base, and the worst-case scenarios downplayed or ignored. The Gulf spill is no exception. Getty Images/U.S. Coast Guard Fire boats battle the fire on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon after the April 21 explosion. The post-mortems are only beginning, so the precise causes of the initial

Building Resilience on the Prairies Adaptation as Resilience Building What's New? Manitoba Agricultural Producer Primer This brochure provides a summary of how Manitoba producers have coped and adapted to past weather-related shocks and stresses. It is based on Masters degree research undertaken by Peter Myers at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. In October 2004, IISD initiated a new project in partnership with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (the rural extension service of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) and the University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute. This two-year project funded by Canada's Climate Change Action Fund will examine the resilience of prairie communities to past climate stresses as a means of strengthening adaptation to future climate change. The project is based on the premise that prairie agro-ecosystems, or the inter-relationship between social and ecological systems in the prairie region, have been continuously adapting (successfully and unsuccessfully) to historic climate variability. By examining successful examples of how agro-ecosystems have adapted to past climate stress, IISD and its partners believe that we learn how to promote adaptive capacity and build the resilience of prairie agro-ecosystems to present climate change. It is expected that the project's research findings will make an important contribution to the design of Canada's evolving Agricultural Policy Framework. Project Reports Farmer Responses to Weather Shocks and Stresses in Manitoba: A Resilience Approach (PDF - 644 kb) A Masters Thesis by Peter Myers describing how producers in Manitoba have dealt with past weather- related shocks and stresses as a view toward future coping and adaptation for climate change. Living with Climate Change: How Prairie Farmers Deal with Increasing Weather Variability (PDF - 2.4 mb) A technical report by Masters student Kent Pearce describing how producers in Saskatchewan

Natural Disaster Analysis After Hurricane Katrina: Risk Assessment, Economic Impacts and Social Implications Harry W. Richardson, Peter Gordon, James E. Moore, II 0 Resenhas Edward Elgar Pub, 2009 - 320 páginas Hurricane Katrina was a pivotal event in the history of disaster mismanagement. Its impact will be felt well into the future and its lessons will be applied around the world. This influential volume explores key policy implications arising from the storm and its aftermath. Leading scholars from fields as diverse as decision analysis, risk management, economics engineering, transportation, urban planning and sociology investigate the policy issues associated with insurance, flood control and the rebuilding of levees, housing, tourism, utility lifelines recovery and resilience, evacuation, relocation and racial implications. By assessing the disruption of life in New Orleans, as well as the inter-regional economic impacts of the disaster, the authors suggest steps that can be taken to minimize future risks, not only in New Orleans but also in all locations threatened by natural disasters. It then goes beyond Katrina to explore experiences and responses to similar events in other parts of the world. Another important feature is a discussion of the overlap between terrorist-initiated disasters and natural disasters. The issues raised by Katrina are very complex and teasing out successful policy implications is far from easy. This book is a major advance towards that goal. Academics interested in the economics, policy, and planning aspects of natural and man-made disasters, specialists in emergency management and policymakers will find the insights and prescriptions offered here invaluable.

New risks: issues and management Louis A. Cox, Paolo F. Ricci 0 Resenhas Springer, 1990

Flood hazards and health: responding to present and future risks Roger Few, Franziska Matthies 0 Resenhas Earthscan, 2006 - 219 páginas With the tragedy of New Orleans still the focus of the world's media, this highly topical book combines rigorous analysis of the human health impacts of flooding with an appraisal of how individuals and society respond to those risks. The first detailed discussion of the global health implications of flooding and future flood risk, the book sets these findings in light of potential future increases in flood hazard as a result of climate change. The volume brings together findings from epidemiological, environmental, social, and institutional studies, with analysis rooted in an approach that emphasizes the developmental as well as environmental causes of flood risk and the socially differentiated nature of vulnerability and coping capacity. The first part of the book sets out the scope of the issues and provides a detailed discussion of the global health impacts of floods and how humans respond to the health risks posed. The second part presents new research evidence on specific health aspects of floods covering mental health, water and sanitation, local level responses, and the responses of health systems--drawing on case study material from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The conclusion synthesizes insights from the previous chapters and discusses priorities for policy, practice, and research. It draws out implications for present and future adaptation to flooding, and emphasizes the need to integrate action on health with the broader agenda of long-term risk reduction.