Introduction

Abstract

It is impossible to avoid all risk. As a result, societies have evolved in a manner that allows them to operate within specific levels of tolerance for natural and man-made events. Typically those boundaries to what can be successfully accommodated are defined either by law or by common practice. Often regulations, such as public health and building codes, identify the maximum event that must be guarded against. The resulting level of socially acceptable safety reflects such factors as past experience, needs, wants, and wealth. Regardless of the emphasis placed on the preservation of life and property, there will always remain the potential for the occurrence of extreme events, capable of overcoming the capacity of society to cope without dramatic changes in its normal operation. Such threats are known as hazards, and their impact on society as disaster. While hazards cannot be eliminated, the limits of tolerance of every society to their effects can be increased and hence the potential for disaster reduced. Mankind faces a wide and expanding spectrum of hazards capable of causing death and destruction. For the majority of the world’s population, living in the rural areas of the Developing World, the hazards that threaten their livelihood are still the ancient ones which commonly afflict agriculture and settlement. These are predominantly of natural origin (Harriss, Hohenemser, and Kates, 1978). For example, the losses from geophysical hazards, such as tropical cyclones, earthquakes, floods, and droughts each year in the Developing World cause an average of 250,000 deaths and $15 billion in damage, prevention, and mitigation costs (Burton, Kates, and White, 1978). This is the equivalent of 2–3% of the gross national product of those countries affected by such disaster agents.

What plagues and what portents, what mutiny What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth, Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida Act 1, Scene iii William Shakespeare (1564–1616)