Main description:

Recent disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, bomb explosions in London, Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistan Earthquake, floods in Central America, and landslides in Indonesia, among many others, have resulted in an extensive loss of life, social disruption, significant economic impacts to local and national economies, and have made headline news in countries throughout the world. Thus the Handbook of Disaster Research is a timely and much needed contribution to the field of disasters. The editors of this Handbook have brought together a comprehensive and interdisciplinary volume with a diverse and international group of contributors.

The Handbook is based on the principle that disasters are social constructions and focuses on social science disaster research. Attention is given to conceptual issues dealing with the concept "disaster" and to methodological issues relating to research on disasters, including Geographic Information Systems as a useful research tool and its implications for future research; how disaster research is increasingly being used in the emergency management curriculum; and how research is useful in dealing with emergency operations. The Handbook also includes a number of essays focusing on various types of vulnerabilities. In addition, there are discussions on community processes that are evoked by disasters, including warnings, search and rescue, coordination, and organizational adaptation, as well as, dealing with death and injury, and recovery, and the role of the media in disasters; special attention is given to emergency systems in several nation states. The Handbook also includes contributions focusing on the relationship between disaster and development, the popular culture of disasters, new dimensions of disaster research, as well as projections of disasters into the future.

Disasters allow the opportunity for social scientists to study human behavior in which adaptation, resilience and innovation are often more clearly revealed than in "normal" and stable times. The Handbook of Disaster Research provides an interdisciplinary and international approach to disasters with theoretical, methodological, and practical applications.

Feature:

This seminal reference work is the first interdisciplinary collection of disaster research as it stands now and how the field will continue to grow, especially post 9/11

Back cover:

From the reviews:

"The Handbook of Disaster Research will, without a doubt, be the most important publication of its type during this decade. Just about everyone who is anyone in the disaster research community has shared their knowledge on the important topics of the day. The authors and the publisher are to be congratulated for completing the book that will be widely sought after by practitioners, researchers and students of disaster planning and response. Thank you for this outstanding contribution to the field."

Henry W. Fischer III, Director, Center for Disaster Research & Education, Millersville University

"The Handbook of Disaster Research will generate considerable excitement amongst international disaster research and management professionals. Finally, a volume that takes on the task of articulating and unpacking the many social complexities of modern disasters and catastrophes. By taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, the Handbook addresses the very pressing need to better understand the social dimensions of disaster. ... offers a very balanced set of analyses that will undoubtedly appeal to not only the researcher, but the practitioner and the policy-maker alike."

Dr. Derek Bopping, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Department of Defence, Australia

"This is an amazing handbook. .... A "must have" for anyone who wants to know the cutting edges of disaster research. The Handbook of Disaster Research is unlike any other handbook I’ve seen. .....I’m impressed, too, with the breadth of expertise that is represented. Practitioners as well as academics, the "old guard" of disaster research as well as the young, rising stars, and the refreshing appearance of scholars from places other than the United States. I need this book on my shelf."

Lee Clarke, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey                                           Author of Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination; Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster; and Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas.

Recent disasters, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, bomb explosions in London, Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistan Earthquake, floods in Central America, landslides in Indonesia, and September 11, 2001 among many others, have resulted in an extensive loss of life, social disruption, significant economic impacts to local and national economies, and have made headline news in countries throughout the world. Thus the Handbook of Disaster Research is a timely and much needed contribution to the field of disasters.

The Hand

Contents:

What Is a Disaster?.- A Heuristic Approach to Future Disasters and Crises: New, Old, and In-Between Types.- The Crisis Approach.- Methodological Issues.- The Role of Geographic Information Systems/Remote Sensing in Disaster Management.- Morbidity and Mortality Associated with Disasters.- Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Disaster Vulnerability.- Gender and Disaster: Foundations and Directions.- Globalization and Localization: An Economic Approach.- Local Emergency Management Organizations.- Community Processes: Warning and Evacuation.- Search and Rescue Activities in Disasters.- Community Processes: Coordination.- Sustainable Disaster Recovery: Operationalizing An Existing Agenda.- Sheltering and Housing Recovery Following Disaster*.- Businesses and Disasters: Vulnerability, Impacts, and Recovery.- Organizational Adaptation to Disaster.- Community Innovation and Disasters.- Disaster and Development Research and Practice: A Necessary Eclecticism?.- National Planning and Response: National Systems.- Disaster and Crisis Management in Transitional Societies: Commonalities and Peculiarities.- Terrorism as Disaster.- Recent Developments in U.S. Homeland Security Policies and Their Implications for the Management of Extreme Events.- Unwelcome Irritant or Useful Ally? The Mass Media in Emergencies.- The Popular Culture of Disaster: Exploring a New Dimension of Disaster Research.- Remembering: Community Commemoration After Disaster.- Research Applications in the Classroom.- From Research to Praxis: The Relevance of Disaster Research for Emergency Management.- Communicating Risk and Uncertainty: Science, Technology, and Disasters at the Crossroads.- Crisis Management in the Twenty-First Century: “Unthinkable” Events in “Inconceivable” Contexts.- New Dimensions: The Growth of a Market in Fear.- Disasters Ever More? Reducing U.S. Vulnerabilities.