In spite of mankind's triumph in taming nature for his survival and benefit, succumbing to the vagaries of nature has become a regular global concern. Out of the array of different catastrophes, earthquakes and cyclones together are responsible for an overwhelming majority of the global damages caused by natural disasters in the last decade, leaving millions homeless. The loss of property and life are primarily due to failure of structures to withstand such catastrophes, caused often due to lack of implementation of a few guidelines. The evolution of these guidelines is rooted in understanding the principles of the mechanics that regulate the behaviour of the structures under lateral dynamic loading imparted by earthquakes and cyclones.In this context, Improving Earthquake and Cyclone Resistance of Structures: guidelines for the Indian subcontinent, is an attempt to introduce guidelines for the types of building structures frequently observed and built in the Indian subcontinent as well as in other developing countries. The guidelines are meant for both architectural and structural features, and include constructional aspects as well. The book introduces these guidelines in such a manner that all aspects can be properly understood, related, and implemented by practising engineers and architects. On the whole, the book may help develop awareness and sensitized technical manpower for combating the threats posed by natural disasters like earthquakes and cyclones.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 has identified four priority areas for Disaster Risk Reduction: understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response; and to "Build Back Better" in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Although tremendous progress has been made in recent decades in understanding the workings of the Earth systems and, in particular, its impacts on and responses to human actions, there remains a continuing and pressing need for knowledge that will allow society to simultaneously reduce exposure to global environmental hazards, while also meeting economic development goals. Exploring Natural Hazards: A Case Study Approach, contributes to the knowledge showcasing advanced practices for the monitoring of natural hazards. Through each case study, the book examines mainly hazards arising from processes within the hydrosphere and atmosphere, triggered or exacerbated by inputs to and transfers of energy between environmental components. It discusses the causes of these phenomena, and ways in which improved policy making, sometimes coupled with the application of appropriate modern technologies, can help to reduce people’s exposure to harm. Discussing challenges, lessons learned and recommendations, this book provides a snapshot of issues related to tropical cyclones and typhoons, desertification, floods, lightning as a hazard and the need for alert systems. It is a valuable resource for practitioners and professionals alike, for researchers, students and others who work at the intersection between environmental hazards, sustainable development and social justice.

This Civil Engineering Book is one-of-a-kind. This book is structured to raise the level of expertise in Civil Engineering and to improve the competitiveness in the global markets. A civil engineer is someone who applies scientific knowledge to improve infrastructure and common utilities that meet basic human needs. Civil engineers plan, design and manage large construction projects. This could include bridges, buildings,dams, tunnels, buildings, airports, water and sewage systems, transport links and other major structures. They use computer modelling software and data from surveys, tests and maps to create project blueprints. These plans advise contractors on the best course of action and help minimise environmental impact and risk. Buildings and bridges are often the first structures to come to mind, because they are the most obvious engineering creations. But civil engineers are also responsible for less visible creations and contributions. Every time we open a water faucet, we expect water to come out, without thinking that civil engineers made it possible, in many cases by designing systems that transport water to cities from mountain sources that are sometimes hundreds of miles away. Civil engineering is one of the oldest and broadest engineering professions. It focuses on the infrastructure necessary to support a civilized society. The Roman aqueducts, the great European cathedrals, and the earliest metal bridges were built by highly skilled forerunners of the modern civil engineer. These craftsmen of old relied on their intuition, trade skills, and experience-based design rules, or heuristics, derived from years of trial and error experiments but rarely passed on to the next generation. This book of Civil Engineering covers Below Subjects ❏ FUNDAMENTALS ❏ BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ❏ CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY ❏ CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING ❏ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ❏ GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING ❏ GEOTHERMAL ENGINEERING ❏ HYDRAULICS ❏ PAVEMENT ❏ STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING ❏ TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING ❏ MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ❏WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING In contrast, today's civil engineers bring to bear on these problems a knowledge of the physical and natural sciences, mathematics, computational methods, economics, and project management. Civil engineers design and construct buildings, transportation systems (such as roads, tunnels, bridges, railroads, and airports), and facilities to manage and maintain the quality of water resources. Society relies on civil engineers to maintain and advance human health, safety, and our standard of living. Those projects that are vital to a community's survival are often publicly funded to ensure that they get done, even where there is no clear or immediate profit motive.

More than 12 years have passed since the publication of the first edition of Crisis and Emergency Management. During that time numerous disasters—from 9/11 to massive earthquakes in Iran and China, to the giant Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Fukushima Tsunami and ensuing nuclear meltdown—have changed the way we manage catastrophic events. With contributions from leading experts, this second edition features 40 new chapters that address recent worldwide crises and what we have learned from emergency responses to them. See What’s New in the Second Edition: Up-to-date concepts, theories, and practices Analysis of recent disasters and their effect on emergency management Policy and managerial lessons Suggestions for capacity building in crisis and emergency management The book covers a wide range of international issues using critical, empirical, and quantitative analyses. It discusses various approaches to topics such as resolving political tension and terrorism issues, the potential use of biological weapons, and the role of public relations in crisis. The author offers insight into organizational and community resiliency development; a "surprise management" theory in practice for upgrading the knowledge and skills in managing crises and governing emergencies; and better and more effective organizational, political, social, and managerial coordination in the processes. He presents case studies that enhance and advance the future theory and practice of crisis and emergency management, while at the same time providing practical advice that can be put to use immediately. Managing crises and governing emergencies in such an age of challenges demands a different kind of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were not available yesterday. This book gives you valuable information with applications at the macro, micro, organizational, and interorganizational levels, preparing you for emergency management in an increasingly globalized and uncertain world.

World Congress on Disaster Management (WCDM) brings researchers, policy makers and practitioners from around the world in the same platform to discuss various challenging issues of disaster risk management, enhance understanding of risks and advance actions for reducing risks and building resilience to disasters. The fifth WCDM deliberates on three critical issues that pose the most serious challenges as well as hold the best possible promise of building resilience to disasters. These are Technology, Finance, and Capacity. WCDM has emerged as the largest global conference on disaster management outside the UN system. The fifth WCDM was attended by more than 2500 scientists, professionals, policy makers, practitioners all around the world despite the prevalence of pandemic.

The seventh edition of Environmental Hazards provides a much expanded and fully up-to-date overview of all the extreme environmental events that threaten people and what they value in the 21st century globally. It integrates cutting-edge materials to provide an interdisciplinary approach to environmental hazards and their management, illustrating how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. Part 1 defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster and explores the evolution of hazards theory. Part 2 employs a consistent chapter structure to demonstrate how individual hazards occur, their impacts and how the risks can be assessed and managed. This extensively revised edition includes: Fresh perspectives on the reliability of disaster data, disaster risk reduction, risk and disaster perception and communication, and new technologies available to assist with environmental hazard management The addition of several new environmental hazards including landslide and avalanches, cryospheric hazards, karst and subsidence hazards, and hazards of the Anthropocene More boxed sections with a focus on both generic issues and the lessons to be learned from a carefully selected range of up-to-date extreme events An annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites, for all chapters More colour diagrams and photographs, and more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant and recent published material New exercises to assist teaching in the classroom, or self-learning This carefully structured and balanced textbook captures the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and is essential reading for students across many disciplines including geography, environmental science, environmental studies and natural resources.

This book is part of a six-volume series on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. The series aims to fill in gaps in theory and practice in the Sendai Framework, and provides additional resources, methodologies and communication strategies to enhance the plan for action and targets proposed by the Sendai Framework. The series will appeal to a broad range of researchers, academics, students, policy makers and practitioners in engineering, environmental science and geography, geoscience, emergency management, finance, community adaptation, atmospheric science and information technology. This volume discusses how to measure and build disaster resilience at society’s capacity, drawing upon individual, institutional and collective resources to cope with and adapt to the demands and challenges of natural disaster occurrences. The book will serve as a guide, outlining the key indicators of disaster resilience in urban and rural settings, and the resources and strategies needed to build resilient communities in accordance with the targets of the Sendai Framework. Readers will learn about multi-risk reduction approaches using computational methods, data mining techniques, and System Thinking at various scales, as well as institutional and infrastructure resilience strategies based on several case studies.

This book includes the proceedings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2008 Advanced Research Workshop (ARW). The goal of the meeting was to explore methods to involve the community in the fight against terrorism in an effort to enhance its protection from terrorist attacks and to establish a network between the participants for future collaborations. The two main topics of this book are: (1) Defining the problem of terrorism and collective community protection; why does terrorism exists and why do people join and/or support extremist groups? (2) Counter-terrorism practices and their relation to the community; focused on developing non-orthodox methods to combat terrorism. In other words, why communities should be included in the fight against terrorism. This book should be seen as a guide for policy makers and practitioners to gain a better understanding of how counter terrorism, as well as many other applications, requires community support and involvement to the fullest extent possible. Because the existing threat of terrorism is proof of the failed classical militaristic approaches, the time has come to integrate our communities into the practice of fighting the threat together.