Floods are amongst the most common and devastating natural disasters. In the wake of such an event, the pressure to initiate flood protection schemes that will provide security is enormous, and politicians promise quick solutions in the national interest. Jeroen Warner examines …
This book presents climate adaptation and flood risk problems and solutions in coastal cities, including an independent investigation of adaptation paths and problems in Rotterdam, New York and Jakarta. The comparison draws out lessons that each city can learn from the others. …
"The hurricane that pounded Galveston through the night of September 8, 1900, reduced a cosmopolitan and economically vibrant city to a wreckage-strewn wasteland where survivors struggled without shelter, power, potable water, or even the means to communicate their plight to the…
The volume explores the idea and practice of flood control and argues that this is a part of a political agenda, deeply implicated in the social, economic, and political calculations of capitalism in general and colonialism in particular. It argues for a comprehensive reconsider…
"Documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty thousand years, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources."--Back cover. "The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of th…
"Mary C. Comerio provides detailed case studies of housing losses and rebuilding efforts in six recent urban disasters: Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, Hurricane Andrew in Florida, the Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes in California, and the recent major earthquakes in Me…
Flood risk management is presented in this book as a framework for identifying, assessing and prioritizing climate-related risks and developing appropriate adaptation responses. Rigorous assessment is employed to determine the available probabilistic and fuzzy set-based analytic…
A journalist and resident of New Orleans offers an eyewitness account of Hurricane Katrina, its devastating impact on New Orleans, and its aftermath, arguing that the origins of the disaster lie in the culture and politics of a troubled city.
"Hurricane Katrina shredded one of the great cities of the South, and as levees failed and the federal relief effort proved lethally incompetent, a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe. As an editor of New Orleans' daily newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize--winning Times-Pic…
Sea level rise will happen no matter what we do. Even if we stopped all carbon dioxide emissions today, the seas would rise one meter by 2050 and three meters by 2100. This--not drought, species extinction, or excessive heat waves--will be the most catastrophic effect of global …
"By 2050: the sea will rise by 2 to 3 feet. Wealthy coastal cities will fight the rising water with dykes and levees; others will lose their underground infrastructure (including electric and fiber optic systems), and face building collapses." "By 2300: the sea will rise by 65 f…