| Summary: | "Defending society against natural hazards is a high-stakes game of chance against nature, involving tough decisions. How should a developing nation allocate its budge between building schools for towns without ones and making existing schools earthquake-resistant? Does it make more sense to build levees to protect against floods, or to prevent development in the areas at risk? Would more lives be saved by making hospitals earthquake-resistant, or by using the funds for patient care? What should scientists tell the public when - as occurred in L'Aquila, Italy, and Mammoth Lakes, California - there is a real but small risk of an upcoming earthquake or volcanic eruption? Recent hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis show that society often handles such choices poorly. Sometimes nature suprises us when an earthquake, hurricane, or flood is bigger or has greater effects than expected from detailed hazard assessments. In other cases, nature outsmarts us, doing great damage despite expensive mitigation measures or causing us to divert limited resources to mitigate hazards that are overestimated [...] This book uses general principles and case studies to explore how we can do better by taking an integrated view of natural hazards issues, rather than treating the relevant geoscience, engineering, economics, and policy formulation separately. Thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter invite readers to confront the complex issues involved." --
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