Geomorphology and Natural Hazards: Understanding Landscape Change for Disaster Mitigation

"In spite of ever-increasing research into natural hazards, the reported damage from natural disasters continues to rise, increasingly disrupting human activities. We, as scientists who study the way in which the part of Earth most relevant to society- the surface-behaves, are disturbed and frustrated by this trend. It appears that the large amounts of funding devoted each year to research into reducing the impacts of natural disasters could be much more effective in producing useful results. At the same time we are aware that society, as represented by its decision makers, while increasingly concerned at the impacts of natural disasters on lives and economies, is reluctant to acknowledge the intrinsic activity of Earth's surface and to take steps to adapt societal behaviour to minimise the impacts of natural disasters. Understanding and managing natural hazards and disasters are beyond matters of applied earth science, and also involve considering human societal, economic and political decisions"--

Author: Timothy R. Davies, Oliver Korup, John J. Clague
Publisher: American Geophysical Union
Published: 04/05/2021
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.16lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 1.16d
ISBN13: 9781119990314
ISBN10: 1119990319
BISAC Categories:
- Science | Earth Sciences | Geology

About the Author

Tim Davies is Professor in the School of Earth and Environment at University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Educated in Civil Engineering in UK in the 1970s, he taught in Agricultural Engineering and subsequently Natural Resources Engineering at Lincoln University, New Zealand before transferring to University of Canterbury in the present millennium to teach into Engineering Geology and Disaster Risk and Resilience. He has published a total of over 140 papers on a range of pure and applied geomorphology topics including river mechanics and management, debris-flow hazards and management, landslides, earthquakes and fault mechanics, rock mechanics and alluvial fans; natural hazard and disaster risk and resilience.

Oliver Korup is Professor in the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Geography and the Institute of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, Germany. Following an academic training in Germany and New Zealand, his research and teaching is now at the interface between geomorphology, natural hazards, and data science. He has worked on catastrophic erosion and disturbances in mountain belts, particularly on landslides, natural dams, river-channel changes, and glacial lake outburst floods.

John J. Clague is Emeritus Professor at Simon Fraser University. He was educated at Occidental College, the University of California Berkeley, and the University of British Columbia. He worked as a Research Scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada from 1975 until 1998, and in Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University from 1998 until 2016. Clague is a Quaternary geologist with research specializations in glacial geology, geomorphology, natural hazards, and climate change, and has authored over 200 papers on these topics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada.