This book presents essential advances in analytical frameworks and tools for modeling the spatial and economic impacts of disasters. In the wake of natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake, and the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as major terrorist attacks, the book analyzes disaster impacts from various perspectives, including resilience, space-time extensions, and decision-making strategies, in order to better understand how and to what extent these events impact economies and societies around the world. The contributing authors are internationally recognized experts from various disciplines, such as economics, geography, planning, regional science, civil engineering, and risk management. Thanks to the insights they provide, the book will benefit not only researchers in these and related fields, but also graduate students, disaster management professionals, and other decision-makers.

This book brings together a collection of innovative papers on strategies for analyzing the spatial and economic impacts of disasters. Natural and human-induced disasters pose several challenges for conventional modeling. For example, disasters entail complex linkages between the natural, built, and socio-economic environments. They often create chaos and economic disequilibrium, and can also cause unexpected long-term, structural changes. Dynamic interactions among agents and behavioral adjustments in a disaster become complicated. The papers in this volume make notable progress in tackling these challenges through refinements of conventional methods, as well as new modeling frameworks and multidisciplinary, integrative strategies. The papers also provide case study applications that afford new insights on disaster processes and loss reduction strategies.

This work combines research and empirical evidence on the economic costs of disasters with theoretical approaches. It provides new insights on how to assess and manage the costs and impacts of disaster prevention, mitigation, recovery and adaption, and much more.

Economic Effects of Natural Disasters explores how natural disasters affect sources of economic growth and development. Using theoretical econometrics and real-world data, and drawing on advances in climate change economics, the book shows scholars and researchers how to use various research methods and techniques to investigate and respond to natural disasters. No other book presents empirical frameworks for the evaluation of the quality of macroeconomic research practice with a focus on climate change and natural disasters. Because many of these subjects are so large, different regions of the world use different approaches, hence this resource presents tailored economic applications and evidence. - Connects economic theories and empirical work in climate change to natural disaster research - Shows how advances in climate change and natural disaster research can be implemented in micro- and macroeconomic simulation models - Addresses structural changes in countries afflicted by climate change and natural disasters

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Barclay G. Jones, Professor of City and Regional Planning and Regional Science at Cornell University. Over a decade ago, Barclay took on a fledgling area of study - economic modeling of disasters - and nurtured its early development. He served as the social science program director at the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER), a university consortium sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the United States. In this capacity, Barclay shepherded and attracted a number of regional scientists to the study of disasters. He organized a conference, held in the ill-fated World Trade Center in September 1995, on "The Economic Consequences of Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unexpected. " He persistently advocated the importance of social science research in an establishment dominated by less-than-sympathetic natural scientists and engineers. In 1993, Barclay organized the first of a series of sessions on "Measuring Regional Economic Effects of Unscheduled Events" at the North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). This unusual nomenclature brought attention to the challenge that disasters -largely unanticipated, often sudden, and always disorderly - pose to the regional science modeling tradition. The sessions provided an annual forum for a growing coalition of researchers, where previously the literature had been fragmentary, scattered, and episodic. Since Barclay's unexpected passing in 1997, we have continued this effort in his tradition.

Evaluating the myriad dimensions of how disasters can affect economic activity and decision-making, this cutting-edge Handbook presents a timely analysis of the conditions that reduce or exacerbate disaster impacts. Addressing developments in research on disaster economics, internationally recognized scholars combine theoretical considerations with empirical methods to expand and improve the field of disaster mitigation.

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.