The history and science behind efforts to predict major disasters, from tsunamis to stock market crashes Can we predict cataclysmic disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or stock market crashes? The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 claimed more than 200,000 lives. Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,800 people and devastated the city of New Orleans. The recent global financial crisis has cost corporations and ordinary people around the world billions of dollars. Megadisasters is a book that asks why catastrophes such as these catch us by surprise, and reveals the history and groundbreaking science behind efforts to forecast major disasters and minimize their destruction. Each chapter of this exciting and eye-opening book explores a particular type of cataclysmic event and the research surrounding it, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, rapid climate change, collisions with asteroids or comets, pandemics, and financial crashes. Florin Diacu tells the harrowing true stories of people impacted by these terrible events, and of the scientists racing against time to predict when the next big disaster will strike. He describes the mathematical models that are so critical to understanding the laws of nature and foretelling potentially lethal phenomena, the history of modeling and its prospects for success in the future, and the enormous challenges to scientific prediction posed by the chaos phenomenon, which is the high instability that underlies many processes around us. Yielding new insights into the perils that can touch every one of us, Megadisasters shows how the science of predicting disasters holds the promise of a safer and brighter tomorrow.

While not all natural disasters can be avoided, their impact on a population can be mitigated through effective planning and preparedness. These are the lessons to be learned from Japan's own megadisaster: the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the fi rst disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. It is a sad fact that poor communities are often hardest hit and take the longest to recover from disaster. Disaster risk management (DRM) should therefore be taken into account as a major development challenge, and countries must shift from a tradition of response to a culture of prevention and resilience. Learning from Megadisasters: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake consolidates a set of 36 Knowledge Notes, research results of a joint study undertaken by the Government of Japan and the World Bank. These notes highlight key lessons learned in seven DRM thematic clusters—structural measures; nonstructural measures; emergency response; reconstruction planning; hazard and risk information and decision making; the economics of disaster risk, risk management, and risk fi nancing; and recovery and relocation. Aimed at sharing Japanese cutting-edge knowledge with practitioners and decision makers, this book provides valuable guidance to other disaster-prone countries for mainstreaming DRM in their development policies and weathering their own natural disasters.

As human society continues to develop, we have increased the risk of large-scale disasters. From health care to infrastructure to national security, systems designed to keep us safe have also heightened the potential for catastrophe. The constant pressure of climate change, geopolitical conflict, and our tendency to ignore what is hard to grasp exacerbates potential dangers. How can we prepare for and prevent the twenty-first-century disasters on the horizon? Rethinking Readiness offers an expert introduction to human-made threats and vulnerabilities, with a focus on opportunities to reimagine how we approach disaster preparedness. Jeff Schlegelmilch identifies and explores the most critical threats facing the world today, detailing the dangers of pandemics, climate change, infrastructure collapse, cyberattacks, and nuclear conflict. Drawing on the latest research from leading experts, he provides an accessible overview of the causes and potential effects of these looming megadisasters. The book highlights the potential for building resilient, adaptable, and sustainable systems so that we can be better prepared to respond to and recover from future crises. Thoroughly grounded in scientific and policy expertise, Rethinking Readiness is an essential guide to this century’s biggest challenges in disaster management.

This important book by one of our leading experts on disaster preparedness offers a compelling narrative about our nation’s inability to properly plan for large-scale disasters and proposes changes that can still be made to assure the safety of its citizens. Five years after 9/11 and one year after Hurricane Katrina, it is painfully clear that the government’s emergency response capacity is plagued by incompetence and a paralyzing bureaucracy. Irwin Redlener, who founded and directs the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, brings his years of experience with disasters and health care crises, national and international, to an incisive analysis of why our health care system, our infrastructure, and our overall approach to disaster readiness have left the nation vulnerable, virtually unable to respond effectively to catastrophic events. He has had frank, and sometimes shocking, conversations about the failure of systems during and after disasters with a broad spectrum of people—from hospital workers and FEMA officials to Washington policy makers and military leaders. And he also analyzes the role of nongovernmental organizations, such as the American Red Cross in the aftermath of Katrina. Redlener points out how a government with a track record of over-the-top cronyism and a stunning disregard for accountability has spent billions on “random acts of preparedness,” with very little to show for it—other than an ever-growing bureaucracy. As a doctor, Redlener is especially concerned about America’s increasingly dysfunctional and expensive health care system, incapable of handling a large-scale public health emergency, such as pandemic flu or widespread bioterrorism. And he also looks at the serious problem of a disengaged, uninformed citizenry—one of the most important obstacles to assuring optimal readiness for any major crisis. Redlener describes five natural and man-made disaster scenarios as a way to imagine what we might face, what our current systems would and would not prepare us for, and what would constitute optimal planning—for government and the public—in each situation. To see what could be learned from others, he points up some of the more effective ways countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have dealt with various disasters. And he concludes with a real prescription: a nine-point proposal for how America can be better prepared as well as an addendum of what citizens themselves can do. An essential book for our time, Americans at Risk is a devastating and realistic account of where we stand today.

This book addresses researchers, practitioners, and policy makers interested in understanding the financial implications of mega-disaster risks as well as in seeking possible solutions with regard to governance, the allocation of financial risk, and resilience. The first part of this book takes the example of Japan and studies the impact of mega earthquakes on government finance, debt positions of private household and businesses, capital markets, and investor behavior by way of economic modeling as well as case studies from recent major disasters. In Japan, the probability of a mega earthquake hitting dense agglomerations is very high. Like other large-scale natural disasters, such events carry systemic risks, i.e., they can trigger disruptions endangering the stability of the social, economic, and political order. The second part looks at the experience of the Japanese government as a provider of disaster-risk finance and an active partner in international collaboration. It concludes with an analysis of the general characteristics of systemic risk and approaches to improve resilience.

We live in turbulent times with continents and nations facing ever-heightening risks such as natural disasters, intense and protracted conflicts, terrorism, corporate crises, cyber threats to infrastructures and mega-events. We are witnessing the rise of mega-crises and a new class of adversity with many unknowns. The prospect of mega-crises presents professionals and students in the field of crisis management with four major tasks. First, they should engage in “deep thinking” about the causes of the increasing occurrence of mega-crises. Second, they should identify and work through the dominant trends which complicate contemporary crisis management. Third, they should upgrade institutional crisis management capacity. Fourth, they should improve societal resilience since no institutional complex can mitigate or manage these mega-crisis on its own. This book is divided into four primary parts, each of which looks at one facet of mega-crises. Part I focuses on the concept of a mega-crisis and mega-crisis management; Part II examines crisis management of mega-natural disasters; Part III evaluates crisis management of man-made mega-crises; and Part IV identifies mega-threats and vulnerabilities. Additional major topics include Hurricane Katrina; Hurricane Gustav; the London Bombings; the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks of July 7, 2005; corporate meltdowns; the subprime crisis; the Olympic Games; electricity grids; global climate change; the Dutch Delta; risks to food security; and mega-crises and the Internet. This comprehensive text will provide practitioners and academics with the results of an across-the-board research effort in the prospects, nature, characteristics, and the effects of mega-crises.

The Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) was the first disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. This volume is part of a larger knowledge-sharing project sponsored by the World Bank and the government of Japan that collects and analyses information, data, and evaluations performed by academic and research institutions, nongovernmental organisations, government agencies, and the private sector - all with the objective of sharing Japan's knowledge on disaster risk management (DRM) and postdisaster reconstruction with countries vulnerable to disasters so they can mainstream DRM in their development policies and planning. Other countries can protect themselves from major disasters by adopting - and adapting as necessary - some of the measures taken by Japan, and by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Japan's response to the GEJE.