Stein Playing against Nature

Integrating Science and Economics to Mitigate Natural Hazards in an Uncertain World
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-118-62080-9
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten, E-Book

Reihe: Wiley Works

Defending society against natural hazards is a high-stakes gameof chance against nature, involving tough decisions. How should adeveloping nation allocate its budget between building schools fortowns without ones or 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 besaved by making hospitals earthquake-resistant, or using the fundsfor 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 upcomingearthquake or volcanic eruption? Recent hurricanes,earthquakes, and tsunamis show that society often handles suchchoices poorly. Sometimes nature surprises us, when an earthquake,hurricane, or flood is bigger or has greater effects than expectedfrom detailed hazard assessments. In other cases, nature outsmartsus, doing great damage despite expensive mitigation measures orcausing us to divert limited resources to mitigate hazards that areoverestimated. Much of the problem comes from the fact thatformulating effective natural hazard policy involves combiningscience, economics, and risk analysis to analyze a problem andexplore the costs and benefits of different options, in situationswhere the future is very uncertain. Because mitigation policies aretypically chosen without such analysis, the results are oftendisappointing. This book uses general principles and case studiesto explore how we can do better by taking an integrated view ofnatural hazards issues, rather than treating the relevantgeoscience, engineering, economics, and policy formulationseparately. Thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapterinvite readers to confront the complex issues involved.

Readership: Instructors, researchers, practitioners, andstudents interested in geoscience, engineering, economics, orpolicy issues relevant to natural hazards. Suitable for upper-levelundergraduate or graduate courses.

Additional resources can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/Stein/Playingagainstnature

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stein, Seth

Stein, Jerome

Über Autor(innen)

Seth Stein, Deering Professor of Geological Sciences at Northwestern University, is a seismologist interested in the science of large earthquakes and earthquake hazard mitigation. He has been awarded the James B. Macelwane Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the George Woollard Award of the Geological Society of America, the Stephan Mueller Medal of the European Geosciences Union, the Price Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Humboldt Foundation Research Award.
The late Jerome Stein, who was Eastman Professor of Economics at Brown University, had interests including decision theory and formation of public policy.