Summary. This article describes the current status of the impacts, vulnerability, risk and mitigation of natural disasters. It is faced with a fundamental difference between the level of risk, and strategies used to deal with it in industrialized countries and those in developing countries. In the latter succeeded the most disaster and the worst effect on the population, especially in the case of so-called "complex disasters" in which humanitarian emergencies and military match. The developed countries instead denounced the major economic impacts, growth of which has not been halted despite the constant use of technologies mitigation increasingly sophisticated. We then describe the new trends in emergency management, including the increasing use of information technology network, but there are still few signs of the transfer of information technology in the Third World. To illustrate the phenomenology of a single risk, and to draw lessons relevant to mitigation, we describe the epidemiological effects of recent earthquakes. Then, to make a comparison with the approach of "all-hazards", is an example of the vulnerability to natural disasters of Italy. Finally, we examine the global outlook for the mitigation of natural disasters and provides a theoretical framework for future research in the future.
Introduction In 1990 the United Nations opened an International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, a global initiative that had the goal of halving the rate of death and destruction caused by extreme geophysical events (USNRC 1994 ). As the decade is in its second half, it is clear that the purpose will not be achieved and the progress accomplished so far provided results quite modest. On the one hand, however, there have been significant improvements in the level of general knowledge of disasters and their consequences. More information is available and have been tested more than ever, with better results in terms of mitigation and civil protection. The institutional structures have been strengthened, both in terms of super-national organizations such as the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-DHA) in the same United Nations, both for national organizations that deal with disasters. New research centers were created and new academic journals founded, and has taken a major step forward in the availability and quality of training in the field of emergency management.
Mortality in natural disasters was held at relatively constant, a result which is perhaps not insignificant, given the growth of world population. But the cost of disasters continues to increase dramatically. For example, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California to cost between $ 6 and U.S. 12 billion. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew caused $ 18 billion of losses in Florida and it was feared that the next big disaster could cost more than $ 40 billion (Berz 1994). Then, in January 1995, the Kobe earthquake in Japan caused losses valued at U.S. $ 131.5 billion (Japanese IDNDR Committee 1995), and now they fear even greater losses in major disasters of the future.
For the first 90 years data have estimated the cost of damage in natural disasters as U.S. $ 443.8 billion (IFRCRCS 1996). Approximately one third of this amount comes from the big disasters, each of which costs on average $ 350 million to 500 million (Berz 1992). Although the economic losses have been particularly high in developed countries, floods and droughts, for example, affect only 0.1% of their average PLN, while in some developing countries particularly affected by natural disasters, to 2% of PLN is absorbed by the losses in disasters (Alexander 1993a, p. 583). In some poor countries, particularly major disasters have sometimes come at the cost PLN for a whole year, as in the case of the Nicaraguan earthquake of 1972 (Kates et al. 1973).
From its earliest beginnings (Prince 1920, Sorokin 1942, White 1945, Barton 1969) study of disasters has grown into a true discipline, although organized around at least six different schools of thought (Alexander 1993a, pp. 12-14). Although various attempts have been made to unify the social sciences and natural disasters on the subject (Nemec et al 1993), still remains a fundamental disagreement. There is a strong difference of opinion on the fact that the social organization or technological systems are the key to mitigation of disasters (Hewitt 1983). Recently, some sociologists have argued that natural disasters are actually caused by the inadequacies of the social system, thus relegating him to a secondary role geophysical events (Kreps 1995). This is a way of saying that physical events are repetitive and predictable enough to be considered risk "normal" of everyday life. The most significant variable becomes the vulnerability of human social systems and therefore the causes of disasters are nell'inabilità sought to mitigate, or even to perceive the risks. However, this approach has been vigorously disputed by, among others, some geographers who prefer a more traditional model of causes and effects that seeks to integrate the physical impact on the socio-economic response (Hewitt 1995).
Nevertheless, several decades of geophysical and socio-scientific research has firmly established the intellectual and scientific study of disasters. The areas of the world at risk of natural disasters have been mapped in many cases the intervals recurrence of the disasters have been established, and future impact are now largely predictable (Smith 1992). The loss data indicate that each year some 200 natural disasters killed 144,000 people, injured 57,000, leaving 4.9 million homeless and have a direct impact on the lives of 129 million other people (IFRCRCS 1996). The investigations have outlined the stages of social disaster and have clarified the organizational responses, personal perceptions, people's reactions, and regularities in social disaster. Thus, each new event framework evolves in a highly predictable, which partially replicates the trend of the disasters of the past.
vulnerability and mitigation disasters in developing countries
In the 90 disasters tend to exacerbate the already serious differences between the impacts in industrialized countries and those in developing countries (Blaikie et al 1994). First of all, about 80% of the impacts of natural disasters and 95% of deaths occur in Third World (Cuny 1983). Moreover, the effects are distributed very unevenly, such that a load is disproportionately borne by some particular countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Peru.
In order to explain the discrepancy in the response to disasters in countries with different levels of development, the situation Japan will be compared with that in the Philippines. In Japan, public safety is constantly threatened by earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods, typhoons and volcanic eruptions. The risk of such extreme events is faced with a high degree of organization of civil protection, a high level of investment in technology for monitoring and early warning, and a strong support for geophysical research. Although it is far from infallible, the Japanese response to disasters is to be considered quickly and efficiently (UNDHA 1995, Japanese IDNDR Committee 1995).
risk natural conditions are very similar in the Philippines, where an average of 20 typhoons pass every year (in 1993 there were 32). However, despite efforts in the organization of civil protection, public education and training to deal with emergencies, the country faces a risk of natural disasters flattened by the Japanese resources lags far behind the Nipponese: The PLN is only 2 , 75% of the Japanese and about 49% of the population lives below the poverty line. In addition, poverty has shown strong links to environmental degradation, and there are clear signs that this problem increases the effects of disasters: floods caused by typhoons and landslides caused by earthquakes have their worst effects in areas (such as in the mountains of Baguio northern Luzon), where agricultural land is subject to strong dissesti idrogeologici (Broad e Cavanagh 1993). In sintesi, il costo dei disastri è maggiore in Giappone, ma la mortalità e ben 9 volte più alta nelle Filippine.
Nell'ambito delle singole nazioni è chiaro che gli effetti delle calamità naturali sono distribuiti in modo molto disuguale secondo forti differenze nella vulnerabilità dei diversi gruppi sociali. In molte città del Terzo Mondo i poveri e chi non possiede il terreno sono costretti ad occupare i siti più pericolosi: versanti tropicali instabili, fondi di valli altamente alluvionabili, pianure litorali minacciate da onde di tempesta, e così via (Havelick 1986). La mortalità nei disastri viene quindi concentrata nei barrios, nelle favilas, nei bidonvilles e negli slums che sono frutto di una crescita urbana rapida e senza pianificazione, scene di povertà non alleviata. Comunque, la marginalizzazione, la negazione al popolo di una voce politica e di una sicurezza economica, è un fenomeno più generale nel senso che essa affligge anche le aree rurali (Blaikie 1985, p. 125). È un fenomeno in aumento a livello mondiale e la sfida che pone agli enti di aiuto internazionale ha stimolato la formulazione di nuove idee su come integrare il soccorso dei disastri con lo sviluppo economico (Anderson e Woodrow 1989). Infatti, lo sviluppo socio-economico è da molto tempo conosciuto come chiave alla mitigazione delle catastrofi, ma solo recentemente si assiste ad un cambiamento significativo dal fornire aid after the impact of disasters in some form of aid that seeks to prevent disasters or reduce its effects by promoting economic development and community safety. There was then a belated recognition that, instead of being an interruption to the process of development, disasters are an integral and expected part of daily life in areas that affect them (Maxwell and Buchanan-Smith 1994). They must be treated as part of the normal barriers to development, not as separate phenomena and anomalous.
This picture was however complicated by what is called the "complex emergencies" (Duffield 1994). In Somalia and Ethiopia, for example, floods and droughts occur periodically in the context of other equally pressing issues: the military conflict, the war of low intensity guerrilla command hosted by the collapse of the state, the politicization of relief, refugees, the proliferation of international and domestic, so-called internally displaced persons (IDPs ), the uncertain supply of food, attacks on aid workers (Gallagher and Martin Forbes 1992). So the rescue after a disaster takes a more integrated but more complicated. Must keep in mind that the production and distribution of food have become more essential in a highly political issue in the monitoring of aid, including its limitations or its destruction, are often part of una strategia militare usata per sopprimere l'opposizione. Quindi, nelle "emergenze complesse" moderne i civili non-combattenti diventano le principali vittime sia dei disastri naturali che della deliberata creazione di insicurezza sociale tramite la manipolazione degli aiuti umanitari.
La vulnerabilità e la mitigazione dei disastri nei paesi sviluppati
Secondo la tendenza attuale, le perdite economiche sono concentrate nei paesi industrializzati mentre l'impatto umano dei disastri è maggiore nelle nazioni in via di sviluppo. I primi hanno fatto un grande progresso nella progettazione di sistemi di monitoraggio e di preallarme, nell'adeguamento degli edifici a norme di sicurezza sempre più stringenti, e nell'allestimento evacuation procedures, and improving public safety. This has facilitated the gradual reduction of mortality at low levels. In the U.S., for example, the hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 claimed the lives of 6,000 Texans, but the hurricanes of the 90s, which are preceded by the evacuation up to a half million residents of the coastal strip, have so far procured very few victims (Fernandez-Partagas and Rappoport 1995). Similarly, the use of Doppler radar, networks of volunteer observers, early warning systems, shelters and prior designation have reduced the mortality of tornadoes in the Midwest in fewer than one hundred per year, while forty ago individual tornadoes often cause higher numbers of deaths (Eidson et al 1990). But at the same time urban and suburban development continues to increase the quantity and value of property in areas of repeated impact of disasters, while the structural protection fails to meet the growing need for risk mitigation.
In the industrialized world efforts to reduce the impacts of disasters have been rather opposed the creation of new sources of vulnerability and by the amplification of existing sources. Even where the cultural roots of the company provide a solid historical basis for the reactions to disasters, there is a continuous process of transformation socio-economic, which leads, in particular, the creation of a universal consumer culture based on free market capitalism, in which disasters are essentially taking the form of stages of accelerated consumption of resources. Paradoxically, despite the current decline in the state's role in many aspects of welfare and the economy, there was a general increase in the level and intensity of state intervention in the field of civil protection and assistance after disasters. But usually the innovations in the way disasters are dealt with following the events themselves (the so-called "window of opportunity", see Solecki and Michaels 1994). In the period following the impact of public opinion is more sensitive issue and requires immediate government action to improve safety. In this sense, the disasters of the 80s and 90s have led many developed countries to plan civil protection measures, to create the necessary institutional and bureaucratic structure, to establish measures to mitigate risk and to set up training programs for workers emergency.
Several trends have emerged in the way emergencies are addressed. First, the traditional structure of "monolithic" in the chain of command has become unpopular and is often replaced by the "incident command system" ( Incident Command System - ICS ), in which business units are working independently in parallel, rather than in a subject hierarchy (Irwin 1991). The key to the success of the ICS is the communication between the agencies working on the disaster. If the flow of information is sufficient, efforts should not be either duplicated or neglected, all the important tasks will be executed and the operational units should mutually address their collective needs. Then the second trend is the improvement of real-time communication during disasters. In this context, the Internet will play an increasingly important and has already proved sufficiently flexible and rapid emergency management (for example, the countries of the G-7 have organized an initiative to promote a Global Information Society which included a proposal for the use of the Internet to set up a global system for emergency management - see http://info.ic.gc.ca/G7 / ). The Internet not only allows the almost instantaneous transmission of text, data and images, but also to follow the emergence of individuals wherever they are in the world, a fact that opens the door to the participation of experts of every kind, from any part of the world. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has won the first use of the Internet to disseminate news and information on how to mitigate disasters. Its World Wide Web site ( http://www.fema.gov/ ) is used by millions of users and provides a model for similar initiatives elsewhere.
A third trend is that of automation of the process of microzonizzazione risk. The geographical information systems (GIS) are now widely used for the analysis and display of spatial data on vulnerability and impacts of disasters (Carrara and Guzzetti 1995). Through the integration of risk information with socio-economic data, they allow the development of hazard scenarios and planning responses to future disasters. The use of GIS has been crucial in fostering a shift in local and regional planning from the study individual risk to a more general type "all-hazards" in which one studies the general danger zone in terms of all the risks that have local significance. This process was considered too expensive for general use when you had to do manually, but the arrival of information technology programs and the availability of flexible and affordable GIS has made possible the all-hazards microzonizzazione the level of individual municipalities . In the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has sponsored the development of a national GIS, called HAZUS (stands for "Hazards in the United States"), which will be used by states, the counties and individual municipalities, especially metropolitan ones, to determine the natural and technological hazards, to plan emergency responses and to mitigate the impacts of disasters (RMS 1993).
In addition, there is a growing trend to have the mitigation of risk is a condition of financial assistance, the state after the disaster. In most areas at risk of natural disaster occurrence intervals are known approximant, as are the likely consequences of the impacts of disasters. The microzonizzazione and vulnerability analysis can provide more detail (Foster 1980). So there are few reasons to say that the amount of future damage is unpredictable. In addition, the cost: beneficio dell'investimento nelle tecniche di mitigazione sono quasi sempre positivi in termini del valore dei danni evitati (Petak e Atkisson 1982). Nello stesso tempo, il bisogno di ridurre il budget fiscale induce molti governi a cercare un modo per limitare le spese di soccorso. Si cerca un nuovo ruolo per l'assicurazione, in cui la mitigazione del rischio è la chiave sia alla riduzione del rischio, che all'abbassamento del costo dei premi (Kunreuther e Miller 1985).
Mentre l'impatto globale delle alluvioni, della siccità e delle tempeste tropicali è più catastrofico, sia in termini umani che in quelli economici, i terremoti forse rappresentano meglio il tipico disastro di impatto immediato. Annualmente il danno dovuto ai sismi ammonta a US$50.9 miliardi e viene distribuito largamente nel mondo (IFRCRCS 1996). In modo tale da offrire un esempio dettagliato della fenomenologia dei disastri moderni, la seguente sezione esaminerà alcune delle caratteristiche epidemiologiche dei disastri sismici avvenuti a metà degli anni '90.
I disastri sismici recenti, 1993-96
Nel periodo settembre 1993 - settembre 1996 ben 54 terremoti hanno causato infortuni: 43 (circa 14 all'anno) hanno causato morti mentre 47 (circa 16 all'anno) hanno provocato feriti. Durante questo periodo 19.969 persone hanno perso la vita e 89.419 hanno subito ferite nei disastri sismici. La mortalità media annuale di 6.656 è relativamente bassa in paragone with the average of the last 25 years, which is 21,593 (IFRCRCS 1996). This fact reflects the absence in the study period of major events such as the Tangshan earthquake in China (1976), which killed 240,000 people. However, the annual average of injury for the period 1993-96, 29,806 people, is very close to that of the last 25 years.
While earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 to 7.5 were only 43% of the events that led to accidents (which were in their turn about 60% of all earthquakes that caused damage in the period in question), we had 84% of the deaths and 96% of the injured in these events. One can therefore assume that the events of magnitude lower caused less injury, while quelli di magnitudo più alta erano infrequenti ed isolati tale da non causare grande mortalità nel periodo studiato. Circa il 93% dei morti e il 77% delle ferite sono stati causati da terremoti che accadevano tra mezzanotte e le 6,00 di mattina (malgrado il fatto che questi costituivano soltanto il 33% dei terremoti che provocavano infortuni). Questo fatto indica che il rischio di mortalità o morbilità nei terremoti è significativamente più alto di notte (Alexander 1996).
Gli eventi studiati confermano che il crollo degli edifici è la fonte principale degli infortuni nei terremoti (Page et alii 1975). Ma è anche chiaro che nella maggior parte dei sismi le vittime sono concentrate in relativamente pochi edifici che Adrenaline: apartment blocks in Russia and Turkey, Hotels in Mexico and Greece, schools in China and Egypt. Earthquakes in the studied types of traumatic injury followed the normal framework for earthquakes: broken limbs, trauma to the skull, back and chest injuries, lacerations, crushing injuries, burns. However, the proportion of people seriously injured in those with minor injuries varied considerably from 2 to 84%. The average ratio between mortality and morbidity showed more regularity, being 1:3,44, a value close to the 1:3 ratio expected from other investigations (PAHO 1981, Alexander 1985).
In some cases, victims were extracted alive from the rubble up to six days after the earthquake; However, as expected, the vast majority of the survivors were rescued within 24 hours of the disaster (see Noji et al 1993). While it was difficult to determine a relationship between the number of collapsed buildings and the number of deaths, some partial data suggest that there may be an average of 10-16 deaths per 100 buildings completely collapsed in the earthquake.
The panic that accompanies the disaster is a complex phenomenon and the definition of which has sparked debate and case studies (see Alexander 1995), it was detected and identified in 14 of about 86 damaging earthquakes that happened during the period studied, while the escape was described in 25 events.
In the three years considered earthquakes repeatedly hit the same places. Thus, 10 earthquakes hit Indonesia (especially in the province of Irian Jaya) 7 China (especially Yunnan Province). On the whole, some two thirds of seismic disasters occurred in Asia, however, and although this figure is high in terms of long-term average (which is 36%), well worth remembering that half of all deaths recorded in earthquakes occurred in China (Coburn and Spence 1992).
This overview of the phenomenology of the recent earthquakes gives us three possible classes. The first leads us to say that the global mitigation efforts should be concentrated where seismic earthquakes repeatedly occur and more devastation. The second, in the period immediately after an earthquake rescue resources should be concentrated in relatively few places and should be made available very quickly so that we can save the lives of people remained under the rubble. The third, that the number of injuries in earthquakes depends very much on the time of day when the earthquake happens (for example, according to the time when it happens, the next big earthquake in the Bay Area of \u200b\u200bSan Francisco Bay could cause damage valued between $ 115 and $ 135 billion, could kill between 2,000 and 6,000 people and can seriously injure victims 8000-18000; Shah 1995). Apparently, the seismic disasters that happen at night give less opportunity to react and then they cause a higher mortality, although the earthquakes that hit the metropolitan areas during periods of intense commuting can also be particularly lethal.
Although a particular insight can be drawn from the analysis of a single type of risk, an alternative approach is to study all the risks of natural disasters that afflict a particular region. This gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe "hazard of place" (Hewitt and Burton 1971), the overall risk borne by local residents and the magnitude of the problem faced by the civil authorities to mitigate. Therefore, the section that follows will consider the nature of risk in contemporary global e valuterà la qualità della risposta istituzionale per quanto riguarda la sua evoluzione negli anni recenti.
Il rischio di calamità naturale in Italia
Con un carico sempre minacciante di terremoti, alluvioni, frane, eruzioni vulcaniche, trombe d'aria, maremoti e incendi boschivi, l'Italia denuncia il rischio di calamità naturale più elevato di tutti i paesi europei. Un terremoto dannoso avviene in media ogni 2-4,3 anni (Ganse e Nelson 1981) e nel ventesimo secolo almeno 128.000 italiani sono morti nei disastri sismici (Coburn e Spence 1992). Mentre il miglioramento delle tecniche di costruzione edile, soprattutto per quanto riguarda l'impiego del cemento armato, significherà probabilmente that there will in future mortality compared to 29.500 people died in earthquakes in Calabria in 1783-5 or the 90,000 who died in Messina in 1908, the seismic risks remain high. About 70% of the Italian population resides in municipalities classified as seismic, while 32% live in some 2000 municipalities designated high seismic risk (Solberg and Marcellini 1983). In addition, some of the buildings most vulnerable and least protected from seismic measurements are located in seismically active areas, such as the Irpinia, the Abruzzi, the Aspromonte and western Sicily. In addition, long sections of the Italian coast are subject to significant risk, although more unknown, tsunami (Tinti 1991).
Floods and landslides together cause an average of 36 deaths a year, a number that increased to 64 in the Piedmont flood of November 1994, which caused damage of around £ 15 trillion. Land is geologically young, tectonically disturbed, clay and flysch of the Apennines produce damaging landslides around 3,000 per year (one per 54 km2), and these are widely distributed in the 57% of the municipalities that have the hydrogeological (Alexander 1987). However, nothing compares with the Great Ancona landslide of December 1982, which was well in the spontaneous movement of 3.42 sq km of land and left 3,661 people homeless (Growing, 1986). The largest urban landslide Europe was extension of the city of Ancona on a side that showed periodic signs of instability since 1770. The example of Ancona, as several similar cases in the world, shows that there are complex social mechanisms that relentlessly push forward the process of urban development even though the risks are well known. These processes create a vicious cycle of increases in the vulnerability of the site.
Region Campania at least 3 million people are living with the risk of volcanic eruptions (Scandone et al 1993). Approximately 552,000 of these live in 17 municipalities in the circum-Vesuvian. Vesuvius has historically produced at least 40 phases of activity, including a period of periodic eruptions from 1631 to 1904 (Arno et al 1987). About 4,000 people were killed by the eruption of 16 December 1631 in an area that now has 230,000 inhabitants and a population density among the highest in Europe (up to 18,000 people per sq km). While at Mount Etna, the relatively peaceful nature of the eruptions pose greater containment of lava flows and damage limitation (a problem largely solved, but very expensive) to the Vesuvius, the problem is one part of an urban containment, the which threatens to colonize the most recent lava flows, and the other how to evacuate large numbers of people faced with a potentially explosive volcanic activity, with plinian columns, massive ash falls, lava flows and mud (Scandone et al 1993).
policy and practice of civil protection have evolved very slowly and in Italy, as elsewhere, both responded to the stimulus of more extreme events than to the needs defined objectively. Initially, it poses little attention to the problem. Thus, the year after the Florence flood of November 1966, the so-called "bridge laws" gave rise to a relaxation of the system of building permits to allow for a significant increase in construction, and then the buildings at risk from flooding, to over 70% in some parts of the middle valley of the Arno. The need for coordination backed government following the earthquakes of the Friuli 1976 and Irpinia of 1980 led to the founding of the Ministry and the Civil Protection Department in 1982, but the fortunes of these institutions have been very alternate, as the government organizations that we are gradually succeeding have continually changed the political parameters under which they operate. Nevertheless, the national coordination of disaster response is now well established on a permanent basis under the guidance of a skilled and experienced Secretary, while a 1992 law requires the regions and provinces to mitigate future disasters and to establish structures of civil protection. But in this regard, the progress has been unacceptably slow. Few communities have civil defense command centers, a few training courses, non c'è ancora un collegio nazionale di protezione civile, e lo studio dei disastri non appare, in se, in nessun ordinamento universitario italiano. In questo aspetto l'Italia è molto arretrata rispetto a diversi altri paesi industriali ed alcuni in via di sviluppo, un discreto numero dei quali già offrono lauree e corsi di specializzazione nello studio dei disastri e nella gestione delle emergenze.
Malgrado la lentezza del cambiamento istituzionale, e l'alto grado di inerzia burocratica, l'Italia è ricca di risorse umane e questi sono relativamente ben organizzate. Le associazioni di volontari svolgono un ruolo fondamentale durante le emergenze e sono particolarmente ben sviluppate nelle aree del nord e del centro che hanno sofferto major disasters, like Friuli and Tuscany. Municipalities, like Florence, who have made a substantial progress in setting up a structure of civil protection, have well-integrated units of volunteers operating establishment plan.
Having considered the overall problem of vulnerability in the developed and developing countries, and also having considered the vulnerability in the context of a single risk, earthquakes, and a single country, Italy, is now the time to A summary and consider the future of disaster mitigation at the threshold of the twenty-first century.
The way of the future
From the world public, political and scientific interest in disaster Natural has never been more alive than the present. The willingness to lower the risks, or simply need to provide relief, governments and non-governmental organizations have become increasingly involved in the fight to prevent accidents and reduce losses in natural disasters. However, these efforts have become highly polarized. The industrialized world has invested substantially in technological solutions to the problem of natural hazards, using new systems for monitoring and early warning and defense systems, structural designing expensive. In contrast, the developing world is forced to depend more on human resource management, often in a complex situation political instability, social, military and environmental (Varley 1993). So far, there have been few signs of a major process of transfer of technology or a special willingness of the developed world to share with countries in developing its sophisticated monitoring and early warning systems (Hays and Pouhban 1991).
One wonders if the world is able to maintain its current level of interest in disasters and, especially, if it is able to translate this interest in a better level of mitigation. In industrialized countries, the overwhelming increase in the value and vulnerability of the properties of future losses that will likely stimulate further efforts in the field mitigation (Berz 1994). For example, the scenario of a repeat of the 1923 earthquake in Tokyo (Shah 1995) provides an economic loss of U.S. $ 2000 to 2700 trillion, equivalent to 50% of PLN giaponnese (plus there would be 40,000 to 60,000 deaths ). If this happens, the entire world economy will feel the impact (the data were, however, strongly contested, see Wiggins 1996). Oddly, despite the fact that the mitigation is almost always less costosd prevention of injury, the analysis of cost: benefit are extremely rare in the field of disasters, so it is often very difficult to convince governments to invest public money in preventive measures of the benefits are not immediately apparent.
For developing countries, the 21 major donor nations have increased their share of humanitarian aid nearly six times from 1985 to 1994 (at an annual total of U.S. $ 3.47 billion). In 1995 alone, the World Red Cross has launched emergency appeals 55 (9 of them only to help with natural disasters) that were donating a total of $ 270 million. Disaster Relief is therefore also a big economic deal. However, the boom in aid that followed the end of the Cold War seems to be over, despite the continuing evidence of high levels of need by the countries receiving the aid. Given the increasing awareness to use funds more efficiently, is paying particular attention to the issue of how to integrate the help with mitigation and economic development of regions affected by disasters (Varley 1993). In this, there is a need, not only to enhance the transfer of technology, knowledge and training programs, but also to learn from the events of the Third World. The value of this has been amply demonstrated, for example, interest on the part of Italian volcanologists nell'eruzione of September 1994 the caldera of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. This event offered a very similar scenario to the possible mechanisms of eruption of the Campi Flegrei Pozzuoli (IAVCEI 1957, Smithsonian Institution, 1994). Cases like this demonstrate that the key to riduzione della vulnerabilità ai disastri risiede nel condividere la tecnologia e la saggezza, ma anche nella migliore gestione delle emergenze come fenomeni sociali che richiedono un'organizzazione innovativa.
In sintesi, i disastri naturali possono essere caratterizzati come una serie di concetti che si innestano, o come fenomeni opposti, o con un grado di complementarità. Possiamo concepirli come una specie di "DNA del disastro" da essere decodificato e spiegato dalla ricerca futura. In questo schema, il tempo è la spina dorsale delle catastrofi, intorno al quale gli eventi si svolgono, mentre lo spazio geografico è il medium di espressione di tali eventi (Alexander 1993b). Ogni nuova catastrofe crea una miscela di elementi unici e irripetibili e di regolarità prevedibili, e quindi essa viene caratterizzata sia dalla casualità che dall'inevitabilità, e viene rappresentata anche da una miscela di pericolo generalizzato e di rischio specifico. La tecnologia viene applicata alla mitigazione (sebbene la sua proliferazione rappresenta anche una fonte di vulnerabilità in sé), ma viene moderata da un filtro culturale, tramite il quale essa viene interpretata, percepita e quindi utilizzata. Come risultato, esiste una tensione costante tra l'amplificazione e la mitigazione del rischio, e il bilancio tra questi fattori determina la vulnerabilità complessiva e l'entità delle perdite future. La risoluzione di questi fattori per particolari rischi e per singoli luoghi pone una notevole sfida agli studiosi dei disastri, ma offre anche la chiave ad una conoscenza più profonda del fenomeno delle calamità naturali.
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Berz, G. 1992. Losses in the range of US$50 billion and 50,000 people killed: Munich Re's list of major natural disasters in 1990. Natural Hazards 5(1): 95-102.
Berz, G. 1994. The insurance industry and the IDNDR: common interests and tasks. Natural Hazards 9(3): 323-332.
Blaikie, P. 1985. The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries . Longman, Londra, 186 pp.
Blaikie, P., T. Cannon, I. Davis e B. Wisner 1994. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability, and Disasters . Routledge, Londra, 298 pp.
Broad, R. e J. Cavanagh 1993. Plundering Paradise: the Struggle for the Environment of the Philippines . University of California Press, Berkeley.
Burton, I. e K. Hewitt 1971. The Hazardousness of Place: a Regional Ecology of Damaging Events . Research Paper no. 6, Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto.
Carrara, A. e F. Guzzetti (curatori) 1995. Geographical Information Systems in Assessing Natural Hazards . Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Coburn, A.e R. Spence 1992. Earthquake Protection . Wiley, New York, 355 pp.
Crescenti, U. (curatore) 1986. La grande frana di Ancona del 13 dicembre 1982. Studi Geologici Camerti (numero speciale), 146 pp.
Cuny, F.C. 1983. Disasters and Development . Oxford University Press, New York, 278 pp.
Duffield, M. 1994. Complex emergencies and the crisis of developmentalism. Institute of Development Studies Bulletin 25(4): 37-45.
Eidson, M. et alii 1990. Risk factors for tornado injuries. International Journal of Epidemiology 19: 1051-1056.
Foster, H.D. 1980. Disaster Planning: the Preservation of Life and Property . Springer-Verlag, New York, 275 pp.
Gallagher, D. e S. Forbes Martin 1992. The Many Faces of the Somali Crisis: Humanitarian Issues in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia . Refugee Policy Group, Toronto.
Ganse, R.A. e J.B. Nelson 1981. Catalog of Significant Earthquakes, 2000 B.C. - 1979 . National Geophysical Data Center, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, Colorado, 154 pp.
Havelick, S.W. 1986. Third World cities at risk: building for calamity. Environment 28: 6-11, 41-45.
Hays, W.W. e B.M. Pouhban 1991. Technology transfer. Episodes 14: 66-72.
Hewitt, K. 1983. The idea of calamity in a technocratic age. In K. Hewitt (curatore) Interpretations of Calamity from the Viewpoint of Human Ecology . Allen & Unwin, Londra: 3-32.
Hewitt, K. 1995. Excluded perspectives in the social construction of disaster. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 13(3): 317-339.
IAVCEI 1957. Catalogue of Active Volcanoes of the World, Including Solfatara Fields . International Association of Volcanology, Roma.
IFRCRCS 1996. World Disasters Report 1996 . International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 178 pp.
Irwin, R.L. 1991. The Incident Command System (ICS). In T.E. Drabek e G.J. Hoetmer (curatori), Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government . International City Management Association, Washington, D.C.: 133-163.
Japanese IDNDR Committee 1995. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake: damages and response. STOP Disasters 23: 10-13.
Kates, R.W., J.E. Haas, D.J. Amarel, R.A. Olson, R. Ramos e R. Olson 1973. Human impact of the Managua earthquake. Science 182: 981-990.
Kreps, G.A. 1995. Disaster as systemic event and social catalyst: a clarification of subject matter. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 13(3): 255-284.
Kunreuther, H. e L. Miller 1985. Insurance versus disaster relief: an analysis of interactive modelling for disaster policy planning. Public Administration Review 45 (numero speciale): 147-154.
Macrae, J. e A. Zwi (curatori) War and Hunger: Rethinking International Responses to Complex Emergencies . Zed Books, Londra.
Maxwell, S. e M. Buchanan-Smith (curatori) 1994. Linking Relief to Development . Institute of Development Studies, Londra.
Nemec, J., J.M. Nigg e F. Siccardi (curatori) 1993. Prediction and Perception of Natural Hazards . Kluwer, Dordrecht, 216 pp.
Noji, E.K., H.K. Armenian e A. Oganessian 1993. Issues of rescue and medical care following the 1988 Armenian earthquake. International Journal of Epidemiology 22(6): 1070-1076.
Page, R.A., J.A. Blume e W.B. Joyner 1975. Earthquake shaking and damage to buildings. Science 189: 601-608.
PAHO 1981. Emergency Health Management After Natural Disaster . Scientific Report no. 407, Pan American Health Organization, Washington, D.C., 67 pp.
Petak, W.J. e A.A. Atkisson 1982. Natural Hazard Risk Assessment and Public Policy: Anticipating the Unexpected . Springer-Verlag, New York, 481 pp.
Prince, S.H. 1920. Catastrophe and Change . Columbia University Press, New York.
Rappaport, E.N. e J. Fernandez-Partagas 1995. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994 . National Hurricane Center, Coral Gables, Florida.
RMS 1993. Assessment of the State-of-the-Art Earthquake Loss Estimation Methodologies . Risk Management Software, Inc., National Institute of Building Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Several trends have emerged in the way emergencies are addressed. First, the traditional structure of "monolithic" in the chain of command has become unpopular and is often replaced by the "incident command system" ( Incident Command System - ICS ), in which business units are working independently in parallel, rather than in a subject hierarchy (Irwin 1991). The key to the success of the ICS is the communication between the agencies working on the disaster. If the flow of information is sufficient, efforts should not be either duplicated or neglected, all the important tasks will be executed and the operational units should mutually address their collective needs. Then the second trend is the improvement of real-time communication during disasters. In this context, the Internet will play an increasingly important and has already proved sufficiently flexible and rapid emergency management (for example, the countries of the G-7 have organized an initiative to promote a Global Information Society which included a proposal for the use of the Internet to set up a global system for emergency management - see http://info.ic.gc.ca/G7 / ). The Internet not only allows the almost instantaneous transmission of text, data and images, but also to follow the emergence of individuals wherever they are in the world, a fact that opens the door to the participation of experts of every kind, from any part of the world. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has won the first use of the Internet to disseminate news and information on how to mitigate disasters. Its World Wide Web site ( http://www.fema.gov/ ) is used by millions of users and provides a model for similar initiatives elsewhere.
A third trend is that of automation of the process of microzonizzazione risk. The geographical information systems (GIS) are now widely used for the analysis and display of spatial data on vulnerability and impacts of disasters (Carrara and Guzzetti 1995). Through the integration of risk information with socio-economic data, they allow the development of hazard scenarios and planning responses to future disasters. The use of GIS has been crucial in fostering a shift in local and regional planning from the study individual risk to a more general type "all-hazards" in which one studies the general danger zone in terms of all the risks that have local significance. This process was considered too expensive for general use when you had to do manually, but the arrival of information technology programs and the availability of flexible and affordable GIS has made possible the all-hazards microzonizzazione the level of individual municipalities . In the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has sponsored the development of a national GIS, called HAZUS (stands for "Hazards in the United States"), which will be used by states, the counties and individual municipalities, especially metropolitan ones, to determine the natural and technological hazards, to plan emergency responses and to mitigate the impacts of disasters (RMS 1993).
In addition, there is a growing trend to have the mitigation of risk is a condition of financial assistance, the state after the disaster. In most areas at risk of natural disaster occurrence intervals are known approximant, as are the likely consequences of the impacts of disasters. The microzonizzazione and vulnerability analysis can provide more detail (Foster 1980). So there are few reasons to say that the amount of future damage is unpredictable. In addition, the cost: beneficio dell'investimento nelle tecniche di mitigazione sono quasi sempre positivi in termini del valore dei danni evitati (Petak e Atkisson 1982). Nello stesso tempo, il bisogno di ridurre il budget fiscale induce molti governi a cercare un modo per limitare le spese di soccorso. Si cerca un nuovo ruolo per l'assicurazione, in cui la mitigazione del rischio è la chiave sia alla riduzione del rischio, che all'abbassamento del costo dei premi (Kunreuther e Miller 1985).
Mentre l'impatto globale delle alluvioni, della siccità e delle tempeste tropicali è più catastrofico, sia in termini umani che in quelli economici, i terremoti forse rappresentano meglio il tipico disastro di impatto immediato. Annualmente il danno dovuto ai sismi ammonta a US$50.9 miliardi e viene distribuito largamente nel mondo (IFRCRCS 1996). In modo tale da offrire un esempio dettagliato della fenomenologia dei disastri moderni, la seguente sezione esaminerà alcune delle caratteristiche epidemiologiche dei disastri sismici avvenuti a metà degli anni '90.
I disastri sismici recenti, 1993-96
Nel periodo settembre 1993 - settembre 1996 ben 54 terremoti hanno causato infortuni: 43 (circa 14 all'anno) hanno causato morti mentre 47 (circa 16 all'anno) hanno provocato feriti. Durante questo periodo 19.969 persone hanno perso la vita e 89.419 hanno subito ferite nei disastri sismici. La mortalità media annuale di 6.656 è relativamente bassa in paragone with the average of the last 25 years, which is 21,593 (IFRCRCS 1996). This fact reflects the absence in the study period of major events such as the Tangshan earthquake in China (1976), which killed 240,000 people. However, the annual average of injury for the period 1993-96, 29,806 people, is very close to that of the last 25 years.
While earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 to 7.5 were only 43% of the events that led to accidents (which were in their turn about 60% of all earthquakes that caused damage in the period in question), we had 84% of the deaths and 96% of the injured in these events. One can therefore assume that the events of magnitude lower caused less injury, while quelli di magnitudo più alta erano infrequenti ed isolati tale da non causare grande mortalità nel periodo studiato. Circa il 93% dei morti e il 77% delle ferite sono stati causati da terremoti che accadevano tra mezzanotte e le 6,00 di mattina (malgrado il fatto che questi costituivano soltanto il 33% dei terremoti che provocavano infortuni). Questo fatto indica che il rischio di mortalità o morbilità nei terremoti è significativamente più alto di notte (Alexander 1996).
Gli eventi studiati confermano che il crollo degli edifici è la fonte principale degli infortuni nei terremoti (Page et alii 1975). Ma è anche chiaro che nella maggior parte dei sismi le vittime sono concentrate in relativamente pochi edifici che Adrenaline: apartment blocks in Russia and Turkey, Hotels in Mexico and Greece, schools in China and Egypt. Earthquakes in the studied types of traumatic injury followed the normal framework for earthquakes: broken limbs, trauma to the skull, back and chest injuries, lacerations, crushing injuries, burns. However, the proportion of people seriously injured in those with minor injuries varied considerably from 2 to 84%. The average ratio between mortality and morbidity showed more regularity, being 1:3,44, a value close to the 1:3 ratio expected from other investigations (PAHO 1981, Alexander 1985).
In some cases, victims were extracted alive from the rubble up to six days after the earthquake; However, as expected, the vast majority of the survivors were rescued within 24 hours of the disaster (see Noji et al 1993). While it was difficult to determine a relationship between the number of collapsed buildings and the number of deaths, some partial data suggest that there may be an average of 10-16 deaths per 100 buildings completely collapsed in the earthquake.
The panic that accompanies the disaster is a complex phenomenon and the definition of which has sparked debate and case studies (see Alexander 1995), it was detected and identified in 14 of about 86 damaging earthquakes that happened during the period studied, while the escape was described in 25 events.
In the three years considered earthquakes repeatedly hit the same places. Thus, 10 earthquakes hit Indonesia (especially in the province of Irian Jaya) 7 China (especially Yunnan Province). On the whole, some two thirds of seismic disasters occurred in Asia, however, and although this figure is high in terms of long-term average (which is 36%), well worth remembering that half of all deaths recorded in earthquakes occurred in China (Coburn and Spence 1992).
This overview of the phenomenology of the recent earthquakes gives us three possible classes. The first leads us to say that the global mitigation efforts should be concentrated where seismic earthquakes repeatedly occur and more devastation. The second, in the period immediately after an earthquake rescue resources should be concentrated in relatively few places and should be made available very quickly so that we can save the lives of people remained under the rubble. The third, that the number of injuries in earthquakes depends very much on the time of day when the earthquake happens (for example, according to the time when it happens, the next big earthquake in the Bay Area of \u200b\u200bSan Francisco Bay could cause damage valued between $ 115 and $ 135 billion, could kill between 2,000 and 6,000 people and can seriously injure victims 8000-18000; Shah 1995). Apparently, the seismic disasters that happen at night give less opportunity to react and then they cause a higher mortality, although the earthquakes that hit the metropolitan areas during periods of intense commuting can also be particularly lethal.
Although a particular insight can be drawn from the analysis of a single type of risk, an alternative approach is to study all the risks of natural disasters that afflict a particular region. This gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe "hazard of place" (Hewitt and Burton 1971), the overall risk borne by local residents and the magnitude of the problem faced by the civil authorities to mitigate. Therefore, the section that follows will consider the nature of risk in contemporary global e valuterà la qualità della risposta istituzionale per quanto riguarda la sua evoluzione negli anni recenti.
Il rischio di calamità naturale in Italia
Con un carico sempre minacciante di terremoti, alluvioni, frane, eruzioni vulcaniche, trombe d'aria, maremoti e incendi boschivi, l'Italia denuncia il rischio di calamità naturale più elevato di tutti i paesi europei. Un terremoto dannoso avviene in media ogni 2-4,3 anni (Ganse e Nelson 1981) e nel ventesimo secolo almeno 128.000 italiani sono morti nei disastri sismici (Coburn e Spence 1992). Mentre il miglioramento delle tecniche di costruzione edile, soprattutto per quanto riguarda l'impiego del cemento armato, significherà probabilmente that there will in future mortality compared to 29.500 people died in earthquakes in Calabria in 1783-5 or the 90,000 who died in Messina in 1908, the seismic risks remain high. About 70% of the Italian population resides in municipalities classified as seismic, while 32% live in some 2000 municipalities designated high seismic risk (Solberg and Marcellini 1983). In addition, some of the buildings most vulnerable and least protected from seismic measurements are located in seismically active areas, such as the Irpinia, the Abruzzi, the Aspromonte and western Sicily. In addition, long sections of the Italian coast are subject to significant risk, although more unknown, tsunami (Tinti 1991).
Floods and landslides together cause an average of 36 deaths a year, a number that increased to 64 in the Piedmont flood of November 1994, which caused damage of around £ 15 trillion. Land is geologically young, tectonically disturbed, clay and flysch of the Apennines produce damaging landslides around 3,000 per year (one per 54 km2), and these are widely distributed in the 57% of the municipalities that have the hydrogeological (Alexander 1987). However, nothing compares with the Great Ancona landslide of December 1982, which was well in the spontaneous movement of 3.42 sq km of land and left 3,661 people homeless (Growing, 1986). The largest urban landslide Europe was extension of the city of Ancona on a side that showed periodic signs of instability since 1770. The example of Ancona, as several similar cases in the world, shows that there are complex social mechanisms that relentlessly push forward the process of urban development even though the risks are well known. These processes create a vicious cycle of increases in the vulnerability of the site.
Region Campania at least 3 million people are living with the risk of volcanic eruptions (Scandone et al 1993). Approximately 552,000 of these live in 17 municipalities in the circum-Vesuvian. Vesuvius has historically produced at least 40 phases of activity, including a period of periodic eruptions from 1631 to 1904 (Arno et al 1987). About 4,000 people were killed by the eruption of 16 December 1631 in an area that now has 230,000 inhabitants and a population density among the highest in Europe (up to 18,000 people per sq km). While at Mount Etna, the relatively peaceful nature of the eruptions pose greater containment of lava flows and damage limitation (a problem largely solved, but very expensive) to the Vesuvius, the problem is one part of an urban containment, the which threatens to colonize the most recent lava flows, and the other how to evacuate large numbers of people faced with a potentially explosive volcanic activity, with plinian columns, massive ash falls, lava flows and mud (Scandone et al 1993).
policy and practice of civil protection have evolved very slowly and in Italy, as elsewhere, both responded to the stimulus of more extreme events than to the needs defined objectively. Initially, it poses little attention to the problem. Thus, the year after the Florence flood of November 1966, the so-called "bridge laws" gave rise to a relaxation of the system of building permits to allow for a significant increase in construction, and then the buildings at risk from flooding, to over 70% in some parts of the middle valley of the Arno. The need for coordination backed government following the earthquakes of the Friuli 1976 and Irpinia of 1980 led to the founding of the Ministry and the Civil Protection Department in 1982, but the fortunes of these institutions have been very alternate, as the government organizations that we are gradually succeeding have continually changed the political parameters under which they operate. Nevertheless, the national coordination of disaster response is now well established on a permanent basis under the guidance of a skilled and experienced Secretary, while a 1992 law requires the regions and provinces to mitigate future disasters and to establish structures of civil protection. But in this regard, the progress has been unacceptably slow. Few communities have civil defense command centers, a few training courses, non c'è ancora un collegio nazionale di protezione civile, e lo studio dei disastri non appare, in se, in nessun ordinamento universitario italiano. In questo aspetto l'Italia è molto arretrata rispetto a diversi altri paesi industriali ed alcuni in via di sviluppo, un discreto numero dei quali già offrono lauree e corsi di specializzazione nello studio dei disastri e nella gestione delle emergenze.
Malgrado la lentezza del cambiamento istituzionale, e l'alto grado di inerzia burocratica, l'Italia è ricca di risorse umane e questi sono relativamente ben organizzate. Le associazioni di volontari svolgono un ruolo fondamentale durante le emergenze e sono particolarmente ben sviluppate nelle aree del nord e del centro che hanno sofferto major disasters, like Friuli and Tuscany. Municipalities, like Florence, who have made a substantial progress in setting up a structure of civil protection, have well-integrated units of volunteers operating establishment plan.
Having considered the overall problem of vulnerability in the developed and developing countries, and also having considered the vulnerability in the context of a single risk, earthquakes, and a single country, Italy, is now the time to A summary and consider the future of disaster mitigation at the threshold of the twenty-first century.
The way of the future
From the world public, political and scientific interest in disaster Natural has never been more alive than the present. The willingness to lower the risks, or simply need to provide relief, governments and non-governmental organizations have become increasingly involved in the fight to prevent accidents and reduce losses in natural disasters. However, these efforts have become highly polarized. The industrialized world has invested substantially in technological solutions to the problem of natural hazards, using new systems for monitoring and early warning and defense systems, structural designing expensive. In contrast, the developing world is forced to depend more on human resource management, often in a complex situation political instability, social, military and environmental (Varley 1993). So far, there have been few signs of a major process of transfer of technology or a special willingness of the developed world to share with countries in developing its sophisticated monitoring and early warning systems (Hays and Pouhban 1991).
One wonders if the world is able to maintain its current level of interest in disasters and, especially, if it is able to translate this interest in a better level of mitigation. In industrialized countries, the overwhelming increase in the value and vulnerability of the properties of future losses that will likely stimulate further efforts in the field mitigation (Berz 1994). For example, the scenario of a repeat of the 1923 earthquake in Tokyo (Shah 1995) provides an economic loss of U.S. $ 2000 to 2700 trillion, equivalent to 50% of PLN giaponnese (plus there would be 40,000 to 60,000 deaths ). If this happens, the entire world economy will feel the impact (the data were, however, strongly contested, see Wiggins 1996). Oddly, despite the fact that the mitigation is almost always less costosd prevention of injury, the analysis of cost: benefit are extremely rare in the field of disasters, so it is often very difficult to convince governments to invest public money in preventive measures of the benefits are not immediately apparent.
For developing countries, the 21 major donor nations have increased their share of humanitarian aid nearly six times from 1985 to 1994 (at an annual total of U.S. $ 3.47 billion). In 1995 alone, the World Red Cross has launched emergency appeals 55 (9 of them only to help with natural disasters) that were donating a total of $ 270 million. Disaster Relief is therefore also a big economic deal. However, the boom in aid that followed the end of the Cold War seems to be over, despite the continuing evidence of high levels of need by the countries receiving the aid. Given the increasing awareness to use funds more efficiently, is paying particular attention to the issue of how to integrate the help with mitigation and economic development of regions affected by disasters (Varley 1993). In this, there is a need, not only to enhance the transfer of technology, knowledge and training programs, but also to learn from the events of the Third World. The value of this has been amply demonstrated, for example, interest on the part of Italian volcanologists nell'eruzione of September 1994 the caldera of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. This event offered a very similar scenario to the possible mechanisms of eruption of the Campi Flegrei Pozzuoli (IAVCEI 1957, Smithsonian Institution, 1994). Cases like this demonstrate that the key to riduzione della vulnerabilità ai disastri risiede nel condividere la tecnologia e la saggezza, ma anche nella migliore gestione delle emergenze come fenomeni sociali che richiedono un'organizzazione innovativa.
In sintesi, i disastri naturali possono essere caratterizzati come una serie di concetti che si innestano, o come fenomeni opposti, o con un grado di complementarità. Possiamo concepirli come una specie di "DNA del disastro" da essere decodificato e spiegato dalla ricerca futura. In questo schema, il tempo è la spina dorsale delle catastrofi, intorno al quale gli eventi si svolgono, mentre lo spazio geografico è il medium di espressione di tali eventi (Alexander 1993b). Ogni nuova catastrofe crea una miscela di elementi unici e irripetibili e di regolarità prevedibili, e quindi essa viene caratterizzata sia dalla casualità che dall'inevitabilità, e viene rappresentata anche da una miscela di pericolo generalizzato e di rischio specifico. La tecnologia viene applicata alla mitigazione (sebbene la sua proliferazione rappresenta anche una fonte di vulnerabilità in sé), ma viene moderata da un filtro culturale, tramite il quale essa viene interpretata, percepita e quindi utilizzata. Come risultato, esiste una tensione costante tra l'amplificazione e la mitigazione del rischio, e il bilancio tra questi fattori determina la vulnerabilità complessiva e l'entità delle perdite future. La risoluzione di questi fattori per particolari rischi e per singoli luoghi pone una notevole sfida agli studiosi dei disastri, ma offre anche la chiave ad una conoscenza più profonda del fenomeno delle calamità naturali.
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Nemec, J., J.M. Nigg e F. Siccardi (curatori) 1993. Prediction and Perception of Natural Hazards . Kluwer, Dordrecht, 216 pp.
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Wiggins, JH 1996. A reply to "Scientific profiles of the 'Big One'." Disaster Research 181 (Internet Newsletter) Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
Shah, H.C. 1995. Scientific profiles of the "Big One". Disaster Research 179 (bollettino Internet) e Natural Hazards Observer (novembre 1995), Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
Smith, K. 1992. Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster . Routledge, London, 324 pp.
Smithsonian Institution 1994. Report of September 1994 from the activity at Rabaul Rabaul Volcano Observatory. Global Volcanism Network Bulletin , October 1994, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Solberg, R. and A. Marcellini 1983. Earthquake and Society. Garzanti, Milano.
Solecki, WD and S. Michaels 1994. Looking through the window post-disaster policy. Environmental Management 18 (4): 587-595.
Sorokin, P. 1942. Man and Society in Calamity . Dutton, New York, 353 pp.
Tinti, S. 1991. Assessment of tsunami hazard in the Italian seas. Natural Hazards 4(2-3): 267-283.
UNDHA 1995. The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in Japan: On-Site Relief and International Response . United Nations' Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva.
USNRC 1994. Facing the Challenge: the U.S. National Report to the IDNDR World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, Yokohama, Japan, May 23-27, 1994 . National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 78 pp.
Varley, A. 1993. Disasters, Development and Environment . Wiley, New York, 224 pp.
White, G.F. 1945. Human Adjustment to Floods: a Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the United States. Research Paper 29, Department of Geography, University of Chicago, Chicago, 225 pp.
Wiggins, JH 1996. A reply to "Scientific profiles of the 'Big One'." Disaster Research 181 (Internet Newsletter) Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
