Main description:

Recently, there has been a disturbing increase in the number of natural disasters affecting millions of people, destroying property and resulting in loss of human life. These events include major flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes and many others. Today the world faces unparalleled threats from human-made disasters that can be attributed to failure of industrial and energy installations as well as to terrorism. Added to this is the unparalleled threat of emerging and re-emerging diseases, with scientists predicting events such as an influenza pandemic. This volume contains papers from the First International Conference on Disaster Management and Human Health Risk: Reducing Risk, Improving Outcomes, covering the following topics: Emergency preparedness and risk mitigation; Natural disasters; Analysis, monitoring and mitigation of natural and man-made disasters.

Contents:

Section 1: Emergency preparedness and risk mitigation Earth observation and network of in situ ground sensors for disaster management and early warning; Geospatial web services and applications for infectious disease surveillance; Developing a spatial-based approach for vulnerability assessment of Philippine watersheds and its potential in disaster management; Computational tools for evaluating bioemergency contingency plans; The threats and challenges of a radiological emergency; Assuring the information flow from accident sites to decision makers - a Finnish case study; Emergency preparedness in integrated management systems: case study of the Port of Tallinn; AMETRINE: a humanitarian camp management system; Change capability of protection systems; Oil pollution prevention: crude oil biodegradation by isolated bacterium of the Persian Gulf; Partnering with tribal nations during a disaster; Strategic program for landslide disaster risk reduction: a lesson learned from Central Java, Indonesia; Reliable situation recognition based on noise levels; Identification of disaster risks in spatial planning for sustainable development: a case study in Kosovo; Length measurements in digital images by using an anchored discrete convolution algorithm; Using of congruent phosphate as equilibrium phosphate boilers water treatment; Improving transport aircraft fire safety through R Thermal behaviour and toxic emissions of various timbers in cone calorimeter tests; Probabilistic methods for prediction of corrosion in a service water system Section 2: Natural disasters Applying MORT to the analysis of Tabasco's flooding; DMT - an integrated disaster management tool; From national landslide database to national hazard assessment; Offshore disasters: wave forces on offshore and coastal structures due to Tsunamis; FLOREON+: using Case-Based Reasoning in a system for flood prediction; Section 3: Learning from disasters Training decision-makers in hazard spatial prediction and risk assessment: ideas, tools, strategies and challenges; An inverse and decompositional analysis of unobserved trigger factors according to slope failure types; Capacity empowerment and building: integrated recovery management framework in China Section 4: Analysis, monitoring and mitigation of natural and man-made disasters Historical view of the damage caused by the 1693 Catania earthquake and the reconstruction activities; The road map for the seismic geotechnical vulnerability of the physical environment; Seismic vulnerability of a slope in central Italy; A procedure for the evaluation of geotechnical risk in urban areas: the case of Centuripe town; A software framework for the generation of dynamic vulnerability maps for risk assessment; An integrated system for disaster management in industrial areas