Population and Disaster: (IBG special publications)

This book is concerned with natural and man-made disasters, and their immediate effects on the populations they afflict. It looks at epidemics, famines, war, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and tornadoes, as well as such man made disasters as Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island and Bhopal. Twenty-two demographers and geographers from all over the world present case studies and general articles on the causes, immediate impact and long term consequences of population catastrophes. The book as a whole focuses on the disasters in the twentieth century, particularly those that have taken place in the last twenty years. The authors examine the demographic consequences of such crises, in terms, for example, of their effect on morbidity, mortality, fertility and migration as well as their impact on social, economic and political structures. They are also concerned to assess the extent of human settlement in potentially hazardous areas (and to consider why people, even when knowing the likelihood of disaster, continue to occupy them) and to identify the range of human adjustments to extreme events. They examine the way in which people perceive and react to disasters, and consider the adjustments and choices people make to minimize the magnitude of disaster impact, as well as the effectiveness of official relief action upon the lives of disaster victims. "Population and Disaster" covers virtually every region of the world: developed, developing, capitalist and socialist, and with reference to both short-term and the long-term consequences.

Table of Contents:
Impact of natural disasters on the population of Japan, Takeshi Mizutani and Takamasa Nakano; The consequences of the 1972 earthquake on the urban structure and population distribution of Managua, Jurgen Bahr; Friuli - ten years after the earthquake of 6 May 1972, Robert Geipel; The impact of the disaster in Mexico City, September 1985, Maria Teresa Gutierrez de MacGregor; Population displacement due to riverbank erosion of the Jamuna in Bangladesh, K. Maudood Elahi; The hazard potential of drought for the population of the Sahel, C.R. de Freitas; The 1984 drought and settler migration in Ethiopia, Aynalem Adugna; The indirect effects of famine on population - case studies from the Republic of Sudan, A. Trilsbach; Chine - the demographic disaster of 1958-61, A.J. Jowett; Paradise delayed - epidemics of infectious disease in the industrialized world, Peter Curson; Disasters and diseases as they affect the growth and distribution of the population of Uganda, Hans K. Hecklau; The disaster life cycle and human adjustments - lessons from Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, Chris C. Park; The Bhopal disaster, S.L. Kayastha and P. Nag; Wars-mortality-poverty, Stanislaw Otok; Was the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39, a demographic disaster?, Maria Carmen Faus Pujol; Population, war and politics - a case study of Gaza Strip, Ahmed Said Dahlan; The disaster of apartheid forced removals, C. M. Rogerson; A simulation study of population and social disturbance in Japan, Koichiro Takahashi.