Economics and Engineering of Unpredictable Events: Modelling, Planning and Policies

In recent decades, the intensification of unpredictable events including the Covid-19 outbreak, Brexit, trade warfare, religion-inspired terrorism and civil wars, and climate change has resulted in serious loss of human lives and property, a decrease in biodiversity and natural hazards (with long-term negative impacts on environment), and impeded social and economic development. Economics and Engineering of Unpredictable Events: Modelling, Planning and Policies provides an integrated view of the management of unpredictable events incorporating three major perspectives: economic management, environmental planning and engineering models. Contributors from economics, planning, regional science, and engineering address key questions including; How resilient are human societies and their habitats? What should societies do to shift from being vulnerable to being more resilient? And what role should planning and policies play to protect communities and the natural environment? The chapters cover academic debates, conceptual reflections, case studies, methods, and strategy development with particular reference to mitigation and adaptation in face of unpredictable events. This book is of particular interest to readers of economic policy, urban and regional planning and engineering.

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction PART I. ECONOMIC EMERGENCIES 2 Economic emergencies: An Introduction 3 Water flows and financial viability of electricity generation in Manitoba: Statistical modeling and prediction of droughts 4 Assessment of the economic impact from extreme events: the case of Xylella fastidiosa in the olive growing of Salento (southern Italy) 5 The environmentally acceptable damage and the future of the EU’s rural development policy 6 Resilience to landslide hazard – a visual and numerical investigation of property price differentials 7 The need for latent variables for modelling decision-making in evacuation simulations 8 House prices and energy performance indicators in Italy: Critical aspects 9 Response to the economic crisis: Profile and remittance behaviour of Latvian emigrants PART II. PLANNING DILEMMAS 10 Planning dilemmas: An introduction 11 Extreme events evaluation and vulnerability assessment in planning: The institutional design of climate change planning and policy 12 New challenges, old dilemmas? Building climate change adaptive capacity through spatial planning and evaluation 13 A relational approach to planning evaluation: Implementation of the European landscape convention and the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel in Sweden 14 Innovation environments and risk management: Results from the KNOW4 European project 15 Performance and communicative evaluation of strategic metropolitan planning in Bari and Taranto 16 Joys and sorrows of living in an uncertain world PART III. ENGINEERING MODELLING 17 Engineering modelling: An introduction 18 Supporting collective decision making processes in case of water management: Reflections on the interaction space 19 Ontological analysis and extreme events classification 20 Green infrastructures: A challenge for urban climatic resilience 21 Impact of climate change on irrigation infrastructures: Use of localized loops as an adaptation strategy 22 Analysis of monitoring data recorded in the Mar Grande basin (southern Italy) 23 Navigating in multi-level buildings: The effects of rotations on people’s perception of spaces. A framework for emergency situations 24 Evaluation and remediation of a contaminated aquatic environment: Torre Quetta case study 25 Social network and natural language in risk assessment: A conceptual model