Natural hazards

ISSUES

Natural hazards

The constant rise in the number of victims that has been noted over the last two decades can essentially be explained not by an increase in the number of unpredictable occurrences, but rather by the increasing vulnerability of humankind to such events. This is due to anarchic development in high-risk zones, to the concentration of population on the coast and to the shortage of information systems. Natural disasters are also amplified by the imbalances caused by man-made changes (soil cover) and by climatic variability, to the point where it is difficult to distinguish between what is natural and what is linked to human activity. Some hazards such as volcanic eruptions have been studied for a long time now and have benefited from technological developments in surveillance tools which make them relatively easy to forecast. Others still resist such predictions, such as earthquakes or tsunamis, which are triggered by underwater earthquak...

NEWS

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FRANCE - GRENOBLE - Le risque d'effondrement de la poche d'eau située sous un glacier du massif du Mont-Blanc, qui menace...

FRANCE - GRENOBLE - Les premiers travaux de pompage d'une gigantesque poche d'eau située sous un glacier du massif du Mont-Blanc...

Are the canals and trenches around your home clean and free of rubbish?”

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DEBATES

Russia is Burning

Yevgenia Albats

In early August, a journalist called the office of Moscow's mayor, seeking comments on the situation. “The office is closed,” a...

Microfinance and natural disasters

Natural disasters require immediate joint action from the...

From Risk to resilience – Helping communities cope with crisis

International media tend to portray disaster-affected...

FOCUS

Natural disaters

Two major disasters have put climate change at the centre of public debate - the 2003 European heat wave and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

VIDEOS

21/06/2010	In response to the Dzud which killed almost 20% of livestock in Mongolia,...	23/12/2009	Christopher Field tells us about how ecosystems can contribute to a...
16/12/2009	Liu Shaw Chen, director of a research centre on climate change tells us...	24/09/2009	reportage d'ITN News sur la tempête de sable qui a frappé Sydney...

GREEN TIPS

Vegetalized barriers against the tsunami

From 2006 to 2007, the government of Tamil Nadu, a state at India’s land’s end (in the south-east) and the...

INDICATORS

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