Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards

Sven Fuchs is a senior researcher at the Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science, Vienna. His research interests include high-mountain geomorphology, mountain hazard risk management, the study of coupled human-environment systems and vulnerability assessment for natural hazards. His research has taken him to the mountain regions of Europe, Southeast Asia, Central Africa and the Russian Federation. Thomas Thaler is a research fellow at the Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. He is interested in policy issues in flood risk management in different European countries. His research focuses on risk governance and natural hazards in Europe, with particular emphasis on questions relating to the design and effectiveness of governance systems.

'Both vulnerability and resilience are 'slippery' topics that, to be useful, need extensive theorising and careful analysis. This book takes a rigourous and comprehensive approach to their definition and elaboration, thereby making a very valuable contribution to the literature in this field.' Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Middlesex University

• 1. Introduction Sven Fuchs and Thomas Thaler; 2. Vulnerability: an introduction Alexander Fekete and Burrell Montz; 3. Physical vulnerability Sven Fuchs, Tim Frazier and Laura Siebeneck; 4. Social vulnerability Christopher Burton, Samuel Rufat and Eric Tate; 5. Economic vulnerability Thomas Thaler and Brenden Jongman; 6. Institutional vulnerability Maria Papathoma-Köhle and Thomas Thaler; 7. Resilience: an introduction Christopher T. Emrich and Graham A. Tobin; 8. Physical resilience Anna Bozza, Domenico Asprone and Gaetano Manfredi; 9. Social resilience Gérard Hutter and Daniel F. Lorenz; 10. Economic resilience Carlos Dionisio Pérez Blanco, David Adamson and Adam Loch; 11. Institutional resilience Samuel D. Brody and Kayode Atoba; 12. Linkages between vulnerability and resilience Susan Cutter; 13. Synthesis and conclusion Sven Fuchs and Thomas Thaler.