Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Christopher Gomez, Ksenia Chmutina, Dewald van Niekerk, Emmanuel Raju, Victor Marchezini, Jake Rom Cadag, J.C. Gaillard

The authors have hit the nail on the head with the need for a book that covers the breadth of the natural hazard and disaster management field from a largely social perspective and which can be traversed in different ways – Professor Melissa Parsons, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England, USThe approach of covering the topic widely from the point of view of physical processes, social research into hazards, vulnerability and specific sub-topics within these fields is useful. I have a preference for textbooks on disaster risk which look at both physical and social aspects of the issue and the authors approach does this. My preference for this broad scope reflects the interdisciplinary nature of disaster risk reduction and management. Dr Kate Taylor Smith Cambourne School of Mines, University of Exeter, UK

• Part I: The nature and impact of disasters. 1.What’s disaster risk? 2.Where and when do disasters occur? 3.The impact of disasters. Part II: Vulnerabilities and capacities. 4.Why do disasters occur? 5.People’s vulnerability. 6.People’s capacities. Part III: Natural and socio-natural hazards. 7.Endogenous processes: Earthquake, Volcanoes and Tsunamis. 8.Gravity-Driven ‘Natural’ Exogenous Processes. 9.Climatological and hydro-meteorological hazards. 10.Socio-natural hazards. Part IV: People’s response to and resilience during and after disasters. 11.People’s behaviour in time of disaster. 12.People’s resilience. 13.Moving Towards Disaster Recovery. Part V: Disaster risk reduction and management. 14.Disaster risk reduction. 15.Disaster management. 16.Fostering disaster recovery. 17.Conclusions