Climate Extremes

Earthquakes

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Climate Change

Volcanoes

Tsunamis
Indian Ocean Tsunami

Landslides

Disaster Studies & Management
Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment in Disaster Response


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Publications

BHRC Alert Newsletter

Catastrophe Reports

Notable events reports.

Cat Report 1: January 1 – March 31, 2002

Cat Report 2: January 1, 2002 – March 1, 2003

Cat Report 3: January 1 – July 8, 2003

Cat Report 4: July 8, 2003 – February 20, 2004

Cat Report 5: February 21– July 21, 2004

Cat Report 6: July 21st, 2004 - February 18th, 2005

Cat Report 7: February 18th to August 7th 2005

Cat Report 8: August 8th 2005 to February 23rd 2006

Cat Report 9: February 24th - July 25th 2006

Cat Report 10: July 25th – November 8th 2006

Cat Report 11: November 8th 2006 - March 5th 2007

Hazard & Risk Science Reviews

Hazard & Risk Science Review 2004 (pdf 1.7mb)

Hazard & Risk Science Review 2005

Hazard & Risk Science Review 2006

Hazard & Risk Science Review 2007

Issues in Risk Science

Issues in Risk Science 1 (pdf 1.4mb) A rift at the heart of Europe: reassessing large earthquake potential in NW Europe

Issues in Risk Science 2 (pdf 2.2mb) Tsunami hazards in the Atlantic Ocean

Issues in Risk Science 3 (pdf 597kb) Gas hydrates: A hazard for the 21st Century

Issues in Risk Science 4 Natural Hazards Risk Assessment: An Australian Perspective

Issues in Risk Science 5 Dangerous Climate Change: rising sea-levels and ocean circulation changes

Issues in Risk Science 6 Earthquakes and a brave new China

Issues in Risk Science 7 (pdf 1.87mb) Future Flood: Risk Management in London and along the Tidal Thames

Working Papers in Disaster Studies & Management

Working Paper No 1 (pdf 28kb) John Twigg - Physician, Heal Thyself? The politics of disaster mitigation
Working Paper No 2 (pdf 1.6 mb) John Twigg - Sustainable livelihoods and vulnerability to disasters.
Working Paper No 3 (pdf 46 kb) Charles Kelly - Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment: A Framework for Best Practice in Emergency Response. December 2001
Working Paper No 4 (pdf 88 kb) Annelies Heijmans - 'Vulnerability':a matter of perception. November 2001
Working Paper No 5 (pdf 50 kb) Mary Myers - From awareness to action: tackling HIV/Aids through radio and television drama. February 2002
Working Paper No 6 (pdf 39 kb) Philippa Howell - Indigenous early warning indicators of cyclones: potential application in coastal Bangladesh. July 2003
Working Paper No 7 (pdf 53 kb) Charles Kelly - Acute food insecurity in mega-cities: issues and assistance options. July 2003
Working Paper No 8 (pdf 277kb) Thomas Mitchell - An operational framework for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction. November 2003
Working Paper No 9 (pdf 210kb) JohnTwigg - The right to safety: some conceptual and practical issues. December 2003
Working Paper No 10 (pdf 156kb) Graham Twigg - Plague and bio-terrorism. September 2004
Working Paper No 11 (pdf 169kb) Mark Pelling and Chris High - Social learning and adaptation to climate change. June 2005
Working Paper No 12 (pdf 132kb) Sarah La Trobe - Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction: a tool for development organisations. June 2005
Working Paper No 13 (pdf 157kb) Ethlet Chiwaka - Mainstreaming Participatory Vulnerability Analysis in ActionAid International. June 2005
Working Paper No 14 (pdf 287kb) [Spanish version (pdf 367kb)] Christine Wamsler - Operational Framework for Integrating Risk Reduction for Aid Organisations Working in Human Settlement Development [Questionnaire pdf 23kb] [Spanish Questionnaire pdf 24kb]. February 2006
Working Paper No 15 (pdf 76kb) John Twigg - Technology, Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction And Livelihood Security. January 2002/May 2006
Working Paper No 16 (pdf 24kb) John Twigg & Allan Lavell - Disaster Early Warning Systems: People, Politics And Economics. June 2006

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Technical Papers

Technical Paper 1 Flood Risk & Insurance in England and Wales: are there lessons to be learned from Scotland? David Crichton.

Technical Paper 2 (pdf 3.57mb) Climate Change 2004. Bill McGuire

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Miscellaneous Papers

UK Flood, will insurers be out of their depth? (pdf 40kb) Insurance Times; Forces of Nature 2006. Session 2, UK Flood. David Crichton

Guidance notes on participation and accountability (pdf 194kb) John Twigg, 2001

Central and Eastern European Floods of July 1997 (pdf 6.4mb) Mark Saunders, 1997

The UK floods of April 1998 (pdf 683kb) Mark Saunders, 1998

Development at risk - natural disasters and the third world John Twigg, 1998

Technology, Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction and Livelihood Security John Twigg, 2002

Lessons from Disaster Preparedness (word 40kb) John Twigg, 2002

Temporary local flood protection in the United Kingdom - an independent assessment (pdf 200kb) David Crichton, 2003

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Journal Papers

Ground deformation monitoring of a potential landslide at La Palma, Canary Islands (pdf 3.6mb)
J.L. Moss, W.J. McGuire, D. Page, 1999
Journal of volcanology and geothermal research

Seasonal predictability of wintertime storminess over the north atlantic (pdf 559kb)
Budong Qian and Mark Saunders, 2003
Geophysical Research Letters
Winter storminess over large parts of the high latitude North Atlantic, including the North Sea and Scotland is linked significantly to the prior summer extent of northern hemisphere snow cover 1972/3-present.
Our finding suggests that the seasonal predictability of winter storminess
may be higher and extend to longer leads than thought previously.

Summer UK temperatures and its links to preceding eurasian snow cover, north atlantic SSTs and the NAO (pdf 3.58mb)
Budong Qian and Mark Saunders, 2003
Journal of Climate
A significant link is found between late winter Eurasian snow cover and
upcoming summer temperatures over the British Isles and adjacent areas.
Significant links are also observed between summer temperatures and the
preceding late winter NAO Index and a leading mode of North Atlantic sea
temperature variability.

Volcano Instability and Lateral Collapse (pdf 236) Bill McGuire, 2003

Seasonal Predictability of the Winter NAO from North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures (pdf 1.33mb) Mark Saunders and Budong Qian, 2002

A Drought Climatology for Europe (pdf 677kb) Ben Lloyd-Hughes and Mark Saunders, 2002

Seasonal Prediction of European Spring Precipitation from ENSO and Local Sea Surface Temperatures (pdf 338kb) Ben Lloyd-Hughes and Mark Saunders, 2001

North Atlantic Oscillation Impact on Tropical North Atlantic Winter Atmospheric Variability (pdf 35kb) Steven George and Mark Saunders, December 2000

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Articles

Disasters and how to avert them
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Jul 21 2005
Drowned out by admirable but deafening calls for debt relief and an end to poverty, masked by the critical debate on climate change, and buried beneath news of the London bombs, the G8 leaders last week took the first steps towards establishing a global threat identification and warning system, designed to ensure that we are never again caught napping by extreme geophysical hazards along the lines of the Asian tsunami, or worse.

Catastrophe watch
Bill McGuire
Prospect
June 2005
Super-eruptions, asteroid impacts and cosmic winters-such cataclysmic events, known as gee-gees, are no longer science fiction. The tsunami has helped focus minds on the potential dangers. We must act now.

This eruption could put a tsunami in the shade
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Mar 10 2005
Have you noticed that everything is getting bigger these days. Televisions, cars, burgers - even the people who eat them? The same seems to be happening with natural catastrophes. Not content with worrying about tsunamis - even though the standard variety has shown that it can erase a third of a million lives - we are now losing sleep over mega-tsunamis, waves tens of metres high capable of trashing the entire Atlantic coastline.

Reading between the lines
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Jan 6 2005
Seismographs have been used for more than 150 years to record the ground shaking that accompanies earthquakes. A seismograph is a pendulum, consisting of a suspended heavy weight attached to a recording device - traditionally a pen touching the surface of a paper chart on a rotating drum.

We need a warning system too
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Dec 30 2004
Another Boxing Day, another devastating natural catastrophe. Exactly a year after the Bam earthquake claimed 26,000 lives in southern Iran, the whole of south Asia is reeling following a massive quake off the west coast of Sumatra. Once again the same questions are being asked. Why was there no warning? Why were the authorities not better prepared? Why did so many men, women and children lose their lives?

How to measure the size of an volcanic eruption
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Sep 02 2004
One of the most fascinating things about volcanic eruptions is the enormous variation in their scale and violence. On the one hand they can involve the tranquil effusion of sluggish red lava - spectacular but essentially harmless unless your house happens to be in the way. On the other they can take the form of explosions so staggeringly huge that ejected gas and dust blot out the sun for years, plunging the planet into bitter volcanic winter.

Nice day for an eruption
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
May 06 2004
We know that dust from volcanic explosions can chill our climate. Now, Bill McGuire reports, it's becoming clear that weather and changing sea levels can squeeze out lava

When the ground shakes
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Jan 08 2004
It is perhaps difficult to grasp that as we in the UK slept peacefully in our beds on Christmas Night, in the southern Iranian city of Bam 30,000 men, women and children were dying in theirs.

More investment in storm research is encouraged
Mark Saunders
Business Insurance
Dec 01 2003

Will global warming trigger a new ice age?
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Nov 13 2003
If you can remember back to the bitter winters of the late 1970s and early 80s you might also recall that there was much discussion in scientific circles at the time about whether or not the freezing winter conditions were a portent of a new ice age.

Forecasting sucess (pdf 745kb)
Mark Saunders
Reinsurance
Nov 2003

Heebie gee-gees
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Oct 22 2003
Global geophysical events, such as huge tidal waves or volcanic super-eruptions, could devastate the planet - so why doesn't anybody care?

In the shadow of the volcano
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Oct 16 2003
Out of the blue, and for no immediately obvious reason, the terrible fate of the Roman city of Pompeii once again occupies centre stage. Still 76 years short of the 2000th anniversary of the burial of the town beneath a thick shroud of ash and debris fro...

When the snow melts, the Earth will quake
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
May 29 2003
Japan was hit by yet another earthquake this week. Could snow be to blame?

Hurricane forecasting: the move towards business relevance (pdf 300kb)
Mark Saunders/David Simmons/Niklaus Hilti
B4
Spring 2003

Volcanoes rule the waves
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Feb 20 2003
Far from being bastions of strength and rigidity that stand unmoved and unchanged by the passage of time, active volcanoes are dynamic structures that are constantly shifting and changing. Some, in fact, are little more than piles of ash and lava rubble - rotten to the core and looking for the slightest excuse to collapse.

Taming Vulcan's might
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
Jan 09 2003
Bill McGuire on the engineers who have to outguess a volcano

Hazardous Earth: the super-cats are coming (pdf 1.61mb)
Bill McGuire
Insurance International/Commercial Insurance
Summer 2002
Bill McGuire warns of the need to deal with the risk of natural super-catastrophes and suggests a role for insurers

Warning from the dead
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
May 02 2002
One hundred years ago this month, the worst volcanic catastrophe of the 20th century wrought carnage on the Caribbean island of Martinique

When the top blows: why volcanic eruption has huge damage potential
Bill McGuire
Insurance Day
April 30 2002

Super-cat that will threaten life on Earth: it is only a matter of when
Bill McGuire
Insurance Day
April 23 2002

A world of fire or ice
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
March 21 2002
With global warming dominating the climate change debate, it is surprising to think that just a few decades ago, all the talk was of a new ice age. To many, this is simply another example of scientists doing a U-turn. In fact, nothing much has changed.

The phantom menace
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
August 2 2001
Perhaps a thousand one-kilometre sized chunks of rock are buzzing around the Earth like bees around a honey-pot and we have only spotted about half of them. In a race against time, scientists working on the Spacewatch telescope at the University of Arizona are trying to find the remainder of them before one ends its billion-year journey by hammering into the Earth and obliterating civilization.

Information, information and more information (pdf 21kb) John Owen-Davies, 2000.

Earth's Future Climate, Chapter In 'Science into the Next Millennium' (pdf 35kb) Mark Saunders, December 2000

Wave of destruction
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
October 12 2000
Tsunamis are silent, stalking horrors that often appear without warning and with no apparent cause to devastate a coastline thousands of kilometres from their source.

Above us the waves
Bill McGuire
The Guardian
December 02 1999
Police-lieutenant Devlin McMahon battled his way through the crowds and plucked the small child to safety before she could be trampled beneath the mass of humanity surging across the Brooklyn Bridge

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