Includes bibliographical references and index.

PART I. INTRODUCTION -- Paradigms of risk / Mark Pelling -- PART II. GLOBAL PROCESSES AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISK -- Does global environmental change cause vulnerability to disaster? / W. Neil Adger, Nick Brooks -- Changes in capitalism and global shifts in the distribution of hazard and vulnerability / Ben Wisner -- Gender, disaster and development: the necessity for integration / Maureen Fordham -- Natural disasters, adaptive capacity and development in the twenty-first century / Mohammed H.I. Dore, David Etkin -- PART III. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE AND VULNERABILITY -- Actors in risk / Ian Christoplos -- Beyond disaster, beyond diplomacy / Ilan Kelman -- Insurance industry: can it cope with catastrophe? / Julian E. Salt -- PART IV. LOCAL CONTEXTS AND GLOBAL PRESSURES -- Social construction of natural disaster: Egypt and the UK / Jacqueline Homan -- Understandings of catastrophe: the landslide at La Josefina, Ecuador / Arthur Morris -- Vulnerability reduction and the community-based approach: a Philippines study / Katrina Allen -- Risk regime change and political entrepreneurship: river management in the Netherlands and Bangladesh / Jeroen Warner -- Disaster as manifestation of unresolved development challenges: the Marmara earthquake, Turkey / Aplaslan Özerdem -- Ecological reconstruction of the upper reaches of the Yangtze river / Chen Guojie -- PART V. CONCLUSION -- Emerging concerns / Mark Pelling