Abstract
This is the sixth edition of Keith Smith’s Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster. The first edition was published in 1991, with updated and revised editions appearing approximately every 5 years, most recently in 2009 with Dave Petley as co-author. The sixth edition has been significantly revised, updated and expanded, but retains the style, approach and quality of previous editions and, to my mind, remains the clearest and most geographically balanced undergraduate textbook on the topic.
Environmental Hazards is divided into two parts. The first part – ‘The nature of hazard’ – addresses the theory underpinning the study of hazards and approaches to managing disasters through five chapters. Chapter 1 (‘Hazard in the environment’) defines key terms such as hazard, risk and disaster, and analyses changing paradigms in the study of hazards and disasters. Chapter 2 (‘Dimensions of disaster’) considers how disasters are measured and distributed in space and time. Chapter 3 considers ‘Complexity, sustainability and vulnerability’ and Chapter 4 deals with ‘Risk assessment and management’. Chapter 5 divides ‘Reducing the impacts of disaster’ into protection, mitigation and adaptation, defining the approach adopted in Part 2.
Part 2 – ‘The experience and reduction of hazard’ – considers specific hazards in eight chapters covering earthquakes (and tsunamis), volcanoes, mass movements (landslides and snow avalanches), severe storms, ‘Weather extremes, disease epidemics and wildfires’, floods, droughts and technological hazards. Each chapter follows a clear and logical structure, dealing with the underlying processes, the associated hazards and loss of reduction through protection, mitigation and adaptation. This structure seamlessly bridges the gap between physical processes and human responses in a way that is essential if the causes and consequences of disasters are to be understood and effectively addressed.
The final chapter – ‘Environmental hazards in a changing world’ – is new to the sixth edition. It will be welcomed by readers of The Holocene, providing as it does a balanced assessment of the many complex and often subtle ways in which global change and hazards interact.
Each chapter is followed by suggestions for further reading and web links. There is a 36-page bibliography at the end; at a rough estimate, over 15% of the references are dated 2010 or later, which is an impressive achievement. There is a useful eight-page index. The text is clearly written and pleasant to read. It is littered with relevant examples, including both the classic and the very recent, such as the 2011 Japan tsunami and the Haiti earthquake, Eyjafjöll eruption and Deepwater Horizon oil spills from 2010. In-depth case studies and key issues are covered in boxed sections. The book is copiously illustrated with maps, tables, photographs, graphs and diagrams, now in full colour. The illustrations are carefully chosen, clearly presented and convey a clear message; they support the text rather than just inviting you to flick through ignoring the text. The companion web site is limited, but does allow all the images to be downloaded, which is a real boon for teachers and can only help to cement the usefulness of the book.
As a reviewer, I’m expected to have criticisms. It seems odd to group weather extremes, disease epidemics and wildfires into a single chapter while separating floods and droughts into two. The final discussion chapter surely belongs in a Part 3. Loss is not explicitly defined. Perhaps the index could have been used more imaginatively, for example, to identify where key terms are defined. The treatment of subject matter in Part 2 is very traditional, but it works, and the juxtaposition of theory in Part 1 with practice and case studies in Part 2 has always been a feature of Environmental Hazards and is, to my mind, one of its greatest strengths. So these aren’t really criticisms at all, but recognition of the fact that everyone would do things slightly differently, and they most certainly do not detract from the value of this book as an undergraduate textbook.
In summary, the sixth edition retains and further develops the great strengths of this book – its measured, reasoned, non-sensationalist, rational and analytical approach; the balance between and integration of theory and practice, natural and technological hazards and physical and social dimensions of disasters; the logical, orderly and consistent treatment of each type of hazard; the informative illustrations; the up-to-date examples and in-depth case studies; the ease with which the user is directed to additional resources and – perhaps the most difficult to pin down – the pleasant ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of a textbook as a working tool to accompany the learning process. Very well done to Keith Smith and to Routledge! I’m pleased to have a copy of this new edition and will not hesitate to continue to build my Level 2 undergraduate course around it. In my view, it’s still the case that nobody does it better than Keith Smith when it comes to helping undergraduate students understand the complex nuances of environmental hazards and disasters.