Rebuilding After Disasters emphasizes the role of the built environment in the re-establishment of lives and sustainable livelihoods after disasters. Expert contributors explain the principal challenges facing professionals and practitioners in the building industry.
Following this year's disaster in Haiti, the world is asking itself how such vast devastation could occur, and how best to rebuild the affected areas. For answers to these questions, we need look no further than recent SPON publication Rebuilding After Disasters: From Emergency to Sustainability. An international team of expert editors and contributors examine aspects of the Built Environment that can exacerbate disaster situations, and explore successful ways of rebuilding in a range of challenging conditions.
Not only is this a justified book of the month on the basis of the quality of research it contains, but also in the example it provides of the relevance and importance of academic research to crucial real-world issues.
Editors Lizarralde, Johnson and Davidson recognize that when rebuilding after disasters, professionals need to understand the complex relations between social, cultural, technical, economic and political factors, and organize their work in consequence. As a result, their book is essential reading for architects, engineers, urban planners, designers, humanitarian and social workers, and others whose work is so vital in the aftermath of major crises.
Disasters are not natural. Natural events such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc. become disasters because of the fragile relations that exist between the natural, human and built environments. Sadly, major disasters will always occur in towns and cities in the developing world where...
Published August 5th 2009 by Routledge
