Book Review: Hazards in a Fickle Environment: Bangladesh

Abstract

This interdisciplinary volume presents first-hand longitudinal research on the riverine hazards in Bangladesh. The book addresses the profound significance of the societal aspects and human geographical dimensions of natural disasters. The characteristics and nature of responses to floods and riverbank erosion hazards are examined, as well as the assessment of the impact of the hazards. The book states that disaster impacts are caused as much by social, economic, political and cultural factors as they are by the fickle physical environment of the Quaternary alluvial floodplains. Massive physical-structural intervention in event controlling could become ineffective. A new approach is offered which considers the ecological sensitivity and dynamics of the Ganges-Brahmaputra deltaic system, and the related socio-cultural adaptations of people to these riverine events. Audience: This is a key book for research scientists and students of geography, anthropology, ecology and environmental, population and development studies as well as for professionals specializing in natural and anthropogenic disasters.