The environment poses certain threats to our well-being, yet many of us continue to choose to live in risky or dangerous places such as barrier islands, floodplains, or along known earthquake faults. There is a host of other, more “hidden” hazards related to environmental contamination that equally pose serious threats to our health and well-being. Both contribute to America’s hazardscape—the landscape of hazards that we find locally, regionally, and nationally.

Where are these places and what types of hazards are found there? This where question requires a distinctive perspective, that of a geographer, to help us understand the distribution of these hazards and the regional patterns they produce. Further, the geographer can also assist in mapping and rendering cartographic representations of hazardous environments and communicate this hazard information to the public and policy makers. The what question requires a hazards researcher’s skill in comprehending the interaction between society, the natural environment, and the built environment and how we respond and adjust to such interactions over time. The hazards researcher helps us to realize the short-term adjustments and longer-term adaptations that individuals and society must make to cre-

ate more “disaster-resistant” communities and how these adjustments and adaptations may require regional specificity, depending on the nature of the threat.

This book, the fifth in the Natural Hazards and Disasters series published by the Joseph Henry Press, is derived from these two perspectives—the geographer’s and the social science hazards researcher’s. Our goal is to illustrate what we know about the patterns of hazard events and losses during the previous three decades and how we improve our understanding of the events themselves as well as their impact on society. The book begins with an overview of the development of hazards and risk research and its use in reducing losses from environmental threats. A review of the methods for and innovations in hazard and vulnerability assessment follows in Chapter 2. A brief history of mapping and the spatial analysis of hazards and risks are presented in Chapter 3. To provide an understanding of the temporal and geographic nature of hazard events and losses, we next describe the availability, quality, and usefulness of national data sets on hazard events and losses (Chapter 4). A retrospective look at trends in hazard events and losses over the past 24 years is found in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 examines the geographic variations in hazard events and losses at the state level, thereby developing a regional ecology of disaster-prone or disaster-resistant states. The last chapter offers some thoughts on what local, state, and federal managers need to do to meet the challenges of reducing hazard losses during this century.

This book would not have been possible without the support and guidance of Dennis Mileti who invited us to participate in the Second Assessment Project (funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), CMS #9312647). We were the “data mavens” for the project, although we often felt like “chefs” trying to figure out what to do with the piece of Swiss cheese we were given (e.g., making sense of a data set full of holes). We also would like to acknowledge the separate support provided by the NSF (CMS #9905352), which enabled us to include updated (1994-1998) data for the book.

There are many people to thank who helped see this book to completion: Michael Scott (Salisbury State University, Salisbury, Maryland); and Betsey Forrest, Jo Darlington, and Mary Fran Myers (Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado). Stephen Mautner at the Joseph Henry Press has been a supportive (and nonintrusive) editor for which we are most appreciative. The manuscript was significantly improved by the thoughtful comments of reviewers: Dennis Mileti (University of Colo-

rado), Stu Nishenko (FEMA), Michael Helfert (South Carolina State Climatologist), and Gilbert F. White (University of Colorado). We thank you for helping us improve the text and, more importantly, the message of this book. Finally, we owe a debt of thanks to the University of South Carolina Department of Geography and its Hazards Research Lab, especially those research assistants who helped support the database construction and manuscript preparation for the book: Melanie Baker, Patrice Burns, Paul Putnam, Jeff Vincent, Jennifer DeReuss, Jamie Mitchem, and Wilson Brown. Although each author was tasked with developing certain chapters, the book is a true collaborative effort in which we speak with one voice. We therefore take responsibility for any errors of omission, commission, or interpretation. We were honored to be part of the Second Assessment and to be able to contribute in our own special way.

Susan Cutter

Columbia, South Carolina

Susan L. Cutter is a Carolina Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina as well as the Director of its Hazards Research Lab. She is the founding editor of the journal Environmental Hazards (Elsevier). Cutter has a long-standing interest in the geographic dimensions of environmental risks and hazards, has published extensively on the topic, and serves on numerous national advisory committees in the field. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1999 for her contributions and served as President of the Association of American Geographers (2000-2001).

Deborah S. K. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado, Denver. She received her B.A. from the University of Kansas, M.A. from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. She has written on the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in hazards research and applications, children’s health and risk, and sustainable environmental planning.

Jerry T. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography and Geosciences at Bloomsburg University. He received his B.S. and M.A. from Towson State University and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. He has previously written on the social and cultural dimensions of hazards, including articles on environmental justice, the use of GIS in vulnerability assessments, and the role of religious belief in hazard perception.

Arleen A. Hill is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina. She received her B.S. from Mary Washington College and her M.S. from the University of South Carolina. She is interested in risk communication and the role of short- and longterm forecasts in prompting evacuation behavior.

Michael E. Hodgson is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina and Co-director of the Center for GIS and Remote Sensing. His interests are in the use of geographic techniques (remote sensing and GIS) in hazards analysis and management and ecological modeling.

American Hazardscapes