Natural Hazards

The new revised fifth edition of Natural Hazards remains the go-to introductory-level survey intended for university and college courses that are concerned with earth processes that have direct, and often sudden and violent, impacts on human society. The text integrates principles of geology, hydrology, meteorology, climatology, oceanography, soil science, ecology, and solar system astronomy.


The textbook explains the earth processes that drive hazardous events in an understandable way, illustrate how these processes interact with our civilization, and describe how we can better adjust to their effects. Written by leading scholars in the area, the new edition of this book takes advantage of the greatly expanding amount of information regarding natural hazards, disasters, and catastrophes. The text is designed for learning with each chapter broken into small consumable chunks of content for students. Each chapter opens with a list of learning objectives and ends with revision as well as with high-level critical thinking questions. Concepts in Review section provides an innovative end of chapter section that breaks down the chapter content by section: reviewing the learning objectives, summary points, important visuals, and key terms. New case studies of hazardous events have been integrated into the text, and students are invited to actively apply their understanding of the five fundamental concepts that serve as a conceptual framework for the text. Figures, illustrations, and photos have been updated throughout.


The book is designed for a course in natural hazards for non-science majors, and a primary goal of the text is to assist instructors in guiding students who may have little background in science to understand physical earth processes as natural hazards and their consequences to society.