Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Integrated Solutions

This volume investigates the interdisciplinary and cross-cutting challenges in the risk analysis of natural hazards. It brings together leading minds in engineering, science, philosophy, law, and the social sciences. Parts I and II of this volume explore risk assessment, first by providing an overview of the interdisciplinary interactions involved in the assessment of natural hazards, and then by exploring the particular impacts of climate change on natural hazard assessment. Part III discusses the theoretical frameworks for the evaluation of natural hazards. Finally, Parts IV and V address the risk management of natural hazards, providing first an overview of the interdisciplinary interactions underlying natural hazard management, and then exploring decision frameworks that can help decision makers integrate and respond to the complex relationships among natural events, the built environment, and human behavior.

Paolo Gardoni is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Gardoni’s research focuses on the development and use of probabilistic methods to model the impact of natural and human-made hazards on interdependent structural and infrastructural systems. He has been working on several multidisciplinary projects encompassing different areas including structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, hydrology, construction management, materials, public policy, and engineering ethics. Professor Gardoni is the director of the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center, established in 1997 by the National Science Foundation as one of three national earthquake engineering research centers. Since becoming director, Professor Gardoni has expanded the mission of the center, which now is to create a Multi-hazard Approach to Engineering by conducting interdisciplinary research to estimate damage and vulnerability across regional and national networks, and characterize different hazards. Professor Gardoni is also the associate director of the Community Resilience Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, and is a member of a number of national and international committees and associations that focus on risk and reliability analysis.

Colleen Murphy is an Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy and Director of the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the development of a capability approach to risk and on transitional justice in post-conflict societies. She is the author of A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation (Cambridge University Press), co-editor ofEngineering Ethics for a Globalized World (Springer), andauthor or co-author of, 16 peer-reviewed journal articles and 8 book chapters. Prof. Murphy was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values. Her research has received financial support from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Qatar National Research Fund.

Arden Rowell is a Professor of Law and Richard W. and Marie L. Corman Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is teaching at Harvard Law School for the 2015-16 school year.  Professor Rowell's research interests revolve around risk regulation and human behavior. She has taught courses on environmental law, administrative law, behavioral law and economics, risk and the environment, and law and sustainable economic development, and her work has been published in student-edited law reviews and peer-reviewed journals.