"Environmental Hazards" Book Review
Richard Wenning, Wenning Environmental LLC and IEAM Founding Editor-in-Chief
This remarkable textbook has influenced a generation of scientists working in hazard, risk, and disaster assessment
Republished with permission from Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM), Volume 21, Issue 2, March 2025, with minor edits for style.
This review is part of the series Books and Other Reviews published in IEAM and covers a wide range of nonfiction books, environmentally relevant fiction, technical reports, guidance documents, documentary films, blogs and open-access web tools.
In the latest installment, Richard Wenning reviews “Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster,” republished here.The full Books and Other Reviews series is available in the latest issue of IEAM, featuring additional reviews by Glen Suter and Richard Wenning on “Profit: An Environmental History,” “The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie,” “Resilience Matters: Collective Action for Healthier Communities,” “Resilience Matters: Flourishing in an Era of Extremes,” and “Life in the Leaf Litter.”
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The “Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction,” published by the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Program in 2019, counsels that countries should consider how health and environmental risks interact in an increasingly interconnected and complex environment rather than follow the traditional “hazard-by-hazard” approach to disaster response and risk management. To that end, this seventh edition of the seminal book, “Environmental hazards: assessing risk and reducing disaster,” is an invaluable and timely guide for aligning governmental actions with the state of practice on planning and implementing disaster assessments and actions aimed at sustainable risk reduction.
The book’s first edition was published in 1991, and the subsequent five editions were written and edited by Professor Keith Smith, an expert in the fields of hydrology, climatology and environmental hazards, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Stirling, UK. Professor Smith passed in 2022, leaving the monumental task of preparing the seventh edition of “Environmental hazards” in the capable hands of Carina J. Fearnley and Ilan Kelman from University College London, Deborah Dixon from the University of Glasgow, and Deanne K. Bird from Monash University Australia. Each is an internationally recognized scholar on one or more of the complex issues surrounding environmental hazards and our response to natural and human-caused disasters.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides a primer on the nature of hazard. Its five chapters discuss the meanings of hazard and disaster; the qualities of vulnerability, resilience and sustainability; and tools used in risk assessment and disaster risk reduction analysis to understand and quantify both hazard and risk. Part 2 reviews the devil’s list of dangers humanity has confronted for centuries. Chapters are devoted to discussing the features and challenges of environmental hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, epidemic diseases and extreme weather events. Chapters discuss the evolution of disaster assessment methods and prevention and mitigation planning to quantify and mitigate the consequences of human-caused and natural disasters in different parts of the world. Part 3 includes four chapters that delve into industrial waste, climate change and the lessons learned from a long history of humankind’s reactions and response to disaster.
The book is an authoritative textbook of the causes and consequences of extreme natural events and technological processes that create chaos and cause death and destruction in communities worldwide. The seventh edition captures the latest research on common assessment problems, theories, policies, and real-world situations and practices. The book includes more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant published materials on this topic. Boxed sections in different chapters highlight technical issues and the lessons to be learned from recent or well-studied extreme events. The editors have prepared a new concluding chapter summarizing the globalization of hazards and critically examining the latest perspectives on climate-related disasters.
This new edition of the book upholds a well-established tradition for nearly three decades as essential reading for students studying geography, environmental risk assessment, disaster assessment, mitigation and response. Professor Smith will be greatly missed. However, Fearnley, Kelman, Dixon and Bird have excelled in the preparation of this new edition and guide for the next generation of hazard and risk professionals.
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