Hazards and Sustainable Development in the United States

Abstract

It has become clear that natural and related technological hazards and disasters are not a problem that can be solved in isolation. Rather, the occurrence of a disaster is a symptom of broader and more basic problems. Since 1994 a team of over 100 expert academics and practitioners—including some from the private sector—have assessed, evaluated, and summarized knowledge about natural and technological hazards in the United States, from the perspectives of the physical, natural, social and behavioral, and engineering sciences. The major thesis of the findings from this national project is that hazard losses, and the fact that there seems to be an inability in the US to reduce those losses, are the consequences of narrow and short-sighted development patterns, cultural premises, and attitudes toward the natural environment, science, and technology. A way is proposed for people and the US to take responsibility for disaster losses, to design future hazard losses, and to link hazard mitigation to sustainable development.