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Book Review: The science of disasters: climate disruptions, heart attacks, and market crashes

This volume is the ninth in the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) Research Series. In the briefest of introductions, editor Professor Roy Sidle (now based at Kyoto University, Japan), sets the scene for considering interactions between climatic change and forest hazards and calls for the 'systematic collection of scientific information [and] identification of information gaps'. So begins a journey around a truly global collection of environments featuring a multinational cast of authors. The wide range of examples reflects an extremely liberal interpretation of the forest environment and, for that matter, of the concept of hazard. There is a certain amount of coyness in revealing how the collection was formed and what its guiding principles were. At first glance, the collection looks like a conference assemblage, but the Foreword (by IUFRO President Risto Seppala) refers to the volume as a state-of-the-art summary of geohazards in forested areas. On the inner cover page (where the title 'Environmental change' becomes plural) the volume is badged as the fourth report of the IUFRO Task Force on Environmental Change. If it is 'state-of-the-art', as claimed, the contributions seem a little variable in terms of objectives and comprehensiveness, although their content is interesting enough. The first two substantive chapters (Wigmosta and Leung on flooding in snow-dominated basins; Burn on forecasting hydrological impacts on Canadian forests) are ostensibly research papers, introducing and testing hydrological models. The remaining chapters are largely presented as reviews of the subject area. Of these, Chapters 8-10 get to grips with the analysis of particular geohazards in forests and are the most useful. First, Sidle and Dhakal provide an abundantly referenced review of the challenges of predicting landslide hazards from the crude regional and temporal resolution of climatic-change models. Next, Haeberli and Burn discuss impacts of climatic change on glacier and permafrost environments; this is an excellent and succinct summary of environmental change at high latitudes even if forests only appear towards the end of the chapter. Taylor and Sanderson provide a fascinating summary of hazards on tropical coasts, focusing mainly on mangrove forests; the symbiosis of biogeography, ecology, geomorphology and Quaternary science makes this an especially useful contribution. In between these two sets of contributions is a set of regionally focused papers looking at land degradation in Asia, Mediterranean Europe and Africa, respectively, followed by a review of weathering and deformation that is focused mainly on Japanese examples. The European and African contributions share the prefix 'Climate change related to erosion and desertification' and describe the processes and context of land degradation. Forests, as a context, are conspicuous by their absence and scarcely a tree is seen in the photographs that illustrate either chapter. As a general introduction to desertification, these chapters are adequate summaries but neither is targeted at cutting-edge research nor angled towards an audience interested in forestry. The illusion of the green-remembered trees of longremoved scrub woodland perhaps provides justification for their inclusion. Lo and Cai's chapter on surface erosion from forest lands in Asia does restrain itself to discussion of environmental change and forest cover, predominantly in the tropical regions of the continent. The empirical dominance of this review stands in contrast to the editor's closing chapter on prospects for geomorphological hazard analysis. Here, a useful conceptual framework is advanced that emphasizes thresholds, routing mechanisms and the need to integrate socio-economic dimensions into hazard analysis. This concise conclusion is perhaps a closer reflection of the state of the art than many of the substantive chapters. The chapters within the volume will hold interest for various groups; the back cover makes claims for forestry, climatology, hydrology, soil science, geography and related geosciences. For many, the variable objectives of individual chapters and the loose attention to the theme of hazards in forests will make it difficult to see the wood for the trees. The forestry audience may feel it difficult to see the trees at all. Those geoscientists with interest in Quaternary sciences will enjoy some aspects of the discussion of future climatic change but there is limited mention of past environmental change apart from Taylor and Sanderson's chapter. The text is neatly produced and well indexed, but some of the photographs and greyscale images are not of sufficient resolution. As a library acquisition the volume may provide a useful dipping reference, but as a definitive statement of geohazards in forests there is much more to say. It is encouraging that the 15 authors represent 10 different countries, with a bonus point deserved for a jointly authored China-Taiwan contribution.