Landmark hazard mitigation book edited by emeritus planning prof
Hailed as “an extraordinary contribution to the hazard and disaster planning field,” a new book edited by Michael Lindell, Texas A&M professor emeritus of urban planning, emphasizes the importance of combining urban planning and hazard mitigation to help communities prepare for and recover from disasters.
Chapters in the publication, “The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience,” cover critical topics including disasters’ impact on low-income communities, hazard mitigation policies on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, community service planning for disasters, and many more.
Many of the book’s contributors are current or former Texas A&M urban planning professors or former students, or Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center research fellows or affiliates.
“Lindell, one of the most esteemed hazard scholars of the past fifty years, has assembled an incredible group of planning and policy scholars,” said Dennis Wenger, retired director of the National Science Foundation’s Infrastructure Management and Extreme Events program. “This sourcebook is a blueprint for linking research perspectives and findings into policy and practice.”
Additional topics in the book include the politics of hazard mitigation, emergency preparedness and response planning and long-term housing recovery.
“This handbook is a solid primer for planners who must make their communities safer and more resilient in the face of the rising tide of disasters in the 21st century,” said James C. Schwab, adjunct assistant professor of urban and regional planning, University of Iowa.
After a distinguished career as a leading disaster preparedness and response researcher and educator, Lindell retired from the Texas A&M faculty in 2014.
His research included mental health consequences of disasters, public perception and evacuation, and behavioral response. He has also evaluated local response planning and hazard mitigation planning in nearly every type of disaster.
For more information, contact rnira@arch.tamu.edu or doswald@tamu.edu.
