ABSTRACT
We live in an age of growing sensitivity to environmental traumas. As population densities continue to increase, living standards and their expectations rise, and the value of human property chronically inflates, so the impacts of abnormal and extreme events in the environment become ever more serious and costly. Today environmental traumas are both numerous and very varied, as Table 18.1 exemplifies. Many of these events are natural; more and more, though, are anthropogenic, i.e. induced by humans, for example by acts of war and terrorism. Some anthropogenic traumas are caused unconsciously or indirectly: for example, landslides resulting from slope destabilization by the excavation of road or rail cuttings, undesirable soil changes resulting from vegetation clearance and subsequent agricultural activities, and climate changes related to increased emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and damage to the ozone layer induced by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), as discussed in Chapter 1. However, natural traumas probably still constitute the biggest threats to us and our economy. It is on these that we will concentrate most.
