ABSTRACT
The 1990s have been declared the ‘International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction’ (IDNDR) in recognition of the dramatic increase of recorded disasters resulting from floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. during the last twenty years (Degg 1992). Moreover, during the same time-period humaninduced catastrophes have increased in both periodicity and magnitude-for example, the Piper-Alpha oil-platform explosion, marine oil spills, the release of toxic gases at Seveso (Italy) and Bhopal (India) and the nuclear accidents of Three-Mile Island (USA) and Chernobyl (USSR), to say nothing of numerous transport disasters. If one adds to these the more insidious effects of acid rain, global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation and general resource pollution, it is little wonder that awareness of environmental hazards has never been greater (Whittow 1987a, 1988).
