ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews important formal treatments of disaster production, prevention, response, recovery, and resettlement, and adaptation to chronic hazards in anthropological literature, with attention to archaeological investigations, ethnohistorical research, medical anthropology, social network analyses, and critical studies of the intersections of Ecuadorian traditions, governance, and expert knowledge in disaster recovery and resettlement. Disaster processes of the colonial and 19th-century Republican eras have yet to be substantively addressed by anthropologists. Ecuador does not have any nuclear reactor facilities and radioactive waste production is minimal. Industry is principally concentrated in the dense cities of Guayaquil and Quito and most is relatively small scale and therefore not associated with sizeable toxic releases. There are important hazards issues on the horizon in Ecuador, and deforestation and climate change are chief among them. Climate change impacts such as melting glaciers and snow are moving apace and expected to continue to affect Ecuadorian communities and environments in the coming years.
