This book addresses the long-overdue imbalance in disaster management: an over-emphasis on post-disaster assistance and a lack of attention to vulnerability reduction. It answers the fundamental question in this debate: how can we mould pre-disaster development initiatives to become the most appropriate means for vulnerability reduction?The author examines requirements for long-term change so that conditions that have become the context for catastrophe can be modified. The book contains case-studies from Sri Lanka, the Caribbean and the South Pacific and focuses on hazards of all kinds, setting out to redress the balance between large-scale disasters of global significance and small-scale disasters that are a matter of everyday existence.

is a visiting fellow in Development Studies at the University of Bath and a consultant in environmental hazards and human settlements.

Part One: Vulnerability; Part Two: Studies of Vulnerability; Part Three: A Pattern for Development; and
References.