f(λ1/ λ3) = f(λ1/ λ2) f(λ2/ λ3) Gordon Woo ICP P786.9781848167384-tp.indd 2 Imperial College Press 6/6/11 9:42 AM
Published by Imperial College Press 57 Shelton Street Covent Garden London WC2H 9HE Distributed by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. CALCULATING CATASTROPHE Copyright 2011 by Imperial College Press All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. ISBN-13 978-1-84816-738-4 ISBN-10 1-84816-738-5 ISBN-13 978-1-84816-739-1 (pbk) ISBN-10 1-84816-739-3 (pbk) Printed in Singapore.
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Dedicated to the memory of C.K.W.
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Contents Cover photograph of Anak Krakatau xi Prologue: CHAOS, CRISIS AND CATASTROPHE 1 1 NATURAL HAZARDS 3 1.1 Causation and Association 5 1.2 Extra-Terrestrial Hazards 8 1.3 Meteorological Hazards 11 1.4 Geological Hazards 15 1.5 Geomorphic Hazards 21 1.6 Hydrological Hazards 27 2 SOCIETAL HAZARDS 34 2.1 Political Violence 36 2.2 Infectious Disease Pandemics 42 2.3 Industrial and Transportation Accidents 48 2.4 Fraud Catastrophe 55 3 A SENSE OF SCALE 60 3.1 Size Scales of Natural Hazards 62 3.2 Hazard Spatial Scales 70 3.3 The Human Disaster Toll 81 3.4 Models of a Fractal World 85 vii
viii Calculating Catastrophe 4 A MEASURE OF UNCERTAINTY 92 4.1 The Concept of Probability 93 4.2 The Meaning of Uncertainty 96 4.3 Aleatory and Epistemic Uncertainty 100 4.4 Probability Ambiguity 107 4.5 The Weighing of Evidence 114 5 A MATTER OF TIME 119 5.1 Temporal Models of Hazards 124 5.2 Long-Term Data Records 133 5.3 Statistics of Extremes 139 6 CATASTROPHE COMPLEXITY 144 6.1 Emergent Catastrophes 147 6.2 Financial Crashes 154 6.3 Ancillary Hazards 161 7 TERRORISM 168 7.1 A Thinking Man s Game 172 7.2 Defeating Terrorist Networks 178 7.3 Counter-Radicalization 183
Contents ix 8 FORECASTING 187 8.1 Earthquake Forecasting 190 8.2 Verification 197 8.3 River Flows and Sea Waves 202 8.4 Accelerating Approach to Criticality 206 8.5 Evidence-Based Diagnosis 210 9 DISASTER WARNING 213 9.1 Decision in the Balance 217 9.2 Evacuation 220 9.3 The Wisdom of Experts 229 10 DISASTER SCENARIOS 236 10.1 Scenario Simulation 238 10.2 Footprints and Vulnerability 241 10.3 Fermi Problems 251 11 CATASTROPHE COVER 264 11.1 Probable Maximum Loss 266 11.2 Coherent Risk Measures 275 11.3 The Samaritan s Dilemma 280
x Calculating Catastrophe 12 CATASTROPHE RISK SECURITIZATION 286 12.1 Catastrophe Bonds 288 12.2 The Price of Innovation 295 13 RISK HORIZONS 303 13.1 Ecological Catastrophe 306 13.2 Climate Change 312 13.3 War and Conflict Resolution 317 Epilogue: BLACK AND RED SWANS 322 Bibliography 325 Index 347
Cover Photograph Anak Krakatau The photographer, Marco Fulle, is based in Trieste, Italy. Trained as a scientist in Genoa, he is passionate about capturing on film the majestic power of one of the great forces of Nature, taking personal risks for the advancement of volcano photography. Marco s notes indicate that this picture happened by chance. He saw and quickly shot the image at 8 p.m. on 4 June 2009, as he was passing by the beach of Pulau Rakata, which is the southernmost of the three small Indonesian islands forming the rim of the caldera of Krakatau volcano. The young active volcano of Anak Krakatau lies at the centre of the caldera. The lights visible in the picture on the sea, in the front centre area of Anak Krakatau, are from the boats of the local fishermen. The beach was formed by the deposits of the catastrophic 1883 eruption, and by the subsequent landslides, and was soon colonized by a tropical jungle. The sea is eroding the new land at a rate of several metres per year, causing old trees on the shoreline to fall. During the night, stars rotate around the volcano, so that above Anak Krakatau, the Big Dipper points approximately towards the erupting vent. Special thanks to Alexandra Knaust for all her support and encouragement to write this book, for selecting the cover photograph, and her cover design and photograph of the Fiji fan palm from Tonga; to Lindsay Murray for technical assistance; and to RMS, for providing an ideal working environment for a catastrophist. xi