Disasters in Paradise Natural Hazards, Social Vulnerability, and Development Decisions

About this book

Long considered ground zero for global climate change in the United States, Florida presents the perfect case study for disaster risk and prevention. Building on the idea that disasters are produced by historical and contemporary social processes as well as natural phenomena, Amanda D. Concha-Holmes and Anthony Oliver-Smith present a collection of ethnographic case studies that examine the social and environmental effects of Florida's public and private sector development policies. Contributors to Disasters in Paradise explore how these practices have increased the vulnerability of Floridians to hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, frosts, and forest fires.

Contents

Chapter 1. Natural Hazards, Social Vulnerability and Development in Florida
Chapter 2. Eye on The Storm: Development & Disaster in The Sunshine State. Hurricane Opal. A Case Study
Chapter 3. Twisted State: Patterns of Resilience and Vulnerability in the Osceola County, Florida 1998 Tornadoes
Chapter 4. Disaster in Apalachicola: Storms, the Oyster Industry and Development Decisions
Chapter 5. Drought, Unsustainable Water Practices and the Social Construction of Risk in Glades County
Chapter 6. Needed and Feared: The Unavoidable Vulnerability to Forest Fires in Florida
Chapter 7. humaNature, Citrus and Disaster in North Central Florida: Frost in the Sunshine State.
Chapter 8. Climate Change, Disasters and Development in Florida

Customer Reviews

Biography

Amanda Concha-Holmes is a courtesy faculty in anthropology and Latin American studies at the University of Florida and co-founder and co-director of the Innovative Research and Intercultural Education (I.R.I.E.) Center. Anthony Oliver-Smith is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Florida.