Abstract

The main objective of the book is to offer a vision of the dynamics of the main disasters in South America, describing their mechanisms and consequences on South American societies. The chapters are written by selected specialists of each country. Human-induced disasters are also included, such as desertification in Patagonia and soil erosion in Brazil. The receding of South-American glaciers as a response to recent climatic trends and sea-level scenarios are discussed.

The approach is broad in analyzing causes and consequences and includes social and economic costs, discussing environmental and planning problems, but always describing the geomorphologic/geologic involved processes with a good scientific substantiation. This is important to differentiate the book from others of a more 'social' impact that discuss risks and disasters with emphases mainly on economy and simple impacts.

• Actual theme, interesting for a variety of professionals
• Fills in the scarcity of specialized literature in geosciences from South America
• The first book in the market exclusively devoted to geomorphology of disasters in South America

"In a volume of uniformly high quality, it is difficult to highlight particularly noteworthy papers, but this reviewer particularly appreciated contributions on: geomorphology as a tool for analyzing seismic sources; soil erosion in Brazil; seismic and volcanic hazards in Argentina; and hazards and human-induced disasters in Chile… [H]ighly recommended for library use, and the availability of an electronic version should greatly assist its use within the student market. Overall, it is an excellent volume that I am pleased to commend." --Latin America Volume 13, Mountain Research