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This study aims to further understand the factors contributory to fire occurrences in two semi-arid regions in the American Southwest, Clark County in Nevada and Maricopa and Pinal Counties in Arizona.

Statistical and geographic information system analyses were employed to examine the spatial and temporal relationships of various natural and human-caused factors with fire incidences.

Angström fire danger index, average amount of rainfall one month prior, extent of forests and grasslands, and proximities to secondary roads and population centers have significant relationships with fire events.

The importance of the factors contributory to fire occurrence is site-specific even in areas with similar climatic regimes and varies among different geographic regions; as such, researchers will need to conduct specific investigation of each study area.

The findings of this study can be instrumental in facilitating fire managers to derive more informed strategies in fire prevention and management.

While there are many studies on fire, most of them are conducted in wet regions with a lot of vegetative cover; not much work is done on arid areas. This paper considered and compared the spatial and temporal relationships of a wide range of natural and human-caused factors with fire events in two semi-arid areas. The intent was to assess the relative importance of these factors in areas even with similar climatic regimes. As our world is facing unprecedented changes in terms of climate and population growth, it is paramount to have an enhanced understanding of the impacts of these changes on fire regimes. The study areas are hot and dry, and they are located in the wildland–urban interfaces with rapid population growth and urbanization; as such, the research findings may contribute to existing literature.

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report revealed an important increase in the level of consensus concerning the reality of human-caused climate warming. The scientific basis for global warming has thus been sufficiently established to enable meaningful planning of appropriate policy responses to address global warming. As a result, the world's policy makers, governments, industries, energy producers/planners, and individuals from many other walks of life have increased their attention toward finding acceptable solutions to the challenge of global warming. This laudable increase in worldwide attention to this global-scale challenge has not, however, led to a heightened optimism that the required substantial reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions deemed necessary to stabilize the global climate can be achieved anytime soon. This fact is due in large part to several fundamental aspects of the climate system that interact to ensure that climate change is a phenomenon that will emerge over extensive timescales.

Although most of the warming observed during the 20th century is attributed to increased greenhouse gas concentrations, because of the high heat capacity of the world's oceans, further warming will lag added greenhouse gas concentrations by decades to centuries. Thus, today's enhanced atmospheric CO2 concentrations have already “wired in” a certain amount of future warming in the climate system, independent of human actions. Furthermore, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase, the world's natural CO2 “sinks” will begin to saturate, diminishing their ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Future warming will also eventually cause melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which will contribute substantially to sea level rise, but only over hundreds to thousands of years. As a result, current generations have, in effect, decided to make future generations pay most of the direct and indirect costs of this major global problem. The longer the delay in reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the burden of climate change will be for future life on earth.

Collectively, these phenomena comprise a “global warming dilemma.” On the one hand, the current level of global warming to date appears to be comparatively benign, about 0.6°C. This seemingly small warming to date has thus hardly been sufficient to spur the world to pursue aggressive CO2 emissions reduction policies. On the other hand, the decision to delay global emissions reductions in the absence of a current crisis is essentially a commitment to accept large levels of climate warming and sea level rise for many centuries. This dilemma is a difficult obstacle for policy makers to overcome, although better education of policy makers regarding the long-term consequences of climate change may assist in policy development.

The policy challenge is further exacerbated by factors that lie outside the realm of science. There are a host of values conflicts that conspire to prevent meaningful preventative actions on the global scale. These values conflicts are deeply rooted in our very globally diverse lifestyles and our national, cultural, religious, political, economic, environmental, and personal belief systems. This vast diversity of values and priorities inevitably leads to equally diverse opinions on who or what should pay for preventing or experiencing climate change, how much they should pay, when, and in what form. Ultimately, the challenge to all is to determine the extent to which we will be able to contribute to limiting the magnitude of this problem so as to preserve the quality of life for many future generations of life on earth.

While a return to work following trauma exposure can be therapeutic, this is not always so. As with many topics related to traumatic stress in organizations, several contingency factors complicate the effort to draw an overarching conclusion about whether returning to work is therapeutic. The purpose of this paper is to present important determinants of whether work is therapeutic or triggering for those with traumatic stress conditions. The need for contingency approaches in the study of traumatic stress in organizations is illustrated.

Literature on traumatic stress in organizations is reviewed.

Three of the key determinants of whether a return to work is therapeutic or triggering for traumatic stress sufferers are trauma-type contingencies, condition-type contingencies and work-setting contingencies. For instance, human-caused and task-related traumas are more likely than natural disasters to make a return-to-work triggering. Additionally, the time since developing a traumatic stress condition is inversely related to the degree of improvement in that condition through the experience of working. Moreover, managerial actions can affect how therapeutic an employee’s return to work is.

These findings suggest the challenges of reintegrating a traumatized employee to the workplace can be highly situation-specific. Careful consideration of the traumatic event suffered by each traumatic stress victim, their traumatic stress condition, and the work setting to which they would return are recommended.

Promoting mental health in organizations can contribute to employers’ social performance.

Examination of the factors that complicate predicting whether work is therapeutic posttrauma demonstrates how contingency approaches can advance research on trauma in organizations.

The purpose of this article is to apply what social scientists have learned from decades of research on natural and technological disasters to better understand the short-term and potential long-term human impacts of the 9/11 attacks. The short-term response to the 9/11 attacks was similar to how people and communities typically respond to natural disasters. One year after the attacks, news reports suggest that factors identified in technological disaster research as causing collective trauma, rather than recovery, are beginning to surface. We identify three patterns typically present in (but not restricted to) the aftermath of technological disasters that contribute to slow recovery and ongoing collective trauma and evaluate the likelihood that these factors will impact the recovery process for those impacted by the 9/11 attacks. We conclude that due to perceptions of governmental failure, the likelihood of protracted litigation, and uncertainty regarding the mental and physical health of victims, the social and psychological impacts of the 9/11 attacks will likely be severe and long-term. As such, the concluding section recommends the implementation of a long-term clinical intervention program for mitigating these potential chronic impacts and facilitating the timely recovery of survivors.

In response to a critical need for uniform school crisis preparedness and response efforts across districts, the National Association of School Psychologists developed PREPaRE, a model and training curriculum aimed to equip school-based professionals to engage in comprehensive school crisis prevention and intervention practices. The PREPaRE acronym stands for: Prevent/Prepare for psychological trauma; Reaffirm physical health, security, and safety; Evaluate psychological trauma; Provide interventions (and) Respond to psychological needs; and Examine the effectiveness of prevention and intervention efforts. The model spans four crisis preparedness phases: Prevention, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the development and structure of the PREPaRE model's core components and the organizational framework of the Incident Command System. It delineates elements of the basic school crisis response plan, assessment of mental health risk following a crisis event, and the provision of crisis interventions within a multitiered system of support framework. Additionally, it summarizes ongoing effectiveness and implementation research used to evaluate and improve the model based on immediate training outcomes assessed through pre and postmeasures and training transfer to applied school contexts. Implications for research and public policy regarding school safety and crisis prevention and intervention, as well as the future of PREPaRE curriculum development, are discussed.

Purpose – This study explores the relationship between federal, state, and local governments in regard to evacuation policies. The issue of evacuation enforcement by force is explored from a practical as well as moral perspective, and the overarching question of whether mandatory evacuation policy is merely symbolic is examined. Last, implications of policy making for vulnerable and marginalized populations is explored, and the question of whether criminalization of failure to comply with evacuation orders carries ill effects for certain segments of the population is examined.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter first evaluates the legal logistics and policy foundation of evacuation orders at the national and state level. The chapter then explores the implications for local governments, notably first responders in implementing evacuation policy. Finally, policy recommendations related to improvements to existing evacuation policy for all levels of government are offered.

Findings – There is a gap in public policy between the expectations of the federal government and the implementation of evacuation policy at the local and state level. Policy and law changes that improve the ability of local governments to more effectively warn communities about the risks of noncompliance should occur in a way that minimizes the social disparities inherent in existing policy schemes.

Originality/value of paper – Evacuation policy is often considered as an afterthought to disaster planning and does not rise to the top of any government agenda until after a catastrophic event. This chapter encourages policy makers to be more proactive in developing evacuation policy that capitalizes on the effects of federalism to minimize the risks associated with natural and human-caused hazards.

Designing and implementing effective strategies for managing heritage resources throughout the world has become critically important as the impacts of climate change and human-caused destruction are increasingly felt. Of particular importance is the ability to identify and track fast- and slow-moving processes associated with weathering, erosion and the movement or removal of heritage objects by natural and human agents. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how 3D laser scanning can be used to detect and monitor changes to the Okotoks Erratic “Big Rock” Provincial Historic Resource in Alberta, Canada, over a period of 7 years.

Terrestrial laser scanning surveys of the Okotoks Erratic “Big Rock” Provincial Historic Resource were undertaken in 2013, 2016 and 2020. Registration was used to place the three epochs of point clouds into a unique datum for comparison using the cloud-to-cloud distance function in Cloud Compare.

The movement/repositioning of rocks around the base of the erratic, the emergence of “unofficial” paths and changes to interpretive trails and fencing were all identified at the site over the time period of the study.

Current conservation at the Okotoks Big Rock focus primarily on the rock art panels that are scattered over the erratic. The results of this study indicate they should be broadened so that the geological integrity of the site, which is intrinsically linked to its cultural value, can also be maintained.

This is the first study the authors are aware of that utilizes terrestrial laser scanning + change detection analysis to identify and track changes to a heritage site over a period as long as 7 years.

The purpose of this chapter is to advance existing literature on crisis management by critically analysing the impact of crisis on tourism performance within a developing world context, with a specific focus on South Africa as a case study area. Crime, xenophobic attacks and the Day Zero water crisis form the basis for discussion as significant crisis affecting the country's tourism industry.

Utilising qualitative content analysis as a methodological approach, the study analysis strategic policy documents, newspaper reports, press conferences, and campaigns to discover policies, strategies and plans that have been applied to alleviate the impacts of catastrophic events on tourism performance.

The interpretation of literature reveals that factors affecting the South Africa tourism industry stem from mainly human-caused disasters, this being crime and violence, and inadequate water management strategies.

Results discussed in this study were framed through a systemic review of existing literature To gain an in-depth understanding of crisis-related matters in the Global South, future research can apply empirical data-gathering procedures.

The study proposes that proactive crisis management planning and inclusion of non-tourism stakeholders in crisis management planning is essential to combat crisis' impact on tourism performance.

In the Global South, studies that interrogate the effects of crises on tourism performance generally focus on a single case of a disaster or crisis, therefore lacks a study that comprehensively discusses events that deter tourism performance. Thus, this study bridges the existing literature gap by focussing on South Africa as a case study area.

Climate change during the next century is likely to significantly influence forest ecosystems in the western United States, including indirect effects on forest and shrubland fire regimes. Further exacerbation of fire hazards by the warmer, drier summers projected for much of the western U.S. by climate models would compound already elevated fire risks caused by 20th century fire suppression. This has potentially grave consequences for the urban–wildland interface in drier regions, where residential expansion increasingly places people and property in the midst of fire-prone vegetation. Understanding linkages between climate variability and change, therefore, are central to our ability to forecast future risks and adapt land management, allocation of fire management resources, and suburban planning accordingly. To establish these linkages we review previous research and draw inferences from our own retrospective work focused on 20th century climate–fire relationships in the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW). We investigated relationships between the two dominant modes of climate variability affecting the PNW, which are Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and historic fire activity at multiple spatial scales. We used historic fire data spanning most of the 20th century for USDA Forest Service Region 6, individual states (Idaho, Oregon, and Washington), and 20 national forests representative of the region's physiographic diversity. Forest fires showed significant correlations with warm/dry phases of PDO at regional and state scales; relationships were variable at the scale of individual national forests. Warm/dry phases of PDO were especially influential in terms of the occurrence of very large fire events throughout the PNW. No direct statistical relationships were found between ENSO and forest fires at regional scales, although relationships may exist at smaller spatial scales. However, both ENSO and PDO were correlated with summer drought, as estimated by the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), and PDSI was correlated with fire activity at all scales. Even moderate (±0.3°C decadal mean) fluctuations in PNW climate over the 20th century have influenced wildfire activity based on our analysis. Similar trends have been reported for other regions of the western U.S. Thus, forest fire activity has been sensitive to past climate variability, even in the face of altered dynamics due to fire suppression, as in the case of our analysis. It is likely that fire activity will increase in response to future temperature increases, at the same or greater magnitude as experienced during past climate variability. If extreme drought conditions become more prevalent we can expect a greater frequency of large, high-intensity forest fires. Increased vulnerability to forest fires may worsen the current fire management problem in the urban–wildland interface. Adaptation of fire management and restoration planning will be essential to address fire hazards in areas of intermingled exurban development and fire-prone vegetation. We recommend: (1) landscape-level strategic planning of fire restoration and containment projects; (2) better use of climatic forecasts, including PDO and ENSO related predictions; and (3) community-based efforts to limit further residential expansion into fire-prone forested and shrubland areas.

This conceptual paper focusses on climate change as a social issue and therefore as a social scientific problem. According to young climate activists, Greta Thunberg being the most widely known, climate change is specifically a problem of generations. Typically, the discourse on responsibility focusses on the technical and philosophical questions posed by the study into “intra-” and “inter-generational justice”. It is the purpose of this paper to present sociological conceptual tools with which to both analyze and propose solutions to specific social problems caused by current generations that will affect future generations.

Figurational process sociology develops and tests models of long-term, unplanned developments, which produce the conditions in which short-term practices of informing and planning social interventions are bound up.

The paper reveals the significance of sociological models that can describe and explain social processes and long-term developments in human habitus that have important explanatory value for understanding contemporary social problems such as human-caused climate change.

The concepts and analytical frames of reference provided by figurational process sociology provide crucial insights into the problem of generations and can help reveal how this social dynamic contributes to challenges facing young climate activists calling for rapid “ecologization” processes and increased human restraint with regard to the natural environment.