Over the past century, average temperatures have risen a little over 1°C. This may not seem like much: after all, temperatures vary from one day to the next by much more than that, and we take it in our stride. However, over the past couple of decades we have become more aware of the rising incidence of what we call extreme events: heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods, severe storms. These are the signs of the times; signs, perhaps, that Mother Nature is not happy. Or is this all simply part of the natural unpredictability of the world we live in? In this chapter we look at recent extremes, along with the recent branch of climate science, Event Attribution, where we endeavour to assess any human contribution to these events. We illustrate both the nature of extreme events, and our growing understanding, with several detailed case studies.

This chapter uses medieval chronicles and annals to explore how river disasters were understood and remembered, and how people chose to tell stories about rivers. A focus on floods brings up issues of risk and resilience, and how floods were interpreted by medieval people. The chapter also focuses on how rivers are connected to other memorable and historic events and why they were such powerful stories. The chapter then turns to the ways that rivers were incorporated into monastic memory and to stories of foundation, and how holy sites were seen as revealed by God and the saints. The chapter ends with a case study focused on St. Sturm and the monastery of Fulda, with a focus on the role of rivers in the house’s history.

This chapter introduces the notion of identifying primary and secondary stressors as a way of drawing attention to the many sources of stress that arise either as a consequence of disastrous events of long or short duration, or because they frame the context in which those disastrous events occur. The events that we include in this approach are broad in nature; they include emergencies of all kinds, major incidents, outbreaks of high consequence infectious diseases (HCIDs), terrorist attacks, and conflicts. We begin by outlining the context in which the circumstances that cause stress operate. Then we define primary and secondary stressors. This approach helps us to understand sources of stress in all kinds of adverse and disastrous events. We conclude that the sources of stress that we have researched in these differing emergencies differ, but also have much in common.

Australian novelist George Turner’s 1987 novel The Sea and Summer is one of the world’s first climate fiction novels, although James Edmond’s 1911 story, ‘The Fool and His Inheritance’, is a precursor to the genre. The early emergence of Australian climate fiction is not surprising given the country’s vulnerability to anthropogenic climate change. This chapter investigates the 35-year history of Australian climate fiction through an analysis of six novels, contemplating how environment, history and culture shape the use of genre, form and theme. It examines slow violence and flooding in The Sea and Summer; the intertwining of colonisation, environmental destruction and dispossession in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013); the use of the uncanny to explore the impact of ‘settlement’ in Jennifer Mills’s Dyschronia (2018); the effect of a changing climate on generations in James Bradley’s Clade (2015); and the psychological ramifications of the 2019–20 bushfires, evident through motifs of missing bodies and an invisible menace in Richard Flanagan’s The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020) and Inga Simpson’s The Last Woman in the World (2021). These novels, which are shaped by their production in a country with a fragile environment and a history of colonisation, offer varying visions of hope and despair.

This chapter addresses insuring natural catastrophes in America. It provides an overview of the existing lines of insurance for natural catastrophe losses, such as homeowners insurance, commercial property insurance (including business interruption insurance), the National Flood Insurance Program, and earthquake insurance (including the California Earthquake Authority). Currently, most natural catastrophe losses are uninsured in America as a result of consumer ignorance regarding risk and private insurers’ general treatment of natural catastrophes as uninsurable correlated risks. Consequently, this chapter also includes a discussion of ways more natural catastrophe losses could be insured in America by considering the ways other developed countries throughout the world insure natural catastrophe losses.

Article 7.1 of the Paris Agreement establishes that parties should aim at enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. While many climate hazards and vulnerabilities are beyond territorial control, a readiness to withstand and recover from them must be delivered locally. This chapter discusses climate-related vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience of the Greater Bay Area of China (GBA), an area that has been identified by the Chinese government as an engine of economic development but which has historically been vulnerable to flooding. After providing a contextual introduction to the GBA project, the chapter reviews key studies on past, current, and future climate trends focusing on meteorological, climatological, hydrological, and geophysical hazards. It then surveys adaptation policies and plans already implemented in GBA cities to assess what works and what does not and where the gaps are. Finally, the discussion focuses on the drivers and barriers for the uptake of technology for flood prevention and for the deployment of emergency responses. The aim of this discussion is to identify the opportunities and risks of technology in building future-ready local skills and citizen engagement for climate resilience. Given the ambitious plans for the GBA to contribute to the economic development of China, existing and projected vulnerabilities to climate hazards and their potential impact on the developed environment and physical infrastructure, business and industry, energy supply, financial services, human health, water resources, and biodiversity may not only hamper GBA plans but also put its businesses and citizens at risk. Technological innovation diminishes this vulnerability, but drivers and barriers to its uptake must be either identified and enhanced or removed accordingly.

At the beginning of the new millennium, Australia's cities and their peri-urban and rural hinterlands were in the midst of a worsening drought. Having developed in the mid-1990s, the Millennium Drought finally broke in 2010, at least in south-eastern Australia. It was the most severe drought experienced in southern Australia since instrumental records began in the early twentieth century, thanks to a combination of natural variability and anthropogenic climate change. The urgency of water restrictions and supply augmentation that had characterised the drought years gave way to more pressing matters of the electoral cycle. As Australian cities continue to grow, it remains be seen as to whether plans to shape the urban form as a water catchment of its own materialise beyond model suburbs and local initiatives and what their implementation might mean for the water infrastructure and cultures of the past.

Description: Beside pandemics and famines, humans have also suffered from the impact of other kinds of disasters, which at times were very destructive of lives and property. Among these natural disasters there were earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, major floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, and tsunamis. While some of these were clearly Acts of God, increasingly some had some human contribution, because of the growing impact that humans had started to have on nature. This human impact was growing with the passing of time. The increase in the standard of living of humans was increasingly coming at a high natural cost. The chapter provides information on some of the major disasters.