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Featured Publication

People, Fire, and Forests: A Synthesis of Wildfire Social Science

Edited by Terry C. Daniel, Matthew S. Carroll, Cassandra Moseley, and Carol Raish

Years of drought and decades of aggressive fire exclusion have left North American forests at high risk for catastrophic fires. These same forests are experiencing rapidly growing residential developments--putting an increasing number of citizens and their property into the path of wildfires. To be effective, wildfire risk management must be informed by science--but that requires more than just knowledge about the physical and biological dynamics of fire and forest ecosystems. Social values, socioeconomic factors, demographic trends, institutional arrangements, and human behavior must also be taken into consideration by the agencies and individuals responsible for wildland fire decision making.

This book is designed to make relevant social science information more available and useful to wildfire risk managers and policy makers, as well as to scholars and students.

It explores the theoretical and methodological issues surrounding human interactions with wildfire and describes the practical implications of this research.

Natural Hazards Center Library

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Katrina Resource Page

The Center created a Web page that compiles a list of useful resources examining the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The Natural Hazards Center Library at the University of Colorado houses one of the most unique collections of social science literature in the world. The library's primary focus is on research and information about how society prepares for, responds to, recovers from, and mitigates damage and other losses from natural hazards and catastrophic events.

This nonlending library is an important resource for scholars and practitioners who are studying hazards and disasters. The collection includes bound documents, serials, reports, journal articles, video tapes, and compact discs.

HazLit, the library's searchable online database, provides access to the full collection of the library. HazLit offers users the opportunity to easily search the library's holdings and identify the publications they need. The database is updated weekly.

In addition to this online service, for a fee, the Natural Hazards Center can conduct extensive custom searches of its library collection. Feel free to ask us hazards-related questions too! We are happy to guide your research or put you in touch with people or institutions that may have the answers you need.

The Natural Hazards Center would like to thank the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) for funding the HazLit upgrade project.