Disasters to come

Disasters occur from the impact of a variety of natural and technological hazards. This paper explores the kind of disasters we can expect in the coming century, the challenges they present to human societies, and suggests a few future coping strategies. It argues that some future disasters will occur as a result of slow onset of hazards such as Global Warming or Ozone Layer Damage. Other disasters will happen more rapidly, emerging from such human actions as terrorism and resource wars. We can expect future disasters to be increasingly large in scale due to the complexity of human society and the ever growing size and density of urban regions and the built environment.