Introduction: Conceptualising the Demography of Disasters -- Long-Term Mass Displacements—The Main Demographic Consequence of Nuclear Disasters? -- Estimating Migration Impacts of Wildfire: California’s 2017 North Bay Fires -- The 2010 Catastrophic Forest Fires in Russia: Consequence of Rural Depopulation? -- Disruptions and Diversions: The Demographic Consequences of Natural Disasters in Sparsely Populated Areas -- Land Use Planning for Demographic Change After Disasters in New Orleans, Christchurch and Innisfail -- Disasters and Demographic Change of ‘Single-Industry’ Towns—Decline and Resilience in Morwell, Australia -- Migration as a Potential Heat Stress Adaptation Strategy in Australia -- Designing Resilient Cities that Work for Women, Too -- Compounding Impacts of Lifeline Infrastructure Failure During Natural Hazard Events -- Communities in Fukushima and Chernobyl—Enabling and Inhibiting Factors for Recovery in Nuclear Disaster Areas -- Exchanging Disaster Science Expertise Between Countries—A Japanese Personal Perspective -- The Ontological Praxis Between Disaster Studies and Demography—Extension of the Scope.

This open access book provides worldwide examples demonstrating the importance of the interplay between demography and disasters in regions and spatially. It marks an advance in practical and theoretical insights for understanding the role of demography in planning for and mitigating impacts from disasters in developed nations.
Both slow onset (like the of loss polar ice from climate change) and sudden disasters (such as cyclones and man-made disasters) have the capacity to fundamentally change the profiles of populations at local and regional levels. Impacts vary according to the type, rapidity and magnitude of the disaster, but also according to the pre-existing population profile and its relationships to the economy and society. In all cases, the key to understanding impacts and avoiding them in the future is to understand the relationships between disasters and population change.
In most chapters in this book we compare and contrast studies from at least two cases and summarize their practical and theoretical lessons.