Extreme natural hazards, disaster risks and societal implications

Great advances in understanding planet Earth and its environment allow its geophysical processes and phenomena including their extreme manifestations, which lead to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, severe space weather, wildfires and other natural hazard events, to be studied. There is a deep belief in the community of natural scientists that with progress in science and the scientific ability to predict extreme events the problem of disaster risk reduction will be resolved. That is perhaps true to some extent.