The economic costs of natural hazards are escalating. Rising population in high-risk areas and our increasingly complex infrastructure further increase potential losses. The largest amount of federal funding supports research on weather hazards¾especially short-term prediction¾with comparatively little research on long-term loss reduction approaches that improve the resilience of communities and infrastructure. Improving loss data and modeling and a establishing more thoughtful framework for the role of research would help policymakers formulate a more productive hazard loss reduction strategy.

Governments have done much to leverage information technology to deploy e-government services, but much work remains before the vision of e-government can be fully realized. Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-government examines the emerging visions for e-government, the technologies required to implement them, and approaches that can be taken to accelerate innovation and the transition of innovative information technologies from the laboratory to operational government systems. In many cases, government can follow the private sector in designing and implementing IT-based services. But there are a number of areas where government requirements differ from those in the commercial world, and in these areas government will need to act on its role as a "demand leader." Although researchers and government agencies may appear to by unlikely allies in this endeavor, both groups have a shared interest in innovation and meeting future needs. E-government innovation will require addressing a broad array of issues, including organization and policy as well as engineering practice and technology research and development, and each of these issues is considered in the book.

Specifically written to support the teaching of geographical skills at Key Stage 3 / S1-S2, this book provides an excellent foundation in the skills required for the study of geography at GCSE.

New applications to geology and tectonics. Increased material on Quaternary chronology, including lichen chronology and micro stratigraphy of desert varnish. New studies, including research in the Olympic Mountains, Nepal, Australia, Taiwan, the Himalaya, and the New Madrid seismic zone of the central United States. New techniques such as cosmogenic surface-exposure dating, argon and helium geobarometry and geothermometry, regional hyposometric analysis using digital elevation models,