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Geohazard Research Centre, School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (e-mail: richard.teeuw@port.ac.uk)
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With human population and associated environmental degradation continuing to increase, it is inevitable that more and more people will be living in zones of hazardous terrain, and therefore the risk of disaster will increase. Add to this the growing evidence for global warming and the increased severity of geohazards related to larger and more frequent storms (i.e. storm surges, coastal erosion, landslides, fluvial flooding, erosion) and both the frequency and severity of disasters is set to increase (e.g. Kesavan & Swaminathan 2006; Smolka 2006; van Aalst 2006).
Remote sensing (measuring and mapping the Earth's surface from aircraft or satellites) can help us to rapidly assess, and therefore better manage, geohazards. Remote sensing and hazardous terrain mapping can play key roles in the management and mitigation of natural disasters (e.g. Cutter 2003; Zeil 2003), with applications grouped into three main stages.
(1) Pre-disaster.Maps showing the distribution of geohazards and their relative severities can be used by key decision makers in government, the insurance industry and the local population, to minimize the danger to people and infrastructure. For this stage, geomorphological mapping based on stereoscopic aerial photography has been widely used for many years (e.g. Verstappen & Van Zuidan 1968; Doornkamp et al. 1979; Mantovani et al. 1996). A new development is mapping based on spectral responses and digital elevation models (DEMs), either regionally using satellite sensors (e.g. Liu et al. 2004; Andrews Deller 2006; Theilen-Willige 2006), or in detail
