Exploration of the interaction processes between natural/technical hazards and society that cause disasters; introduction to the natural and technological hazards and disasters; hazards and disaster management; environmental considerations and impacts.

Damage and economic impacts of natural and man-made disasters have been growing at exponential rates over the past few decades. The magnitude of these disasters and our global interconnectedness have grown to the point where a catastrophic disaster resulting from either natural or man-made hazards have regional, national, and even global economic consequences. Nowhere are these threats more daunting than in Louisiana, the Gulf Coast Region and the Caribbean Basin. A “disaster” is a condition that involves a serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human, material, or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope using only its own resources (U.N. 1992). Emergency Management is the organized analysis, planning, decision-making, and assignment of available resources to mitigate (lessen the effect of or prevent) prepare for, respond to, and recover from the effects of all hazards. This course provides a comprehensive overview of emergency management including the functions of emergency management, disaster management systems (organizational, communication, response, warning, planning, recovery, and mitigation), mass media involvement in disasters, roles of non-profit organizations, emergency management and the private sector, and legal issues. Students will examine disaster incident management history, organization, terminology, resources, facilities, and agency responsibilities.

This course provides students interested in hazards and disasters with an opportunity to meet with LSU faculty and staff as well as local, regional, and national experts in the areas of emergency management, disaster response and recovery, and hazards. Many LSU and other Louisiana university faculty have extensive experience in emergency planning, response, recovery as well as mitigation. Their ongoing research provides LSU students with a great resource in understanding what can be done to reduce our vulnerability to natural and human caused disasters. A local, regional, or national hazard expert joins the seminar each week to share their unique perspective on disasters and then talk with students to link their experience to student interests.

Defines terrorism and it origins; examines the consequences of modern terrorist attacks and campaigns; the ideological and religious justifications for terrorism; domestic versus international terrorist networks; state sponsored terrorism; factors contributing to the successful preemption and disruption of terrorist attacks and networks.

Engineering problems of the coastal zone; coastal processes, wave action, currents, sediment movement; environmental forces due to waves, currents, and winds; offshore soil geotechnical properties, vertical and lateral pile capacity; design principles for submarine pipelines and offshore platforms; engineering case studies.

Faculty supervised field study with an agency or organization whose mission is considered relevant to the emergency management system or disaster planning, response, or mitigation.

By arrangement with the Instructors. (Contact Leonard Hochberg, William Fagan or John Pine.)

Introduction to community planning including statutory basis of planning, history of planning and comparison of Louisiana to other states.  Planning and development tools, environmental tools as planning techniques, the role of the master plan; citizen participation, “Smart Growth” and major Louisiana legal cases in planning.

Assessment of environmental risks; interactions of pollution/toxins with the human body; managing and predicting risks.

Chemical principles applied to the study of the distribution, transport, reactivity, and toxicity of chemical species in the environment.

Systematic framework for examining the nature and consequences of natural and man-made hazards; strategies that may be taken to plan, respond, recover, prevent, or mitigate hazards.

Climatic phenomena; methods in development of regional climatology.

Geographic information systems used in land resource management and planning; data structures and algorithms for automated retrieval and analysis of spatial data; structuring cartographic data into spatial data; integration of remotely sensed data into geographic information systems.

Human-environment interaction from a historical geographic perspective; human agency in altering the environment and managing resources, and social response to environmental hazards.

Modernity, colonialism, and globalization in regional perspective.

Theories of international conflict, war, and conflict resolution.

Cross-regional comparison on the interaction between politics and economics; topics include electoral business cycles, foreign trade, foreign investment, industrial policy, and the environment.

Basic principles, problems, and concepts of international politics; evolution and nature of nation-state; concepts of sovereignty, power, and national interest; patterns of conflict and cooperation; foreign policies of the major powers.

Concepts of psychological treatment in adjustment problems.

This course seeks to introduce the major religious and cultural dimensions of the Islamic world, both those that express its diversity and those that express its continuity. No prior work is presupposed. Emphasis will be given to the development of classical Islamic institutions and ideas as well as the diverse forms of Islamic religious and cultural life over the past fourteen centuries as the Islamic tradition has spread around the world. A major purpose of the course is to provide students with a better and deeper understanding of the Islamic past and through this, the Islamic world today. While this is not a history course, anyone taking it should come away with a basic grasp of the larger historical framework within which Islamic civilization has developed.

Prereq.: SOCL 2001 or equivalent. May be taken for a max. of 3 sem. hrs. of credit when topics vary.

This course introduces hurricanes as a multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses both geophysical and societal dimensions. Lecture topics include hurricane meteorology and climate variability, oceanographic response and coastal impacts, storm deposition, ecological effects, geological and historical records, and societal impacts and response. Tropical cyclone activity will be discussed from a global perspective that includes hurricanes and typhoons in both the Atlantic and Pacific basins.