Natural Hazards in the MENA Region

Abstract

Natural hazards occupy a significant geo-environmental problem in many regions worldwide. It is rarely a year goes by without a severe regional disastrous event influencing human life, urban structure and the environment. The impact of natural hazards has been dramatically increased due to many physical and man-made factors. There are several aspects of disastrous natural processes where some of them occur as flash events, other with considerable time periods to touch its impact. The assessment, monitoring and identification of natural hazards remain a challenge, notably in the absence of sufficient tools for analysis and weak knowledge and skills to tackle the subject matter. Recently, the development of space techniques played a major role in the analysis of natural risk including predications, change detection, and pre/post-conflict assessment, as well as the diagnoses of the influencing factors. Natural hazards are well pronounced in the MENA Region where several physical components, including the meteorology and exposures, makes it vulnerable for natural risks. Lately, the use of remotely sensed data and tools has been adopted in the MENA Region in order to investigate these disastrous events. Thus, many studies and projects proved to be very helpful in the reduction of risk impact. This chapter introduces a comprehensive knowledge of the remote sensing applications and the natural hazards occur in the MENA Region. Therefore, case studies from different countries and for diverse aspects of natural hazards, will be illustrated.