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The Dynamics of Disaster
with Professor Sue Kieffer
Professor Sue Kieffer is from the
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. During her time in the
Institute as a Senior Research Fellow,
Sue researched highly energetic
geological events, particularly comparing
and contrasting the behaviour of
torrential river floods with that of large
landslides. She is one of the world’s
leading authorities on geological
fluid dynamics that address dynamic
surface processes, such as movement
of water and wind and the dynamics
of volcanic eruptions and meteorite
impacts. Her work has made a large
impact on the geosciences, especially in
understanding the geological processes
that lead to different kinds of hazards,
such as floods and landslides. Sue’s
research spans terrestrial as well as
extraterrestrial environments as her
geyser theory was applied to the study
of volcanoes on Io, one of Jupiter’s
moons. Her shockwave theory was
used to study the historic eruption of
Mt St Helens in the US, as well as the
massive flood on the Colorado River
in 1983. Sue’s forthcoming book The
Dynamics of Disaster provides some
unique insights into both geohazards
and ‘stealth disasters’, such as climate
change.
What is your new book
The Dynamics of Disaster about?
I’m a geologist, and I wanted to convey
a sense of the science behind disasters
and create a sense of unity, because
I’ve found that if people are aware of
disasters in one region, for example,
near their home, they still might
not understand, or even be aware of
disasters in other regions. I believe that
it is important for people, especially
policy and decision makers, to
understand the full scope of disasters.
In the book I try to unify the science
of disasters in this word ‘dynamics’.
Scientifically, I’m using that word to
encapsulate that a disaster occurs when
something in nature changes state.
In the book, I talk about disasters
such as landslides, volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes, rogue waves, tsunamis,
droughts and floods. In detail the
science for each hazard is quite
different – what do droughts and
volcanic eruptions have in common?
For every one of these hazards energy
changes from one form to another,
what I call a ‘change of state’. So, for
example, when the Earth moves in a
landslide, energy stored in the form of
potential energy gets transformed into
kinetic energy of motion. In a volcanic
eruption chemical energy stored in
dissolved gases, like a soda pop bottle,
gets transformed into kinetic energy as
the gases nucleate and expand.
What would you like people
to learn from your book?
At the level of individual readers, I
would like people to be aware of what
the planet does and how it might
impact them, their neighbours and
communities. A good way to begin (for
people in the US) is to contact their
state geological surveys or the US
Geological Survey. Similar agencies exist
in Britain (such as the British Geological
Survey) and many other countries. On a
bigger level, I would like policy makers
to understand enough about the science
of these processes to help them in
decision-making processes.
In the book and in papers that I’ve
published, I’ve distinguished between
natural disasters that basically result
from the physical processes of the
Earth, and disasters that I call ‘stealth
disasters’. These result from, and can
even be caused by, humans and their
interaction with the Earth. Compaction
and poisoning of the soil, acidification
of the oceans, and climate change are
examples of stealth disasters.