Part I. Case Studies from North America: 1. Introduction Jean Palutikof, David John Karoly, Sarah Boulter and Daniela Guitart; 2. Climate change and disaster risk management: challenges and opportunities Madeleine C. Thomson; 3. Hurricane Katrina and the city of New Orleans Andrew W. Garcia; 4. A brief history of flooding and flood control measures along the Mississippi river basin, USA Timothy M. Kusky; 5. The 2003 and 2007 wildfires in southern California Jon E. Keeley, Alexandra D. Syphard and C. J. Fotheringham; 6. Adapting to extreme heat events: thirty years of lessons learned from the Kansas City, Missouri, extreme heat program David M. Mills and William D. Snook; Part II. Case Studies from Australia: 7. Drought and water in the Murray-Darling Basin: from disaster policy to adaptation Linda C. Botterill and Stephen Dovers; 8. After 'Black Saturday': adapting to bushfires in a changing climate Joshua Whittaker, John Handmer and David John Karoly; 9. Cyclone Tracy and the road to improving wind resistant design Matthew Mason, Katharine Haynes and George Walker; 10. Adaptation and resilience in two flood prone Queensland communities David King, Armando Apan, Diane Keogh and Melanie Thomas; Part III. Case Studies from Europe: 11. The most costly natural hazard in Europe: windstorms Uwe Ulbrich, Gregor C. Leckebusch and Markus G. Donat; 12. The 2003 heat wave: impacts, public health adaptation, and response in France Mathilde Pascal, Alain Le Tertre and Karine Laaidi; 13. Lessons from river floods in central Europe, 1997-2010 Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz; 14. Lessons learned from the North Sea flooding disaster in the Netherlands, 1953 Pier Vellinga and Jeroen Aerts; Part IV. Case Studies from the Developing World: 15. Adapting to drought in the West African Sahel Simon P. J. Batterbury and Michael J. Mortimore; 16. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: Sri Lankan experience Sam S. L. Hettiarachchi and W. Priyan S. Dias; 17. Recovery efforts: the case of the 2007 cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh Bimal K. Paul and Munshi K. Rahman; 18. Coffee, disasters, and social-ecological resilience in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico Hallie Eakin, Helda Morales, Edwin Castellanos, Gustavo Cruz-Bello and Juan F. Barrera; 19. Responding to floods in the Nile Basin: a case study of the 1997/98 floods in the Upper White Nile Marisa C. Goulden and Declan Conway; 20. Floods in the Yangtze river basin, China Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz, Jiang Tong and Su Buda; Part V. Synthesis Chapters: 21. Disasters and development Jessica Ayers, Saleemul Huq and Sarah Boulter; 22. What next? Climate change as a game-changer for policy and practice Karen O'Brien and Thomas E. Downing; 23. Barriers and limits to adaptation: cautionary notes Jon Barnett, Colette Mortreux and W. Neil Adger; 24. Lessons learned for adaptation to climate change S. Boulter, J. Palutikof and D. Karoly; 25. Afterword: floods, storms, fire, and pestilence - disaster risk in Australia during 2010/11 D. Karoly and S. Boulter.