Geographers and the Risk and Environmental Disasters' Theory

The investigation by geographers about risks, goes back to the 'classics' of Greece, who thought that natural phenomena as events in the evolution of nature, as divine punishments or as disasters due to human-nature interaction. The issue of disaster and risk is part of physical and human theories about territories and was recognized as an autonomous scientific theory only in the mid-twentieth century. The theoretical interpretations of these themes is based on different approaches: from the physical and natural theory in investigations about geo-morphological, climatologic or hydrologic events, from the social and human theory in the research of human perceptions, behaviors and socio-economic conditions of communities and, more recently, from systemic theories, that try to integrate and explain holistically and understand the risks and disasters from physical, biological, ecological, economical, social, cultural, political and institutional settings in order to create predictive and preventive scenarios. Prospective studies of risk in the geographical discipline are part of the environmental bias with theories and methodologies coming from complex systems, studied spatially with dynamic and unique settings with order and planning purposes of the territories.