Civil protection

Throughout history, humans have chosen to settle in places rich in natural resources (water, forests, fertile grounds, minerals?) or in places where productive activities (handicraft, industries, markets, lines of communication?) once flourished .However, every human settlement has both benefits and drawbacks.In order to properly understand the creation and development of the prevention and conservation principles upon which civil protection is based, we must keep in mind the human struggle to overcome environmental odds. Originally, catastrophes were considered unavoidable - humans accepted disasters, believing them to be destiny or the will of God, and nobody thought it was possible to prevent such disasters. Only the phenomena that occurred regularly - such as seasonal flooding of rivers - were faced with any sort of safety precautions. Inhabitants and their property, however, were essentially left to fend for themselves.Later, as the social system developed, humans realized that they could indeed control calamitous events, or at least their effects. So, they began to implement defence methods and systems; in ancient Rome, this included specific and well-organized operational forces.Centuries later, human actions and decisions have more and more significant effects on disasters and their consequences - in some cases, humans have even begun to cause territorial risks, although preventative measures often remedy such risks. Therefore, unavoidable natural disasters now occur less often.Civil protection is the term adopted in this book to indicate all forecast, prevention and management measures taken against extraordinary events which strike territories and societies. In English, this concept is usually referred to as 'Emergency Management', or, more recently, ""Homeland Security"".