Editors: Ülkü Ulusoy and Himansu Kumar Kundu

Of all the natural calamities, earthquakes are the most feared due to their extremely unpredictable nature and immense power of destruction. In the twentieth century alone two to three million people were killed by earthquakes, especially in countries like China, Japan, Turkey, Taiwan, India and Iran. Although spectacular progress has been made in the field of forecasting natural hazards like thunderstorms, typhoons etc., forecast or prediction of earthquakes still remains one of the most challenging problems in modern science, which has an enormous effect on the society at large. With the advent of new technologies, newer conceptions in earthquake mechanism, and an openness or inclination to study some phenomena in hitherto uncharted areas like the pre-earthquake unusual animal (both pet and wild) behavior, unusual cloud formation etc., mid-infrared or thermal emission of ground and above all the availability of various measuring instruments with very high resolution and accuracy, the perception of earthquake prediction has undergone a great change over the years from the realm of sheer pessimism to a certain extent of optimism. Unlike the situation a few years back, more and more researchers working in different fields are engaged in deciphering the various types of premonitory signals or precursors of earthquake, which were earlier not found fit to be considered at all for such study.

The major theme of this book is scientific evaluation of different categories of unusual phenomena, i.e., precursors prior to large earthquakes and the explanation of their occurrence using electromagnetic models. In addition, focus has been targeted to consider various scientific methods in the arena of interdisciplinary fields mainly on the short term forecasting of the large earthquakes, which is making a remarkable progress in recent years. The book presents an integrated approach to the concept of earthquake prediction as a whole, based on studies of precursors related to the living things, underground, land and atmosphere. We hope that the book will play an important role in the understanding and developing new and effective systems for earthquake prediction, based on multidisciplinary approach, which will ultimately help in reducing the earthquake-related loss of lives and property.