Hazards

Question 1

What is a natural hazard?

Answer 1

Extreme natural events that can cause loss of life, extreme damage to property and disrupt human activities.

Question 2

Three types of natural hazard

Answer 2

Geophysical (e.g. earthquake)
Atmospheric (e.g. tropical storm)
Hydrological (e.g. floods)

Question 3

Hazard Perception

Answer 3

People have different viewpoints of how dangerous hazards are and what risks they pose.
Dependent on lifestyle factors which include economic and cultural elements.
E.g. wealth, experience, mobility, religion

Question 4

Fatalism

Answer 4

People accept that there will be a risk and do little about it prior the event.
Believe nothing can be done to reduce harm of natural hazard.
Hazards are uncontrollable events

Question 5

Prediction

Answer 5

Scientific research and past events to predict when a hazard will take place so warnings can be delivered and impacts of hazard can be reduced. (E.g. predicting wildfires from climatic red flags)

Question 6

Adaptation

Answer 6

Attempting to live with hazards by adjusting lifestyle choices so that vulnerability to the hazard is reduced (e.g. earthquake proof houses)

Question 7

Mitigation

Answer 7

Strategies carried out to lessen severity of a hazard (e.g. sandbags to offset impact of flooding)

Question 8

Management

Answer 8

Co-ordinated strategies to reduce hazards effect. Includes prediction, adaptation and mitigation

Question 9

Risk-sharing

Answer 9

Community preparedness whereby the community shares the risk posed by natural hazard to reduce individual damage and invest collectively to mitigate impacts of future hazards.

Question 10

Hazard incidence

Answer 10

Frequency of a hazard.
Low incidence hazards may be harder to predict and have less management strategies and lower incidence hazards tend to be more severe.

Question 11

Hazard distribution

Answer 11

Where hazards occur geographically
Areas of high hazard distribution likely to have a lot of management strategies, and those living there will be adapted to hazardous landscape.

Question 12

Hazard intensity and magnitude

Answer 12

Power of a hazard. Effects on the person.
Size of a hazard. Measurable
Hugh magnitude, high intensity hazards will have worse effects and require more management. (E.g. more mitigation strategies needed to ensure a normal life can be carried out after the hazard)

Question 13

Level of development

Answer 13

Economic development will affect how a place can respond to a hazard, so a hazard of same magnitude may have very different effects in two places of contrasting levels of development.
Lower level of development will mean worse management as they have less wealth so worse infrastructure and technology and evacuation plans.