Tectonic Hazard Characteristics Hazard profiles

Question 1

Hazard profiles can be used to compare tectonic hazard events
Hazard profiles usually include information about:

Answer 1

Magnitude (size of hazard)

Speed of onset(how quickly does it happen)

Areal extent (size of area affected

Duration

Frequency

Spatial predictability( is there a pattern to where it happens

Question 2

Advantages of Hazard profiles

Answer 2

.They can also be used to plan for future events

.They are useful when looking at one hazard such as an earthquake

Question 3

advantage of hazard profiles when comparing

Answer 3

Hazard profiles can be used to compare:
Different hazards

Same hazards with different processes - a volcano on a destructive boundary compared to one on a constructive boundary

Same hazards with different human vulnerabilities - an earthquake in a developed country compared to one in a developing country

Question 4

Disadvantages
Hazard profiles do have disadvantages

Answer 4

Other factors may have a greater influence over the impact

They focus on physical factors when human factors may be the most important

Multi-hazard events are not easily represented on a hazard profile

They are subjective

Question 5

It is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using hazard profiles to compare hazards. You should be able to outline the advantages and disadvantages using real life examples.

Answer 5

For example, you can compare magnitude of earthquakes on a hazard profile but the correlation between magnitude and impacts is not always straightforward due to other factors such as level of development. This can be seen in the comparison of Nepal (2015) and New Zealand (2016). They both experienced 7.8 magnitude earthquakes. However the number of deaths in Nepal was almost 9,000 whereas in New Zealand it was 2. Other factors such as population density had more impact on the number of deaths.