Tectonics EQ2 Flashcards
What is a natural hazard?
A perceived nautral/geophysical event that has the potential to threaten both life and property
What is a natural disaster?
The realisation of a hazard, when it causes significant impact on a vulnerable population
What is Degg’s model?
Venn diagram stating that a disaster is the intersection of a hazardous geophysical event, and a vulnerable population
Why is vulnerability important?
Vulnerability is directly linked to resilience, and a region’s capacity to cope with tectonic hazards. More vulnerable populations are susceptible to worse impacts from tectonic hazards.
What is risk?
The probability of a hazard occurring that leads to the loss of lives and/or livelihood
What is resilience?
The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb and recover from the effects of a hazard
What is vulnerability?
The geographical conditions that increases the susceptibility of a community to a hazard or to the impact of a hazard event.
What is the resilience of a community determined by?
The degree to which the community has the necessary resources and is capable of organising itself both prior to and in times of need
What is the hazard-risk equation
risk = hazard x vulnerability/manageability
What is the basis for the Pressure and Release model?
A disaster is the intersection of processes generating vulnerability on one side and the natural hazard event on the other
What 3 factors are involved in the progression of vulnerability from the PAR model?
root causes
dynamic pressures
unsafe conditions
What are some examples of root causes, dynamic pressures and unsafe conditions?
Root causes - limited access to resources. Ideologies
Dynamic pressures - lack of training, local investment. Rapid changes (urbanisation, deforestation)
Unsafe conditions - fragile physical environment, vulnerable society
What are the social impacts of tectonic hazards
death/injury
destruction of homes
displacement, people made homeless
What are the economic impacts of tectonic hazards?
buildings/infrastructure damage
economic losses
growth of economy prevented
Why are the impacts of tectonic hazards often greater in less developed countries?
Less developed countries = poorly built infrastructure, poor healthcare, lack of resources to properly protect property, overpopulation, poverty
This creates a vulnerable society with a lack of ability to be resilient to tectonic hazards
Why are the impacts of earthquakes generally greater than those of volcanoes?
concentration of volcanoes in narrow belts (less than 1% of population exposed to volcanic activity, whereas 5% at risk from earthquakes)
volcanic eruptions have a slower speed of onset and greater spatial predictability
earthquakes cannot be predicted (no diagnostic precursor), there is greater opportunity for volcano mitigation
What is a tectonic hazard profile?
A technique used to try to understand the physical characteristics of different types of hazards
What characteristics are compared in a tectonic hazard profile?
magnitude
speed of onset
duration
areal extent
spatial predictability
frequency
What are the difficulties with hazard profiling?
degree of reliability when comparing different event types
hard to compare across hazard types as they all have different impacts on society and varying spatial and temporal distributions
What inequalities can affect vulnerability and resilience?
Inequalities in access to:
education
housing
healthcare
income opportunities
Why do less developed countries find themselves limited by the impacts of tectonic disasters?
Infrastructure is damaged, and livelihoods and savings are destroyed.
Death or migration of productive labour force means economy takes a huge hit.
Tectonic disasters worsen development, and make it difficult for recovery to happen in LICs/NEEs
Why do more developed countries sometimes actually benefit from tectonic disasters?
Tectonic disasters create a favourable environment for advocacy for disaster-risk reduction measures.
Decision makers are also more willing to allocate resources in the wake of a disaster.
Reconstruction and rehabilitation create opportunities for integrating disaster-risk measures.
What is governance?
The process by which a country/region is run
What geographical factors influence vulnerability/resilience?
population density
isolation/accessibility
degree of urbanisation
