Term 2 - Theme 2 (2)

Question 1

Hazard - Wisner et al (2004)

Answer 1

Natural events that may affect different places slightly or in combination at different times.

Question 2

Disaster - Wisner, B et al (2004)

Answer 2

A disaster occurs when a significant number of vulnerable people experience a hazard and suffer sever damage and/or disruption of their livelihood system in such a way that recovering is unlikely without external aid.

Question 3

Vulnerability

Answer 3

Characteristics of individuals or groups that influence impact and recovery.

Question 4

Risk equation

Answer 4

Hazard probability x elements at risk x vulnerability

Question 5

Stages of disaster

Answer 5

Impact, relief, rehab and recovery.

Question 6

Park’s (1991) disaster response curve

Answer 6

Stage 1 - modifying the case and event, Stage 2 - The hazardous event, Stage 3 - Entering relief stage - Search, rescue and care. Stage 4 - Entering rehab stage - may include outside help. Stage 5 - reconstruction phase - nature of recovery related to: the need to reduce vulnerability and the need to restore asap.

Question 7

Risk - Smith and Petley (2009)

Answer 7

Risk assessment involves - the identification of hazards likely to result in disasters, the estimation of the likelihood of such events and the evaluation of social consequences of the hazard.

Question 8

Magnitude-probability relationship - Smith and Petley (2009)

Answer 8

Many natural hazards can be mesured objectively on scientific scales of magnitude or intensity. Unfortunately, such scales tend to measure just one physical factor that influences disaster impact.

Question 9

Disaster effects on vulnerability

Answer 9

Disaster impact severity reflects the level of vulnerability, vulnerability is not static it varies over time, when the magnitude is plotted against the logarithm of its frequency it usually exhibits a relationship of increasing frequency/decreasing magnitude and vice versa.

Question 10

Specific characteristics of hazard and its context

Answer 10

Velocity of avalanche flow - nature of snow. One factor scales e.g. maximum sustained wind speed. Local conditions e.g. earthquake on a mountain vs earthquake on a submarine fault.

Question 11

Annual probability of events for an American (Landon, 1994, book of risk).

Answer 11

Having a car accident - 1 in 12, Being murdered - 1 in 11,000, being killed in aeroplane crash - 1 in 250,000. Being killed by lightning - 1 in 10,000,000.

Question 12

Garvin, 2001

Answer 12

An individual’s perception of risk is the result of complex interactions between the goal attitudes taken by the community in which the person lives and any personal experience of dealing with the hazard in question..

Question 13

Social amplification

Answer 13

When factors combine to create an exaggerated fear of a threat. If tends to occur when the threat is new to individuals, when people believe that the true magnitude of the risk is being hidden from them in some way.

Question 14

Wynne (192) risk perception

Answer 14

Coined the term ‘deficit mode’ to denote how objective scientists are juxtaposed to irrational lay people in many theories of the human response to risk.

Question 15

Starr (1969) Voluntary and involuntary risks

Answer 15

In the case of the voluntary activities, the individuals uses his own value system to evaluate life experiences. Involuntary activities differ in that the criteria and options are determined not by the individuals affected but by a central body.

Question 16

Slovic (2000) Psychometric approache

Answer 16

One strategy for studying perceived risk is to develop a taxonomy for hazards that can be used to understand and predict responses to their risks. The psychometric paradigm uses psychophysical scaling and multivariate techniques to produce quantitative representations of risk attitudes and perceptions.

Question 17

Slovic (2000) - People’s quantitive judgments of risk based on 5 other properties.

Answer 17

1 - the hazard’s score on characteristics that have been hypothesised to account for risk perception and attitudes. 2 - the benefits that each hazard provides to society. 3 - the number of deaths caused by the hazard in an average year. 4 - the benefits that each hazard provides to society. 5 - the seriousness of each death for a particular local relative to a death due to other causes.

Question 18

the ‘dread’ factor

Answer 18

The higher a hazard’s score on Slovic’s scores, the higher its perceived risk, the more people want to see strict regulation employed to achieve the desired reduction in risk.

Question 19

socio-cultural approach - locality and place

Answer 19

sensory and direct experience, stigma. Agency: The able male effect. Controllability

Question 20

Ho et al (2008) study

Answer 20

Examine how risk perceptions is influenced by the type of disaster. the negative associations between the sense of controllability and the perceived amount of risk is high for landslide events but not for flood victims.

Question 21

Ho et al male’s

Answer 21

in many disaster prone areas, the main recipient of the risk communication campaign are males, who are also likely to be the decision makers in many suburban disaster prone areas. There is less financial loss or sense of death.

Question 22

Communication

Answer 22

Trust in experts + authorities. Social factors influencing trust. Terminology; scale or reporting. Correspondence between expert information.