The concept of hazard in a geographical context Flashcards
What is a hazard?
A threat which has the poetntial to cause damage to people, the built environment and the natural environment.
What is an example of a hazard?
Living on a fault line.
What is a disaster?
Something which occurs as a result of a hazard and often poses risk to life, infrastructure and lifestyles.
What is the general trend of natural disasters between 1900-2006?
- Overtime, the number of deaths has decreased but on average people are more affected by natural hazards (negative/inverse correlation)
- The highest spike of people affected by natural hazards occured in 2004 with 650,000,000 people affected.
What are the 3 common characteristics of natural hazards?
- Their origins are clear and they cause distinctive effects
- A short warning time before the event occurs
- Exposure to risk is involuntary (people do not have a choice).
- Most losses to life and damage occur shortly after the event.
What is Degg’s model?
A model which compares the severity of a natural hazard with the vulnerability of the population.
What are thresholds?
Measured quantities of a hazardous event becoming a disaster (used to determine whther the impact of an event is large enough to be considered a disaster)
What is resilience?
The ability of a community to cope with a hazard event.
What is capacity to cope?
How well a community copes with a hazard event.
What is vulnerability?
The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that makes it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.
What are geophysical hazards?
Name two.
Hazards which are driven by plate tectonics, mainly land processes:
1. Earthquakes
2. Volcano eruptions
What are hydrological hazards?
Name two.
Hazards which are caused by water bodies and movement:
1. Flooding
2. Avalanche
What are atmospheric hazards?
Hazards caused by processes at work in the atmosphere:
1. Tornado
2. Drought
What are primary impacts?
Give an example.
Something which occurs directly as a result of a natural event.
For example, earthquake causes a building to collapse.
What are secondary impacts? Give and example.
Something which occurs indirectly/ is not always directly related to a hazard event.
For example, the cholera outbreak in Haiti.
Why should hazards not be confused with natural disasters?
A disaster will only occur when a vulnerable population is exposed to a hazards, a concept demonstrated by the Degg’s model.
What is the disaster risk equation model?
risk= hazard x (vulnerability/capacity to cope)
What is a passive way a human may respond to a hazard?
Fatalism - The idea that hazards are uncontrollable natural events and their effects should be accepted.
What are active ways a human may respond to a hazard?
- Prediction
- Adaptation
- Mitigation
- Management
- Risk sharing
Give an example of risk-sharing.
In the multi-hazard environment of New Zealand, there are now efforts to share the risk by insurance investment.
What is the hazard management cycle?
A cyclical model which outlines the stages of responding to known events, showing how the same stages take place after every hazard.
What are the 4 main stages of the hazard management cycle?
- Preparedness
- Response
- Recovery
- Mitigation
What is the preparedness stage of the HMC?
Using evidence and data from previous events to plan for similar hazards in the future.
What is the response stage of the HMC?
Concerned with deploying services and resources to save people and property from harm.
What is the recovery stage of the HMC?
Concerned with post-disaster reconstruction and restoration of the local built and natural environment
What is the mitigation stage of the HMC?
The active steps taken to minimise the negative impacts associated with the hazard.
Give two examples of what may occur during the mitigation stage of the HMC?
- Constructing earthquake proof buildings
- Constructing flood protection systems (defences).
What is The Park model?
A graphical representation of human responses to hazards which shows the steps carried out in the recovery after a hazard.
What does the steepness of the curve in the Park Model show?
How quickly an area deteriorates and recovers.
What does the depth of the curve in the Park Model show?
The scale of the disaster.
