The concept of hazard in a geographical context

Question 1

What is a hazard?

Answer 1

A threat which has the poetntial to cause damage to people, the built environment and the natural environment.

Question 2

What is an example of a hazard?

Answer 2

Living on a fault line.

Question 3

What is a disaster?

Answer 3

Something which occurs as a result of a hazard and often poses risk to life, infrastructure and lifestyles.

Question 4

What is the general trend of natural disasters between 1900-2006?

Answer 4

1. Overtime, the number of deaths has decreased but on average people are more affected by natural hazards (negative/inverse correlation)
2. The highest spike of people affected by natural hazards occured in 2004 with 650,000,000 people affected.

Question 5

What are the 3 common characteristics of natural hazards?

Answer 5

1. Their origins are clear and they cause distinctive effects
2. A short warning time before the event occurs
3. Exposure to risk is involuntary (people do not have a choice).
4. Most losses to life and damage occur shortly after the event.

Question 6

What is Degg’s model?

Answer 6

A model which compares the severity of a natural hazard with the vulnerability of the population.

Question 7

What are thresholds?

Answer 7

Measured quantities of a hazardous event becoming a disaster.

Question 8

What is resilience?

Answer 8

The ability of a community to cope with a hazard event.

Question 9

What is capacity to cope?

Answer 9

How well a community copes with a hazard event.

Question 10

What is vulnerability?

Answer 10

The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that makes it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.

Question 11

What are geophysical hazards?
Name two.

Answer 11

Hazards which are driven by plate tectonics, mainly land processes:
1. Earthquakes
2. Volcano eruptions

Question 12

What are hydrological hazards?
Name two.

Answer 12

Hazards which are caused by water bodies and movement:
1. Flooding
2. Avalanche

Question 13

What are atmospheric hazards?

Answer 13

Hazards caused by processes at work in the atmosphere:
1. Tornado
2. Drought

Question 14

What are primary impacts?
Give an example.

Answer 14

Something which occurs directly as a result of a natural event.
For example, earthquake causes a building to collapse.

Question 15

What are secondary impacts? Give and example.

Answer 15

Something which occurs indirectly/ is not always directly related to a hazard event.
For example, the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

Question 16

Why should hazards not be confused with natural disasters?

Answer 16

A disaster will only occur when a vulnerable population is exposed to a hazards, a concept demonstrated by the Degg’s model.

Question 17

What is the disaster risk equation model?

Answer 17

risk= hazard x (vulnerability/capacity to cope)

Question 18

What is a passive way a human may respond to a hazard?

Answer 18

Fatalism - The idea that hazards are uncontrollable natural events and their effects should be accepted.

Question 19

What are active ways a human may respond to a hazard?

Answer 19

1. Prediction
2. Adaptation
3. Mitigation
4. Management
5. Risk sharing

Question 20

Give an example of risk-sharing.

Answer 20

In the multi-hazard environment of New Zealand, there are now efforts to share the risk by insurance investment.

Question 21

What is the hazard management cycle?

Answer 21

A cyclical model which outlines the stages of responding to known events, showing how the same stages take place after every hazard.

Question 22

What are the 4 main stages of the hazard management cycle?

Answer 22

1. Preparedness
2. Response
3. Recovery
4. Mitigation

Question 23

What is the preparedness stage of the HMC?

Answer 23

Using evidence and data from previous events to plan for similar hazards in the future.

Question 24

What is the response stage of the HMC?

Answer 24

Concerned with deploying services and resources to save people and property from harm.

Question 25

What is the recovery stage of the HMC?

Answer 25

Concerned with post-disaster reconstruction and restoration of the local built and natural environment

Question 26

What is the mitigation stage of the HMC?

Answer 26

The active steps taken to minimise the negative impacts associated with the hazard.

Question 27

Give two examples of what may occur during the mitigation stage of the HMC?

Answer 27

• Constructing earthquake proof buildings
• Constructing flood protection systems (defences).

Question 28

What is The Park model?

Answer 28

A graphical representation of human responses to hazards which shows the steps carried out in the recovery after a hazard.

Question 29

What does the steepness of the curve in the Park Model show?

Answer 29

How quickly an area deteriorates and recovers.

Question 30

What does the depth of the curve in the Park Model show?

Answer 30

The scale of the disaster.