The Concept Of Hazards Flashcards
What is a natural hazard?
An event that is perceived to be a threat to people, the built environment and the natural environment.
What are the 3 categories of hazards?
Geophysical
Hydrological
Atmospheric
List 6 examples of geophysical hazards.
Tectonic: caused by internal earth processes. Eg volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.
Geomorphological: caused by external earth processes. Eg landslides, rockfalls and rockslides.
What are geophysical hazards caused by?
Caused by earth processes.
List 2 examples of hydrological hazards.
Floods and mudflows.
What causes hydrological hazards?
Caused by the occurrence, movement and distribution of surface and underground water.
List 6 examples of atmospheric hazards.
Tropical storms, thunder storms, blizzards, droughts, wildfires and sand storms.
What causes atmospheric hazards?
Processes operating in the atmosphere resulting in extreme weather or atmospheric conditions.
What is soil liquefaction?
Ground failure or loss of strength that caused otherwise solid soil to behave temporarily as a viscous liquid.
What is a fissure?
Localised ground displacement that develop during and immediately after an earthquake.
What is a natural disaster?
A naturally occurring process or event which has the potential to cause loss of life or property.
Without people it is just a natural event.
What does the Dregg’s Model show?
The Dregg’s Model shows that a natural disaster only occurs if a vulnerable population is exposed to a hazard.
What does the UN define as a natural disaster?
10+ people are killed
100+ people are affected
A state of emergency is declared
International assistance is called for
List 6 factors that may alter a population’s vulnerability to natural hazards.
Wealth of people
Technical ability of country
Education levels
Rural location
Age of population
Urban location
How is risk measured?
Risk (R) = Frequency or magnitude of hazard (H) x vulnerability (V)
/ capacity to cope or adapt (C)
What is risk?
The probability of harmful consequences, or expected losses (deaths, injuries, property, livelihoods, economic activity disrupted or environment damaged) resulting from interactions between natural or human-induced hazards and vulnerable conditions.
What is a hazard?
A potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.
What is vulnerability?
The conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes, which increase the susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazards.
What is capacity?
A combination of all the strengths and resources available within a community, society or organisation that can reduce the level of risk, or the effects of a disaster.
What is fatalism?
An optimistic or accepting approach, where people may believe that hazards are part of life or ‘acts of God’.
What is domination?
This perspective suggests that hazards are predictable and that they can be better understood by scientific research.
What is adaptation?
The perspective that’s the view that hazards are influenced by natural and human events and so we can change our lives to reduce impacts.
Advantages of the Risk Management Cycle
Emphasises preparation BEFORE which can reduce loss once hazard occurs.
Can help in assessing how good hazard management has been - lays out what SHOULD happen, which can be compared to what actually happens.
Reduces stress and anxiety - people are assured that hazard mitigation is happening.
Disadvantages of the Risk Management Cycle
More applicable to HICs, who are wealthier and can more easily adapt their policies.
Generic and unquantifiable
What are the 4 stages of the Risk Management Cycle?
Preparedness
Response
Recovery
Mitigation/ prevention
What does the Park Model (1991) plot?
The Park Model plots the quality of life after a disaster against the time after the disaster has occurred.
The curve shows how fast human responses are.
Evaluate the usefulness of the Hazard management cycle.
Takes into account the steps taken before a hazard to minimise impact.
Considers how one hazard leads to the next - they are not always isolated events.
Focuses more on the management of the event than the impacts it has.
Provides a model of action designed to speed up the recovery process as well as minimise the impact.
No indications of time scale.
Evaluate the usefulness of the Park Model.
Allows us to compare the significance of the event with ‘normality’.
Can indicate the magnitude or severity of the event.
The speed to which things return to normality helps us understand how prepared a community was for the event and how successful it has been in responding to crisis.
Could be used to directly compare two events (eg with two lines).
Doesn’t specify the steps taken before the hazard.
Evaluate the usefulness of the Park Model and the Hazard Management Cycle.
Helps to chart the stages following a disaster/hazard.
No quantitative ‘data’ to show the specifics of each situation.
Doesn’t take into account the complexity of secondary hazards/impacts (eg Cholera outbreak after Haiti earthquake).
No account of spatial variation eg within or between countries.
Overly simplistic compared to reality.
