World at risk

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Geography Edexcel AS

• World at risk

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Hazards Contents

• Types of hazards
• Key Terms
• Risks and Vulnerability
• Natural Hazard or Disaster?
• Is the world becoming more hazardous?
• Human factors
• Falling Deaths
• Increasing Numbers of people affected
• El Nino La Nina
• Distributions Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Slides,
  Drought, Storms
• Hazard Hotspots California, Philippines -
  Compared

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What is a hazard?

• Every year many events around the world happen
  that may be described as natural hazards
• For a natural event or phenomena to become a
  hazard it has to involve people
• It is the way that social systems and
  environments link together that determines
  whether an event becomes a hazard
• What is a natural event in an uninhabited
  location can be a severe hazard in another place
  where people are involved
• Definition?
• A natural hazard is a natural event or process
  which affects people eg causing loss of life or
  injury, economic damage, disruption to peoples
  lives or environmental degradation.

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Hazards Two Types of hazards

• Hydro-meteorological

• Geophysical

• Caused by running water and its processes (hydro)
  and those associated with weather patterns
  (meteorological)
• Includes floods, debris and mudflows
• Tropical cyclone/hurricane, storm surges, thunder
  and hail storms, tornadoes, blizzards and other
  sever storm
• Droughts , bush fires temperature extremes, sand
  and dust storms
• Read p 6-8 Pearson

• Caused by earth processes.
• They can be caused by either internal earth
  processes of tectonic activity eg volcanoes,
  earthquakes, tsunamis
• Or by external processes of geomorphological
  origin involving mass movement eg landslides,
  rockfalls, rockslides
• Read P 9-11 Pearson

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Both geophysical and hydro-meteorological?

• These two types of hazard sometimes overlap
• Eg a snow avalanche may be hydro-meteorological(sn
  ow-ice) in origin, but geophysical as an event
  (mass movement)
• Eg a landslide
• CAN GLOBAL WARMING BE SEEN AS A NATURAL HAZARD?

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a)Which of these ten are hazards then? b)Are
they hydrological, meteorological,
geomorphological or tectonic?

• 1. A cyclone affecting Hong Kong
• 2. A hurricane passing over a remote unpopulated
  island
• 3. A flood in a rural area which floods the
  roads, but does not affect any houses
• 4. A volcano erupting in isolation in the
  middles of the Pacific ocean
• 5. An avalanche in a ski resort
• 6. An avalanche high on the mountain slopes
  remote from any settlement
• 7. A tsunami wave 50cm high off the coast of
  Japan
• 8. An earthquake in Kashmir, Northern Pakistan
• 9. A drought in Australias outback
• 10. A landslide in a favela in Rio

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• Na-tech or quasi-natural hazards- where natural
  hazards trigger a technological hazard eg
  flooding causes a dam to burst
• Techno hazards technological hazards such as
  Chernobyl power plant exploding
• Chronic hazards such as global warming and
  el-nino/la nina may increase the threat of other
  environmental hazards eg sea level rise increases
  the risk of coastal floods
• Super hazards catastrophic Earth changes from
  super volcanoes, tsunamis and asteroid strikes
• Context hazards widespread (global) threat due
  to environmental factors such as climate change
  or a super volcano.

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Environmental and context hazards
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Hazards Key Terms

• Disasters are the realisation of the hazard to
  cause social impacts such as loss of livelihoods,
  lives and economic impact such as damage to
  goods and property.
• It especially occurs in areas where environments
  and people are vulnerable.
• Vulnerability is a high risk combined with an
  inability of individuals and communities to cope.

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How a hazard becomes a disaster Dreggs model
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• Dreggs model shows how some kind of overlap is
  needed for a hazard to become a disaster.
• A disaster is a matter of scale it is simply
  bigger than a natural hazard.
• In 1990 Swiss Re insurance defined a disaster as
  an event that where at least 20 people died, or
  insured damage of over 16 million US dollars was
  caused.
• But values and currencies change all the time!
• It depends on how vulnerable the people are that
  are exposed to it.
• More of the worlds population are living in
  areas where they are exposed to hazards eg
  Bangladesh ( to floods and cyclones), favelas in
  Brazil (to landslides)
• The greater the scale of the natural hazard and
  the more exposed the people are, the greater the
  disaster is likely to be.

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How a disaster becomes a hazard (Philip Allan)
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Hazards Vulnerability

• Shaped by underlying state of human development,
  includes inequalities in income, opportunity and
  political power.
• Poverty stricken people often depend upon the
  land for food, live in poor eco-systems and have
  poor health.
• The result of this is that high risk is combined
  with inability to cope with the adverse impact of
  natural hazards and climate change.

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Hazards Natural Hazard or Disaster?

• Hazard

• Disaster

• A natural disaster is the effect of a natural
  hazard (e.g., flood, tornado, hurricane, volcanic
  eruption, earthquake, or landslide). It leads to
  financial, environmental or human losses. The
  resulting loss depends on the vulnerability of
  the affected population to resist the hazard,
  also called their resilience

• The actual or potential interaction between
  extreme natural events and human activities that
  may result in damage, disruption, death or injury

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Risk

• Risk is the exposure of people to a hazardous
  event and the process of establishing the
  probability that a hazard event of a particular
  magnitude will occur within a given period.
• The types of risk in order of reduced severity
  are
• Hazards to people death, severe injury,
  disease, stress
• Hazards to goods economic losses,
  infrastructure damage, property damage
• Hazards to environment pollution, loss of flora
  and fauna, loss of amenity
• Exposure to a hazard is not always avoidable.
  People may place themselves at risk! See p. 5
  Philip Allan

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Risk why do people remain exposed to hazards?

• UNPREDICTABILITY
• Not always predictable when or where an event
  will take place. Also difficult to know the
  likely magnitude of the event.
• Human activity and physical changes also mean
  that for example sea level is rising giving a
  greater chance of lowlands flooding. Moreover
  deforestation of drainage basins increase the
  frequency and magnitude of flooding.
• LACK OF ALTERNATIVES
• Difficult to uproot and move to another location
  giving up homes, land and employment. Often the
  worlds most vulnerable are the poor who are
  forced to live on unsafe floodplains or steep
  hillsides.
• CHANGING LEVELS OF RISK
• Deforestation can make an area once safe from
  flooding more susceptible. As can the effects of
  global warming eg sea level rise
• RUSSIAN ROULETTE
• Optimism, turning a blind eye, acts of god,
  part of the living process. People are comforted
  by the statistics which show that the risk of
  death is lower than that from influenza or car
  accidents. They also believe that if a high
  magnitude event occurs then it may be safe for a
  few years, this is not always true.
• COST V. BENEFIT
• Many hazardous areas offer advantages that in
  peoples minds outweigh the risk. Flood plains
  for example have very fertile soils and rich
  volcanic soils are also attractive.

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The risk perception process
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Vulnerability quadrant (Philip Allan)
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Hazards Measuring Risk (p 7 Philip Allan and p
12 Pearson)

• Frequency or magnitude of hazard (H) x
  vulnerability (V)
• Risk (R)
• Capacity to cope
  or adapt (C)

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The risks are getting worse in some countries
because 1. the frequency is increasing with
climate change. 2. Vulnerability is increasing
as a result of unsustainable development leading
to poor land use and environmental degradation.
3. The capacity to cope is decreasing owing to
poverty and urbanisation. Risks are lower in
more developed countries because they have
resources and technology to provide protection.
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A year of wild weather2011 or 2010

• 1. Redo the hazards diary case study, updating it
  for either 2011 or 2010. You should try to extend
  the columns to include geophysical hazards, and
  if you want the higher grades, Na-tech, techno
  and chronic hazards as well.
• 2. Overall whats the worst hazard and why?
• 3. Crucially, make sure you include the basic
  impacts and death tolls if appropriate to help
  back-up your point for the previous question. You
  can then refer to these in preparation for the
  June exams.

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• Use the case study example (p11 Philip Allan) as
  a guide for what you need to do here.
• MunichRe Reports will help you, as will bits of
  other research on the BBC News website (e.g. type
  in volcano / earthquake etc), or GoogleNews.