Tectonic Processes and Hazards EQ2 Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a natural hazard?

A

A perceived natural/geophysical event that has the potential to threaten both life and property

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2
Q

What is a natural disaster?

A

The realisation of a hazard, when it causes significant impact on a vulnerable population

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3
Q

What is Degg’s model?

A

Venn diagram stating that a disaster is the intersection of a hazardous geophysical event, and a vulnerable population

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4
Q

Why is vulnerability important?

A

Vulnerability is directly linked to resilience, and a region’s capacity to cope with tectonic hazards. More vulnerable populations are susceptible to worse impacts from tectonic hazards.

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5
Q

What is risk?

A

The probability of a hazard occurring that leads to the loss of lives and/or livelihood

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6
Q

What is resilience?

A

The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb and recover from the effects of a hazard

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7
Q

What is the hazard-risk equation?

A

risk = hazard x vulnerability/manageability)

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7
Q

What is the resilience of a community determined by?

A

The degree to which the community has the necessary resources and is capable of organising itself both prior to and in times of need

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8
Q

What is vulnerability?

A

The geographical conditions that increases the susceptibility of a community to a hazard or to the impact of a hazard event.

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8
Q

What factors explain the complex relationship between risks, hazards and people?

A

unpredictability of hazards
lack of alternatives
dynamic hazards
cost benefit
‘Russian roulette’ reaction

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9
Q

What is the Disaster and Risk age index, what does it show?

A

Index which highlights the trends of ageing populations and the acceleration of risk in a world that is increasingly exposed to a range of hazard types.
It signals how age should be an important factor in understanding vulnerability and the coping capacity of older generations.

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10
Q

A disaster is the intersection of processes generating vulnerability on one side and the natural hazard event on the other

A

root causes
dynamic pressures
unsafe conditions

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10
Q

What is the basis for the Pressure and Release model?

A

A disaster is the intersection of processes generating vulnerability on one side and the natural hazard event on the other

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11
Q

What are some examples of root causes, dynamic pressures and unsafe conditions?

A

Root causes - limited access to resources. Ideologies
Dynamic pressures - lack of training, local investment. Rapid changes (urbanisation, deforestation)
Unsafe conditions - fragile physical environment, vulnerable society

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12
Q

What are the social impacts of tectonic hazards?

A

death/injury
destruction of homes
displacement, people made homeless

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13
Q

What are the economic impacts of tectonic hazards?

A

buildings/infrastructure damage
economic losses
growth of economy prevented

14
Q

Why are the impacts of tectonic hazards often greater in less developed countries?

A

Less developed countries = poorly built infrastructure, poor healthcare, lack of resources to properly protect property, overpopulation, poverty
This creates a vulnerable society with a lack of ability to be resilient to tectonic hazards

15
Q

Why are the impacts of earthquakes generally greater than those of volcanoes?

A

concentration of volcanoes in narrow belts (less than 1% of population exposed to volcanic activity, whereas 5% at risk from earthquakes)
volcanic eruptions have a slower speed of onset and greater spatial predictability
earthquakes cannot be predicted (no diagnostic precursor), there is greater opportunity for volcano mitigation

16
Q

What are the different scales to measure earthquakes?

A

Richter
Moment Magnitude scale
Mercalli

17
Q

How does the Richter scale measure earthquakes?

A

Scale = 0-9

Measurement of amplitude of waves produced by an earthquake. It is an absolute scale.

18
Q

How does the Mercalli Scale measure earthquakes?

A

Scale = I-XII

Measures the experienced impacts of an earthquake. It is a relative scale

19
Q

How does the Moment Magnitude Scale measure earthquakes?

A

Scale = 0-9

Measurement based on ‘seismic moment’ of the earthquake.

20
Q

What scale is used to measure volcanic eruptions?

A

Volcanic explosivity index

21
Q

How does the VEI measure volcanic eruptions?

A

Scale = 0-8

Relative measure of the explosiveness of a volcanic eruption (includes qualititive observations)

22
Q

What is a tectonic hazard profile?

A

A technique used to try to understand the physical characteristics of different types of hazards

23
Q

What are the characteristics are compared in a tectonic hazard profile?

A

magnitude
speed of onset
duration
areal extent
spatial predictability
frequency

24
Q

What are the difficulties with hazard profiling?

A

degree of reliability when comparing different event types
hard to compare across hazard types as they all have different impacts on society and varying spatial and temporal distributions

25
Q

What inequalities can affect vulnerability and resilience?

A

education
housing
healthcare
income opportunities

26
Q

What is inequality?

A

Unfair situation or distribution of assets and resources

27
Q

Why do less developed countries find themselves limited by the impacts of tectonic disasters?

A

Infrastructure is damaged, and livelihoods and savings are destroyed. Death or migration of productive labour force means economy takes a huge hit.
Tectonic disasters worsen development, and make it difficult for recovery to happen in LICs/NEEs

28
Q

Why do more developed countries sometimes actually benefit from tectonic disasters?

A

Tectonic disasters create a favourable environment for advocacy for disaster-risk reduction measures. Decision makers are also more willing to allocate resources in the wake of a disaster. Reconstruction and rehabilitation create opportunities for integrating disaster-risk measures.

29
Q

What is governance?

A

The process by which a country/region is run

30
Q

What geographical factors influence vulnerability/resilience?

A

population density
isolation/accessibility
degree of urbanisation

31
Q

What is economic governance?

A

Decision-making processes that affect a country’s economic activities and its relationship with other economies.
Major implications for equity, poverty and people’s quality of life

32
Q

What is adminstrative governance?

A

The system of policy implementation.

Disaster risk reduction = building regulations, landuse planning etc

33
Q

What is political governance?

A

The process of decision making to create policies, including national disaster reduction and planning