1.9 - Mitigation And Adaptation Strategies To Manage Impacts

Question 1

What is disaster modification

Answer 1

• Strategies to manage and reduce the impact of tectonic hazards can be divided into three groups - modification of the:
• Event
• Vulnerability, increasing resilience
• Loss
• These strategies involve mitigation or adaptation

Question 2

How can the event be modified for an earthquake

Answer 2

Land use zoning: preventing the building on areas of high ground shaking and liquefaction risk
- Pros: low cost, removes people from high risk areas
- Cons: stops economic development on some high value land

Aseismic Buildings: this isn’t modifying the event specifically, but it’s modifying the buildings in which may be vulnerable, can involve deep foundations, and counter-weights.
- Pros: dramatically reduces damage, provides sense of security
- Cons: very high cost, ugly and restrict development

Question 3

How can the event be modified for a volcano

Answer 3

Land use zoning: can be achieved by only permitting building where hazards from volcanos aren’t likely to occur
- Pros: low cost, removed people from high risk areas
- Cons: stops economic development on high value land

Lava diversion: channels, barriers and water cooling used to divert and slow lava
- Pros: relatively cheap, divert lava out of harms way
- Cons: only works for low VEI lava, most of the dangerous volcanoes are not this

Question 4

How can the event be modified for a tsunami

Answer 4

• Using land use zoning to prevent construction at the coast
• Building offshore barriers
• Building sea walls - Japan has increased the height of sea walls in some areas to over 12 meters
• Replanting mangrove forests

Question 5

When does modifying the event take place

Answer 5

Before the event

Question 6

Ways of modifiying vulnerability

Answer 6

• Land use zoning - ensuring that people are not living in high-risk areas
• Hazard resistant buildings
• Improved services and infrastructure
• Hazard risk mapping using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify areas at highest risk
• Planning of evacuation routes
• Education of the population to ensure that they know the actions to take when a hazard event occurs - earthquake drills
• Improved storage of food, water and medical supplies so sufficient are available
• Monitoring and warning systems to allow people time to evacuate

Question 7

When does modifying vulnerability take place

Answer 7

Before the event occurs

Question 8

Ways to modify the loss

Answer 8

• Evacuation: moving people away from the area that has experienced destruction/damage
• Search and rescue teams, who are well-equipped and trained
• Emergency aid: food, water, medical aid to ensure survival
• Short-term aid: shelter, reconnecting of water and electricity supplies
• Development aid: long-term aid to help with reconstruction and recovery
• Insurance: to help people rebuild
• Local communities: supporting each other, providing shelter and helping with the search and rescue effort

Question 9

When does modifying the loss happen

Answer 9

After the event occurred