Midterm Prep Flashcards
What is a natural hazard?
- normal operation of planet’s geological, hydrological, meteorological, and ecological systems
- only a hazard when human population is involved
- limited to inhabited areas or resource areas
What are the five stages of the temporal model of hazard management discussed in class.
Rank them in terms of effectiveness of disaster management/interventions and explain why
- Assess: understand hazard regime, understand vulnerability, forecasting
- mitigate: reduce vulnerability, alter hazard profile
- prepare: educate, warn, evacuate
- respond: remove bodies, locate and treat survivors, destroy unstable infrastructure
- recover: rebuild communities and infrastructure
- ranked this way because assessing and preparing prior to a natural hazard taking place is what saves the most lives
In assessing physical hazards, what are the six key characteristics we are interested in.
Describe each one
magnitude: type and degree of destructive energy released by an event
frequency: how often event occurs in given time frame
nature of impact:
temporal spacing: can we identify a cycle in which the hazards take place
speed of onset and duration: how quickly hazard occurs and how long hazard is present
areal extent and spatial dispersion: how large of an area the hazard impacts
What is the magnitude-frequency relationship common to most natural hazards
inverse relationship, larger magnitude less frequent, smaller magnitude more frequent
Explain the concept of a hazard threshold and how this varies between different places or
with respect to different types of impacts (ie. fatalities versus property damage).
- given that there is always risk involved with hazards, individuals or groups will identify an acceptable threshold of risk in terms of fatalities and infrastructure damage
- this varies between places due to geographic reasons and socio-economic factors, for instance, a densely populated area with poorly designed infrastructure would have a lower hazard threshold in terms of fatalities
“Risk” assessment is an attempt to evaluate the danger posed by a particular natural hazard.
Theoretically speaking, how do we assess “Risk” and why is this particularly challenging?
- theoretically, we can assess risk by probability x potential impact
- this is challenging because decisions over acceptable risk are subjective and not always rational
Outline current global trends when it comes to changes in the frequency and impact of
natural hazards and suggest causes (3 points).
- natural disasters are increasing in number
- increase due to meteorological events, and perception/information being more attainable
- natural disasters are increasing in terms of impact (increase in property damage however loss of life has decreased in the long term)
- increase in impact due to population growth/population and wealth concentration and poverty
What are risk thresholds and why are personal perceptions of hazards and risk important?
What influences perceptions of hazards and risk?
- given that there is always risk involved a risk threshold is an acceptable range of risk
- personal perceptions of risk are important because not everyone has the same perception of risk
- this perception of risk can be influenced individually by previous experience of natural hazards, high anxiety/low anxiety people, and low probability- high consequence hazards
How does social capital (social trust, norms and networks) influence peoples resilience to
natural hazards?
- through group/community trust and social cohesion
- strong sense of community can lead to collaboration and assistance both before and after
- institutional trust also is impacted by social capital
Briefly outline how a population’s level of trust in government institutions affect the impact
of, and response to, natural disasters
- less trust in gov can lead to a higher incidence of death as seen with Alabama and Illinois, Alabama did not trust gov and this led to more deaths
- however opposite can be true as greater levels of distrust can lead to a more informed and self-reliant local population
Identify and briefly explain four reasons why some people might choose to live or work in
high risk areas.
- due to urbanization, increase in number of megacities many of which are in areas prone to natural disasters
- an example of this is San Francisco
Be able to define Vulnerability, based on lectures and readings.
- the susceptibility of people/infrastructure to different natural hazards
- takes into account demographic/social/behavioural factors, economic factors, and political factors
Why is a clear operational definition of vulnerability important?
- leads to better risk management and assesement
- leads to better policy- making surrounding vulnerability
Why is scale important when looking at vulnerability?
- vulnerability is scale dependent
- can be expressed at different scales from human to household to community to country
What is meant by place based approach to vulnerability and why is this important?
- intersection of factors that shape the vulnerability of a place of events
- location matters due to the site where different systemic or scales of vulnerability converge in the presence of specific and potentially destructive environmental processes
What is a vulnerability index?
- uses variables that correlate with vulnerability to build a weighted index that represents vulnerability
- an example is the social vulnerability index
- problems with indexes due to high data needs, invisible people, and dynamic variables over time
identify and briefly summarize in one sentence or less five key factors that influence human
vulnerability to hazards.
- gender due to cultural behaviours
- social capital due to social cohesion
- economic factors due to more deaths occur in areas with increased poverty
- political factors due to appropriate urban planning
- physical environment due to unsafe conditions
Over the past century and a half, we have seen a clear trend in the number and impact of
natural hazards occurring worldwide. Summarize current global trends when it comes to
changes in the type, number and impact (people affected, people killed, and damage) of
natural hazards and describe the drivers of these trends discussed in lecture.
- natural disasters increasing in number
- increase in number attributable mostly to meteorological events
- increase in the amount of property damage and people affected but loss of live has decreased over the years due to population growth and population and wealth concentration
-this increase is due to an increase in information and perception, better overall data collection,
Linkages exist between different types of natural hazards; different hazards often share
similar roots and one type of hazard can serve as a trigger for other types of hazards. You
should be able to identify how volcanism, storms, landslides, avalanches, and flood hazards
are all linked linked to each other
Volcanism:
Volcanic eruptions can trigger a range of secondary hazards, including:
Pyroclastic Flows and Lahars: These fast-moving currents of hot gas, ash, and rock can generate lahars, which are volcanic mudflows that can travel long distances, burying and destroying everything in their path.
Volcanic Ashfall: Ashfall can disrupt transportation, damage infrastructure, and lead to respiratory problems for humans and animals.
Tephra: Volcanic ash and other ejected materials can accumulate on slopes, increasing the risk of landslides and avalanches.
Glacier Outburst Floods (Jökulhlaups): Volcanic eruptions beneath glaciers can melt ice rapidly, triggering catastrophic floods downstream.
Storms:
Severe storms, including hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons, can cause a variety of hazards:
Heavy Rainfall: Intense rainfall from storms can lead to flooding, landslides, and mudslides, particularly in areas with steep terrain or poor drainage.
Storm Surges: These are abnormal rises in seawater level during storms, which can inundate coastal areas, causing flooding and erosion.
High Winds: Strong winds from storms can uproot trees, damage buildings, and create flying debris, posing risks to infrastructure and human safety.
Tornadoes: These violent rotating columns of air associated with severe thunderstorms can cause extensive damage to structures and vegetation.
Landslides and Avalanches:
Landslides and avalanches can occur independently or as secondary hazards triggered by other events, such as:
Heavy Rainfall: Saturation of soil and destabilization of slopes due to heavy rainfall can increase the likelihood of landslides and debris flows.
Earthquakes: Seismic activity can trigger landslides and avalanches by shaking loose rock and soil on slopes.
Volcanic Eruptions: Tephra deposits and lahars from volcanic eruptions can destabilize slopes, leading to landslides and avalanches.
Flood Hazards:
Floods can result from various factors and can also trigger or exacerbate other hazards:
Heavy Rainfall: Excessive rainfall can overwhelm drainage systems and cause riverine or flash floods.
Storm Surges: Coastal flooding caused by storm surges can inundate low-lying areas and erode coastlines.
Landslides and Debris Flows: Floods can mobilize sediment and debris, leading to landslides, mudslides, and debris flows downstream.
Ice Jams and Glacial Outburst Floods: Ice jams on rivers and glacial outburst floods can cause sudden and extensive flooding in downstream areas.
What is political ecology
- an intellectual convergence, a historical outgrowth of central questions asked by social scientists and ecology, usually about the relationship between human society and humanized nature
- looks at the processes of social, economic, political, and environmental change and how they intersect
Governance has been conceptualized in multiple different ways. Explain state centric
theories, governance theory, governmentality, and Neo-gramscian theories of governance?
- state-centric: analyzes democratic processes and how they interact to make laws, and policies, and enforce them
- governance theory: idea that the singular public interest state is largely outmoded, political authority is multi-layered, shared, and operates on different spatial scales
- governmentality: discourses and discursive practices that shape social institutions, professors, and expert knowledge
- Neo-Gramscian political economy: to shift ideology to address economic and political crises and accommodate and neutralize social opposition, power lies with those who can shape ideas and values circulating in society and not who holds political positions
Identify and explain the three key characteristics of a political ecology approach discussed in
lecture.
Analytical: how are decisions made, how is knowledge reproduced, the importance of scale, historically and environmentally contextualized understandings
Normative: focus on equality, concerned with those struggling in society eg the poor or marginalized, articulation of liberation ecology
An empirical body of work: has emerged from a wide range of empirical works, explored people-land relations to better understand drivers of environmental change and its implications
Contrast political versus apolitical ecologies, and illustrate how these are different drawing on
a real world example.
- apolitical ecologies tend to focus solely on biophysical aspects of ecosystems and disregard any political, economic, and social factors
- simplistic explanations of environmental change or degradation as seen with the eco scarcity paradigm
What would an apolitical explanation of famine look like, contrast this with what would a
political ecology analysis of famine would look like.
- Apolitical explanation would focus on biophysical factors such as a lack of soil fertility or a change in climate patterns, would ultimately blame overpopulation as the main cause for famine
a political ecology analysis would look look at political, social, and economic factors that would have led to the impact being felt by the population due to the drought,
