INTRODUCTION

PERSPECTIVES OF DISASTER

ORTHE VARIED NATURE AND CHARACTER OF NATURAL HAZARDS

• If you had me for either POP and ENV or TECH HAZ, you will recognize portions of the opening lectures – a general discussion of hazard

• I do more with perception • I do not think that we can take a

reductionist perspective to hazards and disasters

--- such events do no take place in a vacuum

Hazard

In the broad term, refers to all dangers, including toxic ones, that present an immediate or long-term human health, economic, or environmental, threat[thus, is society and level-of-technology, defined]

In the study of natural hazards, these might include:physical hazard – ionizing radiation; noise; fire; drought/flood; tornado/hurricane, etcbiological hazard – parasites; disease-causing bacteria/viruses; poisons; pollen; etc

Risk

This is the aspect of threat

Risk is the measure of the likelihood of a hazardous event occurring; as well as the expected degree of loss associated with any event--- risk has both interval … though most are

random in occurrence we can reasonably calculated the potential of an occurrence and elements … things that can be impacted

Risk, cont

- Risk is the probability of suffering harm from a hazard

prob (p) = freq of event (f)/total poss events (n)

it is expressed as a value between 0 and 1

Risk, cont

Risk assessment – (also called risk-benefit analysis) uses incidence data and modeling techniques to develop hypotheses and conclusions about the level of harm to human health, economics, or the environment from specific “harms”

aside: the DQ for man-induced/man-accentuated hazards

(compares societal benefits/societal risks)

Disaster Cycle (for want of a better phrase)

Studying natural hazards gave rise to a kind of informal stages conceptualization to dealing with disaster(no reason to doubt that it could be applied to other hazard classes) I. Hazard Analysis II. Vulnerability AnalysisIII. Mitigation IV. Preparation V. Prediction and Warning VI. ResponseVII. Rehabilitation, Recovery and Reconstruction

The discipline of geography takes a number of methodological approaches to varying degrees in its studies. In this course we will apply:

(1) regional approach(2) systemic approach(3) historic approach

Hazards and disasters either affect human/physical/economic systems, or they are affected by these systems

Most texts touch on the perception issue in a low-key way(1) concept of Act of God(2) the explanation of disaster (“bad omen”;

“bad star”; “foretold in the signs”, etc)

(3) rationalization

No. 3, cont.Is a flood, earthquake, volcano, in a remote and unpopulated region a disaster?

Must humans be hurt or killed (if so, how many) and their property destroyed, (if so, to what level) before a violent natural event can be called a disaster

Also, we might consider human complacency in natural hazard and disaster--- coastal rebuilding after hurricanes--- California’s earthquake and landslides --- development on floodplains--- rebuilding New Orleans and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

(I’m sorry… but “why”?)* If we continue building up hazardous locations, are

we not culpable for subsequent death and destruction?

Resilience

Resilience – the capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they are manifest; learning to bounce back

- Resilience can be measured through several dimensions:

robustness; resourcefulness; redundancy; rapidity

Resilience, cont

AsideResilience is sometimes achieved over the

long term at the expense of resilience in the short term

Development analyst Alex de Wall relates a story of a woman in the Darfur region of the Sudan who in the 1985 drought preserved her millet seed for planting by mixing it with sand, to prevent her famine-hungry children from eating it.

(World Disaster Reports, 2004)

Resilience, cont

Resilience for social-ecological systems is related to:(1) the magnitude of shock that the system

can absorb and retain the same controls on function and structure (2) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization(3) the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation

Resilience, cont

Resilience counts on capitals (“strengths”/ “assets”): 1. natural – water; land; rivers; forests;

minerals2. financial – savings; income; pensions;

transfer payments3. social – networks; relations; affiliations;

reciprocity; trust; mutual exchange

4. physical – infrastructure; shelter; tools; transport; water and

sanitation; energy

Hazards

In the most general sense, hazards fall into three classes:(1) Man-Made / Man-Originated (Tech Hazards)

air pollution; water pollution; toxic waste in the environment; land pollution; war; extraterrestrial (space junk)

(2) Man-Accentuatedsimply, where Man by both direct – and - indirect action in some manner increases the potential for “disaster”ex: building on known flood plains; hurricane damage

of Galveston, TX or New Orleans; beach front development

Hazards, cont

(3) Natural

(Natural Hazards)Processes and elements that are the result of dynamic energy exchange of the Earth -insolation and radioactive decay - and Earth system attempts to equalize these energies

Susan Cutter

- Natural hazards are geographic because they have both location and distribution --- they may be variable with physical environment

--- they may be variable with culture and economic standing

- They are as much a product of our societies as they are natural phenomena

--- i.e.: they cannot be studied outside the context of the populations/cultures experiencing themGod’s will? / the supernatural? / Godzilla? /

Survivable? / Manageable vs Catastrophe?

Cutter, cont

The level of a society and the perceptions of that society dictate its conceptualization of hazard and its response to hazard

For example: look at individual perceptions to hazard-prone areas:(1) idea of comparative advantage(2) failure to perceive the existence of a hazard(3) institutional and social factors

(relief vs restrictions)(4) cultural constraints

- By definition, no natural hazard exists apart from human adjustment to it

Patterns of loss(1) physical/environmental loss(2) economic loss

(3) human loss Who studies hazard and risk? (as a continuum)Physical aspect – to – Human aspect:Geologists - Civil Engineers – Meteorologists –

Geographers – Planners (urban/regional) – Biologists - Psychologists

Natural hazards are generally more pervasive and more publicly recognized than technological hazards--- further, they generally provide visual or

auditory clues to their on-set --- for societies, they tend to unify (much less finger-pointing)

Effects of Natural Hazards(1) Differences in perception of loss (human and property) frequently exist between MDCs and LDCs(2) If we accept that No. 1 is in fact true, then costs and losses associated with natural hazards between any two places may vary widely(3) Must acknowledge that natural hazards may have beneficial aspects(4) Landscape aesthetics(5) Intangible consequences

Common Disasters: Natural and Man Accentuated?

Occurrence Influenced Catastrophic Event By Humans? Potential1

Flood Yes HighEarthquake Yes HighLandslide Yes ModerateVolcano No HighCoastal Erosion Yes LowExpansion Soils No Low

1 Massive disaster requiring massive expenditure of time and money to recover

Common Disasters: Natural and Man Accentuated? cont

Occurrence Influenced Catastrophic Event By Humans? Potential1

Hurricane Perhaps HighTornado/ Thunderstorm Perhaps HighLightning Perhaps LowDrought Perhaps MediumFrost/ Freeze Yes Low

1 Massive disaster requiring massive expenditure of time and money to recover

Interesting

Why don’t heatwaves make anyone’s list of most dangerous natural hazards?

People in temperate areas find it hard to imagine heat as a natural hazard. Why?--- with other natural hazards you can see

the damage in minutes or hours… not so, heat

--- With heat, the worst that happens is that roads buckle, trains derail, and cattle die

So why did the heat…- “… stand as one of the deadliest weather phenomena in

the last century.” (AP)- kill up to 35,000 Europeans (August 2003)- cost business and agriculture over US$13 billion (August

2003)- expose a breakdown in social networks, political failure

to support an ageing population, and overwhelms a run-down public health services

- kill more people (739) in Chicago, Summer 1995, that the 1989 San Francisco earthquake

- kill 1,200 people in Andra Pradesh state, India in May 2003 and 1,000 persons in May the year before

[World Disaster Report]

Heatwaves kill 1,500 Americans a year (combined hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and flood kill less than 200)

Why don’t we respond to heatwaves like other natural disasters?

Heatwaves are not typical natural hazards. The response to them is not high tech or high profile. It is very low profile – home visits; window fans; bottles of water.

Heatwaves trigger unrecognized disasters, so govt and public health agencies fail to raise the alarm. Heatwave warnings received less attention than other natural hazards.

“Heatwaves are slow, silent, and invisible killers of silent and invisible people.”

Why don’t we respond to heatwaves like other natural disasters?

“Heatwaves are slow, silent, and invisible killers of silent and invisible people.”

the old and marginalized suffer disproportionately

most health professionals fail to identify heat-related deaths

local authorities rarely keep records of them

I reviewed Ebert, Disasters of Nature, for the Journal of Cultural Geography. He used this solar / geologic classing of hazard… I was not wholly happy with this classification … and am still notA better classification might be:

(1) geophysical (2) climatological and meteorological (3) biological(4) ecological

Gilbert White

(Natural Hazards, 1974) relates that natural events illustrate one aspect of the complexity of population interaction with these systemic processes – i.e: “… fluctuation constitutes a hazard to Man to the extent that his adjustments to the frequency, magnitude, or timing of extremes are based on imperfect knowledge.”“Were there perfectly accurate predictions of what would occur and when it would occur in the intricate web of atmospheric, hydrologic, and biological systems, there would be no hazard”